In the Presence of the Angels from Fr. Meinrad Miller, OSB

Tomorrow (Thursday) we celebrate the Feast of the Guardian Angels, the patrons of our congregation. St. Benedict had some great quotes about the Angels in his Rule for Monasteries:

• We must erect the ladder which appeared to Jacob in his dream, by means of which angels were shown to him ascending and descending (cf Gen 28:12). Without a doubt, we understand this ascending and descending to be nothing else but that we descend by pride and ascend by humility.
• Let a man consider that God always seeth him from Heaven, that the eye of God beholdeth his works everywhere, and that the angels report them to Him every hour.
• and if our actions are reported to the Lord day and night by the angels who are appointed to watch over us daily, we must ever be on our guard, brethren, as the Prophet saith in the psalm, that God may at no time see us "gone aside to evil and become unprofitable" (Ps 13[14]:3), and having spared us in the present time, because He is kind and waiteth for us to be changed for the better, say to us in the future: "These things thou hast done and I was silent" (Ps 49[50]:21).
• "I will sing praise to Thee in the sight of the angels" (Ps 137[138]:1). Therefore, let us consider how it becometh us to behave in the sight of God and His angels, and let us so stand to sing, that our mind may be in harmony with our voice.

Pope Benedict XVI comments on the importance of music for monks during visit to France to commemorate 150th anniversary of Lourdes.September 12, 2008

For Benedict (of Nursia), the words of the Psalm: coram angelis psallam Tibi, Domine – in the presence of the angels, I will sing your praise (cf. 138:1) – are the decisive rule governing the prayer and chant of the monks. What this expresses is the awareness that in communal prayer one is singing in the presence of the entire heavenly court, and is thereby measured according to the very highest standards: that one is praying and singing in such a way as to harmonize with the music of the noble spirits who were considered the originators of the harmony of the cosmos, the music of the spheres. From this perspective one can understand the seriousness of a remark by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who used an expression from the Platonic tradition handed down by Augustine, to pass judgement on the poor singing of monks, which for him was evidently very far from being a mishap of only minor importance. He describes the confusion resulting from a poorly executed chant as a falling into the “zone of dissimilarity” – the regio dissimilitudinis. Augustine had
borrowed this phrase from Platonic philosophy, in order to designate his condition prior to conversion (cf. Confessions, VII, 10.16): man, who is created in God’s likeness, falls in his godforsakenness into the “zone of dissimilarity” – into a remoteness from God, in which he no longer reflects him, and so has become dissimilar not only to God, but to himself, to what being human truly is. Bernard is certainly putting it strongly when he uses this phrase, which indicates man’s falling away from himself, to describe bad singing by monks. But it shows how seriously he viewed the matter. It shows that the culture of singing is also the culture of being, and that the monks have to pray and sing in a manner commensurate with the grandeur of the word handed down to them, with its claim on true beauty. This intrinsic requirement of speaking with God and singing of him with words he himself has given, is what gave rise to the great tradition of Western music. It was not a form of private “creativity”, in which the individual leaves a memorial to himself and makes self-representation his essential criterion. Rather it is about vigilantly recognizing with the “ears of the heart” the inner laws of the music of creation, the archetypes of music that the Creator built into his world and into men, and thus discovering music that is worthy of God, and at the same time truly worthy of man, music whose worthiness resounds in purity.

--Pope Benedict XVI, September 12, 2008

"The faith is not given us in order that we preserve it, but in order that we communicate it. If we don't have the passion to communicate it, we don't preserve it."

--Monsignor Luigi iussani, Written contribution to the XXI plenary assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, 2004

Father Meinrad Miller, OSB
Chaplain of Benedictine College
Subprior of St. Benedict’s Abbey

The Task of the Vacations

We would like to offer to you this "wish" that Father Giussani gave to some university students in the summer of 1991:

The Task of the Vacations

“Every step of discovery along the journey in our companionship is like arriving in a new land," says Pavese. If you remember what we have said in the work that you do during this summer, then your life will produce the only flower of the tree of life: mission. Communicating the truth to the other, is more than the act of generation of a mother when gives birth to a child. Mission is generating man. As the Pope said, mission means above all communicating to the other the reasons for the experience of your own conversion. So the real challenge is memory. To say, "the reasons for your own conversion" means discovering something that has changed in your own life as regards happiness, gladness, gusto, and truth; it means discovering something that has changed and for this reason can be met. It's something that is already there, it's the "physicality" of an event, because it is something that has changed. My wish is that this summer produces in you a greater wonder for the truth and therefore more awareness of yourselves and of your belonging, more happiness or gladness and a greater missionary impulse. The missionary impulse is not a plan or a program, but is a person who is changed for having acknowledged the fact of his belonging. What is important in us is an Other.”

We would like to stress a couple of points that marked the way Father Giussani taught us to live the vacations.

1. The purpose of the vacation is to educate us to become familiar with the Presence who "dwells among us". Therefore, a great emphasis must be given to the beauty and the unity among us. The beauty of nature, the beauty of the place where we stay, and the beauty of every gesture (from eating, to singing, to praying, to playing). The schedule and the various activities must facilitate the common life.

2. The highest moment of this familiarity is the common prayer in the way the charism taught us. In every vacation the day together should start with the Angelus, morning prayers, and a couple of songs in which we ask, above all, to be made happy for the day by His Presence.

• Published July 2005 in "The CL Monthly," Volume 1, Issue 3
  

CL Summer Vacation (D.C. Community) 2008

The theme of the vacation

We began, the evening we arrived, with a barbecue, singing, and games. The next morning, we hiked to the top of Bald Knob, the highest elevation in West Virginia:

The hike took us through meadows studded with wild strawberries, daisies, and wild blueberries (the children had very little appetite when it was time for lunch!)

The path also led us through dappled woods...

The view from the top of Bald Knob. We sang until the clouds produced lightning. Then we all had to make a dash back to the bottom!

Pieralberto Bertazzi joined us. He met the movement in 1963 in a chance encounter that introduced him to a new way of living. He lived very intensely through the crisis of 1968 and told us at length about his experience.

Notes from the talk given by Pieralberto Bertazzi, a medical doctor and Memores Domini:

• [Fr. Giussani's genius lay in] going back to the root, back to the beginning -- to ask the question: What is faith?
• Our faith is knowledge of a fact -- this is the indicator of our faith's truth -- NOT what we decide, otherwise, Christ becomes the starting point and support for our projects...
• Today we have been living something so similar to things that I did as a high school student...everything done, lived, tasted...
• I met Fr. Giussani in 1963, on a ski vacation. [It was pure chance...I was looking for a way to go skiing, and I found a flyer...] Chance is one of the ways in which the Mystery operates in history, Reality.
• GS was not a religious group -- I encountered a life, a way of living everything, something unexpected that I didn't know existed.
• [It was so attractive] that it made me willing to become a part of it. [Being part of it] allowed me to do everything in a new way -- full of joy, love, solidarity...
• God entered into the life of man as a man -- to be with God you have to encounter an experience of life.
• Living the usual things of life in a way that reminds me of God.
• Giving the usual terms of our language a new taste that was inevitably appealing and attractive.
• Began following and sharing my life.
• What you liked was still there but in a new form.
• It was if those people knew the best way to do everything!
• 1968: Revolution among young people -- not just young people but everyone, around the world.
• This was a fundamental event in my life.
• [It provided a] verification of the encounter, when it becomes really true for you, becomes yours.
• [It was during that time that I knew that] I will never leave it, it is mine.
• For some of the GS students, though, they thought that the experience of the Movement was not enough -- "something else" was needed to change the world.
• But the Movement is not a "religious" movement, it's a life. So everything is included in it.
• If you encounter what answers the deepest needs of your humanity, you have to follow...
• The greatest friend I ever had in my life left... [I remember a conversation with him in which he said,] "What I've seen by meeting you, what I have experienced with you, has helped me to see that I don't need you, I won't follow you."
• [But] I met something that made me a living person...
• 1968: [There was] a generalized request for authenticity in life -- justice, freedom, unity...
• To build this new world, they got rid of their tradition, their family, their home, and you cannot build anything from yourself alone.
• We haven't made ourselves, we are not ours.
• There is something you have to depend upon.
• They thought they were going to invent and build a new world. You have to recognize who you are, that you depend...
• [While Fr. Giussani was in America...] we did the typical things: meeting together, communicating to other people, and doing charitable works. We wrote leaflets.
• [We had to communicate with others because we realized that] what they were looking for was exactly what we had already met!
• [The name "Communion and Liberation" came about in this way...] We were trying to decide on a name for the leaflets we were writing to others in the University. I suggested, "Communion and Liberation" because I said, "We are concerned with liberation that everybody wants, and we have found it in communion." Nobody liked the name. They thought it was too long, but one person [who had a lot of influence said we should use it.]
• Later, when Fr. Giussani returned, he saw the title of a leaflet that was taped to a door...he said, "Yes, that's what we are..."
• I recently read a study done by sociologists. CL is the only new thing born during the sixties that is still alive and growing.
• Question: Why did 1968 happen? Response: This is the first generation that had not experienced war. There was great prosperity. We had everything, didn't have to fight to build our life. But young people didn't find the response to the needs of their hearts. It is not something we build, it's something we receive.
• Question: What is the "1968" challenge of today? Response: That we put our reason before experience. What had happened was greater than we can conceive with our reason. Our impatience is deadly -- we begin to think that this method isn't effective enough. But it wasn't true that what we had encountered wasn't suitable to meet our human needs. Don't start from what you can plan or conceive, don't make plans by yourself. Remaining, instead -- convinced of what our eyes have seen and ears have heard.
• Teresa: Our problem is a reduction of what we've seen. We must remain faithful to our own history.
  

We also watched a video presentation, the same one we watched at the Fraternity Exercises, of the Zerbinis' witness about their life in Brazil.

The choir was so great! Some of the GS kids joined in and were a tremendous gift to the vacation. They helped us with the singing several times a day.
Special thanks to Margie and Stephen for leading.

There was another video presentation, which contained an interview with Joshua, who met the Movement while in prison. I couldn't take notes during the video because I was riveted by what Joshua said, but here are my notes, from the brief introduction before the video, by one of Joshua's friends:

• What I really want to say is that Joshua is a fact that I can't ignore or reduce. There is Something that changes him and changes me. He's been in prison 12 years already, and he has six more to go, but he has this amazing gratitude...
• [...] When you go into the prison, see all the prisoners, and see Joshua -- the prison is oppressive, grey, you don't open your eyes all the way -- Joshua doesn't fit, he doesn't belong there. He lives an alertness, awareness and attention to the world around him.
• He has a lively engagement with things and people.
• He'd had a Protestant friend, and he looked at Catholicism in order to argue with him, but his research convinced him.
• He survives, remains interested and interesting. His hope is in a real human presence; he's built on this.

The kids joined in the frizi on the final night. We had performances by the littlest ones (shown here), the elementary school kids, the middle school kids and the GS kids, in addition to a full-blown series of adult frizi! We weren't done until midnight!

There was so much more, so much that I can't even put into words! It was all so beautiful and rich...

A Real Direction

Fr. Carron quotes Fr. Giussani in "The Enthusiasm for Truth Is Called 'Faith'":

“Following the Movement is following it in its real direction, and its real direction is the one with the absolute and only passion of making Christ known again, that Christ become the judgment of life and affection, that He become memory and affection, because this is what changes the world. This is what changes the world, folks! This alone changes our life, nothing else–not [our] opinions on culture, not [our] opinions on the way to live the life of the community, because, if we follow on this level, we understand that even the way of living the life of the community has to be learned and followed. The Movement has gone ahead because of its unity, certainly not because of the autonomy of its members’ opinions” (Certi di alcune grandi cose [Certain of a Few Great Things], p. 80).

The Desire for Unity in Moscow

Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, recently assigned to the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow, is a member of CL's Priestly Fraternity of the Missionaries of Saint Charles Borromeo. In an interview with L'Osservatore Romano as reported by ZENIT, he spoke of his desire for unity in his diocese among Catholics and the Russian Orthodox.

Archbishop Paolo Pezzi, in Rome last week to receive the pallium from Benedict XVI, spoke to L'Osservatore Romano about the relations between the two Churches.

He said that "on too many occasions, one perceives the concern to defend one's plot or wanting to maintain a distance."

"Certainly there are some knots that have not managed to be undone, and so are transformed into obstacles," the prelate said. "If there is no real desire to move toward full unity, dialogue becomes difficult. Where there is a real desire, on the contrary, dialogue can be engaged in with honesty, sincerity and always in truth."

Nevertheless, Catholics and Orthodox in Moscow are making efforts to collaborate, he affirmed.

"We try to carry out concrete forms of collaboration between the Churches, but also to engage in sincere friendship. Above all, we try to walk in the same direction," the prelate said.

Archbishop Pezzi affirmed that his relationship with Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow is warm and cordial.

"He has invited me to the Orthodox liturgy, both at Christmas and Easter," the archbishop said. "I must say that on all occasions I was warmly received. Patriarch Alexy has always been cordial and warm in his expressions to me.

"I remember, for example, that after the Christmas liturgy -- it isn't a secret -- the patriarch greeted me publicly and stressed our common concern to care for God's flock. These were significant words.

"However, he did not have words for me alone. [He] greeted and raised a prayer for Benedict XVI. In a word, he manifested respect for the Catholic Church. Essentially, I would say that I immediately noted a positive reception."