Letters
Edited by Paola Bergamini. E-mail: pberga@tracce.it

following GS
on the Prairie
On Saturday, I went to South Dakota, near Sioux Falls, to see a girl named Briege, who had come with us for the short GS [Student Youth] February vacation, for the first time. Struck by reading Is It Possible to Live This Way?, her mother decided to bring her along for the vacation. After that, I called her before Easter, and we spoke of everything that had interested her, of the Gospel (she comes from a strong Catholic family), and of the songs she couldn’t remember well. So I told her I would go to see her as soon I got time off from work (it takes four hours one way to get to her home). Once I got there, she had  invited her far-spread neighbors from her homeschooling network  to School of Community every Thursday, and now she meets with about six friends. On Saturday, I met one of them, who presented herself as “Susan from GS” (even though perhaps she doesn’t know what words “GS” stands for yet). When I had to leave, Breige burst into tears because she cannot convince her friends to come to the summer vacation. She told me, “How can they follow me, if I have no one to follow?” This reminded me of what Carrón had said, that the encounter with Christ has reawakened in us what was already given in Baptism, and so we lack nothing we need to live (imagine, if I was the one to bring about all that happened during those few February vacation days!). I understood that Briege can follow me only if I follow her, if I follow what the Spirit is bringing about in her and through her and through others. After all, I had gone there for no other reason but obedience to what is happening in her. I told her I would come back, God willing, next Thursday, for the School of Community, always attentive to the miracles that the Spirit is bringing about.
Sebastian, Rochester, USA

that every two
weeks appointment
Dear Father Carrón: Every two weeks, together with some friends of the Solidarity Bank, I bring a few bags of groceries to a needy family. The father has been out of work for some time; the mother takes care of their six children, two of whom are seriously ill, and a third (their oldest) is a deaf-mute and has psychological problems. At the beginning, I started visiting them, thinking I could solve their problems, on account of a sense of superiority towards them. As time went by, seeing nothing was changing for the better and that their difficulties were indeed increasing, I was overcome by dejection. I felt that what I was doing was useless, and I said to myself, “What’s the use of bringing groceries every two weeks to people who will run out of food in one week; who are about to have their power turned off; who don’t have enough money to buy their kids’ schoolbooks or clothes; and who, worst of all, are ashamed to even meet with us (as is the father)? That appointment had become a burden for me. But then, we had an exceptional encounter: Lucia joined us in this act of charity. Looking at her and at her ability to stay in front of them and their needs, I understood that the first need is the fulfillment of the heart’s desire–their desire as well as Lucia’s, as well as mine. I also understood that I can’t bring about this fulfillment, but I can accompany those I meet and I can ask Him (who gave us this heart) to fulfill them. Their material needs have not been forgotten; they have been embraced. I learned to recognize that the Mystery allows me to encounter Him through those faces, those people, and this makes us able to live and share any limitation. On one of our visits, we found the mother overcome with desperation. Her oldest daughter was driving her crazy: she slept on the floor, overwhelmed her with preposterous discourses, and, driven by despair at the thought of not being able to celebrate her birthday, cut her arm with a razorblade. Alberto and I agreed that we could not pretend that nothing had happened. With the mother’s consent, we then took the daughter out for a walk, stopped at a pastry shop, and bought a cake and three candles. The girl held on to our arms for the duration of the walk, with unspeakable tenderness. That simple gesture struck her mother and, from that day on, when we asked how she was doing, she would always say, “I’m doing fine!” Now the exceptional events are countless: I found myself with a greater love for my wife and my kids; I engage in acts of charity that were inconceivable before; I love more the companionship that the Lord has given me; and I am able to recognize the Mystery at work in my daily life, particularly in this family I bring groceries to. We were able to help the father find a job, which raised his self-esteem so that he is no longer ashamed to meet us. The family welcomed their runaway pregnant daughter back into the house, and they are helping her with the pregnancy. They have learned to entrust themselves to God through the difficult circumstances that they still have to face.
Danilo, Milan (Italy)

School of Community
at the drycleaner’s
Dear Father Julián: I am a working mother of four who tries to face reality. I take care of the usual chores, I take my kids to school, I go to work, I go to the pool (if I can),  I go grocery shopping, and I correct my kids’ homework. I also go to the drycleaner’s, and since Anna, the owner, is very personable, we have become friends. One day in February 2008, I went to the drycleaner’s and Anna asked me, “How can I find some peace?” I tried to think back on my whole life in the attempt to answer her question, and then I told her, “Peace is not the result of an effort on our part; you can’t just flex your muscles to get some. Peace is a gift from God; you need to ask for it. If you want, we can start reading a book on faith that will help us.”  She agreed. The following day, I went to the office and, as I was making copies of the first part of Is It Possible to Live This Way?, my colleague Rachele asked me what I was doing. I told her about it. At the end, she asked me, “What about me?” I then made two copies of the book. Later, I ran to see Father Fabio, who always helps me when something I don’t understand happens. He told me to lead those School of Community meetings, and not to worry because the Holy Spirit would help me. Since February 14, 2008, once a week I have been reading Father Giussani’s book at the drycleaner’s and I have been doing School of Community with Rachele during lunch break. Several people joined the drycleaner group: Rosetta the bartender, Mariuccia who lives in the building, sometimes Elisa the tailor and, in September, Angela. Angela came from Palermo for a follow-up at San Raffaele Hospital in July 2008. The doctors found that she had metastatic cancer and gave her two months to live. She has a great faith; she is not discouraged and she wants to be cured. She is in her ninth cycle of chemotherapy and she said, “You see, Elena, I have a will to live that is not mine.” I replied,  “Angela, write something about this for me, because it is the same matter as Eluana’s [concerning the value of life].” In one go, Angela wrote nine moving pages and added that her cousin had been asking her to write for months but she couldn’t do it, while that small request from me was enough for her pen to fill nine pages of her notebook. After reading the letter for the first time at my house, on her way out Angela read the Christmas poster on my door. She repeated this part of Benedict XVI’s quote: “Naturally, the humility of reason is always needed in order to accept it. It takes man’s humility to respond to God’s humility,” and she joyfully told me that she is simply bearing witness to this.
Elena, Segrate (Italy)

giving a name to
what is happening
In the past few months, I have had to deal with my son’s pain, which has suddenly and disturbingly come back. When everything seemed to have taken a turn for the better, our family found itself facing a problem so big that–while we knew that it was our responsibility–my husband and I felt, and still feel, impotent and unprepared. We were filled with questions and anxiety for the present as well as the future: what was happening to our son? How could we help him, take care of him? What was this all about? Why was this happening to him and to us? At the same time, surprising things happened to me at work. As we were animatedly discussing a certain situation, my colleague said to me: “You are the only person I have ever met in my life [she is an atheist and an extreme leftist] who has been able to spark my curiosity about an experience of faith, as if you had opened a wound that does not heal. This intrigues me, and at the same time doesn’t leave me at peace. I thought I was done with this stuff for good.”  During a rather difficult meeting with the captain of the police headquarters, as we were discussing a very serious matter and the captain kept trying to make things difficult for me, my superior intervened and told him, “Look, my colleague here is in CL,” as if to say: “She is trustworthy; you should believe her.” (You can imagine my surprise upon hearing my superior, who is a leftist militant through and through, using our experience to give credibility and reasonableness to what we were discussing!) Last but not least, I want to talk about the experience with the middle school study group. Filled with wonder, I look at these enthusiastic kids who, in increasingly larger numbers, come faithfully to attend this simple gesture of help. I realize that standing in front of them and the expectations they have of us forces me to ask myself the reason for what I am doing, what it is that they are looking at, and what it is that I am looking at. It is beautiful to go back home and, seeing my kids again, be able to regain a merciful gaze on them and ask for their conversion and mine, instead of regretting that they are not how I would like them to be. What happened didn’t come naturally or immediately, but as a result of my surrendering to the presence of the faces of friends who were able to look at my son, at me, and at what was happening in a way that was beyond me. The newness was in my wonder in front of something real that was challenging me, that was challenging everything in me (my pride, my presumptuousness, my motherhood, and the way I work) and forced me to give a name to what was happening: Christ. Little by little, I found myself growing more certain that what was happening, and still is happening, whether painful or beautiful, was all for me and not against me. Starting to believe with certainty that, indeed, it is the Mystery itself that all these circumstances come from doesn’t take away the struggle, the pain, and my desire for this cross to pass from me, or at least from my son, but allows me to look and follow the path that Christ is indicating for the fulfillment of my good destiny.
Lucia, Italy

Traces in the Waiting Room
I am a doctor, and for the past few years, in addition to selling Traces at my parish, I started leaving a few copies of the magazine in my office waiting room. During their long waits, my patients read it intently and sometimes someone will ask me if they can take a copy home because “there is an interesting article.” Last week, a patient asked my secretary how to get a subscription, since the newspaper vendor had not been able to give him any information on the subject. I gave him a copy of the most recent issue so that he could retrieve the data he needed. I want to thank all those who work on the magazine for giving us the possibility to use such an important and increasingly beautiful tool to make our experience known.
Elisabetta, Seveso (Italy)

The prayers of eight nuns
Dearest Father Julián: The kindergarten that the youngest of my five children attends is run by nuns belonging to the order of the Canossian Sisters, who, with tenacity and passion, keep betting on Christian education as the possibility to make man more human. Through the years, a mutual esteem and affection has blossomed, particularly with the Mother Superior, which has allowed me to propose the richness of the experience of the Movement several times. Two of the things that are dearest to me are the Christmas and Easter posters. Since the time we gave them  a poster as a gift, the sisters have been faithfully asking for them well in advance and they have been hanging them at the school entrance. During Lent, the Mother Superior asked me for a text for her and the other nuns of the convent to meditate upon during the Way of the Cross that would take place in the kindergarten chapel. I happened to have in my purse Father Giussani’s booklet He Alone Is, and I lent it to her. To my great surprise, after a first reading, the Mother Superior said, “There is nothing more moving than the passion of this man who, for the love of Jesus, shares his life and his sufferings.” She then asked me for extra copies of the book for the other sisters. My husband and I decided to give them the booklets as a gift along with a card where we recounted how we had been educated by Father Giussani to make prayer the outpost of our daily asking, together with our children. From that day forward, every Friday of Lent and beyond, eight nuns started praying for Father Giussani, for Communion and Liberation,  so that (as one of the nuns told me while thanking me for the gift) the world will never run out of faith. Again this morning, climbing the steps of the vestibule and lifting my eyes to the poster where Christ the Redeemer embraces every mom passing by with her child, I thanked Father Giussani because through him every day eight nuns pray for our faith to be more certain.
Monica, Cassano Magnago (Italy)

What Does Charity Have to Do with Work?
Since I have become a manager, I have gotten into the habit of beginning my workday by reading the Act of Charity. I hope to always have this charity toward my collaborators and clients. I am convinced that the “higher” your position, the more responsible you are toward others, and with that comes a greater risk in doing or saying something wrong–we are all human, after all. I have never told anybody this, for fear of being misunderstood: What does charity have to do with work? What does God have to do with it? It does have something to do with it inasmuch as we give our work that freedom and dignity that it should have, and we get rid of that selfishness and injustice that make us work just for the sake of working.
Antonella, Todi (Italy)

A different humanity among circumstances
A week ago, I took a school trip to Berlin. Just before leaving, a sentence that my GS responsible always repeats popped into my mind: “When I know to whom I belong, I can go anywhere.” Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to spending time with my schoolmates, who, for the past year and a half, have shunned me because of my belonging to Communion and Liberation. On the other hand, I had just gotten back from a trip to Argentina where I met the community of Buenos Aires, and being with those simple, curious, open, and refreshing people, who know how to enjoy life to the fullest, I had become more certain about God as a Presence embracing all of life. I found my strength in my certainty that God would not abandon me when I was most in need. I left for Berlin with this faith and certainty. I felt immediately free to be myself with my schoolmates–when we played poker, when we went out for a drink or to dance…They started to get to know me and kept telling me I was cool, and already on the second day of our trip they were seeking me out because they wanted to hang around with me. They told me: “Thank God you are here! Even when we all are tired, you are always joyful!” Or: “Elisa! This is what we were missing: you, exuding happiness!” Many of them came up to me with challenges and questions about my opinion on the Pope and the Church, and I gave simple and concrete answers. My classmates told me they were surprised by my being a Christian even when not in a “Church environment,” and by the fact that I truly believed what I was telling them. Every night, my roommates asked to pray with me. They had not prayed in a long time, and they did not remember any prayers, so they would listen to me and say “amen” at the end. Last year, when I was excluded and left in a corner, I did not understand the meaning of my being there. I only felt good in GS, so I would gather strength from Morning Prayer or from spending recess with my friends, and then I would get into my classroom and try to hang in there. I now feel at home in my class as well as in GS and I can’t help staying with my classmates–they need me and I greatly need them because they bear witness to the presence of Christ in my life.
Elisa, Milan (Italy)