For "The Risk of Education"

The late Fr. Luigi Giussani, who founded the international Communion and Liberation movement, sometimes is hard for me to follow. Our School of Community is reading his seminal work "The Religious Sense," and, to be honest, I would find it tough to grasp were it not for the skilled summaries provided by the woman who leads our weekly group.

This weekend, I bought another of his books, one that is easily accessible to me: "The Risk of Education. " The subtitle is: Discovering our Ultimate Destiny.  I recommend this book to anyone who is a teacher or a parent or who hopes to be.

Because I Don't Work For You: Notes from the East Coast Fraternity Exercises 2011

Last night, the hundreds of us who gathered at a conference center in New Jersey for the East Coast Fraternity Exercises had the chance to listen to some witnesses - folks who found a way to verify Christ's presence in our lives.

One young woman's story moved me deeply because I found in her story traces of my own experiences.  Who among us has not faced an unfair boss or the struggle to be recognized in the work place?

On Being a New Creature: Notes from the East Coast Fraternity Exercises 2011

About 10 last night, we celebrated Mass in a huge meeting room at the Hamilton Park Hotel & Conference Center, which bills itself as being designed "with the sophisticated traveler in mind." Well, we are a motley crew, some 200 adults of varying ages and stages.  Father Richard Veras, chaplain to Communion and Liberation, reminded us in his homily that what happens in this conference room during consecration is no different than the apostles encounter with Christ during the Last Supper. The upper room, after all, was nothing special, just the second floor room of a restaurant.

For Faith in Action: East Coast Fraternity Exercises 2011

What a difference a year makes. Last May, the leader of our fledgling School of Community invited me to stop by the annual spiritual retreat of the East Coast participants of Communion and Liberation. So I drove up for lunch at a conference center in Florham Park, NJ to meet Webster Bull, the man who started this blog and who introduced me to Communion and Liberation. I didn't know much about CL, and visited its East Coast Fraternity Exercises with a mix of suspicion and enthusiasm. On a personal note, I also was in the midst of retraining myself for a career teaching special-education students.

For Faith In Action: the Way of the Cross in New York (Part II)

This morning, our sons and I, along with thousands of others, participated in the Way of the Cross procession from the Basilica Cathedral of Saint James in Brooklyn across the Brooklyn Bridge, (see us all crossing the bridge?)  to Saint Peter's Roman Catholic Church in Lower Manhattan, the oldest Catholic parish in New York City. Along the way, we walked in silence, stopping only at several stations to pray sing and reflect. The procession was sponsored  by Communion and Liberation, a lay ecclesiastical movement. What follows are some of the reflections, song and chants we heard. Thanks to our 14-year-old for shooting most of these photos with our family camera.

For Faith in Action: The Way of the Cross in New York

Friday morning, my two sons and I will travel from New Jersey  to Brooklyn's Cathedral Basilica of Saint James by train and by subway to participate in what promises to be a beautiful event. Thousands of believers are expected to walk in silence from Brooklyn, cross the Brooklyn Bridge, and into Lower Manhattan to commemorate the death of our Lord. If you live in the New York metropolitan area, I hope you will join us.

I also am wondering: What special way will you observe Good Friday?

Because of Charity

OK, I admit: I went grudgingly. The leader of our School of Community proposed we do a work of charity for the parish monthly. The pastor suggested visiting a local nursing home within our parish boundaries and where he celebrates Mass once a month. And so today seven of us met at the entrance of the nursing home. I kept thinking: I have papers to grade and laundry to do and a kitchen to clean and a garden to plant. And I also thought: I never have been inside a nursing home.

Because Sometimes, We Sacrifice

Recently, my husband and I have felt saddened by the powerful sense we have monumentally wasted our time on an endeavor that we had hoped would build up the body of Christ. We don't have a lot of treasure to offer the Church, but we have some talent and we found the time. Instead, our efforts seem to have not borne fruit.

Because He's Going to Show Me Even More Than I Can See

The past 24 hours I have spent curled up under blankets, either in our family room or in our bedroom. I am overcome with fatigue and fever and  I've been drinking diet ginger ale and orange juice and praying to feel better soon.

My beloved husband and our sweet sons have been taking care of me, offering me glasses of water, lunch from the deli and kind words. (No, that's not me in the photo. I am not so young, nor do I apply my eye makeup so well!)

Because I Am Called To Answer

This weekend we discovered my husband no longer has the biggest feet in the house. Our 14-year-old does.

This weekend that same son and I head to New York, to spend time with my mom, and with my 81-year-old dad, a retired surgeon struggling with a puzzling host of health problems, including the waning of memory. I remember clearly my mom and dad visiting St. Peter's University Hospital in New Jersey soon after our son was born with a seizure disorder, how my Harvard-and-Columbia-educated father reassured me as only a father can. I remember standing, bewildered, in the neonatal care unit and my father looking around and telling me my son was in the best possible hands.

Because I Need to Face Reality

My friend Martina said something funny and true tonight during our School of Community: once you own a certain model of car, you start seeing it everywhere. Likewise, she said, once you begin to see Christ, you begin to see Him everywhere. Because He is.

My involvement with the ecclesiastical movement known as Communion and Liberation has helped me to discern the presence of Christ in my daily life. I have come to understand that my faith is not a tool to shield me from reality or protect me from the world; rather it is a way to help me understand that Christ is present in every moment and that He is embedded in the details of the realities I face.

To Give Thanks to the Life of Bernard Nathanson

I happened to be at Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York today with my friends from Communion and Liberation. The mass was magnificent and so was Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan's homily. What struck me deeply were his reflections on the life of Bernard Nathanson.

Tomorrow morning at 10, the Cardinal will preside at a funeral Mass for  Nathanson, a founder of NARAL, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, a proabortion group.

Thanks to Hundreds of Thousands Who Answered the Cries of the Christians in Iraq

Call it the email read 'round the world.

In November, a friend of a friend, Maria Teresa Landi, came up with an extraordinary idea: she e-mailed her friends, proposing they send letters of encouragement to the Christians of Iraq, who are being tortured and persecuted and murdered for their faith. Tere, who is active in the Communion and Liberation movement, asked that her idea be distributed as widely as possible. We posted her proposal, which was picked up by our blogging friends, such as the Anchoress and Father Robert Barron and many, many others. 

Because Life is So Much Fuller Than I Expect

Notes from Communion and Liberation's New York Encounter 2011


Did. Not. Expect. This!

Did not expect the hosts of New York Encounter 2011 weekend, essentially a spiritual retreat, to treat us to a free rockin' concert in the Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center, where hours earlier hundreds of us had celebrated Mass.

Did not expect to see young priests and religious college students breaking out into spontaneous line dances and grooving to bluegrass with Henrique Prince of the Ebony Hillbillies (below) the blues, and jazz at a concert m'ceed by Blue Lou, a former member of Blood Sweat and Tears.

Thanks For Our Priests

Notes from the Communion and Liberation New York Encounter 2011


This morning I went to Mass. That's a typical Sunday morning for me. But this time, I was surrounded by at least 1,000 other worshipers. The Mass was held in a large theater - the Manhattan Center on West 34th Street - and was celebrated by 15 priests, including H. E. Msgr. Fernando Chomali (at left) Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago, Chile.

The Mass was impressive, but what moved me nearly to tears was something simple.

Thanks To A Vibrant Church!

Notes from the Communion and Liberation New York Encounter 2011:

Often, when I attend Mass at my tiny suburban parish, I feel as if the Catholic Church is dying. Sometimes, if I go with our 11-year-old, he and I are the youngest people in a church of mostly empty pews. My husband and I face the challenge of raising our children in the faith when most of our neighbors do not attend any houses of worship and their children, unsurprisingly, are avowed atheists by the time they hit puberty.

I have an entirely new perspective on the fate of our faith after spending four-plus hours yesterday as a volunteer cashier at the coffee bar in the basement of the Manhattan Center, where the New York Encounter 2011 is taking place. The Encounter is a free four-day cultural festival sponsored by the ecclesiastical group Communion and Liberation. It's showing me young adults who are the next generation of faith-filled Catholics.

Thanks to the New York Encounter, Probably

Back when I was newspapering, we would have called this kind of posting an advance. I am writing to tell you about something happening right now, and through Monday in New York City: The New York Encounter 2011. I am writing this from the comfort of my century-old suburban home but expect to hop a train to the city in the morning to participate in this free, four-day cultural festival sponsored by Communion and Liberation. If you live in the New York metropolitan area, you might considering coming, too.

Because He is Emmanuel

—Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

This afternoon my family will remove the lights from our Christmas tree, which now stands on our front porch, and haul the tree to the curb. Then our borough will collect it and grind it to mulch.

It is time for the tree to come down because this feast day, the Baptism of our Lord, marks the end of the Christmas season, and the beginning of Christ's public ministry.

For the Love of Saint Andrew: A Christmas Novena, Day 16

I tend to pray this Novena while commuting to work. Something about driving highways makes me meditative. I have been trying, as I pray, to offer up my suffering to ease someone else's and I have been picking a different person each day.

I discovered, however, that what I consider suffering many would consider blessings. Take my annoyance at driving behind a slow-moving truck. It's a bother, yes. But another way to look at it is - hey at least I have a working car and a job to drive too. So many people don't.

I was feeling kind of inadequate about what I consider suffering until a wise, young friend from School of Community suggested it's pretty easy to be noble in the face of supreme suffering. She pointed out that it can be tough, really tough, to seek Christ as we labor through our daily discontentments.

To Send Letters to the Christians of Baghdad

This morning, Maria Teresa Landi, friend of a friend, came up with an extraordinary  idea: send letters of encouragement to the Christians of Baghdad, who are suffering horrible persecution and killings. They are the Church's modern-day martyrs.

By day's end, the Nuncio at the United Nations was offering his diplomatic pouch (direct mail). He proposed to have all letters and messages sent to him by Tuesday night in a package and he will send the package to the Nunciature in Iraq on Wednesday morning.