When Charity Trumps My Morning Coffee

I'm still tired from my late-night socializing, but now I'm also full of joy. Two friends and I just returned from a local nursing home, where for an hour we sang with a handful of residents and played trivia games.

One attraction of the ecclesiastical movement Communion and Liberation is its emphasis on living the reality of Christ - not the Christ in our heads, not the Christ of our abstraction, of our preconception, not the Christ of ritual, but the Christ as a here and now present reality.

For example: It's fine to sit in my backyard, talking to my friends about the state of the world and "solving" various problems. It's another thing to actually do something.

One hallmark of a School of Community is charity work. Father Carron tells us: "Fr. Giussani created a gesture to help us understand this law of charity, starting from experience: charitable work. He says that in order to understand, knowing is not enough --you must do."

So once a month, members of my School of Community drive to a local nursing home and spend an hour with residents. This morning was the morning and it could not have been any more inconvenient for me.

I had stayed up late with dear friends, drinking wine and talking into the wee hours at their swim club. When I woke up, all I wanted was a cup of coffee. But I had to be at the nursing home within the hour. I didn't have time for a cup of coffee. I had to shower, and dress and head over to the nursing home.  I really didn't want to go.

And yet, when I arrived, these companions were waiting for us. They had gathered in a sunny room and their faces were filled with joy and anticipation. And when our hour of singing and talking was over, we all shook hands, looked into one another's eyes, and smiled.