Scottish Life
Dearest Fr. Carrón: In September, we got married and immediately departed for Scotland to begin our doctoral studies, my wife in Physics and I in Mathematics. From our first days there, we have experienced fully Christ’s saying, “Ask and it shall be given you.” One example is the academic year Opening Day for CL university students in Scotland. In the morning, we met in front of the Edinburgh train station. There were about fifteen of us, and then in the evening another fourteen joined us–a great variety of people, including a Moroccan Muslim and a Spaniard we had just met. During the day, we went to the museum and then to eat in a pub, and finally we went to the Chaplaincy (the chapel for Catholic students at the university, which also has rooms for gatherings), and sang for two-and-a-half hours. It was fantastic to see all those people singing the songs we had learned in the Movement, which they were hearing for the first time. We gave them Traces because, even though we couldn’t speak English well enough to explain our experience, we wanted to tell them about where we came from, and we also proposed School of Community. In addition to us and Lucia, those who came were Brett, an English fellow who had begun School of Community the previous year with another CLU girl there on the Erasmus Program, Joseph, an American who had just begun his doctorate in History, Dan, another American invited by Joseph, and a French fellow. It was a challenge to explain School of Community in such a way as to keep it from sliding into just another discussion group. We are working on what you said at the International Assembly of Responsibles, and what most strikes us is that what we have encountered is for everyone, and the only way to communicate something is to start out from experience. In all this, it is clear that the key ingredient is sharing. Instead, here in Scotland, individualism reigns. For example, a friend of ours didn’t want to come to the Opening Day because he didn’t want us to encroach on his privacy. Precisely for this reason, we are called not so much to give beautiful and correct speeches, but first of all to bring them this piece of new humanity that has touched us in the world, in the simplest way possible.
Giacomo and Maria, Edinburgh, Scotland

Saint Riccardo
Pampuri’s Protection
On November 3rd, I learned that my mother had a tumor. In addition to promptly starting the necessary treatment (I’m a physician), on November 12th all of us relatives traveled to Trivolzio to ask the help of the Saint in facing this trial. In order to be able to go, I asked a colleague, Franca, to exchange shifts with me and, as usual, she quickly made herself available. Later, I learned that unfortunately Franca had also been diagnosed with a tumor, and that she would very soon have surgery. After the Mass and a brief prayer in which I entrusted my Mother to the Lord through the intercession of Saint Riccardo, I requested in the book of intentions that my mother be assisted in body and spirit and, if possible, healed. I also entrusted Franca to the Lord. On November 30th, my mother had surgery, without complications. Now she has resumed her normal activity. At work I asked about Franca. I was told that while the cytological exam showed up positive, the definitive histological exam from surgery showed no tumor cells, and that the doctors can’t get over the strange incongruence. Thank you, Lord, that you have let us feel Your closeness during this moment of need and, through the intercession of Saint Riccardo, you have shown us your loving paternity.
Giulio

Educative Adventure
The Edimar Social Center here in Africa is now in its fifth year: notwithstanding the difficulties, time has not worn down the initial enthusiasm too much. The educative experience that characterizes the Center is becoming known everywhere. Every day, about two hundred street kids come to the Center. Their faces are often profoundly marked by suffering caused by the lack of familial love, the dehumanizing experience of prison, and feeling they are viewed negatively by society in general. Through listening, conversation, school, sports, movies, help finding work, and the courage to continually risk in a relationship that is never taken for granted, one understands truly that the heart of man is infinite desire. These kids won’t settle for some story tacked together to make them behave. The violence and instability that often characterize them make me think they are searching for something more. For example, they are always attentive when life and the story of Edimar are mentioned. The educative adventure, particularly in this context, is fascinating, a continual striving. I, too, would say, with the great Fr. Gnocchi: “I am in love with the mystery of each human person and his freedom.” How many dialogues have we had with the families of these kids! A few days ago, it was comforting to hear a mother say, “I pray so much for this child [who lives between the streets and prison], who I welcome with open arms.” More disappointing and bitter, though, was the experience of a little boy who, just to see his father, would spend hours on the side of the road. But his father, passing by in the car, wouldn’t even bother to look at him! The grandmother of Pati, arriving at the Center, was amazed to see the interest the educators took in this grandchild who makes her cry so many tears. “There is no blood bond between you, and yet you love him so much.” The child’s mother is dead and he doesn’t know his father. Now he is settled with a foster family and goes to school. The most beautiful aspect of our reality, it seems to me, is the unity among the educators. This is what enables us not to lapse into a routine.
Fr. Maurizio, Yaoundé, Cameroon, Africa

Waiting for the Bus
I’ve been in New Jersey for two months for an internship on America Today. I go twice a week to Manhattan to work in a restaurant, and then I take the bus back to New Jersey. One evening while I was waiting for the bus, a fellow came up to me and asked me if I ever read the Bible. At a certain point I said to him, “Hey, listen, why are you trying to convince me? I’m already happy because I’ve found the truth in my life. I’m Catholic and I believe in Jesus Christ.” At this, the young Filipino man standing near us intervened and declared that he, too, was Catholic. The Bible fellow then left, and the Filipino and I started talking. On the bus, I told him that I was worried because I had to walk 20 minutes from the bus stop to my house (it was 1:00 am). He offered me a ride, but I said I didn’t trust him because I didn’t know him. So he showed me his credit cards, and I saw that he worked as a broker for the Stock Exchange, and he told me to keep his cards until I got home. We became friends and I invited him to School of Community. We went together to Crafton, where I met Fr. Eugene and Fr. Steven. Fr. Eugene met the Movement last year in Peru. While he was on a train he met an Australian couple in CL, who gave him the address of some friends in New Jersey. When he returned from Peru he sought them out. He is responsible for a chapel in a mall, and says that a great number of people stop by to pray! What a story, I thought, a chapel in a mall! At our last School of Community, we read the part on miracles (we’re still reading The Religious Sense). I was already so at home with these friends after only meeting them once before, so I was able to speak up during the meeting. My blood was boiling within me in light of all the miraculous encounters and signs I have had here!
Chiara, New Jersey

Veronica’s Gift
On October 7th, our first daughter, Maria Veronica, went to Heaven after only a few hours of life. My husband Riccardo and I wanted to thank you for how you’ve all been close to us, showing us an affection that we couldn’t even have imagined. As soon as our friends learned of the birth, they went to pray at the sanctuary of the Divine Love. Riccardo and I had never faced such great pain. Never, as in this moment, had we thought of death as the beginning of eternal life, as an entreaty for peace and hope in our hearts. Jesus, crucified to give us eternal life, asks us to be His witnesses, like Mary at the foot of the cross–not desperate, but abandoned to the will of the Father. The funeral Mass was joyful because we were certain that Maria Veronica was already in Paradise, in the embrace of Our Lady, and accompanied by our families and by so many friends. A few days before her birth, my mother told me that during her four pregnancies she felt within herself that each child she carried in her womb was destined for the resurrection, and this filled her heart with happiness. At the time, I didn’t understand deep down what she was telling me, but now that Maria Veronica is in Heaven, we have had the grace of experiencing the truth of those words. A friend told me that Saint Augustine wrote that his mother generated him twice: first, to earthly life, and second, to eternal life. In the hospital, too, the day of Maria Veronica’s death, they came to bring me the readings of the day. In the Gospel, Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Do not hinder them. The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Two months before the birth of our little one, the Pope went to the sanctuary of Manoppello, which conserves the image of the Holy Face impressed on Veronica’s veil. Pope Benedict XVI’s preaching told us to seek His face. Maria Veronica, whose name means “true icon” of the Holy Face, was chosen by Him from her birth to look upon His face in eternity. Now there is a unity with my husband that we have never had before. Riccardo has returned to the sacraments; in all my prayers, I had always asked Jesus that he, too, could live the faith, and Maria Veronica, newly risen to Heaven, has granted my request.
Maria Pia, Rome

A Protagonist
at School
Dear Fr. Carrón: I am forty years old and have four children, and have recently started working again. as a caretaker in a public high school for agricultural and environmental studies. Prompted by the School of Community, by readings, and by occasions that the Movement continually proposes in abundance, I wanted to “be fully present” right away, without leaving behind any of the experience I live and hope that Jesus will make present; this has led me to beautify the environment a bit with some posters of the mountains, some flowers, and a crucifix. I proposed praying the Angelus in front of the Giotto Annunciation hanging in the caretaker’s room, and now in the morning before the bell rings I meet with four or five students who accepted my invitation. I have established friendly relationships with other kids, all so that Jesus may be recognized present in my life as in theirs, so their life may be fuller, gladder, and more beautiful. In this way, a series of new encounters and new proposals have ensued, such as volunteering at the Food Collection together with some of them, and offering a teacher an idea from reading a Traces article. I’ve had a discussion with another teacher about the Pope’s talk in Verona, and compared ideas with the Principal about political issues.
Emanuela,
Pandino, Italy

A Fascinated People
“Don’t try to fascinate me.” This is what my brother, an unbeliever, said to me when I invited him to participate in the academic year Opening Day. I hadn’t realized it, but evidently those inside the “fascination” of something that is happening to them, whether they want to or not, communicate it. I, too, in turn, was attracted by “something” that was so evident on that October 1st in the number of people from all over Basilicata and Puglia, in the composition of the people that couldn’t be traced to categories of interests, but was simply “a people,” Those who were there for the first time were amazed by the fact that there was a people there, made up of children who played in the cinema atrium, teenagers who listened or helped welcome the arrivals, young people like my son, or eighty-year-olds like my mother. There were intellectuals and pragmatists, politicians and common folk, priests and unbelievers. There was a people, attracted by the visible serenity and gaiety of those who proposed it to them, by a friendly attention to a reality rarely found elsewhere. Many–I was told–said they listened to Carrón with the impression that he was speaking precisely about them, precisely about their experience, their desires, as if he knew exactly their stories and their doubts and their pain and their overwhelming emotions. Many had the impression of finally being able to read the episodes of their life as chapters in a single story, within a perspective; others intuited at least the possibility of a connection with a reality that so often appears to conspire against us. An old socialist was seen sobbing silently in the back row, shaken by being “read” so deep down, in his heart’s most intimate desires for beauty and justice. And I? I, agitated and confused by the unusual morning argument with my son, was there, torn between the desire to run and find him and the need to judge “where” and “with whom” and “how” that quest and that rebellion could become the road for becoming truly adult. I was there, agitated and confused, to welcome the friends I had invited; I was there, smiling full of hope at my two colleagues from Potenza. I was riveted to the source of my human equilibrium, the root of my capacity for stability and judgment, the origin of all my constructive tenacity at work, in the family, in social commitments, and in relationships with politics. I spoke fleetingly with the friends of the Movement, telling them quickly what had happened that morning with my son, receiving their comfort, best expressed in their clumsy slaps on my back. So I stayed there, with my heart that chose where to be and my stomach that wanted to flee. What counts the most for me is one of the few sentences I was able to listen to attentively: “What’s important to Christ is that I belong to Him, no matter what happens, no matter how confused I may be, independent of pietistic practices or more or less ‘orthodox’ behavior.” Finding yourself at the age of 50 with a certainty of this kind, with a companionship of friends of this kind, is an amazing and unimaginable possibility of life. I couldn’t wish for anything more, because the human experience that has already been given to me is much more than what I could conceive of and desire. Now I would just like to be able to speed up my pace.
Rosamaria, Matera

Milan–Hoima
Dearest friends: Simon no sooner arrived in Hoima, Uganda, than he hurried to School of Community to tell us what he had experienced in Italy. He had gone there with his daughter Claire, who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. In Uganda, after everything possible had been done, it was decided to send Claire to Italy to evaluate the possibility of surgery. Thanks to friends in Italy, especially Dr. Tersalvi and Fr. Claudio, Claire was able to go. In the hospital, everyone was very attentive and caring, while the tests indicated that her situation was desperate. Surgery was decided upon anyway, with a partially successful outcome. Post-operative discussions about what to do next concluded with the decision to have Claire return home to Hoima so she could at least embrace her mother again. Everyone felt a bit defeated, but when Simon arrived in Hoima, he immediately made us lift up our gaze, telling us about the miracles he had seen in Italy. First of all, a totally gratuitous friendship: the doctors, the “old Varese” CLU friends, always in touch, the parents of Giorgia, Andrea, and so on. In the beginning, Simon prayed for Claire and asked everyone to do so, but he was amazed that every person he asked for prayer then asked him how he was doing, and what he needed. He couldn’t say it, but it was clear to everyone that he needed a companionship of friends that, making Jesus present, could give meaning to Claire’s illness. Claire returned to Hoima. We often say, “Only a miracle can….” This is what we need. We need a clear intervention of the Divine. So the prayers and novenas have doubled, both in Uganda and in Italy. I wrote to Fr. Claudio with some sadness, and he responded, “Taking care of others is our task; it’s our duty. Healing is up to God. Also, giving meaning to the life of someone who isn’t healed is always His job–He promised this to us and I expect this from Him.”
Andrea and the entire Hoima community, Uganda