What does Christ Have To Do With Math?

On February 18-21 I took three of my students here in Texas clear across the country to participate in the Winter Vacation for GS in Dingman's Ferry, Pennsylvania.  Gioventu Studentesca (GS) means "Student Youth" which is first expression that the movement of Communion and Liberation took when Fr. Giussani was teaching high school in Milan 50 years ago.  The question posed to the kids "If Christ is everything, what does He have to do with Mathematics?" is the same question that started everything for Fr. Giussani.  He was in the high school semianry when his friends and he asked themselves this question that would begin their lifelong impetus to understand the Mystery.

Chris Basich (National responsible for GS from New York) began the weekend with the claim that this weekend was impossible.  That we were all gathered together with expectation, and this this expectation, this desire for something which we had never experienced before was something natural to our humanity.  This is what seperates us from the animals.

We began by speaking of Camus' Caligula and his desire for the impossible, for the Moon and the claim that 2,000 years ago the impossible thing began to happen, in a backwood town of the Roman empire, the impossible happened.  What if Camu's Caligula had seen that man?  How seriously would he have taken him?

And that the claim we make is that that man is present here 2,000 years later.

The rest of the weekend was an unravelling of this:  Of my desire for the moon and the Christian claim that says that the moon came to me, and comes to me through this friendship.  We spoke of Mathematics and its relationship to the Infinite.  We spoke of seriousness.  We spoke of love.

Try to imagine how confused a conversation on love would be in today's culture with teenagers who have been taught that they define love and define their happiness.  Yet, with Chris and Fr. Jose's help, this conversation wasn't an abstract mess.  Rather, they insisted that everyone speak out of their experience, and the impossible result was that the conversation actually moved the heart of man.  The most clear sign was that immediately after the conversation on Miguel Manara, the conversation on love, the men were on their cell phones calling their wives.

We spoke of the truth as a rock, not just a light.  We shared our questions in front of the proposals for the weekend, and in front of School of Community.  We played, we battled, we hiked, we laughed, we sang, and we shared deeply in friendship.  In fact, I can't think of anything quite like the experience of this vacation.

In the end Christ reminded us that our awareness (of frienship, nature, snow, Christ) grew and with it we were put in awe, the realization that we have a responsibility in front of the universe because it cannoot be aware of itself, only we can be aware of it.

An we recognized the method of this encounter.
    -      It began as an invitation, we did not create the weeeknd, we were invited to it.
    -      This invitation was to unity, affected by a force, like the Rock whcih is so strange because when I encounter it it becomes the source of change in me.
    -        This force, this presence is greater than me, greater than those around me.  This is Christ
    -        I'm generated here, the presence that I encounter here is like a father or mother, it gives me life

And I am provoked.  I am can only sustain this awareness with help.  So I must be faithful to school of community, to prayer, and to the gestures of the movement that are offered to help me.

The Vacation was amazing.  If you have high school students, consider sending them along on our summer vacation in New York this June.

Comments

[Santiago, a fellow ciellini]

ha! Only in CL can we talk about Camus and Christ at the same time!

[keir]

Only in CL?

Not true... I've met some charismatic evangelicals who read books and hold lectures involving "worldviews" etc, and they include things like Camus, Nietzche etc.

Unless of course you include them in CL (in a kind of Vatican II-style philosophical maneouvre ;p )

But then, I don't think I would be as interested in CL as I am if it was purely about what kind of literature is acceptable.

Peace

keir

[Santiago]

"But then, I don't think I would be as interested in CL as I am if it was purely about what kind of literature is acceptable."

Good point, I guess you're right.

[Stephen]

Keir,

You're right, CL isn't about acceptable literature and I don't think I did the conversation justice, but what I find strikes me about the way we talked about Camus was not as a 'worldview' but rather we took his desires at face value and asked ourselves what his desires had to do with our desires. In fact, by the end of the conversation I was really loving Camus because I recognized in his heart the same longing for the impossible that my heart yearns for.

What I find interesting is that I am at honme with Camus, because he has a certain genius for expressing the desire of the hearts of men, in the same way I am at home with Peguy. Peguy and Camus . . . not two frenchmen you would usually characterize together.