Letters

An encounter greater
than one’s plans
I moved to Montreal to attend McGill for college after living in small-town suburban Jersey for the majority of my life. Before coming to Montreal, my senior year in NJ was a mix of emotions. My faith had always been a big part of my life, and I was involved with the Church. However, I lost three friends over the course of the year, and their deaths haunted me, causing me to be shaken from my faith, questioning God for their sudden disappearance from my life. It was hard to remain committed to my Catholic life after moving to a strange city, away from all that was familiar and comfortable. Luckily, a girl down the hall, Francesca, was also Catholic. We started going to church together, and it became a steady constant in my life. She joined the Movement our first year. She kept asking me, begging me, to come to more meetings, but I just put it off. My Christian experience needed a jumpstart, and that invitation from Fran, again and again, was my call to explore my faith in a different manner, and I finally decided to try it. As the weeks passed, I began to grow in friendship with the people I met. School of Community every week was a challenge, sometimes bringing clarity, and other times muddying my thoughts. Despite my confusion at times, I was writing home to my friends about these new people I had met in the Movement, new friends who continually allow me to center my life and push me to judge my experiences… Sometime in early November, I had a conversation with a professor, Christophe, after class, during which I was literally in tears, begging myself to understand this truth that was in front of me. He used such a reasonable, rational method–the method of Giussani. There was a proposal of a truth so real and relevant to my very nature, that I was compelled to explore it further. He explained the need for an encounter with something outside of oneself. I needed to verify Christ’s presence by experiencing it in the real world. To explain the impact that the community has had on my life, I’ll give the example of Ecuador. Before I met the Movement, I had planned to study and work abroad in Ecuador for the entirety of my junior year. In December, when I needed to make a final decision about my plans, this dream that seemed within reach was suddenly slipping away from me. By meeting the Movement, and deciding to stay, I was giving up a dream I had worked toward since high school. My parents and best friends from home were dumbfounded. I asked my family to travel to Montreal for Good Friday and the Way of the Cross. I think, for the first time, they could see something great, something that could only be communicated by “living the experience.” By staying, I get to tackle what I’ve met, confront the challenges, and really work to accept what has been given to me.
Tierney, Montreal (Canada)

From depression to
the fullness of life
This past year has been the worst year of my life. I lost the will to live. I slowly isolated myself. I did not want to put the work into building and maintaining relationships–no returning of people’s calls, text messages, or Facebook posts. I only spoke to people when I absolutely had to. It was just easier that way; no one could disappoint me. The only problem was, after a year of living this way, life was not easier. It was not even slightly better. In fact, it was significantly worse. A life-time “good practicing Catholic” and 13-year veteran of the Movement, I felt it was getting me nowhere. For years, I was promised that “hope does not disappoint,” but I was definitely disappointed. Eventually, I exhausted every last fiber of strength in my being. I went to psychiatrists, psychologists, spiritual directors, etc. Unfortunately, all these things did not seem to be helping.  After a year of avoiding religion, CL, and God, I decided to start going back to School of Community. I wasn’t getting much out of the meetings, but it was there that they suggested I should go to the Young Worker’s Vacation. I felt like the person from the song “Romaria”–since I did not know how to pray anymore, I came just to show my face. Then I heard the theme of this vacation: “Choosing to live; embracing the fullness of life”–and I knew that this vacation was for me, it was for my destiny. Despite my expectations for the promise of the vacation, I wasn’t able to take it seriously. We were given an article to read before an assembly and instead of reading it, I slept. When I got to the assembly, I sat in the back, thinking to myself that I didn’t want to be there and I had given up on happiness. Then I looked down at the article I had neglected and saw these words: “If God gives you this person, it is not to block you there, but to open you more to the Mystery, open you more to that totality for which you were made...” That’s when I knew  that Christ was speaking to me through that article, that assembly, that entire vacation. I was reluctant, but I had questions I had to hear an answer to; so I mustered up the courage to ask. This asking changed my life. I needed to stay with the people that were the face of Christ for me. (I had heard that sentence a thousand times before, but this time it was different!) This time, I realized all that remaining in this companionship entailed. I realized that it means to start being interested in people again. It means to pray that I can care enough about others that I stop thinking about my own misery! I felt overwhelmed with the grace of those with me. It was then that I remembered what it feels like to be truly loved. I realized that if I stayed with this companionship, I could take whatever the world throws at me.
Nicole Habashy, Wichita, (USA)

What I looked for
(and I found) IN HAITI
Dear Fr. Julián: I am a doctor and I spent a month in Haiti with AVSI. What immediately dawned on me was that in the Western World we live a great illusion; we think we are like God and God Himself ends up being useless to us. When I got there, I was very struck by the poverty and filth that people live with–a social context that for us would be unthinkable. I understood that nothing I could do would actually lead to any solution; I felt a kind of impotence, of disproportion and injustice. On top of that, the relationships between people, even those belonging to the Movement, were less than idyllic–the usual difficulties, sometimes accompanied by an extra layer of moralism. Within those circumstances, I initially said, “Lord, I came here to grow in faith, not to lose it,” so I started noticing many things. First of all, I realized that, just like Peter, I was asking: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” (Jn 6:68). That is: “What’s the meaning of all this?” Without Christ, what I saw wouldn’t have had any meaning and that would have been terrible. With Christ, there is a meaning, even if one doesn’t immediately understand it. The psalm for Holy Trinity Sunday was one that Father Giussani used to quote very often: “What is man that You should keep him in mind, mortal man that You care for him?” (Ps 8:4). I was struck because those words applied to those people as well, in all their misery. With this in mind, you can begin to enter into relationship with things, even the ugly ones, maintaining an openness, discovering Beauty within the most horrifying situations.  School of Community becomes something essential, that every day you read and compare with the incomprehensible circumstances in front of you–because you need a different kind of knowledge of what you live and see. I met Sister Marcella and Bebè (Maria) from Lisbon. With the latter I had a very close friendship, and every day we reviewed the events of the day, trying to judge them in the light of School of Community. This process was not something tacked on; in Haiti, you can’t superimpose Christ on reality–it wouldn’t last because reality is too powerful. In that environment, you understand that everything is given, and that everything contains a mysterious component that ultimately doesn’t depend on you–even the capacity to change a tire of the SUV. I felt the value of our companionship both as a fundamental factor in deciding to go to Haiti, and as a support to my life once I was there. I understood that Saint Francis Xavier used to carry his friends’ letters close to his heart because otherwise he could not have kept going. I understood that, through our companionship, Christ becomes contemporaneous to me. I went to Haiti to meet Christ, and He did not miss our appointment.
Chiara, Pavia (Italy)

“Who are You, Christ, who fill us with such a life?”
Dear Father Carròn: The past two months have been marked by two relevant events: my friend Ugo’s illness (he has been diagnosed with ALS), and my friendship with Vicky, a girl I met through the experience with the Grail (a group that proposes the experience of the Movement to junior high school students). A couple of years ago, Vicky left the Church and GS, and started an intense relationship with a guy. After quitting college and losing her job, she called me: “I am pregnant; give me a reason not to have an abortion!” I thought, “They always come to me only when they are in trouble. I bet she wants to take advantage of me just because I am a midwife.” Then what I had heard at the Exercises–things that I had barely started to grasp–won over my fear of being used. As a consequence, I got completely involved with Vicky’s situation and have not left her since. I understood something Fr. Giussani always told us: God cares more for our freedom than for our salvation. Then, when I finally got to the point of telling her that she had to be certain that, whatever her decision, I would stay by her side, I witnessed her re-birth. She made up her mind and is now fourteen weeks into the pregnancy. I introduced Vicky to Ugo, his wife Silvia, and their kids. We spent several evenings together, filled with true gratefulness. Seeing Ugo attending Mass, at the beginning of his illness, was for me like a slap in the face; hearing him voice his desires about life (all very natural) felt like a wound. Three days ago, he told me, “It is incredible to see how, even in the state I am in, I still pretend I am the director of my life, as if I didn’t want to abandon myself to an Other.” He was close to the window, looking at the rain pouring down, and he asked me to open it wide to allow the children to take in the noise of the raindrops and the smell of the earth; we were all in awe, and we all contemplated the beauty of that little fragment of time. Who are You, Christ, who fill us with such abundant life? Yesterday, the hospital chaplain came to look for me; he was carrying the Eucharist for the sick, and asked me: “Do you want Jesus?” Yes, I do. After the blessing, he told me, “Do not silence the question that He often asks you throughout your day: ‘Do you love Me?’ Answer Him: ‘Of course I do.’” I am experiencing life as never before; it bursts out from inside of me. I recall the words of the hymn: “In our nothingness, we only hope in You. In You is life in its fullness.”
Silvia, Italy

the embrace of one
who has rejected life
I am studying to be an ob/gyn, and recently I was an intern in the hospital department where abortions are performed. I would never have imagined that one could reach such a level of de-humanization in front of life; I am talking about the life of the embryo, but mostly about the life of the mother–even those who deny that an embryo is life cannot say the same about the mother. I was discriminated against from the get-go, because I am a conscientious objector.  At the beginning, I was discouraged and I asked myself, “What am I here for?” I talked to a friend of mine, who told me, “Consider it a challenge to your life; do not run from what is in front of you. I am with you.” Every morning, I went to work with those words in my mind, looking for something good. I started getting involved with the women who, especially after coming out of the operating room, cried and pulled at the sleeve of my coat, asking for help for what they had just done. One morning, as I was talking to one of the women, a nurse told me that if I wanted to be a missionary I should have gone to India. In that moment, I understood more clearly that what I was interested in, on the contrary, was to stay right there with those women. The more I faced them and their suffering, or showed them I took seriously those tears of desperation, the more my heart was fulfilled. One day, one of the women asked for my phone number, and told me that she was going to keep the next baby at all costs, and that she wanted me to deliver it.  I then understood that even in that seemingly hellish place there is an immense craving for humanity, and that even a small gesture could be a source of hope and courage. Those women’s drama played a fundamental role in the re-awakening of my desire in front of everything, because they forced me to reaffirm that Christ is the answer to everything.
Benedetta, Bologna (Italy)

There Is Something I Lack
Here is the letter that a young girl wrote to Fr. Aldo, a missionary in Paraguay.
Daddy, you are the best daddy in the world, the best I know. I know that you love me and my brother. I love you too, very much. It is a miracle of God that you met us. If you hadn’t met us, we would never be here. Daddy, I lack something that I can’t name–maybe affection, or my parents’ love–and for this reason I am always sad. Only you can give me that affection; yet, I do not feel happy, and I can’t bear people attacking my brother right and left. I don’t want him to suffer daddy; please help Antonio and I not to be led into temptation. Thank you for your help.
Your daughter, Noemi

“ALONE” WITH CHILDREN OVER A CHALLENGING WEEKEND
I have been inspired by friends in the Movement who remind me that our children are persons, which of course means that I must give them the respect and attention that I would give to any other person, fighting my temptation sometimes to look at them as little creatures to be managed.  In this way and in other ways, I can begin to actually “respond to Christ” and I have been trying, though I think I need to be praying more and to receive a lot of grace, to actually do so! I have been challenged by the colic of my newborn son, but I know that Christ is using this circumstance, as all the others, to draw me closer to Him. In this regard, something exciting happened to me. Recently, my husband spent the weekend at the Fraternity Exercises. It was the first time that I had to put all four of my children to bed without him and I was very nervous about that as well as being alone with the children all weekend. Also, I started out the time alone poorly, on very little sleep and in a bad mood. So, I began praying, and God responded by sending people to me right and left. I had two people come to help me the first day, and two more the next.  And Sunday we went to Mass and saw Kristin and some other friends (we actually had a whole “CL babies section”!). I started the weekend upset and scared and, by the end, I was so happy because I had seen Christ taking care of us all weekend long. I even talked to my children about it on the way to Mass that day because it was the weekend of Pentecost and we were talking about how the Holy Spirit works in our lives.
Yvonne Fernandez, San José,  (USA)

A daughter’s need and that ticket to Rimini
I don't come from a religious family. Just one that is very, very loving and, like most families, has had its difficulties in communication. I have been part of the Movement for a year now, and often, when I read something that moves me, I send it to my mom and explain what I am living that makes the text valuable for me. When I told her I wanted to go to Rimini for the Meeting in August, she offered to pay for the ticket. Then, she offered to pay for the hotel as well. I said that was so nice of her, and thanked her for offering. She wrote back, saying: "It’s not that I'm nice; it's that I like what they bring about in you and I've also grown. Before, I thought you needed things, so I bought you all this stuff. Now, I see you need this, so I support you in what you want and not in what I erroneously thought you did."
Gienni Tchinnosian, Washington, DC (USA)

the passion of Joan of Arc comes to LA
TJ is a 26-year-old man belonging to the Los Angeles community, who works for a movie production company. After returning from the New York Encounter cultural event last January, he mentioned to a friend of his, a composer, that he had attended the showing of The Passion of Joan of Arc, and asked him to try to compose a score for it. His friend accepted the challenge, and wrote a modern music film score. We went to see/listen to their production. It happened downtown, in the business district, as part of the “Grand Performance” series, which regularly hosts cultural events. I was very struck by both the movie and the ensuing discussion. Answering the audience’s questions, the composer very explicitly said that his music was born of looking at Joan, and at how her life had been a provocation for his own faith. I guess you can imagine the audience’s reactions: some said that Joan of Arc was the symbol of the fight against power; for others she was the champion of a new sexual identity; many were the references to the gay world or to the link between Church and power… In the midst of all this, the composer said that his work was generated by his Catholic faith, and Guido joined the discussion and thanked him for showing the true nature of Christianity: not a set of rules, but the dialogue between the “I” and the Mystery.
Cristina, Los Angeles (USA)