THE facts answer

He intercepted my life
at the airport, gently
A chance encounter, soon forgotten. Then the invitation to intervene in a conference on a book came, and eventually all the fragments came together.

by John waters

I was at Dublin Airport one evening in May 2005, waiting for a flight to Rome. A man approached me and began to speak about things I had written in my newspaper column, mostly about the relationship between religion and culture.  His name was Mauro Biondi and he was involved with some religious group in Dublin.  He had a gentle likeability that struck me as unusual.
Had I ever heard of Father Giussani? he asked. No? Sometimes, he said, it seems as though you are aware of him. He invited me to come and speak to his group. I gave him my number and forgot all about it.
A few weeks later, he called and we arranged it. On the appointed night, I was nervous because, although I am frequently asked to speak to religious meetings (though not necessarily about religion!), this somehow seemed different.  I sensed that what was required was not a sociological lecture and, without making any plan, I found myself telling the Dublin group of Communion and Liberation my own story: how, though raised a Catholic, I had lapsed as a teenager, but how a battle with the bottle had led me to reconsider the question of God. I was moved by the reception I got, which seemed to comprehend my experiences without judging them.
That night, I was presented with several books by Father Giussani, and a bottle of wine, which I promised not to drink.  I gave the wine to a neighbor and put the books on my shelf, where they looked nice.  
A few months later, Mauro rang me again, asking me to speak at the presentation in Dublin of a book by Father Giussani, The Risk of Education.  He would send a copy around. I read the book and was astonished by it–not primarily because of its “religious” content, but because I recognized that Giussani had unraveled puzzles concerning tradition and freedom that I had been grappling with, in other contexts, for years.  At the presentation of the book, I spoke again in a personal way, and Mauro asked me if I would mind if he sent a report of my contribution to the magazine of his movement.
Then, finally, I was provoked to read The Religious Sense, one of the books I had been given that first night. As I have said many times since then, it was a book that brought together in my mind many fragmented pieces of thoughts about many things that, all my life until then, had refused to become connected.
A few months later, Mauro called again, saying I had been invited to the Rimini Meeting. It was the first I had heard of the Rimini Meeting.
And so it has gone on. In the nicest, gentlest way, these people have come into my life and quietly refused to leave. It is as though they are sent by someone or something.
That evening in Dublin Airport, when I first met Mauro Biondi, Father Giussani had been departed from this dimension for just three months.