LETTERS

Life is a Mystery
On February 2nd, Elena and Francesco, two GS students from Bologna, died in a car accident. Here are letters from their parents.
On February 2nd, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus, the community of Bologna was embraced by the Love of God. Elena and Francesco went up to the Father. Most people would say, “Two lives destroyed by a Saturday night disaster.” No, it is not so. Their destiny had already been written. We, the parents, thank God because they were given to us for nineteen years; we have been able to enjoy their presence, their gladness, and their joy of life. They would often send messages such as, “Mom, I’m bringing Bruno, Giacomo, and Tommaso for lunch.” They would fill the house with their profound remarks–like the ones you would hear from the lips of adults–and just a moment later would come up with a joke, of which Francesco never ran short. Ciccio (as he was usually called) had lots of friends–we are now starting to discover just how many. Friendship was very important to him, real friendship, with a capitol F, because in the companionship he could truly see “the friendly face of Jesus” that always accompanied him through beautiful experiences as well as in facing the pain of the loss of his friend Mattia. Francesco met Maria at a summer job with Tivigest in 2006. She lives in Bergamo, so they would see each other when their school and community commitments would allow it, but they talked every day on the phone, even more than once a day; those long conversations helped shorten the distance. It was a beautiful love, one that had always been accompanied by their friends in Bologna, as well as by Maria’s friends in Spirano or Bergamo. The night before the accident, Francesco sent her a message: “I would like to love you as God loves you.” God fulfilled this desire of his, because we think that now Francesco knows how to love as God does. We see this in the faces of the people who want to support us in our sorrow, those who want to be with us because they say that they need us. They show up at every hour of the day and they send messages: “How are you holding up?” “Did you sleep?” “Did you eat?” They come to our house with food and they help the grandparents, who are in awe in front of such a spectacle. Francesco’s classmates and GS friends “invade” the house in an extremely attentive and discrete way, because they need this companionship as well. God gave us the grace of this cross, and we have to learn to embrace it completely, saying our “yes” like Mary did standing at the foot of the Cross of Jesus. We were taught that God doesn’t send you a trial that you cannot endure. The death of an offspring is humanly inconceivable, it is an unbearable pain, but God turns it into Love. It is a love so great that we are moved to tears as we witness the small miracles that it effects in the people who, observing our companionship, discover the greatness of God. We feel accompanied, supported, and embraced every day by all of our Fraternity friends, as well as by the whole community of Bologna. They have helped us down to the smallest details in the organization of the funeral, which became a real celebration. Like Ciccio, we have been able to experience the friendly face of Jesus through the people who keep us company.
Milvia and Marcello, Bologna

The most important thing for Elena was her friends. She was always keeping someone company because he or she was “going through a crisis,” or helping someone with their studies because  “you know, Mom, right now he/she is having a really hard time, and studying together helps a lot.” Very often, we would not see her until the end of the day, because she had lunch with the GS secretaries after school, then the study session in Scholè, and later on some other last-minute meeting. Once back home, she would make and receive phone calls, and she would always pick up the receiver with a loud, joyous, and outgoing, “Hello!” Through the companionship of her GS friends–who were everything to her–she had deepened her faith; from the day she joined GS she never had time to get bored and was always happy. Within this companionship, she grew, she started taking on “grown-up” responsibilities, and she felt this responsibility toward her friends and toward the younger ones, especially the freshmen. The encounter with the Movement had been so important to her that she wanted to make it known to everybody, even her elementary school classmates–whenever she bumped into them on the bus or when she happened to call them one the phone, she would always invite them to some meeting or initiative. She was a life enthusiast; she lived fully and seriously all that she was involved with: the secretariat, the charitable work with the Gruppo Medie (junior high kids), the summer jobs, and lately the tutoring of a twelve-year-old boy. Countless times, we have observed her and, filled with awe, we have watched her enthusiasm, with the certainty that we had received a great gift that was ours to keep and accompany. Countless times, we have asked the Lord for the necessary simplicity to learn to look at reality the way she did, and to follow the way she did.
Paola and Marcello, Bologna

In the Middle
of the Ocean
At the beginning of this year, thanks to a few families of the Movement, I had a pretty peculiar experience here in Mauritius, where I live with my Hindu husband and my three children. It was my first encounter with those families, and I was immediately struck by the way they welcomed us, and by the fact that they wanted us to partake of some moments of their vacation. Their openness to reality re-awakened in me the desire to fully live this precise piece of reality that I am in, my particular story within a context–the island of Mauritius–populated by a number of different ethnic groups, each with their own culture. In particular, I am thinking about the Mass that these friends asked to celebrate at the hotel on January 1st . They were surrounded by tourists who were engaged in all sorts of other activities, and who were ultimately so impressed by these people who were praying that some of them joined in. It is only a friendship in Christ lived in the flesh that is able to launch me into reality and open me up in search of a meaning, to make me ask the Mystery to manifest Himself in every instant, and to make me be a sign–in spite of my limitations–for those that He put beside me. Then, it doesn’t matter anymore whether the Movement is here or not. I have been living here for many years now, and I have close friendships with people who care about the Church and are Catholic. The only thing that matters is the desire to move, to search, and this is precisely what my dear friends put inside of me, by helping me understand that Christ is here now, and that one can live in communion, even when alone.
Laura, Mauritius

Maritza’s Faith
Dear Father Julián: Today, after reading at School of Community the letter that you sent to us after the January 20th event in Rome, I decided to write to you, to let you know what we have lived in these past years. In Maritza, we have seen that passion for the reasonableness of faith that, as you said, Father Giussani has made us familiar with. Maritza arrived in Italy from Peru fifteen years ago and, through a fortunate series of circumstances, came to live with our family as a babysitter for our grandchildren. We lived together in communion for eight beautiful years, during which, in the long winter nights around our kitchen table, we started having School of Community. I had been very hesitant in suggesting it,  knowing that, because of a different approach to faith, our friend might find my proposal a bit strange. What happened instead still moves me: in the pages of The Religious Sense,Maritza found the answer to her most urgent questions, and she made more fruitful for me too that which I thought I had already understood. Shortly after, she asked to attend the weekly meeting of one of the Florence School of Community groups, so every Thursday we would drive 15 miles and she would communicate to me all of her anticipation and the total belonging that, by then, filled her days. We often said that all the sorrows that she had to face in leaving her country and her loved ones–including her elderly mother and her brothers–and her being in Florence and not in another European country where she could have gone was all starting to acquire a meaning, a reason that, little by little, was becoming a path.
After those very happy years, Maritza decided to go back to Peru. She had joined the Fraternity and she hoped to be able to continue her journey there but, because of economic difficulties, after just a few months she was forced to return to Italy. She found a good job, she met the Memores Domini and, in front of our moved and awed eyes, her vocation took that form. I have never seen a faith more reasonable and totally entrusted to those faces that were for her the presence of the Mystery. Maritza made her profession with Fr. Giussani in 2003, when she was already consumed by her illness. But her great willpower, her desire to graduate (she had started college), and her love for life kept her with us until January 21st of this year. At her funeral, Father Pino said some very beautiful words, as if he had always known her. Maybe he read them in our faces, in us who had the opportunity to love her, and who were thanking God for that.
Irene, Florence

A Deep Gratefulness
My husband and I decided to donate an amount to the Movement because I have (finally!) received my disability pension. We are married and live on a small income, and the amount that we are able to give monthly to the common fund is, unfortunately, tiny. This small gesture is the sign of the deep gratefulness for our history, which has allowed us to live the dramatic circumstance of my illness with an ultimate gladness. It was precisely this gladness that made us able to make the decision to get married. We serenely resolved not to listen to those who suggested procrastinating our wedding to “keep partying on.” In those days, we found ourselves a hundred times more willing to say that “yes” to Him. We were (and are) certain to possess all we needed in order to say “yes” again to Him, Who makes us in every instant. After all, we were one with the words of the ceremony: “…in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health…” With our friends, we truly experienced “the hundredfold” in terms of intensity and depth of life. We are also grateful for the prayers that many friends, and their communities all over the world, said for me.
Linda, Italy

Searching
for the Same Thing
“Living is beautiful because living is beginning. Always, in every instant.” These words of Cesare Pavese, quoted for us by Fr. Ambrogio, summed up perfectly the three days we spent together at our National Assembly. Some people there had been “in the Movement” for some years, while others came because of a personal invitation and knew almost nothing about the Movement. For all of us, the weekend was a new beginning. Fr. Ambrogio had insisted for some time that we organize a meeting from both sides of the continent. Our objections–that we were too few and the distances were too great, etc.–were overcome by the warmth of his friendship and the strength of his hope. Forty of us came together from Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth, and spent three days in Perth. We were challenged to respond to the call of Fr. Giussani to live all our lives without the artificial boundaries we so often erect between the different bits of ourselves. This was an experience of wholeness, of unity–Ambrogio’s talks, singing, common prayer, learning the recto tono singing, preparing meals, washing dishes–a unity that is within each person and is for all. Among us, there was no ice to be broken. We knew that we were all there searching for the same thing; we had all heard the same invitation and were responding each in our own way. A special joy was the encounter with Fr. Lele, a young priest from Italy who is now in Taiwan. Through all this, we kept in mind the invitation from the lessons of Fr. Ambrogio, to take up the wisdom of Fr. Julián as he draws on the charism of Fr. Giussani. The proposal of Jesus Christ is one of liberation, of the freedom to be ourselves, to live life with eyes and heart wide open to perceive the presence of the meaning of all things. And the method of this liberation is relationship, communion. One of us said afterwards, “Little by little, I am learning to share–to share everything: food, time, space, and myself.” The more I give, the more I live.
John, Perth, Australia

Skiing
in the Dolomites
We have a Studium Christi group of priests here in Rochester, MN, which began almost ten years ago. The birth of this group of priests happened while praying the Angelus for Fr. Giussani on a mountain in Colorado while skiing, ten years ago. This winter, five of us decided to take the adventure of skiing to the Dolomites. It was a wonderful experience of friendship, beauty, life, and… oh yes, we worked on all the problems of the Church and the world, especially the upcoming election in the USA! While the priests are very faithful to our monthly gatherings for an overnight with a lesson from Fr. Giussani and a couple of meals together, half of the priests do not “belong” to the Movement in a formal way. While I was recently in New York for the National Diaconia, I was sharing this fact with Fr. Carrón, and he was so supportive of trusting that these priests will be drawn closer to the charism in their own time. He thought it was fantastic that we could stay together for so many years, respecting the time table for these priests while not becoming preoccupied with what we may or may not think is essential to their way of belonging. Our companionship is a strength of grace that calls us to stay real about everything and everyone, and we take this seriously.
Fr. Jerry,
Rochester, MN

Free to Be Present
I wanted to write about what has happened to me after the Diaconia. At that meeting in New York, I found ordinary people who really believed that life was the place to find Christ. People came up during the assembly one by one to explain how they discovered their relationship to Christ amidst all the problems of life. They were people who had found their “direct dependence on the Mystery,” as Carrón teaches us. This experience has disarmed me; it has made me unafraid of really being present here in the seminary. The example of those in NY, and the Spirit that I encountered, has made me free to enjoy, or to be present to, all the people who are at the seminary. I am trying to express a new freedom I feel I have. I was surprised to see this happen when I returned. I had no idea that something was changing inside of me, or that I was going to interpret and experience life differently when I returned.
James, Miami

A New Perspective
Here in Canada, poverty isn’t really a prevalent issue, and for suburban kids like me the thought of it is almost totally irrelevant. So when my teacher gave me the opportunity to go downtown and experience something new, I thought: hey, I might as well give it a shot.  Now, here I am writing about how that experience changed the way I perceive the world. This place is a restaurant, except the difference is that it’s not going to be a famous person who’s walking through that door next. The counters are clean, the floor spotless, and there’s a head chef named Sam who has devoted his life to helping people who are less fortunate.
It was my first time ever going down to St. Francis Table; in fact, I had never been to any place like that in my life. It really opened a new window for me, one that affected the outlook of my mindset on life. When you interact with these people you learn that, in all truth, most are completely normal human beings. They made a mistake, and most would give the world to take it back. These people are still people, and although they may have slipped through the cracks in society, that does not mean that they deserve to be degraded to anything less then you or me. My experience really helped me gain a new perspective.  Nobody is ever out of reach of that cold hand of poverty. However, just because someone has fallen the farthest that they can possibly fall does not mean that they cannot be rescued. That is what St. Francis Table represents, a safe-haven for the forgotten on their climb back to middle class. A place where you are served, not saved.
 I can’t really explain how important it is to have people like this in the world–those who give selflessly and ask for nothing in return. They are beacons of hope for those who are lost, and through them you can truly experience the grace of God. These are the people who are truly wealthy, not with riches and prized possessions, but in spirit. Let it be known that there is no rich man or poor man. There is only man.
Matt, Toronto

Profound Joy
Steve, the parent of Carlo, a child affected by Down’s Syndrome, offered these words to his friends, newborn Davide’s parents, about the experience of having a son born with this condition.
I would like to write a few quick things–obviously incomplete thoughts–of what I have understood through the life of Carlo. First, I remember when Carlo was born: people were treating his birth as though it were his death. I was extremely happy and joyful at his birth–he had been entrusted to us. How could I not be happy?  He was, as Fr. Giussani says, “a direct relationship with the Infinite.” Life is an absolute gift! Life in all its strength and fragility! I remember reacting negatively when people said things like, “He will have this problem or he will have that problem or he will be this way or he will be that way...” How non-correspondent! Who am I to say how healthy or how sick a life will be? Can I give myself another instant of life? Can I make myself healthy? Life is pure gift! How can I not but rejoice at the birth of Davide! I remember Giancarlo Cesana told Donatella a month after Carlo’s birth–in response to Donatella’s question, “What am I to do?”– something like, “Love him as he is and he will be who he is.” Is this not the same answer he would have given at the births of Teresina, Francesco, and Gabriella? Your task as parents is to love Davide, that is, to accompany him to his destiny. I can tell you, after five and a half years of Carlo’s life, that if you do, you will be the ones, in fact, who are helped most. For Carlo, his only way of knowing is through affection. He doesn’t put anything between himself and reality; he doesn’t introduce all the “ifs,” “ands” and “buts” that we–the “intelligent” ones–do. So, after more than five years, and all the problems (heart surgery, special shoes, special school, speech therapy, physical therapy...), can I say that I would want Carlo to be different? To be “normal”? I absolutely can respond with a strong, “NO!” I stand in front of Carlo each day in wonder. If, instead, he were like my “idea” of who he should be, I am sure that I would not be able to write to you after five years of life, entailing all its fatigue, with such profound joy! Joy that I experienced at his birth, but which has matured and deepened with the passage of time.
 Again, I entrust Davide to Mary, Our Mother, who with her discreet “YES” makes possible my “yes” to what is asked of me, even when it appears to be against me.
Steve, Maryland