No, this isn’t about how joyful everyone is who is participating in the Legion’s Extraordinary General Chapter. And it isn’t about how joyful the atmosphere is around the General Directorate in Rome, site of the event.
I wrote the above title because, well, I’m feeling a good deal of joy about where we are in this long and sometimes frustrating journey of renewal. This is a big deal, but it is composed of many small deals.
On the one hand, the enormity of the event can’t be denied. It is an historic point for the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi – and for the entire Church to some degree. Frankly, all that has happened to us over the past few years is rather “special.”
Being in Rome this week and watching the chapter Fathers gather for their several daily sessions, I am struck by the gravity of their work. This doesn’t happen every day, which I guess is why it is called “extraordinary.”
At the same time, it isn’t as if the meeting room is floating on a cloud with choirs of angels singing. The meetings are long and at times, I expect, well, boring. And the practical aspects of adding five dozen Legionaries to the community for a couple months are rather mundane. Someone is doing a lot of additional laundry. Someone is doing a lot of extra cooking. Someone has to do more cleaning and caring for the guests.
I admit I’m glad I’m not someone.
A few young Legionaries are in temporary housing in the parish next door, having given up their rooms to the visitors.
Giving up your room for someone else is the sort of charitable thing Legionaries do. In the midst of history there is a good deal of common courtesy and patience.
I also want to report on the weather in sunny Italy. I do this with caution, knowing that friends in Chicago are enclosed in a block of ice and friends in Atlanta are trying to drive on a citywide ice rink.
But I don’t want folks to think I’m basking on the beach. The temperature has hovered around 40F and it has been raining all week. In fact, I cancelled a meeting today because roads were closed and I couldn’t get from here to there. But I don’t mind being cooped up with so many holy people; perhaps some the holiness will rub off on me…along with the joy I already feel.
