Letters

behind bars, with no
prejudice or expectations
The following is the letter that an inmate wrote to two volunteers who teach catechism in prison.
The first time you came, some of us were surprised and cautious. Others, on the contrary, felt at ease. Yet, there was one thought that we all shared. What is the reason for these visits? What was hidden behind them? Later, when we got to know each other better, our caution was replaced by certainty of the nature of your sincere, genuine, and unprejudiced feelings for our reality as inmates. Looking at us, you saw our humanity, and our pain. Your mission is a great one, and few people would carry on this task with the dedication free from ulterior motives that we see in you. I am sure that, in other correctional facilities, there are volunteers who help the inmates, but there is something different about you, because our Saturday afternoon meetings become real debates–at times very heated ones. Father Giussani’s words always manage to open our minds to new horizons, and they help us to overcome the difficult moment when we have to go back to our cells. You give us some of your precious time, subtracting it from your commitments and your loved ones. This is honorable on your part, and we feel less lonely in our daily fight against negativity. Positivity is the most adequate word to describe what you give us, even more than friendship. We try to communicate that positivity to the inmates who were not fortunate enough to meet you, and who listen to us in disbelief when we tell them about the moments of profound serenity that we are able to experience because of you. It’s difficult to make our fellow inmates understand your sincerity and your interest in our problems. In jail, between inmates, there can be envy, falsehood, and prejudice. Thanks to you, we can still believe in those wholesome values that can move people like us–who, in our lives outside of here, were not exactly “little angels.” I can’t describe what we feel when, looking in your eyes, we see how moved and sensitive you are when you consider the problems we have to deal with. Some of us have kept up the relationship with you after getting out of here. This is the most important outcome of the path of friendship you propose. We wish this path may become even more intense and open to other people, who will then be able to have a direct knowledge of your humanity. Father Giussani has given a great witness of faith, and you have been able to introduce this great witness to our hearts, without any requirement or binding obligation. Your strength resides in the simplicity and the lack of prejudice with which you stand in front of our crimes. You don’t judge us, and bring a great good to our souls, in the name of our shared brotherhood.
Domenico, Pescara (Italy)

“Our marriage,
a surprising gift”
Dear Father Julián: My daughters Elena, Anna, and I want to thank you for the message that you sent to the Imola Community on the occasion of our Laura’s death. Personally, your message is helping me live this painful situation and remember our relationship with Christ, as we have lived it in these years of marriage. That same relationship now supports me and doesn’t allow me to feel alone. Only the Eternal One, perceived and loved even in the most painful and unexpected of circumstances, allows us to live, and makes our relationships with friends and colleagues more lively, enabling us to discover a surprising depth in each one of them. The only reasonable thing that I can say to those who ask me is that what allows me to go on living is the encounter with Christ here and now. Here is what I said at the end of the Mass we celebrated for Laura:
“There are no words, except those dictated by experience; the free, affectionate, and reasonable words of our shared life–those words that fight against the tendency to reduce our infinite desire for tenderness, happiness, and life. Our life together began with the desire to love each other, and to experience the kind of freedom that only those who desire their own good can have. Like the Prodigal Son, every morning we faced the adventure of life, and in the evening we talked about our work, the people we met, and the unexpected events of the day; we compared notes until we found a valid reason to show that everything that had happened that day was reasonable. The following morning, we challenged that same reasonableness, to verify whether or not it was still true. We did this every day. Our marriage was for us an unexpected and surprising gift; the more that time passed, the stronger and younger it made us. It increased our passion for our own lives, as well as for everybody’s lives. For this reason, we didn’t see eternal life as a mirage, but as a perspective that we already began to perceive as possible. We knew that every day we re-lived the encounter with an unknown Friend, who chose and reached us through our friends and the reality we lived in. This Friend–as Father Giussani and Father Carrón teach us–loves our humanity with unsurpassed and undying tenderness. He always surprises us, and we now try to love Him more and more, calling Him by name: Jesus Christ.”
Marco, Imola (Italy)

Choosing the right
nursery school
Dearest Father Carrón: My neighbor Ilenia had a baby girl with her live-in boyfriend of two years, who is now her husband. On the surface, they have everything: a comfortable home, a fast-track career, a luxurious car, a house by the sea, a beautiful baby girl... Yet, all this is not enough to make them happy. I often hear them quarrel. Unlike other neighbors, who wanted to file a complaint with the building administration, I decided to go visit Ilenia to get to know her. She told me about herself, her family, her separated parents, and her career-obsessed husband. From that day on, whenever I ran into her she always had something to ask me. Yesterday, I went to see her with the intention to stay only for a short while, but, after a few jokes, she started telling me about the differences she saw between herself and her husband. For example, in the choice of a nursery school for their daughter, she was telling me how easy it was to use utilitarian or image-driven criteria. She also told me that she had been deeply struck by the Sacro Cuore School’s open house, and by the teachers she had met there. She asked me whether I knew anything about that school because, even if she had been there almost by chance, she felt a strong correspondence with what she was looking for, both for herself and her daughter. Her questions were becoming more and more profound. She asked me, “How can you overcome a distance that at first seems to coincide only with a difference in the criteria used to make particular choices, but later on reveals its connection with the way one perceives the meaning of life in its entirety?” I was struck by the correspondence that Ilenia felt in what I was telling her, so much so that, at a certain point, she told me, “I’m so lucky I met you. I realize that the desire I have for a meaningful life is real, because there is someone who lives that same desire with me.” Stopping on the threshold of her apartment, she said, “I trust you. Tell me: will I make it?” My immediate answer was: “Not on your own.” She added, “Stay with me. Let’s get together for coffee with my husband; I want him to meet you too.” Returning home, I was happy because I knew that this girl had the possibility to share my hope, and because in this encounter I had found the answer to the restlessness that had seized me in the morning because of a banal discussion over money. I remembered the words of the Gospel: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?”
Santa

we are constantly
made by another
The meaning of living in companionship, following our hearts’ deepest desires and receiving what is given was revealed to us through our friendship with Fr. Joe Keefe in Rochester. Upon our return from Rimini 2011, my husband Mark and I visited Father Joe in a nursing home. Father Joe was diagnosed with Amylotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in May 2010. When we saw him, he told us he was looking for companionship and three meals a day. I told him we could provide that! A few days later, he came to live with us. The first few weeks were an “adjustment period,” as we began to understand what it meant for us to really live in community. As a physician, I was struggling, watching Fr. Joe practice an elaborate cure-based medical regimen for an incurable disease. Listening to my heart and confronting Fr. Joe with my concerns was a great risk. Fr. Joe, after listening to my concerns, made a decision to continue living with us and to accept the disease that he was given. This was a watershed moment. We all became more alive. Fr. Joe celebrated Mass for the first time in months, we prayed together. We united as a family. As Fr. Joe’s disease progressed, some of our needs were provided for by the members of the Catholic community. We never felt alone. We adapted our living to accommodate Fr. Joe’s loss of function. My husband called this our “new normal.” Our diets changed to foods that could be pureed. We moved to eat in a location in the house that did not require ascending stairs. We become more aware of God’s infinite mercy in particular on the final day of Fr. Joe’s life on earth. Our illusion of the “perfect death” revealed itself to be a man-made creation. The event of the hours prior to his unexpected (at that moment) death, wearing bi-pap, provided the opportunity for family and friends to share Communion, a meal, and prayers, and to witness a final anointing by the Bishop and Fr. Jerry. After the Bishop left and Fr. Joe was being tucked into bed, he rapidly declined while surrounded by his family. His wishes for his passing were fulfilled: to die at home surrounded by companions in prayer and song. His ultimate passing validated the certainty that we are constantly being made by another.
Sidna, Rochester (USA)

One Sunday at lunch
Dear Father Carrón: My family situation has been very difficult for years. I was very angry. I had a “do or else” relationship with Christ. I fasted and prayed expecting to obtain what I wanted. My heart was sad, and my family saw me as a desperate and angry woman waiting for a sign that was not coming. My School of Community friends took me by the hand and helped me abandon myself to Him. Little by little, my prayer became grateful and spontaneous; my heart became full of gladness and my gaze serene. The most surprising thing happened one Sunday at lunch. My husband, a professed atheist (like my children), looked me in the eyes and suddenly said, “I know why you are happy. You got yourself a lover!” Embarrassed, I replied, “What are you talking about?” He answered, “You fell in love with Christ. That’s why you are happy.”
Eletta

On vacation with a “strange” companionship
We are two students of the Catholic University of Milan, and we are now participating in the Erasmus program in Moscow. A few weeks ago, we were invited to a vacation organized by one of the groups of School of Community. The theme of the vacation was: “The Positivity of Reality.” We were immediately struck by the very fact that all those people, around 30, had decided to come. They were from dissimilar experiences (Catholic and Orthodox), and only some belonged to the Movement. It was unthinkable that such a “strange” gathering of people could stay together. To give you an example, some of them could not understand the reason for proposals like keeping silence during our hike on the frozen lake; yet, they followed, and in the end they were evidently able to grasp the beauty of that new way of being together. Even before the vacation, with the help of some of our friends, the difficulty of being here had started to turn into asking. The vacation further emphasized this attitude of ours. We befriended a Russian girl who had no idea what the Movement was. The first evening, she asked us, “What is this all about?” We started talking about the Movement, then, since she didn’t seem to understand (maybe because of our Russian!), we simply talked about ourselves and our friends. We spent the following days together–we with our asking, and she with her desire to understand–helped by that “strange” companionship that was able to make us savor everything more: the games on the snow, the talk on Chesterton, the meals, and the evenings together...What we took home from that vacation is an increased familiarity with Christ, Who chooses to reach us through a tangible companionship made of people so diverse that we could never have expected such an encounter.
Elisa and Ilaria, Moscow (Russia)

A great challenge, and an even greater gift
We were given the grace to receive two gifts: Gabriele (38 days old) through a national adoption, and, five years later, Santiago (14 months old) from Colombia. What became evident on our often difficult journey–which started from looking at each other’s desire and complete inability to come up with answers or plans–is the openness of our hearts to the will of an Other, who leads us through circumstances that many would call “unlucky” to the greatness of an exceptional experience of correspondence, the likes of which still gives us goose bumps. This happens because it is absolutely evident that these children have the pivotal task of constantly reminding us what all reality consists of; they remind us to look at God knowing that He is our Father, and the answer to what our hearts desire. The evidence of this is found not only in the fact that things may go well or not, but in the constant discovery of our hearts’ relentless cry and need to be loved. Our children’s embrace, the desire for their good, and the absolute certainty of being father and mother of somebody that we do not possess, are a strong reminder to look at reality asking for our hearts’ desire to always accompany us. It is true that the bureaucratic process that is mandatory for those who want to adopt is not always easy, and can be discouraging; yet, it is necessary to be certain that everything is going where it has to go, and is where it has to be, precisely because there is a Mystery we can’t grasp, if not by entrusting to Him ourselves and the children that will be given us. Through all this, it is fundamental to be accompanied by friends who have already embarked on this adventure, with whom one can compare experiences, and in whom one can find comfort through difficult and lonely times. Adoption is a great challenge, but the gift is even greater.
Stefano and Valentina, Rimini (Italy)

A whisper is enough
I live in China, and I am often defeated by the language barrier, because I regularly invite people to come to my house but then I am unable to have a conversation with them. For this reason, I have sometimes asked myself about the value of my effort. The other day, once again confronted with my own limitations, I was overcome with sadness; yet, in that very moment, I thought that that’s the way I was built and that “most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” I said to the Lord: “Please use everything; my inability to navigate situations, my limitations, and my not knowing what to do, so that the world may know You.” A couple of days later, I met a friend and I told him everything about my frustration of the previous days. His answer moved me: “Yes, all you need is a whisper...” I asked, “What is this whisper you are talking about?” He said, “A whisper to God; because if you do everything without this whispering request to the Lord, through which you tell Him, ‘You do it,’ even the holiest of intentions would be inspired only by pride. It would mean doing things for the Lord without the Lord, which is a lie.” I remained silent, because it felt like the Lord Himself was there, embracing me and telling me, “I want you; give Me your heart. I don’t want you to do things in My stead. I will take care of doing things well.” The Lord comes to save us from nothingness, and this is what I want to tell the whole world.
Name Withheld