LETTERS

LETTERS

The Only
Correspondence
Dear Father Carrón: I’m currently in Paris studying for my doctorate for a few months and, with the entire French CLU community, I attended the CLU Exercises, which have been a grace and an occasion of unity among us, the proof that the encounter simply happens. First of all, I want to thank you for the clarity with which you put us in front of the immensity of our desire for happiness (“What are you looking for?”), inviting us to overcome our fear and the temptation to give rushed answers, leaving some space to that desire instead. I felt as if you were talking to me: I often overlook this true need of mine, which surfaces in my relationship with those things that, albeit beautiful (my girlfriend, the advances in my research, etc.), are not enough. You clearly pointed out how our problem is a lack of commitment with reality and how we are often saved mainly by our own restlessness, that sooner or later pushes us to deal with reality. It is thanks to the encounter we had that we take it seriously. Our companionship “qualifies us for reality;” it helps us to perceive the familiarity with the Mystery within reality. I started thinking about all those friends (everywhere–in Catania, Milan, Paris) who help me in the work that I am learning to do–starting from last year’s CLU Exercises, up to these past months–to recognize Christ present in my life, to look at the vast number of clues that I encounter. I am also grateful for the way you talked about correspondence, reminding us that only Christ corresponds and that He will not cease being interesting for us if  we keep alive this immense desire for happiness, which He alone can fulfill. During these days, the faces full of gladness of my friends of the community (some of whom were there for the first time) have been the witnesses of this one true correspondence. I’m thinking about Stephanie, who met the Movement in Minnesota and was attending the Exercises for the first time, and about her wonder in front of the beauty she saw, and about Ines, and Vincent from Paris, and about the enthusiasm of Celine from Bordeaux. For this reason, your conclusion was clear: we fall, we make mistakes, it’s true, but we can always start anew from His question: “Do you love Me?” He is the one who is accompanying us; it is His presence that continues to be visibly at work among us. Thank you for helping us to recognize it.
Tancredi, Paris

Looking for a Job
This letter was written to one of our friends of the Solidarity Center, which offers support for the unemployed.
I fled Eritrea, Africa, and I’ve been living in Forlì, Italy, since 2004 where, with my wife and my daughter, I joined my sister. In 2006, I met Francesco and Benedetta through our kids, who were playmates. Francesco introduced me to Luca and the Solidarity Center, so that they could help my wife in her job search. Later on, many of my friends got in touch with the Solidarity Center. Currently, I meet Francesco and Luca once a month for the food package delivery, but we also have dinner together on weekends, or at least an Eritrean coffee with our families and Francesco and Luca’s friends.
Right from the start, it was clear to me and my wife that Francesco, Benedetta, and Luca wanted to share a real friendship with us, one that had all the aspects of our life at heart: work, education, and free time, right down to the bare necessities (clothes, food, etc.). For this reason, staying with them and accepting their proposals (dinners, parties, hikes, Masses) came naturally. Francesco and Luca suggested that my wife take an Italian class, and I a computer one. As of today, my wife speaks better Italian and is serving an apprenticeship.
But what’s most important to me is the real friendship that was born among us. It’s the kind of friendship we can always rely on, like a true family shares. Now, if we have a problem or want to talk about what goes on in our lives, or simply to inquire about the children’s health, we just need to pick up the phone. Our Eritrean friends, even those who still cannot understand Italian, are surprised by this friendship they see among us and they already think highly of these people. For this reason, some of them decided to help out with the Food Collection.
Fetsum, Forlì

It Always
Happens Again
Dear Father Carrón: At thirty-six, and with years of belonging to the Movement under my belt, my resistance to the Beauty I met has not changed; if anything, it has become even more fierce, because the tight companionship of the beginning has become more discreet, thus letting me clash even more with my incapacity for a total commitment in my relationship with Christ. When I say “Christ,” I am thinking about that which can save everything I have in my hands (husband, children, students, friends) and without which nothing makes sense. The birth of my second child was about to turn into the excuse to avoid responding to the provocations of reality. But everything was crumbling in front of me like a sand castle: difficulties and misunderstandings with my husband, the inability to live the challenges of motherhood, and a certain aridity in mapping out the educational path of my students.
Well, this is what I am, and maybe I will always be this reluctant to being totally taken by Him, but I had the moving experience of the fact that, if God wants to, He takes you just as you are, and uses you to build His Kingdom! Last year, I had been curious about the experience of the junior high “Knights” group and, although pregnant, I attended some of their meetings. But I immediately let all my objections and difficulties prevail, because I didn’t know how to invite my students. This year, just to avoid conflict, I had decided to disregard even the announcements, but the more I gave in to this attitude,  the more I lost what I thought I would gain.
I would look at my students, asking myself what would become of them after this third year, and why God entrusted them to me during these three years. These questions had become a cry, a constant prayer to God that He help me in my fragility. His answer came swiftly. On the evening of Friday, October 12th, I received a phone call from a girl I barely knew, asking me if I wanted to partake of the miracle that was happening to her: she had sixteen kids from Termini Imerese who wanted to attend Beginning Day in Tindari, and she wanted to know if I wanted to invite my students, too. I suddenly realized that everything was happening again, and that the Beauty appearing in front of my eyes was so attractive that I was forgetting about all my ifs and buts... In a couple of days, nine kids, students of mine and other kids in my school, accepted the proposal.
My biggest fear was that the parents might be perplexed and reluctant to trust me with their kids. But I was glad to see that, after observing me in action with their children for three years, they had developed a sense of trust in my educational method, and they were happy that I extended it outside of the school environment. The day in Tindari was very beautiful. By adhering without schemes and conditions, I am re-discovering the deep meaning of everything I was on the verge of losing, and a profound gladness is taking over my life, so that I don’t feel any weariness in what I do.
Antonella, Trabia (Palermo)

Another World
Dear Julián: I participated in the AVSI fundraising “Tende di Natale” (“Christmas Tents”) at the Cadorna train station with a bunch of my friends from Catholic University, along with the Alpine Choir. As the choir was singing, we would stop people and talk about AVSI and, between offering candies and giving out copies of Buonenotizie (Good News,  the AVSI periodical), I got to meet a few people. The first man I stopped gave a donation and asked me, “Who are you guys? What do you do? And what’s the choir that is singing, who are those kids?” I told him, and he said, “I work at the penitentiary in Como, and I would like the inmates to be able to listen to this choir. How can I contact you?” He left me his card, his e-mail address, and his phone number, and he asked me to write to him. He jotted down my phone number and left. Second encounter: two friends, one of whom, after listening to the presentation of all the AVSI projects, says, “Okay, I understand, you want a donation. No problem, I’ll give you something on one condition: that you  give me all the AVSI contacts. I want to pass them along to my sister who, I’m sure, will be interested.”
I gave him Buonenotizie and he asked, “Do you have anything to do with religion?” I answered, “We are Catholics.” He took a look at me and my girlfriends, and said, “It shows! You look like Catholics.” We started stopping people again and at a certain point a man literally crashed into us, dropping all the papers  and a few books he was carrying. While helping him pick them up, we tried to explain about AVSI. He looked at us and, pointing to the cell phone he was holding, he told us, “I am actually on the phone with my wife. We are getting separated.” And he ran away. I asked myself what will become of these people, including a guy we stopped at the entrance of Catholic University. He was with a couple of friends. We surrounded them and told them, “We have Buonenotizie for you!” The two friends answered, “We are not interested,” and walked away. The third guy, after a few seconds, turned around and said, “Actually, I am interested. What do you want to tell me?” He listened, left a donation, picked up a copy of Buonenotizie, thanked us, and left. Even if just for a fleeting moment, they encountered  something from another world, because this is exactly what we propose with the Christmas Tents: another world within this world!
Lucia, Milan

“Widening”
the Family
Dearest friends: A few months back, we were asked to be foster parents. We had never considered it a possibility, even though we have been part of the Welcoming Family Association for some years now. We always thought we were not suitable, for a number of reasons, but mainly because the first of our two children (who are nine and four) is somewhat “special”–she is in a wheelchair, which entails a series of consequences and commitments that are no small thing.
To make a long story short, we thought we were the ones in need of help. At the same time,  though, in our home we expressed–albeit not always in an explicit way–the desire for a “widening” of our family. Then, when we were asked to be available for daytime foster care, we were embarrassed but at the same time we realized that, all in all, we were not being asked for a “heroic” gesture, but to simply open our house to stay with a little girl. We then went out for ice-cream with our kids, to explain the proposal. They welcomed the news with great enthusiasm, proving themselves very available and affectionate with the “new arrival.”
We prepared for the arrival of the girl by reciting a novena to St. Riccardo Pampuri with our kids. What happened made us realize that, if we weren’t on this path and part of this history, we would never have decided to take such an “unusual” step, one that seems only to complicate our lives more. But even before this consideration, we are certain that without the presence of our disabled daughter we wouldn’t have pursued those friendships that, within the Association, accompanied our family first of all in what had happened to us, and in the decision to live this particular experience of hospitality. This gesture is drawing in other people as well, like the son of a friend of ours, who volunteered to take the girl home every night. What we are recounting, after all, is nothing more than the proof, for us, that the fecundity of an experience like the one generated by our Movement leads us to live every aspect of our daily lives with true intensity.
Name withheld, Verona

A New Challenge
Dear Julián: Forty of us came to Rimini from Germany, full of great expectations; as a community, we hadn’t been to the CLU Exercises in many years and we had the feeling that the decision to come would make us grow in as much as we let ourselves be challenged. So, even the initial difficulties (especially the organizational ones!) became for many of us occasions to put ourselves  into play on a personal level. What we expected from the retreat was a correspondence to the heart, and from the very first evening we found this expectation met, when you asked us, “What are you looking for?”–inviting us to face this question without reservations and without giving rushed answers. In front of this question, we were once again filled with wonder at the fact that there is Someone who takes us seriously to the point of posing the question,  thus allowing us to look at our need with tenderness and even with gratefulness. We can truly say that this endless need of ours is a Grace, because it’s a reminder of the One who alone can fulfill it. We can’t pretend anymore: there is a way to stay in front of things that is more correspondent, because it is a position that uses all the impetus of our reason, without blocking it either for an arbitrary decision or for laziness. With you and becoming one with your gaze, we discovered the taste of facing the questions that reality awakens, so that even all the work that is ahead of us is not a burden, but an occasion to get to know who Christ is better. Now that we are back home, we feel the urgent need to support one another in remembering this gaze and this Presence that embraces us, allowing us to discover ourselves needy and grateful in everything that happens in our daily lives: in writing the thesis, in learning German, in the drama of relationships. In front of these circumstances, we recite the Angelus with a new awareness, helping one another to recall this gaze that comes “before,” and embracing our whole humanity.
CLU, Germany

Graduation
with the Choir
Dear Father Carrón: When in Rimini you told us that Christ is more concrete than a girlfriend or boyfriend, my first reaction was anger, because I have Giovanni, and he is concrete. If I miss him, I know where to find him. Not so for Christ. I was missing Christ, and I came to Rimini with this ravishing nostalgia, so much so that I was starting to suspect I had been some kind of a visionary when, overwhelmed by an unimaginable fullness, I would cry out: “It is You!” I had come to the retreat in Rimini to shed some light on what I’m looking for, on my desire. The first evening, when you were talking about the immensity of our need for happiness, you were describing me so accurately that I cried. But when, the following morning, you started with John, Andrew, Christ, and the Baptist, I felt slightly bothered, as if there was something obvious in what you were saying. Okay, we know the story, they saw Him, the followed Him...What about me? You said that the heart of the matter is the relationship with reality. Then, forced by the suffocating and petty experience  that I was living, I decided to accept the challenge. Every morning, every night, every time I would remember to, I would say, “Come, Lord Jesus”–and, when you are waiting for someone, you keep your eyes wide open. During Simone’s graduation, Jesus once again surprised me. Simone got a degree in Music. Since he wrote his thesis on the Rachmaninov Vespers, he was allowed to bring the CLU choir to perform Bogoroditze Dievo. During the discussion of his thesis, Simone talked about the Resurrection of Christ. He said that all of history waits for Him, and as he was speaking of the Song of Solomon, a professor, beating him to the punch,  recited the whole thing in one breath. When Simone stood up to direct the choir, the classroom was filled with silence. The professors of the examining board were astounded. At the end, they asked who the members of the choir were. Simone answered, “They are friends of mine, with whom I share the experience of Communion and Liberation at the university. The choir rehearses at the headquarters of the Movement.” At the point when the examining board is supposed to ask questions, nobody spoke; they did not have any objections. It was not that he had a perfect thesis, it was simply that there was  nothing to add. Silvia said, “I am moved because it is always the same Thing that comes out of all of our theses. What always comes out is  That which we hold dear.” But the most impressive thing was that it didn’t come out because it was written in Simone’s thesis, but because He was there. He was there in our communion. “Let them be one, so that the world can see.” I understood that even my running for a seat on the board of directors is not unrelated, and that the nuisance of going to talk to the professors to ask for their votes is an occasion to see Him as clearly as I did today. The same goes for my studies, which I want to challenge to the death, as well as for everything else. I want to seize Him and touch Him, in everything.
Teresa, Palermo

The AVSI Tents
Dear Father Carrón: In our work with the Fraternity group, Angelo often warns us not to trivialize anything, including small matters. This warning found me receptive when, at the Casa delle Opere where I work, we felt the need to once again propose that our colleagues give one hour of their time to work for AVSI. The plan was to send around an
e-mail message with Vicky’s letter. I started insisting that my colleagues who belong to the Movement invite the others, so that this proposal could become the occasion of a personal encounter with new employees. So, one morning after the Angelus, I invited everybody to participate in this gesture by giving them a copy of Buonenotizie. Our consultant, Alfredo, happened to be there that morning as well, and he asked, “I don’t work here, so how can I participate in this initiative and give one hour for AVSI?” I told him, “You are already planning to attend an AVSI dinner on Monday; that will be your chance.” Unfortunately, that very Monday, Alfredo died, at the age of  fifty-two, leaving us all filled with dismay and disbelief. In front of this event, we were paralyzed. As I was talking with four of my colleagues and looking for the meaning of this death, so surprising and “unfair,”  we couldn’t but recall his words and his desire to be part of that gesture of solidarity which, in  silence and with discretion, he had learned by taking part for many years in the Food Collection. When we had to decide whether to send a telegram to the family, I proposed writing a card for his daughters (he was a widower), briefly telling them about that morning and about his desire. We decided not to send flowers, but to donate one extra hour of work to AVSI in his memory instead. After a couple of days, one of his daughters called me: “We really appreciate your initiative. Tell me how to donate to AVSI, because I want to propose it to my clients.” I was amazed, because the Lord used my shaky “yes” to Angelo’s invitation to reach Alfredo and his family.
Lorella, Busto Arsizio