Springing into Action
In my work as a high school religion teacher, I came across Luigi Giussani’s thought through the textbook School of Religion. What is most helpful for my growth as well as the kids’ is following the impetus to spring into action and to accomplish the intellectual goal of the lessons. This allows us to discover our talents and to understand what we are made for. Five years ago, this generated in the kids the idea to set up in the school a concrete experience that would meet the needs of others. We called it the “Education to Solidarity Project.” With my colleague Paola and with the kids, we organized a cyclamen flower sale, the proceeds of which would go to a distant support program implemented by AVSI. The sale took place during an afternoon of parent-teacher conferences. As of today, after five years, we support not one but three programs, as the other schools of our area got involved, answering the request of the students, the teachers, and the rest of the school staff. We thought that the act of solidarity coincided only with the relationship between us and Aline, James, and Ken–the kids we support in their country of origin. Instead, a new horizon opened up before us in the form of the solidarity between pupils, parents, teachers, and the school staff that was born spontaneously and with a great simplicity of heart. We don’t want these events to be the occasion for a big ethical decision or for a humanitarian idea to be achieved. Our desire is for these moments to maintain their spontaneity, to help us to “look beyond”as the Church teaches us–even among different-minded people, who nonetheless were all willing to get together because of the same desire of the heart: to love and to be loved.
Maria Enrica
and Paola, Bologna, Italy

The Quest
for a School
Dear Father Carrón: Today, February 19th, is the beginning of the school year. It is also the first day of school of our fourth daughter, Maria. This pivotal moment in her life reminds us of the great grace that we have received in sending our kids to the Collegio Santa Caterina da Siena. Toward the end of the 2004 academic year, we explored the possibility of finding another Catholic school for our older children because, in addition to education, what we wanted for them (as well as for us as parents) was Christian formation. At the end of November, my husband was still searching for a school. Between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, through my colleague, I got in touch with his sister-in-law Mavi. The way she described the Collegio Santa Caterina da Siena and the passion she exuded filled us with enthusiasm. Thus, our adventure started. We have very beautiful memories of the first days of school: the mother of one of Elena’s classmates who started talking to me, the welcome tea party for the new mothers, during which a mother gave me a quick and clear explanation about what the Movement is... in short, they all made us feel the value and the warmth of being welcomed. At the beginning, during the first parents’ meetings, we would hear words whose meaning wasn’t completely clear to us, like reality, positivity, wonder, Destiny... At the end of a meeting on The Risk of Education, we approached Principal Giovanna Tagliabue, who was leading the talk. We told her that we did not understand much of what we had discussed, and she challenged us “to know Jesus”! So, toward the end of the school year, thanks to the invitations of a number of friends, we started participating in School of Community, because we sensed that there was “something good” there. Here is a quick and incomplete list of what can happen in a simple school year, and that fills us with wonder: the amazing research project called “With our friends, to the ends of the earth” that involved all the grades, the theater week, the “cultural Wednesdays,” the Italian and English classes, the parents’ meetings on education... In the past two years, we saw our kids grow in every way, but we are the ones who have benefited and have been educated the most, both as parents and Christians.
Elena and Martin, Asunción, Paraguay

Singing
in the Restaurant
A few days ago, I went out for dinner with some friends. We had the typical huge cutlets they make around here, then we gave Elisa her birthday present. To accompany the gesture, I, Bonfa, and Simone sang “Over in the Glory Land” and “Doman l’e’ Festa” (an Italian mountaineer song). Then something incredible happened. The waiter stopped by our table and asked us to sing some more, then he called other waiters and he made us sing the mountaineer song again. At a certain point, the owner of the restaurant sat down with us and spent a long time listening to us sing (the whole group of my friends was singing by now). In the meantime, a few clients who were about to leave stopped by our table to listen, and a lady even bought us a round of grappa. The whole thing went on for about one hour. The owner invited us back, with our guitar, and a waiter asked us, “Why don’t you record a CD?” The owner billed us for just five Euros each and we left dancing and singing “L’Anaconda”! It was an unexpected eruption of beauty in our lives and we were all taken by something greater than ourselves, as were the rest of the people there, whom we didn’t even know. The other beautiful thing that happened these days was the study weekend that we had in the college dorm where I live. A few friends that we have encountered in the past few months were there too, for a total of fifteen people, as of yesterday. It is beautiful to see how, after being together for a few months now (also because of the exam period) we, as friends, started sharing our studying in addition to our meals, our singing, and School of Community. This is a sign that our friendship is becoming ever more important for all of us, to the point of making us take seriously the task of studying.
Giuseppe, Vienna, Austria

Lucia’s Tenacity
Last summer, my wife got pregnant with our fourth child. Before leaving for a short trip to Scotland, we decided to have a sonogram. We were told then that the baby had severe malformations, and that everything pointed toward a chromosomal problem. We were told that we had a 5% chance of having a full-term pregnancy, and even if our baby girl would be born alive, she would take just a few breaths. They even presented us with the possibility of terminating the pregnancy. For us, that was an unacceptable option. If only I could, I would have made Lucia without any physical problems. Everyday, we would pray to be able to see our creature alive, embrace her, and have her baptized. I don’t know how many babies receive Baptism before the APGAR test, but that’s what happened to Lucia, who was born on May 3, 2006. With the help of our friends, we had decided to accompany Lucia for all the time she would be given to us, without using any aggressive therapy. After proving everybody wrong, when she was two months old, we told ourselves: this baby wants to live; let’s give her a chance to be disconnected from the machines and to come home! Against ’all opinions and the circumstances, the chiefs of the cardio surgery and the pediatric surgery departments of the Sant’Orsola Hospital in Bologna decided to try two operations. During the time we spent outside of the ICU, we met other mothers whose babies were in the hospital as well. One day, when we were particularly distressed, a woman approached my wife, hugged her, and whispered to her, “Be strong, because doctors can make you better, but remember that only God can heal.” The day after, another mom told us she had been praying all day long for Lucia. She was a Jew, and the first woman was a Muslim. A whole “people” moved, and was moved, because of Lucia. Surgeons, neonatologists, resuscitators, anesthesiologists, nurses, cleaning ladies: they all couldn’t but recognize the evidence of being in the presence of an angel. She was hanging on, she would not give up. One day, almost jokingly, the head of the department told me, “According to medical literature, she shouldn’t be alive. It appears Lucia did not read those texts.” Lucia died on October 11th, after five months of struggle and of incredible attachment to life.
She was in my arms up until the last second. The pain for Lucia’s death is enormous; it feels like someone is ripping my skin off. But I want you to hear the intention that a neonatologist (who is not in the Movement) read during the funeral: “…We, the doctors and nurses who had the good fortune of taking care of Lucia and of meeting her parents, we’ll miss Betty’s laughter and having coffee with Paolo in the morning, but Lucia’s gaze as we entered her room will remain within us. May this help us in assisting the babies in our care, so that our work may never become routine.” You don’t need to do anything; being is enough. At Lucia’s funeral, it was evident and moving to know and recognize a “people” that is grateful to Our Lady for the angel who lived among us. Some took care of songs, others of the offertory gifts, some of the readings, others of ushering, some of intentions, and somebody created a procession of joyful children with white flowers. If we had needed to build the church, somebody would have taken care of that, too.
Paolo, Rimini, Italy

Common Fund
Dear Father Carrón and dear friends of the Fraternity: I apologize to you for my lack of faithfulness to the Common Fund. I decided to start anew with determination, giving credit to what is continually repeated to us: a small sum is enough as long as it is a sign of affection toward our history. For this reason–and I apologize–I am lowering my monthly contribution, but I felt ashamed looking back and realizing how much I fell behind and this is the only way to make up for lost ground. It is true that one could make excuses, talking about children growing up, mortgages to pay, and expenses that need to be faced. But it’s also true that I can’t ignore the example of others, witnessed in the letters that you constantly read to us. Also, I can’t avoid coming to terms daily with that which I have encountered and which defines my life. I am limited in my relationships by my job–which is beautiful but creates difficulties because of shifts and days of rest–and it is a haul to try to participate in our common events, or even to see people.
So, staying faithful to what they ask, on a concrete level, is the way to support the Fraternity and the friendship with Christ.
Sandro

Starting
from the Heart
Dearest Father Carrón: I think I understand that cynicism–which implies violence–and moralism–which implies falsehood–are the two routes that man can take to avoid the drama that is generated by the urgency of the heart in front of life. I can’t belong to the history the Church and of the Movement any longer without the awareness that, being that the measure of my heart is infinite and that of reality finite, I live a drama. That is the lack of something that I evidently am searching for in my life. So what does Christ have to do with my personal drama? Everything. I am discovering that the first of God’s great miracles toward man is to look at him and love him precisely because of this drama. God Himself lives it, wants to live this drama, as He comes to look for us, knocking at our heart’s door. Through His Son, God has looked and loved man with mercy. The lack we feel inside ourselves is the source of love in our life. In fact, those who do not love are the ones who do not recognize themselves as totally wanting an Other, a You. I perceive the insistence on starting from the heart as the only possible bridge for the discovery of a You within reality. Anything else is either assumption, ideology, or power. What does it mean to start from the heart for someone who, like us, saw Christ walk in the streets of our lives? It means to express the need for this You to reveal Himself in everything we do. None of us, and I put myself first, usually does this. In the world, power is against this original, childlike attitude of the heart. I will pray to the Virgin that this can become, more and more, the battlefield, instead of putting so much effort into the pursuit of useless goals. Thank you for your help and companionship in this existential work.
Matteo, Dublin, Ireland


The Ones
to Learn From
Dearest Father Carrón: The husband of a schizophrenic patient of mine came to my office to renew her prescriptions. The two have been married for forty years. He is a retired craftsman, and he daily attends to his wife’s needs. He takes care of the house and listens to all her rantings... They have a good daughter (married) who helps them. He did not want to put his “bride” in a mental institution. I mustered up all my courage and I asked him, “What do you think about all these wise men, professors, doctors, and intellectuals, who want to teach us which life is worth living, how to help sick people to stop suffering, or what is the acceptable standard of quality of life?” He answered, “Doctor, first you have to love and take care of those who suffer. Second, you have to follow what comes from life. Third, without my wife, I feel lost; I don’t really live.” Thanks to these people who, unnoticed by most, take care in this way of the needs of those who suffer, the fabric of our cities and our towns is not yet rotting, notwithstanding all the polls and the constant manipulation of reality the power forces on us.
Andrea, Milan, Italy

To Be Happy
Dearest Father Carrón: Lately, I have had the opportunity to re-embrace some friends who were far away and I had not seen for a long time. Seeing them again was like repeating that initial encounter that made me adhere to this history and made me certain that in my life there is Someone who loves me and who knows, even better than myself, what it is that I have been looking for. But it is precisely because of that correspondence that, each time I would go back home, my heart would be filled with nostalgia–nostalgia for the Beauty I had seen in those faces. It is the same nostalgia that one feels when a beautiful piece of music ends: it leaves a silence in the heart–not an empty silence, but a completely “wanting” one, because it is filled to the brim with those notes. What would my life be if I could not re-encounter that Beauty every day? With this question as a point of departure, I started to live everything, every daily circumstance, in a different way. Thus, if initially I would try to “tolerate” school, I now want to live it, with my “I” right up front! The fear I often have of exposing myself did not go away, but the happiness that I have inside, the gladness, the certainty that I have in my heart are so imposing that I can’t help myself from communicating them to everybody. And this is a miracle; even though I don’t do anything, people notice that I am happy! At the same time, I am really learning to love.
Danuta, Ostra, Italy

“The Raindrop”
I never felt as excited in my life as when I walked up the main stairs of Marianopolis College in Montreal to Room 203 for the first meeting of Radius. By 1:00 pm, the classroom had filled with students–students of different religions, different cultures, different interests, different ideas, and students within a society that constantly tries to separate and categorize and remind us all that we are simply different. Seeing this difference, I was immediately overwhelmed by the immense challenge of Radius’s proposal, which is the fact that the needs and desires of our humanity are neither different nor similar but rather truly identical. In the beginning of the meeting, at the announcement of this proposal, the students leading the meeting were met with doubt and uncertainty as to whether or not this proposal was credible. However, toward the end of the meeting, we played Chopin’s “The Raindrop” Prelude (prior to that, Fr. Giussani’s judgment on this piece was read). After the final notes of “The Raindrop,” everyone was left in complete silence at the beauty that they had witnessed. It was clear to everyone that, amidst our differences, there was something that united us all: the thirst for happiness.
Nicola, Montreal, Canada