La Thuile

Recreation in the mountains:




Photos taken by Stephen Lewis

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...

GS: East Coast Summer Vacation 2008

More water games

Guest Post by Sophie Lewis:

The theme of the 2008 GS East Coast Summer Vacation was: You Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Set You Free. Christopher Bacich led the vacation, and he started out with a question: "Are you free?"

He told us that often, people don’t even know what true freedom is; they think they are already free. The problem is to determine what true freedom is, and verify if you want true freedom. You feel free when your desire is fulfilled, but you are always left wanting more, that thing can’t fulfill forever.

Singing

Then on Saturday, Chris asked another question, this time in the context of an assembly. He asked; "What is the Truth? Do you desire the Truth in your life?" Ester said that Truth is the meaning of something that corresponds to me, that describes all the constituent factors of something.

Chris explained that this tells us about our humanity, because we as human beings want there to be meaning, even when it is not there, we still want it to be there, we cry out for the Truth. We as human beings need meaning, if we define ourselves by what we do; we say our meaning is in our actions.

Hike on Mount Haystack

But what if this is not your meaning? People try to deal with this problem in two ways in history, skepticism and fideism. Skeptics just try to forget and don’t think about their desire, they don’t want to even admit they have this desire. In fideism you cling to a belief of some kind, usually religious, as something to believe, such as the reason to do something is to be good. But both these positions are not good. The skeptical position leaves me wanting, and fideism’s belief is always shattered by reality. But something happens: A human being who says, “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life.” A group of people followed him because he knew the Truth. So the true reason I exist is to know You.

And so we must judge. Who is this Man? As Chris said, His gaze is in that of everyone, in Jeanine, and Ester, in Vincent, and Kelsey, in Monica, and countless others. He is, ‘mixed up in us.’ The judgment enables us to ask, everyday, Christ, mix Yourself with me.

As well as the talks and assemblies, there were games, hikes, and a presentation by Jonathan
Fields on Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C, and also a presentation on Dark Matter by André Derrien.

Water games

As Chris said, "What should I do when I find this humanity? Follow. The more you see this Man the more you realize that you need to be in a relationship with this Man."

Singing at the final assembly

Singing at final assembly

CL Summer Vacations

"Awaiting vacation reveals a will to live. It's exactly for this reason that vacation can't be a vacation from our 'self'. So, summer can't be an interruption or procrastination from taking life seriously. By means of the commitment to the ideal in our free time, we will learn to pursue it as a hypothesis even in the rest of our time, where the pressures of duty and contingent influences make everything tougher." (Fr. Giussani)

More information with contacts on the summer vacations here.

GS (High School) Summer Vacations

• July 22 - 27: Midwest Summer Vacation (Spearfish, SD)

Young Workers Summer Vacation

• July 3 - 7: Young Workers Summer Vacation (Rocky Mountains)

Family Summer Vacations

• June 12 - 15: Florida Summer Vacation (Melbourne Beach, FL)
• July 2 - 6: Northeast Summer Vacation (Catskill Mountains)
• July 2 - 6: Northwest Summer Vacation (Whidbey Island, WA)
• July 4- 8: California Summer Vacation
  
• July 12- 16: Atlanta Summer Vacation
• July 16 - 20: Upper Midwest Summer Vacation (Osceola, WI)
• August 6-10: Lower Midwest (Clifty Falls State Park, IN)