life of cl

“…So That Christ Can Be Known”
Carmen, Dado, Lorenza… The stories of three young people who, through their friendship with the founder of CL, discovered the meaning of mission

by Paola Bergamini

madrid
Fullness of affection
Gudo Gambaredo (the flatlands just south of Milan), 1985: Carmen is in the laundry room of the Memores Domini house. Fr. Giussani enters the room. “I was looking for you. Would you be interested in accompanying a group of students on a pilgrimage to Santiago? A few of our Spanish friends will be there as well.” Carmen finishes folding the shirt she is holding and says, “All right.” She is 25, has been living in the house in Gudo for three years, and, before that… Carmen recounts: “Before that, I had my fundamental years in CLU, when, while studying Sport Sciences and Physical Education at Catholic University, I spent my days with my friends and with Fr. Giussani. My whole existence was decided, and my vocation matured there, during those meetings. I was 20 when I first spoke to Fr. Giussani about the vocation to which God was calling me. He started laughing and, told me: ‘God has some imagination! Among all of your friends, He picked you.’” After the pilgrimage, Carmen kept going back to Spain every summer. Finally, in 1987, one of the leaders of the Memores Domini asked her if she would consider moving to Madrid, to open the first Memores Domini women’s house there. She thought about it for a minute and answered, “No, I think it is better to wait.” She repeated it to Fr. Giussani: “In order to leave, I want my affection for the people God gave me to be forever. That’s the sign that you can leave them. There is still something in me that needs to mature.” Giussani agreed, but the following year he made the same proposal to her. She accepted. She explains: “I was free to leave, because there was nothing missing in my relationship with him and with the people of my house. There was a fullness of affection. There was no difference between my love for Christ and my love for him and for the people of my house. I wasn’t leaving because I was young and ready for adventure. No! You can go on mission when there is nothing you lack, when you would stay with the people of your house for the rest of your life, that is to say, when the affection that is born is able to support your life.”

Lola’s birthday. On September 14, 1988, Carmen loads the trunk of her car with suitcases and a few necessary items and leaves, accompanied by a friend. “I wanted to get to Madrid by the 15th, for Lola’s birthday. She was the first Spanish Memores Domini girl. ” Giussani called her often, very often. He asked her specific questions: “What do you need? How is your Spanish? What did you do last night?” “He was full of attention, because he understood that for a 30-year-old girl, affection for Christ depends on signs.” Before her departure, he had told her: “For those who, like us, love each other for Christ, the only meaning of the sacrifice of being apart is so that Christ can be known–that is, so that others can feel loved as we feel loved. I wouldn’t let you leave otherwise. It’s something else. The missionaries, knowing that they might not come back, would often send photographs picturing themselves dressed, for example, like Chinese people, if they were in China. They would go on mission to become one with those people. It’s the same for you. You are going to Spain to become more Spanish than the Spaniards. Christ is more man than me, more Italian than me.” A few years later, he laughingly told her, “In the Scriptures, it is written that God was able to use even the ass of Balaam. This means that God is the Master, that Grace is inconceivable; it uses people to build its mysterious design. You went on that pilgrimage, and now you are in Spain for His design. You see? God’s imagination is greater than all of our reckoning.”

Full-immersion Spanish. During the first month, Carmen attends Spanish class for eight hours a day.  “I never felt like an Italian in a foreign country. Giussani kept calling me, because he wanted to understand.  He wasn’t concerned about my limitations and mistakes. He was certain that Christ would build His very mysterious work through people with a name, a history, a temperament, and that these people needed to be followed, taken care of. This is the criteria that he used with me.” Now, though, Fr. Giussani is not around anymore. “I never felt nostalgic, nor did I say, ‘I miss him.’ Giussani is here. He is a presence. He is here in his texts. His charism is here in so many travel companions. I can see him when, for example, a friend has a moment of intellectual brilliance, or in a specific feature in the humanity of another friend. The relationship with him is forever; while remaining distinct, it becomes one with Christ present. Jesus communicates Himself through a fullness of affection. One doesn’t have to be afraid to be bound to those who are a reflection of this unmistakable humanity. I learned from Giussani that we shouldn’t criticize anybody, because, quoting Péguy, ‘…it is easier, God says, to ruin than to build; And to let die than to allow birth; And to give death than to give life.’  On the contrary, those who love look for the signs of His presence, which builds using our nothingness.”

SIENA
“Everything will spring forth from your unity”
In Riccione in 1976, at the Assembly of the CLU responsibles (also called the Equipe), Father Giussani states, “A presence is original when it springs forth from the awareness of one’s identity, and from one’s affection for it, and when it finds its consistency in this awareness” (Luigi Giussani, Dall’Utopia alla presenza, [From Utopia to Presence] Bur, 2006). This Equipe is a change of direction: in opposition to the utopian temptation that had generated a sort of weariness, it affirms that only a Presence counts. Even if they are not completely aware of it, it is also a turning point for Dado Peluso, a third-year Literature student at Milan’s Catholic University, and for Lorenza Violini, a second-year Law student at Milan State University. At the beginning of September, they barely know each other, but by the end of the month they will find themselves living this Presence in Siena for the next couple of years, along with Andrea and Ornella, sent on mission by Fr. Giussani. Why Siena? We have to go back in time a little, to the facts leading up to it.

Siena or Friuli. In the city of St. Catherine, the Olivetan Father Teodoro Maria Capra can think of one thing only: how to attract young people to Christ. In 1975, he reads in the news about some violent attacks on CL students. He is struck by it, and writes in his diary: “Sacred Heart of Jesus, I entrust to you Communion and Liberation, which up to now I was a little skeptical about. Today, oh Jesus, You have dispelled my doubts. If You desire it, help me find a way to make them present in this parish, which now more than ever I put in Your hands.” Fr. Capra starts looking for Fr. Giussani. He meets him in Milan, and asks him to send a few of his kids to Siena to be a presence there. He wants them to be people from Milan, which means people who are constantly in touch with Fr. Giussani. Throughout the course of a year, a few university students, including Andrea Aziani (see Traces, Vol. 10, No. 8 [September] 2008), start going to Fr Capra. It is at this point that we find the stories of Dado and Lorenza. Dado narrates: “At a wedding in June, Onorato Grassi, who at the time was the CLU responsible, asked me if I was willing to continue my studies in Siena. I told him I needed to think about it. In the summer of the same year, I went to Friuli, where in spring there had been an earthquake, to work as a volunteer with Fr. Fernando Tagliabue.  At the end of August, he asked me if I wanted to remain there to open an education center. I went back to Milan and then to the Equipe in Riccione. The day after, while I was with Fr. Giussani, I told him about the choices I had: Friuli or Siena. I told him that Siena meant I would be able to stay on track with my exams, and that my friend Andrea had recently moved there for good. I remember that he did not tell me what I should chose, but he accompanied me in my decision. He looked with benevolence at me and Andrea. In October, I left for Siena.”

On the train to Riccione. Lorenza recounts: “Everything started from Riccione for me too, even on a practical level. I was on a train to go to the Equipe in Riccione, when my friend Ornella told me: ‘I’m going to Siena to finish college. Do you want to come with me?’ I thought: why not? At that time, Milan State University was always in turmoil; I no longer had a boyfriend… Then I heard Fr. Giussani’s words. During those three days, I understood that if I didn’t have to be preoccupied with building anything, but only with living the presence, then there was a place for me, too. I went back home and I asked my parents for their opinion. My mother said, ‘As long as you graduate in three years.’ My decision gave me the possibility to meet Fr. Giussani. The memory of that encounter is like a still-frame in my mind.  He let me talk, and then he started asking questions: ‘What do your parents think about it? What about your studies? Will you be able to transfer the credits?’ Like a father, he was totally concerned about the adequacy of the actual living situation. At the end, he said, ‘The most important thing is the unity among you. If something is bound to be born, it will spring forth from your unity.’ He didn’t have any plan. He did not come up with ‘religious’ comments. His approval of my departure was simply and thoroughly on a human level.” Lorenza left on October 22nd.
Unity and presence were the words planted in the hearts of Andrea, Lorenza, Dado, and Ornella. They met everybody, and every circumstance was the occasion to communicate “the affection for that original presence” that had changed their lives. Dado explains: “The entire city, with its history, and its saints, was our horizon.” Their friendship with Fr. Giussani was uninterrupted: he called them, he wrote to them, he wanted to see them every time they were in Milan. Lorenza recounts: “We lived our relationship with him through what had emerged in Riccione. Fr. Giussani was the center of our companionship, along with Andrea, who led our unity, starting in the morning when we had Morning Prayer. I remember I used to get to church in a hurry, maybe lost in my thoughts. He would be sitting there, and as soon as he saw me, he would get up and start praying. This is how we have been educated to follow Fr. Giussani: by someone who waited for us and would get up when we arrived. It was a decisive adventure for our lives.”
Down to the details. Lorenza had problems with her boyfriend, so Andrea suggested she write to Father Giussani, who wrote back: “Dearest Lorenza, I am very grateful for the gesture of friendship of your letter. It is a serious issue–I don’t want to underestimate it–but to me it looks like a trial as well. Fulfillment comes through the task that God gives us. You have to follow the sign that got you started. Patiently but firmly, without a violent claim on ourselves, ask the Lord to be able to embrace the companionship that He gave you, because, in freedom, He would let you see if it wasn’t truly His will. Remember–I know you know it–that sacrifice will accompany us anyway; we just need to accept it freely. Let me know when you will be in Milan, because I want to take some time to talk and explain my thoughts on the matter. In the meantime, be at peace, because the effort of verification or of constancy will not rob you of anything that is right for you; you are free! I embrace you.”

Adult vocation. Lorenza comments: “Thinking of Fr. Giussani, those were the years when my adult vocation matured. The relationship with them, with Giussani, and with Jesus, gave roots to the certainty that, later, allowed me to face existence in its many details.” For her this meant–once she graduated college–leaving Siena, and then… “…accepting the proposal to move to Germany to study and continue in that missionary adventure. Later there was marriage, kids, work, and the death last summer of my husband Alberto, one of the people who had accompanied Andrea in 1976 on his first trips to Siena. All this on account of that merciful Presence Who, as a sign of His preference, called Andrea and Alberto together, on the same day, to His house.” It’s the same for Dado, who remained in Siena after graduating, until he fell ill and had to return to Milan. He then moved to Lima with Andrea, to the first Memores Domini house in Peru. He says, “On that occasion, Fr. Giussani told me again to take unity to heart. One thing is clear to me: vocation and mission are an event–not an effort–within a presence that is given. It is that same presence that I live with my students now, after thirty years, in the high school where I teach, on the outskirts of Milan.”