01-05-2013 - Traces, n. 5

LETTERS

LETTERS

The true change coincides with being myself
Dear Father Carrón: Straightening up my desk drawer, I found the notes of what you told me before I departed for Africa. Six years have gone by already. My experience here has not been a walk in the park; yet, by accepting your challenge, today I find myself changed and, most of all, I am able to face reality and my fears in a totally new way. I understand that true change coincides with being authentically myself. I almost feel grateful for all the trials I went through and that brought me to a totally different level of awareness of myself and of reality. There was a time when I had serious problems at work, so much so that I viewed myself as a failure. I was exhausted. I would have liked to be able to say that I was alone, but I wasn’t. I would have liked to say that I was desperate, but that wasn’t true either. I blamed my circumstances and I insisted on being right and, in doing so, I kept sinking lower and lower, with my heart hardened by complaints. I was at my wit’s end. I had painted myself into a corner, with no space left to play games or to keep complaining. I needed to make a decision. I heard you repeat your challenge, urging us to stay in front of reality; I liked it and agreed with your suggestion but, deep down, I wasn’t following it. I needed to decide whether I belonged to my complaints or to Christ. In the end, I surrendered to One who was present and who was waiting for me. I realized that Christ had such respect for my freedom that He couldn’t fill my heart and change my life if I didn’t open the door for Him, with my “yes.” As soon as I made space for Him, my life reached a new depth, which could be perceived by the people around me. It was like opening windows; I discovered that I could walk with my own legs, and that I wasn’t bound to somebody else’s doings anymore. I discovered a new gusto for life, and an otherworldly capacity to love. Within Christ’s embrace, which gives me incredible strength, I have been able to see all my weaknesses clearly. I have seen the incumbent risk to busying ourselves doing things for Christ–in good faith–only to discover that we have lost ourselves because we never had time for Him. I serve as an usher for the Movement, and every time I prepare the room for School of Community and arrange the chairs, I tell myself that Jesus will sit there. When we meet, I am always moved by the way my friends compare their lives to the texts we work on.  How can I not be moved by Cyprian, when he tells us that, in order to attend School of Community, he travels 200 miles from Nairobi just to “breathe”? Every time I look at my friends, I wonder why I am here. I am here with them because, just like me, they want to get to know Christ better, and to grow in the certainty of His friendship. I think about how hesitant I am, for example, when we go to sell Traces in front of St. Francis, and about how I am always surprised at the way people look forward to it. Christ is something else; He is a constant surprise, and this makes our journey a simple one. Rose always tells me: “If it’s all about doing things, one gets tired; we need to be moved!” When I get up in the morning and I think about all the things I have to do, I tell myself: “I will never be able to make it!” It is then that I understand that my need is completely spelled out in the first line of Morning Prayer–“Oh Lord, come to my aid” is not a rhetorical expression.
Masu, Kenya

“Lord, who are You
 to love  me like this?”

Dearest Fr. Julián: I arrived at the Fraternity Exercises running on fumes, partly because of a certain psychological and physical malaise that has been interfering with my life as of late, and which “cripples a man,” to use Pavese’s words  (in Dialogues with Leucó). At the same time, I carried within me a great desire for peace and gladness, a need for Him: “Oh Lord, make haste to help me.” Evidently, despite the fact that I sometimes claim to make it on my own, that is not the case, and He is here to remind me of that: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways” (Isaiah, 55:8). This is not always easy to accept. Nonetheless, what an abyss of mystery man is. I was able to experience this first hand these days, when my heart was taken over by everything, from waiting and desire, to His mercy; and then again anxiety, defiance, and my tendency toward navel-gazing. It’s a great, strange, and yet real contradiction, which always carries within itself a certainty that is stronger than any confusion: “Lord, who are You to love me this way, to once again prefer me? And who am I to You?” I know that His patient Mercy, His Grace, and His overwhelming preference are with me–right next to me. For this reason, as in the song we sang, “Here beside You, Lord, I want to remain” (“Qui Presso a Te”). Your relentless and fruitful fatherliness, as well as the simple and discreet companionship of some friends, have been, once again, a powerful and consoling reminder. At the end of our final Mass, after the words of the celebrant–“Lord, why do You love me like this?”–a friend sitting beside me whispered, “That is where gladness dwells.” Right then I realized that the exasperated tension to cry out His name, which you talked about and which I struggled to understand, was simply my cry, maybe not always aware, but certainly alive and real: “I miss You, Lord.” Maybe my calling out to the Lord is hoarse, tentative, or even voiceless, but the certainty that my malaise, whatever its manifestation, is conquered by the Risen Christ, right now, is growing stronger. This also increases my wonder and gratitude, because really nothing can separate me from the present love of Christ.
Maurizio, Fidenza (Italy)

my  most urgent question
at a job interview

In December 2011, I received an unexpected invitation for a job interview with one of the world’s leading experts in my research field at Harvard. The possibility of a job in Boston seemed to be a contradiction, since my husband could not move jobs and follow me immediately, and would continue to live in Texas. On the train to Boston, I had brought several research articles to read in preparation for the interview. I wanted to sound really smart, impress the expert, and get the job. But an urgent question on how I could be certain that that circumstance was a part of God’s plan for our lives would not leave me alone, so I could not concentrate on any of those scientific papers. Browsing through my suitcase, I found an issue of Traces. One particular article caught my attention: “Certainty of Things Never Seen,” an interview with the physicist from the European Organization for Nuclear Research, Lucio Rossi. Reading the interview brought my heart back to the right position, and it became clear what was happening to me: someone had given me an urgent question, a journey to Boston, and the experience of a man I had never met to guide me. I was freed from the desire to make a good impression. Instead, I wanted to be attentive, to be generated by what I was experiencing. At Harvard, thanks to that article, the intimidating job interview became a beautiful conversation about scientific curiosity, work, and life. One week later, I received a generous job offer that included the possibility of working remotely from time to time. Life became a lot more complicated, and yet I was more “alive” than ever. When the discovery of the Higgs Boson was announced a few months later, I immediately thought of Lucio Rossi, and suggested to my friends at Crossroads–Houston that we invite him for a lecture. I wrote to him, mentioning how much of his interview still resonated with me, and how we were interested in learning more from his experience as a scientist in front of such an important discovery. Over 300 people attended his lecture last week, which he opened by saying, “A question is what moves our lives; the person without a question is dead.” And he went on to explain the scientific path to reach certainty, which was not different from the way he reaches certainty in his life. He spoke about the signs that point to deeper questions, in an inexhaustible quest for truth. Again, I was filled with a gratitude for being able to see, hear, and be moved by something extraordinary. After the lecture, several students waited for a long time to have a chance to speak to him. Apparently, I was not the only one who was amazed that night.
Marcia Otto, Houston (USA) 

The hundredfold,
one drop at a time

I have five kids and in June 2012 one of them, Simone, who is 11, was hospitalized and later diagnosed with lymphoma. We entrusted our family to the Virgin Mary and to Father Giussani. At the end of June, he was discharged, because the analysis was negative for cancer cells. In October, he had a relapse. He started chemo, with all that it entails for an 11 -year-old kid. Right from the first signs of my son’s illness, seeing him defenseless and bedridden, it became clear that his existence and well-being did not depend on me; he was not mine, he belonged to Another. The certainty that it is the Lord who makes all things, including myself, doesn’t spare me from struggling and worrying. Nonetheless, it makes me glad for everything that happens, because I feel embraced and supported by Him. Every instant that I live is an opportunity to say “yes” to Him who makes me. Right from the beginning, my friends and I began incessantly praying to the Virgin (reciting the rosary) and to Father Giussani. God doesn’t want anything bad for me–of this I am certain–and what the Lord takes away, He gives back, increased a hundredfold. Indeed, I see the hundredfold happening one drop at a time, because Simone’s cancer has been, and still is, on a daily basis, an opportunity to be more serious about everything, with a desire for the meaning of everything that happens to me–the difficulty dealing with my husband working abroad, raising my children, my relationship with people... I asked for help from some of my older friends and from my Fraternity group (which is becoming more and more like a family to me)–that is to say, from the people I hold dearest and to whom I ask for prayers, support, and companionship. At Beginning Day, Father Carrón said, “Circumstances, good or bad–all of them–are ways through which the Mystery calls us. They are not, as we so often interpret them according to our measure (that is, our rationalism), burdens that we must put up with. They have a very specific purpose in God’s design” (“Life as Vocation,” notes from the talks by Davide Prosperi and Julián Carrón at the Beginning Day for adults and university students of CL, Assago, Italy, September 29, 2012). The purpose is certainly my daily conversion. If my tendency to sweat the small stuff makes my day a little opaque, the Lord gives me something to make me look up, give thanks, and surrender to Him; it may be a friend’s phone call, or a CLU student coming to visit Simone... Nothing happens by chance. For me, for my husband and children, and for my friends, too, recognizing Christ within this trial has allowed us to keep walking through this valley of tears and has made everything mysteriously simple.
Raffaella, Padua (Italy)

Somebody took me by the hand
Below is the witness that a young girl wrote at the end of the GS Way of the Cross
My mother, a foreigner, received Baptism at the age of 36. My father is nowhere to be found. The Movement entered my life through the people who came to bring us the Food Bank packages–for my two siblings and I, that always felt like Christmas. I have lived my life, and I still live it, striving to search for a father in every face–in the face of a friend or a boyfriend. Then I was invited to the Easter Triduum. During the Way of the Cross, I got separated from my friends, and I found myself walking alone, surrounded by strangers. Within the looming silence, I was afraid, and I felt I didn’t have a way out. I started singing–which I hate because singing is not one of my gifts. I didn’t know the lyrics, yet I enjoyed it, so I kept singing in a louder voice. Somebody took me by the hand. Nobody had done that before. I felt like a little girl, a daughter. How can I forget what happened? There was a Father caressing me and telling me: “Trust in Me.” How liberating it is to know I am the daughter of a Father, and I can let go of my mantra, “I can make it by myself.” I grabbed onto Christ and I trusted Him. What’s most extraordinary is that I recognized that everything belonged to me. That’s what I saw.
Name withheld

The journey that banishes fear
I go to school in Boston, and was present for the bombing on Monday. I was not close to the finish line, but far too many people I knew were dangerously close to it, whether because they were running, and were half a mile from the end, or watching. I myself was cheering on the race a few miles away. Once I heard what had happened, I desperately sought out my friends on campus. The afternoon was terrifying. I stayed cocooned within the company of my friends on campus until late in the evening as we watched the news, received anxious phone calls, and just accompanied each other. Ultimately, I left to go to Mass at 9 pm. Upon going back out, I felt as if a band-aid had been torn away. Immediately, fear was present, and I hurried to arrive at my destination. At the Mass, I was  able to look at this fear and I asked myself why had I felt wounded upon leaving the company of my friends and why I had so sought them out originally.  It was because Christ, very simply, has to be real. I could not even accept the death of the three people until I had heard it from a friend. Christ has to be real before I can look at death. What happened on Monday is not extraneous to my life. It clarified the importance of what I do every day, starting from the School of Community and living my faith in Someone present. Only if Love and Goodness can be met is this evil swallowed up. Fr. Carrón has spoken so often of “journey” and the necessity of “doing the work”–yes, it can be laborious, and I can distance myself from it. But in the end, this journey is an embrace, without which I would be afraid.
Madi, Boston (USA)

A terrible nostalgia and that gaze embracing me
What is GS for me? I often ask myself this question, and I have come to the realization that GS is an experience of my “I,” something absolutely personal–so much so that it affects each one of us in different ways. GS is an opportunity for my conversion; an opportunity to discover the way that I want to be looked upon. We all need certainty in order to live; we can’t settle for goals that we set day by day. We need a greater goal. I need a place waiting for me. GS is, for me, the way to keep this need alive and live as a human being.  It is a gaze that reveals what life is, and accompanies me into it. This year, I decided not to attend the GS Lenten Triduum, partly because of some tests I will have to take in June, and partly because I wasn’t sure I really wanted to go. The first evening, though, when my friend texted me the title of the Triduum (“He Was Looked At, and Then He Saw”), I became overwhelmed with a terrible nostalgia that I couldn’t get rid of. I tried to do something to divert my attention elsewhere; then I surrendered and I went looking for the booklet of last year’s Triduum. I felt embraced. Nothing else could possibly embrace me just as I am–stupid, unreasonable, and unfaithful. It may sound banal, but when I think about my experience with GS, I see myself having the same eyes as Peter and John in the Burnard painting. I am speechless, and yet in my heart I hear the echo of something I read in School of Community and that I can’t forget: “The greatest miracle of all was that truly human gaze which revealed man to himself and was impossible to evade” (Luigi Giussani, At the Origin of the Christian Claim). This is what I want for myself. GS is my life transformed by His gaze!
Giuseppe (Italy)

Discovering true freedom volunteering at a pregnancy center. Reflecting in School of Community on “Ubi Fides, Ibi Libertas,” notes from the CL  Responsibles’ Assembly with Fr. Carrón, I was able to make a clearer judgment on my recent work experience. I spent a year living in Denver, volunteering as a missionary and working at a crisis pregnancy center. It was my first encounter with women in crisis pregnancies and at first I was scandalized by the way the center chose to approach these women. Each of the volunteer counselors was trained not to pressure a woman into any decision, but rather to guide each woman in carefully examining every option before her and to accompany her on her journey throughout her pregnancy. I quickly saw how this method was the most effectual in fulfilling the true needs of each of them, and it also highlighted what Christ has been trying to show me for my own life. It is often difficult for me to follow this method for myself. There are many times I am lazy and simply want to be told an answer or times I distract myself from even looking at the question. That is when I must rely on others to reawaken the proper position that allows me to face every issue with the certainty that the Mystery has put freedom and the capacity to judge within me.
Hollyn, Wichita (USA)