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Chicago Way of the Cross

For I resolved to know nothing
while I was with you except
Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
(1 Corinthians 2:2)

Chicago Way of the Cross
Good Friday
4/14/2017

"The aim of life in CL is to propose the Presence of Christ in every moment of history as the only true response to the deepest needs of human life."
Father Luigi Giussani

CL Students with Father GiussaniCommunion and Liberation (CL) is a movement of Catholic lay people of all ages around the world. It was begun in 1954 in Milan by an Italian priest named Luigi Giussani who left his position at a respected seminary to teach high school students. Since then the movement that began with his students has spread to roughly eighty countries throughout the world.

The movement aims to foster in its followers a fully mature Christianity. It constantly struggles against the various ways authentic religiosity is all too often reduced - to ideology (whether conservative or liberal), to emotionalism, to myth, to self-help, to moralism, to escapism - and proposes instead a religiosity that responds to the entirety of our humanity.

Father Giussani provided more than answers - he provided a method for asking, for pursuing, and for begging diligently for all that our hearts seek - a method based on two thousand years tradition - a method which is not abstract but takes on flesh in a friendship. The primary gesture of his method is a weekly meeting called the "School of Community."

There are several Schools of Community that meet weekly in various parts of the city of Chicago and suburbs. We invite everyone to come and see for themselves what we have found. For more information, call (312) 725-2320 or email com.lib.chi@gmail.com.

In Father Giussani's Words:

“From my very first day as a teacher, I’ve always offered these words of warning to my class: ‘I’m not here so that you can 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 tell you. And what I have to tell you is the result of a long experience, of a past that is two thousand years old.’ From the beginning, our educational efforts have always stood by this method, clearly pointing out that it was intended to show how faith could be relevant to life’s needs.

As a result of the education I received at home, my seminary training, and my reflections later in life, I came to believe deeply that only a faith arising from life experience and confirmed by it (and, therefore, relevant to life’s needs) could be sufficiently strong to survive in a world where everything pointed in the opposite direction, so much so that even theology for a long time had given in to a faith separated from life. Showing the relevance of faith to life’s needs, and therefore – and this ‘therefore’ is important –showing that faith is rational, implies a specific concept of rationality. When we say that faith exalts rationality, we mean that faith corresponds to some fundamental, original need that all men and women feel in their hearts.” (Luigi Giussani, The Risk of Education, New York 2001, pp. 11-12).

Visit Communion and Liberation online:
International Website
USA National Website

Way of the Cross