Dearest friends: The mysterious and dramatically real way in which God, this Christmas time, has come into our lives and the life of our Venezuelan people takes the form of these dramatic events that we are living during these days. As I think you know, violent, unending rains caused rivers and dams to overflow, killing an incalculable number of people. Entire towns were swept away by the violence of the floods, and many areas are completely cut off. The victims number in the thousands, but above all thousands and thousands of bodies cannot be recovered because they are buried under a sea of mud and rocks that in many cases reaches the fourth story of buildings. An estimated 50,000 may have died and more than 300,000 suffered damage. In this dramatic situation, the Church has moved with great generosity and passion. Thousands of Christian volunteers participate in the emergency operations. All the parishes, Catholic schools, movements, and religious institutions have mobilized and are offering their infrastructures for the organization of aid and to take in the homeless. We are working with the Venezuelan Bishops' Conference, who asked us to help coordinate the operations, and we have assumed significant responsibility in the Care operation in the diocese of Los Teques. Everyone in the Movement has taken up the task that the situation requires with responsibility and determination. All this is becoming an occasion for great growth and renewed missionary vigor. Certainly the demanding and mysterious way in which we are living this Christmas season sweeps the horizon of our mind clear, purging it of the sentimentalistic, devotionalistic, spiritualistic, and banally consumeristic aspects of how we live the Mystery of the Incarnation. For us here, in the midst of the rubble, in the midst of the drama of families who have been ripped apart and are trying desperately to find relatives whom the sea of mud and rocks will never give back again, participating in the tragedy of people who, within a few instants, lost their houses, their property, their friends, their peace, we in this situation, which is so desperate and violent from the human point of view, we here celebrate the Mystery of Christmas in a surprising and unhoped-for way. This is not a joyous, carefree Christmas, it is not a Christmas made up of lights and TV commercials. It is a sorrowful Christmas, charged with the drama of hundreds of thousands of people who have lost everything. Two days ago one of the people whom we managed to save said to me, "Father, how can we live this Christmas in this way? This is Good Friday!" We are here in the midst of the mud and the grief, we are here in the midst of the desolation and suffering, we are here beside those who have lost everything, even their will to live, sharing the pain of our people, trying to alleviate a little the loneliness of those who no longer have the persons they love so much, and are facing a future that frightens them. And looking at all this, we feel emerging even more strongly the need, the necessity for that Presence which alone can save our humanity. It becomes evident that all our life is waiting, that all our being yearns. It becomes clear that often we make a stupid and absurd claim to autonomy and that we base all our hope for happiness on our petty, laughable calculations, on our plans that are always so ephemeral and banal. Now it becomes more evident that You are everything. We need Your Presence, not far away, but nearby; a Presence that holds us, embraces us, supports us, heals our wounds, lifts our gaze to the right horizon. You oh God who are everything, become everything in our concrete experience! We need your Presence, your permanence in the flesh among us. This is certainly the most mysterious Christmas that we have had to live. A Christmas in which everything in man's heart cries and yearns. A Christmas in which, faced with the pain, the need, the frailty of man, the desperation that tries to shackle men's hearts, God answers by being present. Here, we ask God to help us to live that simplicity of heart that says "yes" to Him in the carnality of the concrete situation. And we offer everything for the truth of the path of the Christian people in the world, for Father Giussani and our charism, for the human glory of Christ in the world.

We had some success, the data confirm it, but we are still far from being on top of the situation. Today, for example, it was not easy to control the last children-soldiers to arrive; they come here imbued with a mentality that is difficult to uproot. They came armed with knives "for dialogue" and on the way they robbed a peddler and a poor woman who sold slippers. The others were like this too, but starting over again every time a new group of children arrives-kids who have gotten everything they wanted by using guns-is no joke. Here at St. Michael's in Lakka, things are calm. Today we have 162 children to take care of. The oldest ones understand the situation, our limits, they adapt to circumstances, and it is a pleasure to help them put their lives back together when they had thought they were a disaster. But those in the new section we had to open, about eighty veterans, are beyond any civilian structure. The internal situation is not safe. The UN observers have told us to wait, and so 162 in Lakka and 80 in Hamilton are keeping us on the edge of our seats. The most encouraging development of all this business has been the response of ten young people brought up in the homes. They spontaneously offered to serve these brothers of theirs in difficulty, and their work is invaluable because they mix with them day and night, encouraging them, urging them on, re-educating them. They have formed a community, and we fathers live with them too. Ernest is the head, Thomas is in charge of administration, Teresa works at the bar where she cheers up those who are depressed. She is very good at dissuading those who look for drugs. John and Marta, a young couple, have adopted an abandoned child. Samura takes care of our Ministry of Transport. It is wonderful to see him set out every morning with a truck full of about fifty children, all standing, all dressed in yellow. The truck is rather small and goes at a snail's pace. Samura's young wife, Sama, has adopted six small children and despite her very young age she acts like a real mother. James is a tailor; he made everyone's school uniforms, and with his broad shoulders he knows how to calm down whoever gets too heated up. Alfred is in the storeroom, and Agnes is the nurse, as well as the midwife when necessary. And it's the same with all the others. God bless them for having sacrificed their personal careers in order to devote themselves to their brothers. They are my greatest consolation after all these years of work with the homes.

This is a letter sent by a teacher at the University in Trento to a priest friend in Louisiana
Dear Jerome: Andy told me about your family story. It is not easy to accept that three of your brothers are affected by serious disease. And it is even harder to see the sense in it. I can perhaps understand the feelings of your brother, when he went from being an athletic type to one taking medicine every three hours. I too played a lot of sports before the symptoms appeared. I had to take my pills every hour, just to get around somehow. I am convinced that the reason I have done this till now is not that I am tough and I had a lot of help from my friends, especially from those of CL (this is a Catholic group, founded by Father Giussani…). It was "il nostro Signore," as they say in Italian. That is the reason for me to have the power to go on. In order to understand my situation better you should know that I have been a very active Catholic guy in the past but, more or less at the age of 30, I had a lot of problems with my Church. I wanted to discuss many theological problems with the priest of my parish, but he considered this a disturbance and so I decided to distance myself from my Church. It was also the time of the war in Vietnam and, if I remember right, the former Archbishop of NY went to Vietnam to bless the armored cars. It took me almost 25 years to come back to my Church… One reason for this event was that I had the chance to get to know Father Giussani and his people. I understand that the fact of being a Catholic means that Christ is not a "pain" but is a "joy." But in my childhood I saw God as a figure like a bookkeeper… who gives a plus or minus to every day. Then when your time has come, He will sum up, and then it is decided whether you did a good or a bad job. The "funny" thing is that I am beginning to see my whole story in a context that makes sense, including my illness-story. This also makes my living easier. Perhaps there will soon be the occasion to talk more aboutthese things, when I will come to the States. In the meantime I wish you a Holy Christmas and I will pray for you that you too will have, during the next year, the power to accept our disease.

I went to Rwanda for a week for some UNICEF and AVSI projects. I had the chance to see this country and to talk with lots of people. All this was an occasion to appreciate the charism of Father Giussani even more. I saw how true everything he teaches us in The Religious Sense is. I saw above all the reduction of the question, and this has led me to ask: if you see that I am about to fall to this level, that I am about to sell or lose my freedom, save me if you love me. There I saw people who have been destroyed; there are some real people there, but they don't know where to turn, whom to ask concretely, they have become diffident with everyone. The Catholics are without hope; that is, they lack the God of Nazareth, God made man. The priests preach pardon, but this is not possible if God is not a friend who watches me. I saw what is called voluntary substitution of the question. When I talked about work with the UNICEF leaders, I said that we are interested above all in the person (because if School of Community has nothing to do with my life, then it is useless that Father Giussani spent his entire 77 years telling me this). "I saw a people destroyed by its weakness." I saw myself destroyed by my weakness. Everything is for me, everything is so that I will change. I was thinking that I have not asked enough, I have not shouted, I am not sincere in my shouting. I wanted to cry, I did cry, seeing the church in Nyamata still full of dead bodies, at least 2,000 people killed, and others dying all the time. I said, "What is justice in the face of all this?" I don't know what justice is. Justice is for me to say "yes" in front of these bodies, that I be I, an I who says "yes," that is, who belongs. This is the beginning of human dignity, the beginning of the work, of social action. I want my time, every instant, to be for saying this "yes." Trying to live what Father Giussani is showing me corresponds to who I am as a person. I saw a people destroyed, a Church destroyed, and looking at all those bodies I recited, "Salva gratis Rex tremendae majestatis." This is the cry that matches me in this moment, that matches my state of mind now, it is the cry of these days in the face of my nothingness. I feel myself to be even more nothing, but I ask Jesus to use this "yes" as He wills, as the justice that He has and He knows. I am nothing in front of this Rex majestatis, but I am You who make my I, I belong to you.

What do you need to put together a choir? A director, certainly. People who want to sing, too. Then, you need a reason. In New York you need one strong enough to make you want to make the sacrifice (for some small, for others fairly big) of taking an extra subway at the end of your work or school day, to come together with others in a big dark room in Saint Mary Star of the Sea Church, Carroll Gardens, downtown Brooklyn, and practice. The New York community choir meets every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., under the sure and patient guidance of Chris Vath. Who is in the choir? Not everyone, but the rich and variegated range of the community is worthily represented: a few "old-timers" like me, Lorna, Jonathan, Elvira; some mature teachers; some professionals; CLU students and GS students; and a few "real musicians." With a broad assortment of races and colors. Above and beyond how we sing, how we learned to sing, this small people of the choir is a spectacle in itself. Singing is something wonderful, but it is a job that needs guidance and the guide has to be followed. A choir, like life, is not a question of technique, above all: it is a company guided to its destiny. For this reason, the choir of the New York community is the testimony of a new life that continues to grow, and it is the place where we immediately invite everyone we meet, GS students first of all. And to watch and hear the kids from Brooklyn (many of whom have their own disaster stories) singing polyphony or Gregorian chant, and singing it well, makes your eyes pop out. Thus our choir serves the community and the Church: from the special days of the Movement in Brooklyn and Manhattan, to the Way of the Cross on the Brooklyn Bridge, to the Christmas Concert, to the Movement Mass at St. Patrick's, to the by-now traditional December Benefit Dinner. People see and listen, and they ask what is behind it. We all know that the most of everything can be found in New York. I imagine this is also true for choirs. I don't know how many hundreds there are, from those in the smallest parishes (whether Catholic or Protestant) to the black choirs of Harlem and the Bronx. And who knows how many professionals. The CL Choir is the spectacle of the life of all those who sing in it, and who sing their gratitude and joy for the encounter they have had.

Reality always goes beyond whatever came before it, whatever idea, whatever plan, even though these are inevitable. Impact with this new reality was this way for me, with American hospitals, with the messages from my chief of staff, with the community in Tampa, with School of Community and the Fraternity in another language but with the very same resonance, with Father Michael, with the affection, as impressive as it was undeserved, shown me by the friends in Rimini (who brought me up to date on everything, on their wonderful encounters), and with the pain for the physical distance between me and certain faces, for some even unexpectedly. I feel a little bit like the servant in the parable of the talents, the one to which the most precious thing is entrusted, free of charge, and to tell the truth I have no idea how to make it increase-my life here is not yet in full swing; I'll start in January. The only thing I know is that I must live reality, just as I am equally sure that behind and within every appearance there is a Presence who is a friend, who has filled my life with traces, even and above all in the moments of betrayal, just like the presence of Enzo. Here every encounter that I have reminds me of him, to the point that I am filled with serenity, because what had to happen has already happened, all of it, and it is increasingly clear that faithfulness to the method and living the life that spreads the experience which generates me are the road to follow. I don't know where this road will take me; I am curious to find out. A year ago it would have been unimaginable for me to think that I would be here now with the task of learning microsurgery, and I sincerely do not know what will happen.

I began to learn in a new way when I realized that the charism is more faithful to my life than I can be, and that it always, somehow, finds a way to take me over completely. The passage that I am living in this period can be summarized as the renewal of this origin that today coincides more and more with being determined by this fact, above and beyond the resistance that we might still uselessly put up. This is clear in our reality when we meet adults, heads of families. The difference is between those who encounter the Movement and return home with a clear conscience and those who, maybe going home drunk, start not throwing their children into the street but loving them with the same fierceness, the same passion with which they are loved. It is then that we understand that the spreading of the charism would be impossible if it were centered around our own efforts. I myself for years trod the treadmill, deluding myself that I could manage to build something. Instead, when the possibility arose to take up again what had moved my heart, my way of facing things changed. And today, even if sometimes things seem to be going against us, there is always some small amount of joy. Thus we learn that only by serving are we amazed by what happens and by the reality that is around us. Only by living a minimum of what the heart belongs to does one change reality to the point that this belonging becomes a sign and a possibility for renewal of the historic dignity of our people. This was evident when we were called, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, to participate in the public act of the procession at a dramatic moment for the Church in Naples. By taking this act upon ourselves, we saw that only from the passion that arises from our charism can the history of a people be rebuilt. We didn't add anything, we didn't do anything in particular, but our unity was an important presence for many. And the same was true for the large number of young people who participated in the opening day of the GS year. It was an incredible event. A flood of kids. It would have been impossible to keep them all together by organizational ability alone, if it hadn't been for the love of some teachers, for whom what happens is everything. Similarly, the beginning of adult communion in the Company of Works does not hide the difficulties, but brings them out according to a judgment of correction and of pardon. Thus what today is determinant is a communion without filters and correction without hesitation, because only in this way do I understand more easily this emotional origin of a new way of knowing and judging everything.