Alcune settimane fa, abbiamo proposto agli universitari di Comunione e liA few weeks ago, we proposed to the university students of Communion and Liberation in Mexico to put on a week of camp that could have at its center a gesture of “intensive” charitable work. The young people took up the task of organizing a city mission for the children of the parish: eating with them, preparing some catechesis, proposing workshops and games.v At the same time, it was for them an occasion to experience a tight knit community life.
The day began with the recitation of Morning Prayer and a short meditation of some aspect of the liturgy (Mass, confession, etc…). The morning was then dedicated to the preparation of the workshops, catechesis and of the food for lunch. At one, the first children began to arrive, accompanied by their parents: immediately, we began to make up some games while waiting for the rest to arrive. Once everyone was there, after a brief prayer in the church, the day continued with lunch. In the afternoon, each university student was responsible for three or four children. Between singing, catechesis, workshops, snacks and games, the time went by quickly: without even realizing it, the moment had come to say goodbye to the kids.
In the final assembly that we had with the university students, there were two things that everyone had recognized with gratitude and wonder. On the one hand, the construction of a sincere and great friendship, which was helped by the close-quarters shared life, which would be said to be impossible in the individualist world we are used to living in. There must be something greater that makes this kind of communion possible. One of the kids said that there necessarily must exist a “physical channel” to encounter God. For him, the persons with whom he had lived so close to for that whole week had been precisely that channel: it is the experience of the Church.
One cannot live and understand faith without putting himself in play through concrete gestures
The second great discovery was the beauty of gratuity, of charity, of giving of oneself. Sacrificing time and energy in favor of others allows us to realize ourselves as persons; it makes us grow in the ability to take responsibility; and, above all, it allows us to come to know ourselves and God. In what the university students recounted at the final assembly, I saw the close and intimate relationship between faith and charity: one cannot live and understand faith without putting himself in play in concrete gestures. At the same time, charity without faith cannot reach the profundity of true love.
I was amazed by the grace that these young people received by participating in the gesture that we had proposed to them: a real, concrete grace through which Christ reached them. For many of them, prayer in common, the Mass, confession, personal and silent meditation became an occasion to rediscover the beauty of living in relationship with God. It was something new that brought them back closer to the faith. Once the week of missionary camp was over, each person returned to their home nad to their usual occupations. What remained of the experience lived in those days? I realized two weeks later, during a School of Community attended by some of these young people: the experience they had had allowed them to understand the School of Community better. And so, I too made a step in my awareness: without a life in common, School of Community cannot be understood, since it becomes cold and abstract. And vice versa: without the School of Community where we can make a judgment about what we are living, the experience we have remains only a nice memory of the past, without making a difference in our daily life.
