Dear Father Giussani, I am writing to thank you and to ask for your forgiveness. And I have to do the same with Someone Else. Because I have not been a "realist" (to quote The Religious Sense). And the presumption that I was one made me, for a long time, judge the Movement with others' eyes. I thought that such an all-encompassing proposal was not suited to my personality; it seemed to me that a soul so profoundly Christian could not open up to a world made up of atheists, agnostics, Muslims, Hindus. I thought that reality could not enter completely into Christ: into the living God. I didn't understand that a conscience which is truly free has to submit its religiousness to the test of its entire personal experience. I didn't understand that limiting one's search does not mean preserving diversity, but renouncing an understanding of it and, in the end, betraying what one believes in and the reason one believes. But then, the Mystery came to meet me, not in the shape of the Movement or in that of any other Christian proposal, but exactly in the area that I did not want to submit to the test of the Christian conscience. The proposal to consider the religious experience as the fulfillment of one's own humanity struck me in its full force in Venice, through the words of Rabbi Michael Shevack of New York and his life itself. Truly, I had the precise perception of a mature conscience, of an existence that has transformed the weight of its religious tradition into the value of tradition. This acquaintance grew to friendship: since I met him again later at the Meeting in Rimini, I have had the privilege of corresponding with him. And for this too I have to be grateful to you: if you had not written The Religious Sense, the Rabbi would not have come to Venice. If I think of all the events that led me to sit down in front of the computer and write to you, I cannot avoid choosing between chance and the Mystery. But I do not believe that chance can beget the happiness that I feel. Rabbi Shevack is helping me to regain the nature of my faith, its value for reconciliation, which for me is accomplished in the life of Christ. I can state that I am in the Movement thanks to a Jew. And this can only reconfirm the openness of the Christian proposal to all things, and the fact that your work, Father Giussani, spreads in a magnificent way a method by which every person on this earth cannot help measuring himself. Let there be no misunder standing-every minute that passes I am more Catholic. Thanks to your Movement I am recovering that unity of spirit which allows me not to submit passively to what life brings, but to adhere to it, recognizing the Mystery. Finally I feel I can say that such a profound friendship with an existence that is so fulfilled, such a rich world, celebrates Christ instead of contradicting him. One last thing: In Venice the Rabbi said something that honors, but above all must give pause for reflection to whoever looks at the Movement with the eyes that I hope I don't have any more. Michael Shevack stated that The Religious Sense could be taught in the synagogue.

Andrea

From February 16th to 19th the Kampala community was visited by six monks from Mount Koya, accompanied by Father Ambrogio Pisoni. Their purpose was to get to know the works of the Movement in a country so far away from theirs. When I heard that they were coming, my first reaction was: What can people who come from the "first world" par excellence understand in three days? I have been in Africa for almost four years, and perhaps I am starting just now to enter into a dialogue with a few Africans, so distant from me in history, culture, beliefs, way of life, and needs. So what can they possibly learn in three days? But instead.... They arrived on Tuesday, the day of School of Community for all the Movement in Kampala. They came to it too, and when they introduced themselves they spoke of the meeting between Father Giussani and their master Habukawa, of the look the two exchanged which spoke volumes. Zensho told us that he could tell from the look in our eyes that we are seeking the truth, that although we follow different roads, we are walking toward the same destiny, and that he would remember our eyes in his moments of difficulty. He also said that he came in order to understand better who we are and how we are living Father Giussani's teachings. He has been studying Father Giussani for twelve years and is beginning to understand something, but he wants to understand more. On Wednesday and Thursday morning we took them to visit our projects in Kampala: COWA with the vocational school for street children; the juvenile prison; the Meeting Point for orphans and women with AIDS; and the charity at Kireka, a slum in Kampala, where they were literally assaulted by hundreds of smiling children. The look in their eyes full of wonder and astonishment at seeing so much diversity and poverty managed at the same time to grasp in the depths of everyone's eyes the same desire, the same heart. This is what they told us over and over again after every encounter. The last day we all went together to see the Japanese ambassador and Yagi, the group leader, told him, "The people whom we have met from AVSI and Meeting Point are not here to give and do things like so many others, they are here to give life, to build works that will help develop this country and promote peace, because they start out from the teachings of Father Giussani, a priest who met our master twelve years ago and with whom a friendship was established. We have seen so much poverty, a poverty very different from what we have just observed in Japan, but we have also seen that there is an answer, there is a constructive way of living in this situation." The day of their departure they thanked us and said that we are doing great things. Rose answered, "I am nothing; I try to bring to my sick people the humanity of Father Giussani, which is the humanity of Christ." "You are a small lighted candle which illuminates this country," Yagi answered her. Thank you Yagi, Kaori, Zensho, Wakako, Shoken, Ryusho for your simplicity and openness of heart, for having shown us your affection for Father Giussani, a love of truth that we must learn and which will fill our hearts every time we think of it!

Lucia

Dear Father Giussani, You are the first person I am writing to since my nomination as Bishop of Parintins (Amazonia). Your phone call, which filled me with immense joy and consolation, was followed by dozens of calls, faxes, and telegrams from all over the world. The friends on whose behalf you spoke in your telegram have all confirmed the same gratitude, and they make me aware of how true and beautiful the experience of this new community is, one which was born out of your heart full of passion for the glory of Christ in history. A 10-year-old girl, Jessica, had not been able to make her First Communion because she was sick. When I told her that she would be able to receive Jesus on March 19th, the anniversary of my ordination, she wrote me a letter in which she said, among other things, "... I hope that life, time, and the world do not move Christ away from you." How close is the desire of this little girl to your prayer to the Virgin that I live the profound bond of friendship with our experience! I feel so unequal to my new task. I have never wanted to be able to talk about Christ as you did in front of the Pope and with all of us. I said this also during the vacation of the Fraternity of Priests in Argentina. May the tenderness of the Virgin and the humility of Saint Joseph help me to follow intelligently and whole-heartedly what the mercy of the Father has put on my path, to cause to spring forth from the rivers and lakes of Parintins "cascades of real men."

Father Giuliano Frigeni