I first heard about the movement of Communion and Liberation, vaguely, many years ago through friends. I was living in New York City at the time, immersed in the fast-paced hustle and bustle, and noticed that many of my friends were involved in some way, attending the weekly School of Community meetings. Naturally, and because ‘everyone’ was doing it, I rejected the idea of going. Several years later, after experiencing a tragedy in my own life, I realized that the thriving community to which I saw many flocking, was exactly the type of group I was looking for. Participating in the movement now, for two years, I realize it is a community I need.

Being a high school teacher, I really connected with Fr. Giussani’s method of inspiring his students to realize their destiny. He guided them in asking questions from their own experience of the world around them – of the things that made them wonder and awe. His answers would then skillfully lead them to ask even more beautiful questions. By this method, the students began to discover the reasonableness of their faith. These relationships of growing self-awareness were the foundation for a thriving community, and today, a movement.

In my classroom, I tell my students, “I’m not here for you to simply take my ideas as your own; I’m here to teach you a true method that you can use to judge the things I will teach you.” As a community, CL doesn’t solve my problems. But it helps me to stand in front of them. I’m given a method for which to judge my daily experiences and to look, to search, for the ways in which those experiences reveal an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. This is the verification that everything in my life- good and bad- is an opportunity for Christ to come and meet me. In all things, then, I am challenged to see what’s beyond and not simply reduce the situation to appearances. There is a promise in all of my circumstances. And my experience of this daily Christian event is lived within a community, with people who share similar events. Because of this truth and by these relationships, I have grown in greater self-awareness, which has led to an authentic freedom of heart.

CL also teaches me how to live my life within the life of the Church. We meet weekly for School of Community, we volunteer monthly with the Missionaries of Charity, we pray together and participate in retreats throughout the year, we celebrate and share our lives together over meals, we join together in recreational activities, and we even take family vacations together!

In the past two years, I have learned through my experience of CL that we are truly made for relationship. This community I have been given is a gift. It is a place where I continually experience the presence of Christ.