Thirty Years Ago: Encountering a New Humanity (Part 1)

In the midst of this year, with all its confusion, I have had much occasion to remember what happened to me 30 years ago, and how important those days remain for me. I have been struck by this in spite of many distractions (or, rather, it has proven resilient and vital again and again in response to what would otherwise be nothing but frustrating distractions).

Thus I have recognized and relied on the ongoing relevance of an essential and formative encounter that began for me in those days, and that continues to grow even with my stubborn and complicated character, my strange and peculiar life, and all the resistance of my pride.

It was in the year 1990 that I "first became involved with" a group of Catholic Christians on the campus of CUA (where I was studying theology as a lay student at the Dominican House of Studies). At the time, I saw this involvement primarily as a rather clever choice that I was making to associate with like-minded young people.
Yes, young people. I was 27 years old in 1990. 
In spite of the campus meeting place, not many who belonged to this group were students. It was mostly Catholic young urban professionals, men and women in their 20s, well-educated, intellectually inclined, and (with a few exceptions) single.
"Joining this group" was an intelligent choice, one of the few I have really made in my largely hesitant, mediocre life. But it so was much more than "my choice." It was a gift given to me, a crucial event that happened to me. It was a whole beautiful and mysterious path that opened up for my life - a path that was to shape profoundly the ensuing 30 years (though I have often wandered off to the side or moved very slowly during that time).
Every week, the group met for Mass, then gathered in a classroom for what seemed like a disorganized and free-wheeling discussion about how we were experiencing and living our faith. Afterwards we would go out for pizza. On weekends and at other times we would also hang out, not just for fun, but also to explore the awareness we were trying to cultivate that we were a community in Christ. The discussions at the weekly meetings were loosely based (often very loosely) on a reading for the week from an intriguing and difficult text, a book by an Italian priest that had only very recently been translated into English.

The priest was Monsignor Luigi Giussani. The book was The Religious Sense.

But I have forgotten another very important reality. In the midst of the large weekly meeting there were always a few Italians. They were students or professionals working in the Washington D.C. area who also participated in Giussani's movement in Italy. They didn't try to take over the group, or put on a show of being "experts in Giussani-ism" (