Dear Father Giussani: In January 1999 I had a check up, and the exams showed the presence of pre-cancer cells. I didn't tell anyone except my Memores Domini friends, and together we began to pray to St. Riccardo Pampuri. When I went to Italy after Easter I stopped with some friends in St. Riccardo's church to pray. After a few weeks I returned to the hospital, the Mayo Clinic, for another check-up. The doctors assumed that by now the cancer had become malignant and that we had to choose the proper treatment. While I was listening to the doctors I was totally certain that my cancer was no longer in my body. I did not talk about this with them, and I accepted their request for another biopsy. Before the exam, they asked me to take part in a clinical trial, and to stop to talk about this with the secretary after taking the biopsy but before receiving the results. I was so sure that the cancer was gone that I did not stop to see the secretary. The day after the exam, the doctor called me, saying that they did not understand the test results, because everything was back to normal and there were no traces of tumor cells. This is a difficult reality to understand, and truly what I am aware of is that God is in this way "putting off the old man," because I have the amazed awareness that this is pure grace, and that the gift goes beyond the fact that I no longer have cancer. During the renovation of St. John's Church, just a few steps from the Mayo Clinic, I hope to create a small chapel with a statue of St. Riccardo in it, and invite people to ask, through his intercession, for the healing grace of God's love. Thank you for your presence and the presence of Christ, which is so alive in all you do. I am not very good at being humble, but this gift allows me to become more humble and to beg that God may know my gratitude and especially that He may give me the gift of faith.

We publish here the letter of a friend who is in Cambridge with the Erasmus project

This is what is happening to me in this delightful English town. On the surface, it is nothing exceptional. I live with six English students who are totally immersed in an individualistic culture. When I arrived, each one stayed in her own room and we only exchanged a few words. "But I have to live here!" I said to myself. So I started to seek them out for a cup of tea, to translate something for me… After a little while I found myself spending practically every evening with them, munching on biscuits in front of the TV, chatting about everything from the stupidest things to my concern for my sick grandfather and my desire to keep up my friendships from far away. Now this house is a real witness. Seeing my door always open, they come in and ask me about my day and about what I have hanging on my walls, the image of the Angelus, pictures of my friends… They slip notes under my door if they go home for the weekend and were not able to say goodbye to me. Not only this, but also at the college where I work as a waitress, "strange" things are happening. One student gave me a little gift for Christmas, accompanied by this note: "Thanks for everything you do for me. Don't work too hard. I'll see you in 2000." What I was doing was only to say hello to him and bring him his food. Others came to say goodbye to me before leaving. What the Lord is offering through so many new relationships is so that my freedom will decide to adhere. Always. The fact that unexpected friendships and changes are coming out of this continuing way of acting is only the work of grace, so great and so gratuitous that I want to call it Mercy.

A teacher wrote to some students who gave her the Christmas Poster

Dear girls: I want to thank you for the poster you gave me. But my real reason for writing is to express my sincere and fond thanks for all you are doing in our school. You start the initiatives that have the most meaning, which gives food for thought; you are the ones to raise your voices against certain attitudes that unfortunately are common and widespread among your classmates; you give a concret example of placing oneself at the service of others. I have to recognize that your gestures are for me an invitation to reflect, to become more aware of my reality as a Christian. I can only thank you and ask you to continue along this same road in the knowledge that others, here in the school, will be able to feel what I have described to you.

A friend in Novosibirsk did this testimony during a meeting of movements

I work in a research institute in Novosibirsk and teach at the Teachers' College. When I say, "I have met Christ, an encounter has occurred in my life," I say this in the literal sense of the word, just as it was for John and Andrew. Seven years ago in Novosibirsk I met a person, my Italian teacher. She was just a normal person, but she was the first person in my life who did not put off my questions. Over time, thanks to her, I understood and discovered myself that the answer to my questions is Jesus Christ. When I think that 2,000 years ago God came into human history and became a man, I think of the fact that the same thing has happened to me. God came into my life through real people when I encountered the Communion and Liberation Movement. When you meet something really wonderful, that strikes you, you would like to share this experience with your friends, you would like to invite them to look with you at what you have seen. You can imagine what a great desire I had to share, to tell others about the encounter I had had, that had changed my life, that gave it meaning and brought joy into my life. This is the desire that others too may meet Christ. I thought, how is this possible? It is clear that priests and nuns can talk directly about Christ. But us? Many of us are still students in school or the university, we are in class all day. Or there are those, like me for example, who work, with hardly enough time to exchange a few words with co-workers, or again, those who are timid and reserved by nature, who even have a hard time talking among their closest friends… but the desire that others too can know Christ is so great! This year something happened to me at work. We were celebrating the birthday of one of our students, and the head of the laboratory said, "When I was young, I tried to find a meaning for life. And now, here I am forty years old, I have a family, I am a university professor, and it seems that I have achieved everything a man could dream; nonetheless, I am right where I was twenty years ago. The only difference is that then I had a tension, a yearning inside me, and now there is only emptiness. And everything I have achieved has lately had no value. Thus what I hope for you is that you never lose this tension to look for an answer." Then, he turned unexpectedly toward me and said, "And the answer in my life is God, isn't that right, Tanja?" I answered, "Yes, that's right," but I was amazed that he turned to me of all people, because in four years of working together we had never talked of religion or God. The student asked, "But if I do not know God, then what do I do?" And he replied, "Then you have to invent yourself a god; until you meet the real one, you have to invent one for yourself, because man cannot be man living without a god." At that point I burst out, "But God exists, you don't have to invent Him!" And I thought about what a responsibility I have with these people, and with all the world, those of us who have met Christ. Another thing I understood is that, to witness to Christ, you don't necessarily need words. All you have to do is be there, where you have been called to be, and do what Jesus asks you to do. But it is always necessary, in all circumstances, to ask, "Lord, show me your face." Then, even if all you are doing is studying, or washing dishes, the people you are with will realize that you do all the same things they do, but in a different way; not better, or worse, but just differently. Therefore, every morning, going to work, I say, "Jesus, I don't know if every experiment I try today will work, I don't know if I will teach a good class for the students, but I offer You this day, so that everyone who You give to me will be able to meet You and recognize You." And Jesus accepts your offering, He answers your plea, and often, even without your realizing it, He Himself, through you, through your life, gives evidence of Himself!