Letters

The next world
present in this world
Dear Fr. Julián: Last Monday, I told my colleagues that I was going to quit my job to enter the cloister. Much to my surprise, the news sparked a beautiful conversation. In addition to the many questions that they asked, and that caught me off guard for their seriousness and depth (none of my colleagues is a practicing Catholic, and a couple of them are self-proclaimed anti-Catholics), I was awestruck by the realization of what I had been to them for the past eight years. My temperament does not allow me to be a “frontline” kind of person, and at work I never revealed too much about my being a practicing Catholic. I never spoke about sensitive issues, or talked openly about the CL Movement or the Church, even though they all knew of my affiliations. I have to agree with what Fr. Giussani taught us: the heart of the matter is not a discourse, but our availability to live our everyday life making memory of the One who gives meaning to it. One of my colleagues told me that she had always perceived something different about me; I was very good at my job, which I did with passion and real commitment, and yet that was clearly not enough for me, nor did it completely define me. She noticed I was in search of something else. Another colleague (who I always thought didn’t like me that much) told me that she had always been fascinated by the energy and enthusiasm that I put into things. I was deeply moved by their words, because I realized that I had been a witness by simply doing what I was given to do. At the 2010 Exercises of the Fraternity you told us: “Veni, Sancte Spiritus; veni per Mariam, and reawaken this desire for Christ in us so that we can know Him more and more, not as a word, but as an experience that we cannot do without, so different does life become, as intensity, as presence to ourselves, to reality, and to the people most dear to us or most distant from us, so that we live everything under the effect of this being moved, under the weight of that being moved that You, O Spirit, share with us in the charity of the Mystery! You are the love that has been poured into our hearts so that we can live this way: the next world present in this world!”(See “Can a Man be Born Again, Once He Is Old?”, p. 27). Since then, every morning I have prayed with those same words, but it wasn’t until this past week, when I quit my job, that I realized that my prayer had been answered every day.
Paola, Varese (Italy)

The need to enter
that hospital room
I  work as a psychologist in a hospital, and I deal in particular with pregnancy issues. A woman and her husband tried to have children for a long time, and last February the long-awaited pregnancy finally began. One month later, the woman was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors didn’t give her any hope of survival, and she was advised to terminate the pregnancy. Before meeting her, one of the obstetricians told me they avoided this woman’s room as much as possible, because the burden was too heavy to bear. And a gynecologist said, “I try to go in only for absolute necessities, because the ending has already been written.” The first time that I met this woman, I gave her the usual speech about the services that the hospital offers, but I stayed just for a short time because of the uneasiness I felt. The next visit, I spent more time with her. She told me about herself, the acute physical pain she was in, the difficult time she was having in understanding how, after a miracle , she could have been given a punishment. The longer I stayed with her, the more my usual professional competence proved to be insufficient to the situation. I couldn’t find any excuses, while her same questions opened up inside me, her same cry, which I brought with me when I left the room. And I started to realize that my abilities were not the issue here. There was something more. That sick, pregnant woman placed in front of me, once more, all of my needy humanity within my professional role.I began partaking in and carrying with me Laura’s questions and cry, and I started to realize that my abilities were not the issue here. There was something more. The only thing I could do was to say, “I am here.” I realized that entering Laura’s room had become a need. I tried to stop by even just to say hello. In the meantime, her condition worsened. Laura and Marino requested the sacrament of marriage.They were moved in pronouncing their vows, and they said that everything was unexpectedly truer. Laura, her face serene, told me, “It’s a miracle.” Her biggest fear was not being able to meet her son, Nicola. I told her that if what she wanted was to meet Nicola, we needed to try to make it happen. Laura smiled at me and said, “I hope the Lord will grant my desire.” I answered, “We will ask Him together.” On June 18th, in the 27th week of gestation, Nicola was born. Laura’s condition was critical, but she wore on her face the gladness of a person who has received a gift. Every time we parted, Laura asked me, “Will I see you again?” And every time I found myself answering without doubt, “Sure. My Father is your Father.” One day, seeing her in such pain, I realized I was trembling and afraid; with the little breath she had left, and with gladness and certainty shining through her face, she invited me to stay for some tea. When I left her room, I went to church, knelt down, and said, “Jesus, Laura and I are yours, today a little bit more than yesterday.” During a relocation, the anesthesiologist asked her: “Ma’am, is there anything we can do for you?” She answered, “Yes: don’t leave me alone.” I expected her to ask for something to lessen her pain, but instead she repeated to me: “Don’t run away from your humanity.” Two days later, on a Sunday, I went to see her; she was surprised to see me outside of my work hours, andI surprised myself by being there. Thinking about her, I prayed, “Jesus, save her, according to Your will.” Then another plea sprung up: “Jesus, save me.” Through my staying in front of Laura without reservations, Christ has awakened my humanity in the exercise of my profession, and has shown His fatherly love exactly in the place where I thought I most needed to be on the defensive. Laura returned to the Father on June 26th.
Marta, Italy

School: an adventure for brave men
My school year started on the evening of the first school day. It was six o’clock and raining; on my way back home, as I stopped at a traffic light, I saw a girl running with books on her head, to shield herself from the rain. I smiled and said to myself, “That’s how your students use their books–as a shelter from the rain!” Then, suddenly, in stark contrast with my initial cynicism, I remembered a few episodes that had happened during the day:
1. At the school gate, I was greeted by some students, who put a flyer in my hands. It was signed GS, and began like this: “This adventure is only for the brave, only for those who decide to be alive; it is only for those who want to be free, and for those who really know how to love themselves. Who would want less than this?”
2. When I entered my classroom, sitting at the front, the first face I saw was S., who was repeating the year. I did not take for granted he would enroll again, but he was there, smiling at me. His smile was telling me: “I am here, I am ready. It’s a new beginning. Are you ready?”
3. The bell rang. The school day was over. In the schoolyard, I ran into a colleague who had transferred to another school. A group of students surrounded him, greeting him joyfully. A bit moved, he responded to their salute, and told them: “Today, I too started a new adventure in my new school. I went there without hesitation because of what I have seen and experienced here through the years, in this school, with you and all the other teachers.” The kids asked him, “Professor, is there anybody great among your new students?” He answered, “All of them are!” As I reviewed my day, the light turned green, and the driver of the car behind mine honked, impatient. I said to myself, “What a great beginning! Thank God reality is more stubborn than any skepticism. Today’s common mentality affects us all, and I am not immune to its influence.” And I remembered something a friend told me: “You have to realize that you cannot widen your reason by yourself. You do not have the ability to do it; so what do you do? You can’t do anything but depend on what exists, on reality, because only reality has that ability, only the Mystery–a Presence that enters and opens up everything–has that ability.” Everything is turned upside-down now. I am the student, and at the front desk there’s my teacher, that is, reality, circumstances. The GS students at the gate, my repeating student, the colleague transferring to public school, even a girl running in the rain–everything, in as much as it exists, is for me, that is, it reveals the stage I am at and becomes an occasion for growth. It is the beginning.
Elena, Italy

Learning to love
one’s vocation
Dy husband and I got married in December of 2011, and moved to the United States for his philosophy PhD. The first few months, I was getting accustomed to my new situation; I started understanding the language, I obtained a work permit, an American driver’s license, and so on. We live in a small town, which fills up with students at the beginning of the semester. Everything revolves around the college. At the beginning, I had a tough time; I wondered if I would be able to have the kind of friendships I had in Milan, and I felt I was living something less. Nonetheless, my desire to be loved did not remain unanswered. First of all, the wife of Francesco’s professor started asking me to meet every week, and helped me get more familiar with the language and the environment. Francesco and I met a few people from the philosophy department, and began joining them for dinner. The campus priest, a very agreeable man of Irish descent, became very fond of us. Then, attending Mass, we met Christopher. In January, Francesco and I started a School of Community group at the university, and soon Marco, another CL guy from Italy, joined us. We had Christopher over for dinner to invite him to School of Community, but before we could do this, he asked us if we belonged to the Movement. Three years before, he had been invited by a Notre Dame professor to attend School of Community. He had been deeply struck by it, but being a Protestant at the time, he had decided not to continue attending the meetings. As soon as he realized that we belonged to the Movement, he asked if he could join our group. On top of that, he invited all of his friends. Now there are more or less 14 people in attendance. We showed the video about Father Giussani (Extraordinary Lives) and they bombarded us with questions. At the beginning, I was thrilled because of the overwhelming response we had, and because everything had been so simple up to that point. Then things started to get more difficult. Having School of Community with my new friends wasn’t always easy; we would either get tangled up in theoretical discussions, or we would end up conceiving of School of Community as a social occasion–like so many others that were offered by the college Catholic ministry. I asked myself again the reason why I did School of Community, and who those people were for me. I realized that circumstances are essential to my vocation. In fact, I initially thought that vocation was all about a given form. I was called by God through marriage, and having said “yes” I felt my life was set. Again, I thought having 15 people to do School of Community with meant I was okay. Yet, the past months proved this was not the case. The many things that happened revealed the fundamental step that I need to take now–that is, it is one thing is to say “yes” to your vocation, and another thing to love it.
Sara, State College, PA (USA)

Companions on the road
Reading the quote, “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me,” I was reminded of my own story–of how my friends stayed by me and took seriously my humanity when, while curious, I was still far from understanding why they were so different. That curiosity urged me to follow the charism of the Movement. With the passing of time, the reason that those people were able to stay with me like that became increasingly clear. Now I have the same clarity when I face my children or, as I am asked to do of late, when I stay close to my brother and his wife. I know that I have something to offer them when I speak about what I have met, that is, a companionship where one can learn to look at people the way Christ looks at us.
Miriam, Asuncion (Paraguay)

“This magazine is a real companion”
I have had a subscription to Passos (Traces’ Brazilian edition) for several years, and there have been times when, caught in my daily routine, I went for months without even opening the magazine. Recently, I’ve had the possibility to go to work by bus, and I took to reading Passos. I started with the August issue, then July, June, May... and I am now reading the April issue. Every time I start reading again, I feel bad about the time I spent not taking advantage of this tool that is such an objective help in living my life in a better and more intense way. The magazine has been a real companion for me, one that challenges my measure and moves me in a way that re-awakens my humanity and renews hope. Each and every issue moves me because of the witnesses of beauty and grace that can be found in it, making me think: “This is what I want for my life.” All this shines through in the care for every detail. For this reason, I invited a group of friends to read the magazine together on a weekly basis, so that we can help each other stay in front of life’s challenges.
Emilia, Belo Horizonte (Brazil)

The positive factor of life
Dear Father Carrón: I am 87 and because of my health I have to follow you from a distance. I need to be cared for, so I am sad to say that I have to reduce the amount of my Common Fund contribution. For the past few years, I stopped attending School of Community, but I am determined to start again, because I want that positive factor to remain part of my life. Thank you.
Name withheld

the steps toward destiny in the daily life of a housewife
Dearest Fr. Julián: In following, life becomes more fascinating every day. Every instant in which I become aware of who I am and of the relationship with the Lord, who alone makes me steadfast and happy, becomes the possibility to walk toward my fulfillment. I am a housewife and mother of three young children. I have never felt oppressed by the unavoidable solitude of my life, or by the hardship of work that is not visible to the public eye, like changing diapers and preparing baby food. Giving credit to the truthfulness of what you often tell us, that a sense of suffocation or deceit appears on the horizon of my daily life, I happen to think about you, about my ‘I,’ about Who is making it now; then I immediately discover the unique and great relationship that is at the core of my being, and everything falls into its appointed place again and I breathe the fresh air of my freedom, the fresh air of His presence. In these past years, I have really begun to know and follow Fr. Giussani, and because not a day goes by without my asking for every circumstance–I dare say even my sin – to become the possibility for me to take another certain and conscious step toward my destiny. This is my great hope for myself, my loved ones, and the whole world.
Francesca, Rome (Italy)