edited by Paola Bergamini

The story of Cometa (see Traces, Vol. 6, No. 11 [December] 2004, pp. 22-25) starts from deep sorrow and the words spoken to Erasmo, Innocente, and Maria Grazia by their father shortly before he died: “I leave you my faith. And just one counsel: live in communion.” At the time, none of them grasped the meaning of the words, yet they sank deep into their hearts. But when Erasmo and his wife Serena decided to foster a minor in their home, it was the first step on a new and unexpected journey that also involved Innocente and Marina. Then, through Maria Grazia, came their encounter with Fr. Giussani, who repeated, without knowing it, their father’s urging: “Perform a work of communion,” he told them, and so gave meaning to their work. That was the breakthrough. In recent years, they have witnessed unforeseen developments, involving many families and friends, to the point where they have expanded the boundaries of their work and are now able to offer tangible assistance to some 300 young children and adolescents. Today, four families live at Cometa and look after 24 children in addition to their own. The exhibition, “The City within the City: A Story of Simple Communion,” describes and records just how this work developed, starting from what the Mystery has performed, and recording the certainty that all this could literally never have been achieved had it not been for the encounter with Fr. Giussani and all that has flowed from it.
The layout of the exhibition enables us to see how this experience took root and has grown. Film clips and blow-ups of scenes from everyday life accompanied by significant phrases enable us to identify with this experience of communion between families who feel assured that the truth emerges from an intense dialogue. The exhibition records the continuous marvel of the dynamics between meetings and the development of the “I,” between desires and attempts to respond to the challenges life sets before us. And so down to Fr. Giussani’s guidance to “The City within the City,” a place without boundaries where life is a simple order of building together, so that life is filled with its presence and the encounter between people testifies to the certainty of a common good. For this reason, Fr. Giussani’s invitation was to expand spaces, to unite by creating bonds within families and between families, so that the city within the city expands and the promise of goodness will reach out and embrace everyone.
“When Fr. Giussani spoke of the possibility of building a social reality, the city within the city,” says Erasmo, “we did not take it as a task; we did not immediately ask each other what means we could use to attain our goal. We never did this, yet Cometa took shape and grew precisely out of the relationship with reality made up of events, encounters, donations… everything. Every space and energy was entrusted to the hands of God so that we would always be ready in the adventure of fostering which is the fertility of the love of Christ. We have always asked that this work be a sign of peace and community. The work is conversion.”
Cometa is a reality worth encountering, a place where we meet with a clear purpose, where, above all else, fostering and education are inseparable. “Education,” explains Innocente, “means conveying the sense of life. It is not a word, it is an experience; it is a person who is touched in his feelings. This is the sense of life that the other breathes, because words are not needed. What is needed is this meaning, but this meaning needs to be educated by eradicating everything that stifles the desire of the heart.”
This is an exhibition where the truth of the experience of Cometa leaps to the eyes and the heart through the simplicity and beauty of everyday life, and where the encounter between men testifies to the certainty of a common good.