I was speaking with my friend Chicco in Austin today about The Da Vinci Code. It seems his friend wanted them to do something to protest the movie. In the style of CL he thought it might be a good idea to watch the movie and help his friend write up a judgement. His friend is protestant, but he attends the School of Community and is following CL.
As a protestant, his friend is really bothered by the movie. This movie strikes out most clearly at the Gospels. It portends that the Gospels are lies and a cover up of the truth, in order to build a Church on the power that Peter wanted for himself. If The Da Vinci Code's claim is true, then the Gospels are lies and the Church falls apart. Falls apart, that is, if the Church is based only on the Gospels.
The Event of Christ
Chicco brought up a point that I recognized when I was reading The Da Vinci Code. He said "For me, this movie can't destroy Christianity becaue for me, Christianity isn't the Gospels, it's not a book, it's an event." It's an event! It is an event that we experience through an encounter, a personal encounter with someone who claims to have met that man who lived 2,000 years ago.
The Church, as many of our Protestant brethren are finding out, can't be reduced to an anonymous conglomerate of all the people around the world who believe in Jesus and who follow his teachings. The Church can't exist apart from the particular faces that I have met that have made this man alive to me today.
I didn't meet Christ because I read the Gospels and found them convincing or heard the Gospel preached and found it compelling. I met Christ because someone I know met him and they invited me to meet him, to stay with them, to learn who he was by being with them. First, it was my mom. Later, it was a priest friend. And most importantly, for me, it was the companionship I encounterd in Communion and Liberation.
Something new happened to me in this encounter. I was different from before. My life was different, more interesting, more compelling, more important. I began to live a different way, to see things a different way. In this encounter with these particular faces I began to be more awake to the desire of my heart for meaning, for happiness, for truth. And these faces always pointed me to the Church, to Christ himself as the only real answer to this desire.
An Event No Book Can Destroy
Like Chicco, it's clear to me that The Da Vinci Code can't destroy this event. No book can. A book can make me doubt the things I think, but it certainly doesn't have the power to destroy the things I have experienced, the things I have seen. I would have to deny my heart in front of this book to lose faith in Christ.
For me, Christianity isn't some wishful thinking that at the end of my life, if I followed enough rules and did enough good things I will get some great reward called Heaven. It's also not an idea I have to convince myself of because I'm a terribly wretched person who screws up everything he touches and needs something to redeem that at the end of his life.
Rather, in my experience, Christ is someone that continuously comes to me, gives meaning to the things I live, offers a mercy and a salvation that I experience now, again and again. When I think of Christ, I can't think of him apart from particular faces that make it clear to me that he is real because I experience more than these people are capable of on their own.
The Gospels help me to know him, but they aren't the reason that I know him. The Gospels are the experience of the men who met him and are a verification of what I am living. When I read the Gospel I think "My God, this is my life, this is happening to me just like Peter. He is coming to my life just like he came to theirs."
Of course, this method has all of it's own problems. Because this method relies on human people, it has all of the weakness of these people to get in the way. These people are not perfect. They have their limitations and their weaknesses and their sins that can, if I stop at those things, make it quite difficult to recognize him. Still, it's the very weakness of this human reality that makes the man so much more compelling. I can't deny that the Church, even with its human frailty, is also the vessel through which a divine reality is communicated to me. I can't deny that this experience fits my heart more than any idea I have ever conceived of myself.
Come and See
So how do I respond to The Da Vinci Code? This question has really been on my mind for the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure I have much of an answer. Part of me just wants to ignore this movies. I hear it stinks, which makes it a whole lot easier just to ignore. But the heart of the matter, which is a concern for those who will see the movie or read the book and have doubts about Christ, is still on my mind.
I only know one way to help people understand what I've met. I certainly don't have the words to convince them. I am not eloquent or informed enough to refute it. My only response is the same proposal that changed my life. "Come and see." Come, stay with me, meet my friends, meet me and see if the claim of Christ is true. I can't offer you a convincing argument, I can only offer you the experience I have lived. I trust that it will correspond to you as it did to me. It happened to me and I don't think I'm unique or special. I think someone who passes through me wants to know you. See if its true by staying with me and verifying it.
Cardinal Hamer, echoing Don Giussani, says it better than I: Christianity is an Event
The real problem with blogging is that when I get all inspired and write up a great post, I do somethig stupid like navigate away from the page and my 1000 word essay get's destroyed. Alas, there is no rest for the weary. Here goes my second jab . . . 
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