Christian Work

Recently Fr. Julian Carrón, current leader of Communion and Liberation, was interviewed at an international assembly for leaders of the movement. The assembly was entitled, “Friends, That is, Witnesses” and was held at La Thuille, Italy. I have cruelly stripped them from their context because a lot of the dialogue is jargon-laden.

"[Jesus] did not try to respond only to the [people’s] hunger, but He tried to
respond to another [deeper] hunger, because “man does not live by bread
alone.” So, after responding to the initial need of material hunger, He
spoke of the Eucharist. He knew what the true human need was…

In
doing a work, an “I” must not reduce the need or the answer to the need… If I
realize what my own need is, I will not be so naïve as to think that by
responding only partially to the need of the other, I am responding
to him…

We have to be very careful; because now we can be very
good at creating projects, we have learned the job well... It can happen, for
example, that we manage to get the resources for carrying out projects, but then
we don’t have the personnel. So, when the project is in place, we ourselves are
not there, the [worker] that has that view of the need that we spoke of is not
there. So we are left with an NGO like the others. Is this what we want? It is
of no interest to me. If we want to keep [our distinctive] difference, we have
to obey the Mystery, and if we can do only five projects because we only have
five subjects that can do a work as we mean it, then we have to obey this. If
the Mystery wants to give us a hundred thousand subjects so as to do a hundred
thousand projects, we will do a hundred thousand, but as long as we have only
five, we will do five; otherwise, we are presumptuous, expecting to answer a
need just because we do bigger and bigger projects…

Jesus did not
heal all the sick of His time. Those whom He healed, He healed as an example, so
that through that people could learn that there was Someone interested in their
life, who answered the whole of their need. If the Mystery wants us to respond
to more needs, He will give us more people. But first we have to generate a
[worker] capable of doing a work…

For us, works are an example. I
got this perception visiting our communities, seeing our works. I would have
liked you to see what I saw at Rose’s Meeting Point, in Uganda. There I saw the
kind of work I would like, that gives me enthusiasm. As you can imagine, Rose
cannot respond to the problem of AIDS in Uganda (it is everywhere, so it is
impossible to respond completely), but she can bring the hope of meaning to all
the women she relates to and takes care of… For something like this to happen,
any NGO is not enough; it needs a [worker] who–responding to the human need
generated by AIDS–can communicate the existence of an answer to the need as a
whole and reawaken hope. This is [an apostolic] work. So we must not succumb to
the temptation of wanting to respond to everything."

Last night, our large School of Community in the DC area hosted a member of the movement who is in the area speaking on behalf of her work. Her name is Rose Businge, the Rose mentioned by Fr. Carrón. She and her coworkers provide the material sustenance, living quarters, education, and self-respect for tens of thousands of AIDS patients and their orphans. Here are some quotes from Ms. Businge:

"Man, who apparently seems to be nothing in the face of sickness and death,
instead is great, because of his relationship with Infinity."

"You become the lord of the reality - not because you possess it, but when
you discover to Whom it truly belongs. We become the protagonist in our
situation when we discover to Whom we belong."

"What defines a man? What defines a man is not his problems, but Who is
discovered in him."

"Man is a cry for happiness."

"Anger [at injustice] is overcome by belonging. As we become more aware
of belonging to Christ, we begin to look at wrongdoers in a new way."

"If you change, the world will change with you. As you grow closer to
Christ, you will bring the world with you."