Back in the late 1980s I read a book by an Italian priest named Luigi Giussani. Normally I don’t read books titled Morality — I find the topic a bit dry — but it was the subtitle that snagged me: Memory and Desire. The allusion to the phrase from T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land was unmistakable. Suddenly the book seemed a lot more attractive. And it struck me in ways that I’m hard pressed to put into words.
I then found out that Father Giussani had founded an international lay Catholic movement with the unlikely name of Communion and Liberation. The meetings were all too far away for me to attend on a regular basis, but I found the same spirit in the events I could attend that I had found in the book.
Then, fifteen years later, I found my desire to explore Father Giussani’s charism so strong that I got up the courage to start a community here in Seattle. And so a group of friends meet together every week, learning how our companionship can help reawaken in us the experience of the event—the encounter—that is the fact of Christ’s presence in our lives.
Seattle CL Community
If you live in the Seattle area and would like to learn more about our community, send me an email.
Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete on Communion & Liberation
I had the privilege of moderating this wonderful talk.
“A Gift for Friendship”
For an essay of mine on the life and vision of Luigi Giussani, click here.
U.S. National Website for Communion and Liberation click here.