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

Buddies vs.
true friends
Dear Julián: Since the International Assembly, I have been taken over by gratitude. I will try to convey the unprecedented impact that the Assembly had on my life through a couple of remarks. First: I usually consider the solutions to my problems and the elimination or reduction of my limits as the most important things in life. I look for satisfaction in what I do. Yet, when I am at the receiving end of a gaze of true and complete love for my person–a freely given and liberating love–I realize that what counts in life is not what I do, but the possibility to experience that gaze again and again. Problems, limitations, and circumstances become the occasion to verify more and more what is already a certainty. Therefore, filled with curiosity and gladness, I wait to see how the loving presence of the Mystery will encounter my life today. With what enthusiasm I go back to school! With what desire to discover the Presence in my students! Second remark: Recently, I realized that only people who are “at work” can become real friends. You discover you have become friends with somebody, and you can’t do without that person, because you both are working toward something. Otherwise, at best, you can be buddies–sharing habits, superficialities, and a worn out, jaded relationship–one you can easily do without.
Federico (Italy)

That sign
in the subway
Dear Julián: Earlier today, I was in the library at the university, when my dear friend Francesco came to invite me to join him. He was going to the Study Center of Tor Bella Monaca (a disenfranchised neighborhood at the outskirts of Rome) to help some high school students study biology. I passed, discouraged by the long trip necessary to reach the Study Center. One hour later, I felt overwhelmed by all the issues that keep me busy lately, and that bothered me to the point that I picked up my things and left, without saying good-bye to my friends. I walked slowly toward the subway station, not so thrilled at the thought of going home. I felt completely turned off, as if everything had become a great disappointment. When I reached the subway, I instinctively rushed to the platform to take a train home, but I stopped as soon as my eyes fell on the sign indicating the opposite direction: Study Center of Tor Bella Monaca. After a very long trip, I reached my destination, where I spent the rest of the afternoon. I can’t say that I accomplished more than what I would have, had I remained at the university–maybe the opposite is true. Yet, as soon as I arrived there, the reason why going there had been so easy became suddenly clear. In that place, in front of Francesco, Valentina, Veronica, Lorenzo, Jacopo, and the rest of them, I immediately remembered that way to be together that always struck me about the Movement; that way to be friends and correct each other that one can’t find anywhere else, and those faces for which travelling for hours is worthwhile. On our way back, I told Francesco that, after my disappointment earlier in the day, I had found a new starting point–and not because I had found somebody to distract or console me. In order to start anew, one needs to be well aware of being at a standstill, without censoring anything, without cutting out any issue.
Riccardo, Rome (Italy)

Conversion
and gratitude
Dear Julián: I am writing to you spurred by an unusual sense of gratitude, disproportion, and even sadness that I am experiencing in this grace-filled period, after a year-long path of struggle, pain, and, most of all, of fighting the obstinacy of my own ideas. This path is leading me today to the decision of leaving a comfortable and secure desk job at a company filled with CL friends, to accept a new proposal in a context that is very different from the one where I spent the first five years of my career. My current boss, and dear friend, told me not to be afraid, because I am not defined by my job. He was right. Nonetheless, I am struck, and a bit intimidated, by the sense of disproportion that I feel now that I am about to embark on this new adventure. It is as if all my plans and ideas about who I would have become, and what I would have done in the near future, were, if not deleted, at least reshaped by a Presence, by a Father who, discreetly and tenderly, stretches His hand out to His son, to accompany him down a new and unknown path. I am moved when I realize that, despite the defiant and fickle attitude that I have had up to now, I was constantly given a path to follow in this work that requires my “I” to be engaged–one event at a time, one little, trembling “yes” at a time. I am moved when I think that the experience you talk about is exactly the factor that brings about my conversion, as well this sense of disproportion and gratitude. The face of a friend has been the catalyst of this change in me. In front of my desperation for the umpteenth set of circumstances that I viewed as an obstacle to my fulfillment (or to a reduced version of it), she didn’t just bestow upon me an opinion or a good suggestion; she simply challenged me to give the reasons for what I was saying and feeling. This brought out into the open that the ultimate criterion that I used in facing my whole life (my work as well as everything else) was the affirmation of myself, in the attempt to show myself and the world that I was the best at everything I did–otherwise, I would have been nothing. What a surprise it is to discover for real (not just as something I repeat) that I have in me all the tools I need to grasp the truth. And how beautiful is the gaze of a friend who looks at me the way my friend did.
Luca, Cassano Magnago (Italy)

Listening to
the car radio
Dear Father Julián: I am a husband and a father. I grew up within an environment that was very unsympathetic toward the experience of Communion and Liberation. Reading the article by Michele Smargiassi about the Rimini Meeting in La Repubblica [see this issue’s editorial], I recognized in it my own mindset, and my recurrent objections. Then something happened that tore me away from my cynicism. Everything started two years ago, when we learned that our son had autism. During the days following the diagnosis, I found that what I knew, and the answers that I kept repeating, were not enough to face a circumstance like that. My heart became restless and started searching for something that could keep my life together. On a Tuesday in October, as I was listening to the radio in my car, I happened to tune in to Radio Maria. They were broadcasting Father Primo’s commentary on some writings by Father Luigi Giussani. As I listened to those words, I started experiencing an unknown gladness. Later, I had an encounter with men and women who had already been seized by Christ within the Church, in the Movement. Some struck me for the way they look at life, others for their freedom of judgment, and others for how good they were at their jobs. Furthermore, God put on my path a priest of the Movement, who has always been like a blessing to me. When I was still far away and hostile toward CL, he always looked at me with love. At the beginning, I found it hard to accept what was happening, and I tried to fight the circumstances in every way possible. One evening, lost in my thoughts, I stumbled upon something you said during a meeting with the CL priests in 2009: “Either we stay in front of the impact with what happens, or we start from a prejudice.” I understood that was the sign I was waiting for. Surrendering to the circumstance made me free. Another sign came from reading Caterina, the book by the Italian journalist Antonio Socci, about the illness of his daughter. Seeing how he and his wife were facing their sorrow, and reading Andrea Aziani’s story [a Memores Domini who spent his life in Peru on a mission], led me to believe that the charism of Communion and Liberation generates men and women like them. I realized I wanted that for myself too, nothing less. I found myself–my heart brimming with gratitude–waiting for Tuesdays to listen to Father Primo’s “itineraries of faith.” I got into the habit of staying up late at night to “devour” the Exercises’ booklets and the notes of School of Community. Yet, the true sign that something happened is the re-birth of my life. My desire for Him has grown enormously. I go through my days in the hope that He will manifest Himself, and I will be able to recognize Him. I see Him, even from within the great hardship we experience, in the gladness with which I am able to take care of my son every day. I see Him in how moved I am for the destiny of my students, for the pain of my brothers and sisters, and for the difficult path of those families who have been turned upside down by the appearance of disability in their lives. This “being moved” has become the urgent need to share life.
Francesco, Cesena (Italy)

“I am missing nothing”
I have changed since Fr. Carrón’s visit, living the days since with an awareness of belonging to Christ through the people of CL. Like Mary belonged through the Jewish people, I have the same awareness when I look at my friends. I am also more aware that everyone I meet is in relationship with Christ, and I am more tender toward them. When I met Fr. Carrón, I met a truly free man. So I have been asking the help of Mary to have the same experience as Fr. Carrón. I am a convert to Catholicism because of my friendship with Guido and because of the impact CL has had on me. I thought that maybe I have something less than all the friends who grew up close to Giussani or Carrón in Italy. I did not grow up in Italy and this was my first time meeting Fr. Carrón, but when I met him, I realized that we have the same thing. I am missing nothing because I have been given everything.
Nancy, Los Angeles (USA)

The mass, the roommates, and the promise of more to come
Although university is just starting, so much has happened! On my flight to NY I began to feel very afraid and full of doubts. Every day I say “The Prayer For the Heart of the Child” with my friend Monica, so I said it that day to see Him in action. On the first Sunday morning, I was with some people when one girl, Celia, asked me, “What are you going to do with the rest of your day?” l replied, almost without thinking, “Well, I haven’t been to Mass yet so I think I’ll go at 5.” Immediately, she said, “Can I come with you? I’m Catholic but I don’t go to church regularly because my parents are not very religious. I’d like to go because you seem to have a different approach.” Suddenly, another friend, Katherine, asks, “Can I join you as well?” The next day, I met my three roommates and Kelsie, one of my roommates, says, “I saw on Facebook you’re Catholic. I am too, but in the past few years I’ve grown distant from Catholicism because I dislike the moralism I see in my community.” The next Sunday, she went to Mass with me, Katherine, and Celia. The reading was from St. Paul about when to correct others, etc., and I was afraid that she would misunderstand it as the morality that she had encountered so negatively at home. However, in the homily, Fr. Halloran emphasized the need to love the reality of the person’s relationship with Christ, and from that everything changes. Afterwards, she said, “I can’t believe that God chose for you to be my roommate so I could go to Mass with you today and hear that.” I am so amazed that not only would Christ give me those two friends the week before, but now He also puts another friend in my room with me! I am so grateful for this answer to my prayers, and know this is the promise of more to come.
Sophie, New York (USA)

Paternal concern
Dear Father Carrón: The CL community in Colorado was deeply moved by your recent visit to the United States and especially by your visit to Denver. Jonathan was startled again by your sense of urgency for each of our destinies: “I was fully embraced and awakened to my dignity with the way that he looked at me and was with me.” Katie was struck by how you invited her to look at what Christ has done–Baptism–in order to understand what He thinks of her, and so it is about “what He has done, not my performance” that matters most. David was amazed by the sheer fact of your presence among us. What we all became aware of in a deeper way was your truly paternal concern for us, and yet your care for us is in no way “paternalistic”! On the contrary, as you’ve said before, “I’m not here to solve your problems,” but, like Christ, you help us to face life with the correct attitude and with an openness of heart. We saw clearly for ourselves that you are an authority for us, precisely because you help awaken us to the questions posed by life.
Matt McGuiness and the Colorado community (USA)

IN AWE OF MYSELF
My last year of high school has just begun. The summer has given me the possibility to review my journey up to this point, and the conclusions I drew are quite unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, on my first day–torn between the joy of seeing my classmates again, and the presentment of boredom for yet another year that would pass leaving no trace in me–something happened. At last, something happened in the very place where I had asked to be able to be more attentive, more loyal to myself. It happened effortlessly, and I was filled with wonder for my ability to understand the meaning of praying together before our classes, and for the joy and passion that my teachers showed when they talked to us about their subjects; for hearing the same words of the raggio [youth group meeting] again and again, and for the change that I could sense happening in me. I even stood in awe of myself, seeing myself so attentive, so engaged in my daily life and in an environment (my school) that had always been difficult for me to understand. It took four years for this attitude toward reality to become, so to speak, automatic. Maybe I finally surrendered to the power and greatness that I have seen and felt coming to me from Something or Someone infinitely bigger than me, or maybe I was moved by the love that this Someone has for me. The only thing I know for certain is that I have changed; I am able to see and live reality and life with more attentiveness, searching for signs and being surprised in front of them. In fact, the first thing I said when this happened was: “How beautiful!”
Andrea, Buccinasco (Italy)