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

the unexpected
at the world bank
Dear Fr. Carrón: I wanted to share what happened to me and my friends on the occasion of the visit of Father Aldo Trento in Washington, DC, last month. In his own words: “The only expected thing was the unexpected.” Some time ago, when I learned that he would visit DC, I immediately thought we should invite him to speak at the World Bank. I knew it was a long-shot, because the guest speakers typically invited at our seminars are economists, ministers of finance, or other specialists who deal with our projects. Yet, after talking to my friends, a few of us (four fearless women!) decided that at least we had to try. So we started networking with our colleagues at the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to assess the level of interest. To our amazement, various colleagues, even very senior ones, were impressed with our simple witness on the work of the San Rafael Foundation and asked to meet with Fr. Aldo. In particular, one colleague told us that his unit was actually studying “community-driven development” and proposed to sponsor a public workshop to present the “case” of the San Rafael Foundation. I was especially grateful for this opportunity because I am convinced that, when it comes to promoting human development, the Church truly is Mater et Magistra and can offer valid cultural input expressed in the principles of the Catholic Social Doctrine–the subsidiary role of state and official development aid, the inescapable individual responsibility for one’s own development, and the necessary ownership of recipient countries. Furthermore, I had been noticing that these same ideas, pioneered by the Jesuits’ remarkable experience of the Reducciones then rediscovered by the works of Fr. Aldo in Paraguay, are also increasingly discussed in the “secular” development debate and even enter into some World Bank activity. In short, it almost seemed too good to be true that we had such a great opportunity. Until two days before this very public event, we were told that it was canceled. The reason? An accusation of homophobia raised by an association of gay staff, according to which Fr. Aldo’s vocal adherence to the Church teaching on homosexual acts was deemed incompatible with the World Bank’s policy on inclusion and diversity! I confess that for a couple of days I felt furious at this blatant injustice and also frustrated, for it nullified all our organizational work. Then, as soon as Fr. Aldo arrived, he actually helped me understand these facts by saying that he did not care to meet with the masses, because people only change in the embrace with another and this only happens in a one-to-one encounter. This judgment, Fr. Aldo’s gaze full of tenderness (“I’m here to meet with you!”), and the friendship with Andrea, his tireless collaborator, gave me peace and allowed me to just enjoy all the miracles of those three days packed with witnesses and meetings both inside and outside the World Bank. I have been thinking a lot about this fundamental point of preference that, paradoxically, does not limit, but rather boosts human dynamism (another intuition of Fr. Giussani’s genius!). We never completely trust this and yet it is always the starting point. I also understood why Fr. Aldo hardly mentions the incredible achievements of the San Rafael Foundation (being an economist, I tend to think in terms of inputs, outputs, and results). Instead, he constantly goes back to those key encounters of his life that, starting from the one with Fr. Giussani, generated everything. I am grateful for his witness because now I can see he is right! In fact, when I think of my own job, I realize that there is always one instant that sparks a genuine trust and dialogue with my counterpart (a colleague, client, or employee) and it’s there when a project invariably starts to move and my work to bear fruit. These abundant gifts of “preference” are the best part and the most unexpected of the last couple of months. I think of a colleague Jaime, now also a friend, who was so moved by the work of Fr. Aldo that he said, “This project deserves special attention because it touches the heart.” He then mentioned it to his friend and colleague Pedro, a native of Paraguay, who called Fr. Aldo “a hero” and told his wife who, in turn, invited Fr. Aldo to the IDB where she works. I would say even here, in the capital of the so-called “free world,” for a moment I felt overwhelmed by the dominant relativism that we live in and yet what prevails in me is immense gratitude and joy because you can always re-start from one unexpected “preference” that moves.
Luisa, Washington, DC (USA)

A life that becomes
happier in a difficult year
Dear Fr. Carrón: Last year, my second year of university, was one of the most difficult years of my life. I became ill, which meant that my life began to revolve around doctor appointments, drug transitions, and awful side effects. I felt inhuman, like I’d becomed a series of symptoms. This summer, my friends and I had the opportunity to participate in World Youth Day and the Rimini Meeting. It was extraordinary to come from the point of feeling totally limited, to being totally embraced in an impossible way by strangers who did not speak my language. I saw the conversion of our hearts, and became so moved in front of the new way in which my friends looked at me, and I at them. For the first time in a year, I felt my whole self (struggles and all) being engaged. The beginning of this year meant so many new friends coming to CLU, a new companionship with the GS kids, and (inevitably) more doctor appointments. I went back thinking that because I was happier, because life with these friends has become so much more beautiful, I would be better. In fact, things were worse. At first, I felt so abandoned, as if in one moment of diagnosis, all the conversion was erased. But again, He didn’t leave me alone. My sister embraced me and said, “ This is the opportunity to live your present reality intensely because you cannot look beyond it. You know now that you do not make yourself. You are given.” Who speaks like this?! On Sunday, we had our Beginning Day. I felt so loved. In you, my sister, my friends here, and the friends I made this summer, I can tangibly see that I am loved because of a love that you all have for He who makes me.
Gaby Silano, Toronto (Canada)

That embrace in the
hospital cafeteria
My experience with depression has been very difficult and painful; it even led me to consider interrupting my pregnancy. The hardship of my situation had totally blinded me and left me with no certainty, so much so that my only goal was to restore my wellbeing as soon as possible, sacrificing my daughter’s life. I was groping around in the dark; I, a Catholic, was thinking that having the abortion would cure me–a very heart-wrenching and burdensome thought. The doctors were telling me that terminating my pregnancy would speed up the healing process, because they would be able to administer more drugs without worrying about the fetus. Dealing with the doctors pressuring me to make a decision became difficult. Yet, inside of me there was a struggle between that thought and my heart telling me to carry on with the pregnancy, because my baby wasn’t responsible for what I was going through. She wasn’t the problem; my depression was. My days at the hospital seemed endless, yet, slowly, with the support of my husband and my friends, I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. My friends, who loved me and my baby, kept telling me to hang in there, to keep fighting, and to pray. With every new day my awareness of not being alone grew stronger. One day, during a particularly difficult moment, Alberto, Gabriele, Father Pierpaolo, and my husband embraced me in the hospital’s cafeteria, and made me understand that I had finally found a rock-steady place that I could cling to; a place where I could take my fears as well as my desires. Only now I realize that the Lord was coming to visit me every day at the hospital through my husband and my friends. I experienced the paradox of freedom, choosing to follow Christ–the only true answer to my heart’s desire. I learned that if I entrust myself to Him, I can endure anything. My daughter was born a month ago, and a new light entered our family.
Valentina, Imola (Italy)

On the streets
of Bangkok
Dear Father Julián: Once again, I am in Bangkok for work, and I have found all the familiar places and the lab where I have worked in the past. I also re-encountered the person who invited me in the first place, but, instead of the usual business suit, he was wearing an orange tunic. For the past year, he has attended the local Buddhist monastery and has become a monk. To make a long story short... he wanted to show me what he was doing, and he invited me to go with him. We met outside my hotel at 6:30 am. He had two bags–one with food, and the other with about 50 small boxes with images of Buddha. I started following him as he was making his way through the typical chaos of the city. He didn’t ask for anything, he didn’t greet people, and he didn’t nod. He just walked, and every now and then somebody, after greeting him by joining their hands on their foreheads, gave him a few nylon pouches with food inside. Then they proceeded to kneel in front of him, took off their shoes, and listened to the prayer that my old manager friend recited with a certain solemnity. After that, I would hand out one of the boxes that are given to the people who receive the blessing. We did this for a couple of hours. Then he took me to the poor people’s hospital, to the section where all the old monks were. Since they had never had paying jobs, they were very poor, and they depended on the help of others. I started distributing three or four food pouches to each monk. Those who could, greeted me the Thai way (with a gesture showing profound respect, one that is not easily granted...). After I finished distributing the food, the younger among the monks intoned a song, and the whole group joined in. It was their blessing for me. They asked me if I was a Christian, not because I had the unmistakable features of one who encountered Christ, but simply because I looked European. I never felt ill at ease. I witnessed the identical scene 30 or 40 times: the same bow, the same blessing, and my little box. It was a generous and simple religiosity that revealed a need–one can call it God, or Buddha, or Coca-Cola, but is the same need we all share. I wonder whether, for those I encountered, the Mystery they invoked happened. This is the heart of the matter for me, too. It’s easy to sympathize with the religious sense of these people; the difference doesn’t lie in saying that I have encountered Christ, but in whether or not Christ happens, as He happened this morning in a mysterious and real way–as an all-encompassing irresistible attraction for my attention and my heart.
Marco, Bangkok (Thailand)

Biking home after the raggiomeeting
Dearest Father Julián: Today, as every Thursday, I had the raggio meeting with my GS youth group students. Veronica spoke about studying at the GS center, and of how she understood that by being together in the name of Christ we can experience the beauty of the Christian companionship. Sergiu, a Romanian, said that the community life that we live is so beautiful that it does not matter if we get together for a meeting or hike; he always shows up at every GS proposal. I was moved by these remarks. They were a confirmation of what you have always told us, that is, that God is at work among us and that we have to trust Him, and that no Chernobyl will be able to vanquish the attraction that man’s heart feels toward Jesus. I am 59 years old but, biking home after the raggio, I felt giddy and full of gratitude because God allows me to live the peak years of my professional life with the desire to communicate Him to the whole world.
Antonio, Italy

A birthday to break free from the routine
Dear Father Carrón: Today, on my birthday, I felt moved for the first time at the thought that Somebody willed me into existence, and that I have been loved for the past 30 years. This morning, as I was taking my girls to kindergarten, I stopped to look at the sea. It was a little gray, and its vastness awoke my infinite and unquenched desire, together with the gratitude for everything I have, and all the friends who remembered me on my birthday. Many are the things that move me and fill me with thankfulness–like the flowers from my husband, or the cake my mother made for me... It’s beautiful to be able to stop for a moment and break free from the routine and the tendency to take everything for granted, and look at myself for what I am–with both my limitations and my merits–and feel loved, wanted. I felt put on the spot by the lesson you gave on Beginning Day, because, as of late, this inadequate way of looking at things made me stop short, and made me be more violent and tired. Thank you for the wakeup call on the issues I often stumble upon. Even though I am far from the work that you are proposing, or unable to use my reason, I don’t feel disheartened; I feel full of desire to learn. Because of His grace, today I became aware of His presence, of that vibration in front of the Being that had remained like a big question mark in my mind after Beginning Day.
Lucia, Rimini (Italy)

not a waste of time.
Dear Friends: I’m at school now, where I bombed a math test this morning, and I just watched someone win a scholarship that I worked really hard to apply for. But, in all of this, I am remembering our Beginning Day, and the faces of Giulia and Veronique talking about discovering that their dad had leukemia. I have also been thinking about the fact that Paolo rented and drove a minivan in order for us to go and that Gaby lost friends so she could join us... I’m overwhelmed by the fact that I am so loved by Him. It’s unreasonable to think that I am looked at and loved in this way by the sheer goodness of these individuals. I’m starting to understand more and more what it means for everything in reality to be mine. I finally see that everything in my life is for my destiny. So the studying for a math test I didn’t do well on, the time spent writing an essay I didn’t get acknowledged for, everything, would be a waste of time unless I acknowledge that even they were positive events for my destiny. If my reason for doing these things was to get the grade and the recognition, I’d be so much more disappointed now, like my fellow friends. But, instead, I’m so free because my reason for the things I do lies in something much greater, which I discover more and more is a need for me to know and discover Him.
Elisa Kwon, Toronto (Canada)

Dinner in the parking lot
This year, we discontinued our lease on one of the apartments occupied by CLU students majoring in Science. Since we were on good terms with some of the neighbors, we decided to have a farewell dinner. We knocked on every door of the apartment building, inviting even strangers. One night, we got together for dinner in the parking lot behind the building. Many among the neighbors showed up: two Filipinos, a couple of retirees from southern Italy, a kindergarten teacher, a Sicilian widow with her daughter, a young unmarried couple, the hated building manager, a widower (whom they met while giving out flyers for the elections), and a businessman with his second wife and their baby daughter. Many of these people had never talked to each other. They all contributed to the dinner. The Sicilian widow lowered hot food from the balcony. We cooked and ate together, and no one was left out. When we proposed singing, they all accepted gladly. None of them was particularly good at it, but they all sang. To satisfy a special request, we danced the Pizzica (a folk dance from Puglia) led by a Pugliese cleaning woman. At the end, as we were about to sing one of our songs to thank them, they stopped us: “It is we who have to thank you.” A lady, looking at her husband cracking jokes with the building manager, confessed she was astonished–the two had not spoken to each other in years. The businessman told us: “I never met you, as well as some of these people, yet there is an incredible unity. I don’t know how you did it, but you have created a closeness that was not there before. You are our hope.” We decided to set a date and meet again. I was surprised at my desire to stay with them, and to see my friends partake of that same desire. It was clear that we were all in front of the same need for a profound and unforeseen sympathy for our nothingness.
Federico, Milan (Italy)