The Community of Sant'Egidio
Imbelli, Robert P.
evasion of responsibility. The members of the church, like the church itself, witness not to self, but to Christ. Christ alone is the "light of the nations"; to witness to him and to announce the...
...Sant'Egidio represents a remarkable and hopeful sign of spiritual renewal in the post-Vatican II church...
...It is also a word used to refer to the altar upon which the Eucharist is celebrated...
...He has helped shape the community's ecclesial vision through his theology of the lay person in the church, as well as through his pioneering ecumenical commitment...
...present in the community and in the poor: Lord of the church and Light of the world...
...In twenty-five years, they have navigated numerous shoals with amazing maturity and grace...
...In the ecumenical sphere, Sant'Egidio has taken up and extended the initiative of Pope John Paul II in bringing together leaders of the world religions at Assisi in 1986 in a day of prayer for peace...
...As a lay community, Sant'Egidio places a premium upon individual responsibility in community...
...The great ecclesiologist, Yves Congar, so important an influence in the drafting of Lumen gentium, is a "spiritual associate" of Sant'Egidio...
...This real presence of the risen Christ is the only rock upon which church can be securely built and renewed...
...Members of the community are married and single, mothers and fathers of families, students, professionals, and workers...
...The fourth pillar of the council's achievement and Sant'Egidio's life finds authoritative expression in the "Constitution on the Church in the Modern World," Gaudium et spes...
...Integral to the spirituality of Sant'Egidio is the outreach to the poor, the marginalized, the homeless...
...Sant'Egidio, founded in Rome by young Roman students, shows the marks of the church of Rome at its best: deep local roots, wide outreach and concern...
...With the pope's encouragement, in each succeeding year the community has sponsored international ecumenical gatherings for prayer and reflection, with a particularly poignant gathering in Warsaw in 1989, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the World War II...
...Perhaps nothing better testifies to the eucharistic spirituality of Sant'Egidio than this catholic commitment to realize the body of Christ...
...Community liturgies, Scripture study, service projects bring together members who retain ultimate responsibility for their everyday lives, vocational commitments, and level of involvement...
...The very young students of '68 are the still relatively young men and women of '94...
...Were I to venture a view as to how they have managed to hold so much in creative tension, I would point to their centering on the Real Presence of Christ...
...Jesus Christ present in the Scriptures and in the Eucharist...
...Thus, when members of the community speak of the "soup kitchen" in Trastevere that serves 1,500 hearty meals a day, they use the richly evocative word mensa: table...
...Further, the hundreds of small communities scattered through the world take on distinct configurations and respond to the specific needs of their local cultures and regions...
...The community honors Francis not merely by placing his cross in a prominent spot in its places of worship, but even more by making a privileged option for the poor in imitation of him...
...If, as many hold, the council's vision of church is that of a communion of local churches, then Sant'Egidio embodies this vision in miniature...
...It represents Christ's Real Presence in the form of graphic icons of the poor, the homeless, the outcast of society...
...Sant'Egidio is a community of communities...
...though not, of course, without cost...
...Its own internal organization seeks to keep institutional structure at a minimum, relying on bonds of friendship and spiritual discernment and communion to unite its members...
...Openness toward and concern for "the world" remains a defining characteristic of Vatican II, reversing the too parochial comportment (however historically understandable) of Roman Catholicism since at least the French Revolution...
...In this regard, the figure of Francis of Assisi is clearly central to the spiritual vision and values of the community...
...23 In the "mother church" of the community in Piazza Sant'Egidio it comes as no surprise to find a chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in which the sacrament of Christ's Real Presence is reserved for adoration and prayer...
...Francis too discovered the gospel anew and lived it radically in the circumstances of his own age...
...And it bears the stark scriptural reminder: "He had no place...
...The spirituality of the community seeks to realize ever more fully the varied modes of that Presence...
...to witness to him and to announce the gospel in his name is the heart of the church's identity and mission...
...But directly across from it stands another chapel...
Vol. 121 • November 1994 • No. 20
