LETTERE


GENOA
New Prospects in... Sydney

On August 6th, a small group representing the Fraternity had the chance to meet His Excellency Bishop Kramin of Sydney, to whom we gave as a gift The Religious Sense. The Bishop welcomed us in a very warm and friendly way. He said he was familiar with the Movement and that he had a great interest and respect for the work it does, so much so that at the end of our meeting, wich was attended also by his assistant Fr. Domenico from Brescia, he assured us that he would tell the Primate of Australia, Cardinal Clancy, about it in hopes of continuing on the same path together. This was for us the most meaningful moment of a trip that began with a series of providential circumstances, aided by our friendship with Fr. Pino and Fr. Ambrogio, as well as by our group of the Fraternity. For us, who are no longer youngsters (50 and 41 years old), just the prospect of being able to open ourselves completely to the idea of being missionaries is a great gift. If it is true, in fact, that we bring our belonging to Christ into play always and everywhere, this chance to consider a transfer to the other side of the world, with two school-age children, for "the human glory of Christ," forces us to ask ourselves profound questions: What is the good on which we should spend our lives? What is the work we want to build? Today the passage from the CL Fraternity statute-"the work is to enlarge the Church"-is clear to us: belonging to Christ in the Movement generates an incredible freedom and opens up unexpected prospects.

Maurizio and Lucia



MALNATE
Time is Short

Hello, dearest ones: Once again I am writing to you from a hospital. Our little Michela has already gone to heaven to keep little Filippo company. If with Filippo I learned that our life is cradled in the breath of Someone who is greater than us, now with Michela I have realized that the life that is given to us is not measured by its length, but by the purpose we are sent here to fulfill. She was here so that we could be given this awareness. Thank you. Christ demands from me, but also from each of us, the seriousness of loving Him. The brevity of life, the quickness with which time passes, makes it clear to me that time is short. We've wasted too much time on things that don't matter, on gossip, on what makes us lose sight of what we are living for. We must stop wasting time trying to figure out if what happens to us is the same thing as what we want, because reality is harder, more immediate, more stubborn. How many tears have I shed over those two little angels, but not desperate tears, how much pain in my heart, but not desperate pain, because I am filled with hope. And Lorenzo's company in these days of suffering brightens my heart, but it could not be otherwise, because if in moments of suffering you can see what good things have been entrusted to you, this is the hundredfold here below. And this can be true for everybody. Now I live the desire that whoever I have in front of me will recognize that good will is there also for him or her, and I want to see the person in front of me light up, because it's so simple… and yet it seems so hard! But it isn't hard. And at this point I start to worry. How can I show this? Then Lorenzo says to me, "By starting not to worry about it; live what has been given to you, and Someone else will worry about the rest." Thus there remains the responsibility of when I felt my calling to be mother and father to those who are close to me, and feeling this means caring about the destiny of those persons; this makes me look at them with different eyes.

Marcella



ROCHESTER
A Priest's Life

Dear Father Giussani: My awareness of the gift of the encounter is becoming simpler and more effortless. The charism is truly becoming a charism in me on my personal journey and my calling to live for the glory of Christ. The Movement is becoming my own and for my own destiny, and not a project for doing something for others. I am so happy to have encountered this gift in the Church right here in Rochester, and now I desire, more deeply than ever, to let others rediscover their Baptism and their way of being true in the gift of the encounter. Last week there were eight priests at our Studium Christi [a group of priests who belong to the Fraternity of CL]. We are reading In Search of the Human Face, and in this session we read the same three pages as last time. The priests marveled at the fact that we could read the same three pages and arrive at such a profound awareness of the Mystery. One of the priests commented that the only thing he reads that is as powerful is the Holy Scriptures. Through these encounters, they are "falling in love with you" and the charism. One of the priests distributed part of the material of the lesson to his parishioners, and another called me to tell me that in all the Masses in his parish he preached about what we said in our meeting. The thing that is truly important for everyone is that we are together above all for our life as priests, and we experience an incredible way of being together in all its simplicity. We gather together around the table with the confidence of children, and you are the "father" who guides us toward an openness to how Christ calls us to respond more profoundly in this moment. Another priest recently asked to participate in our Studium Christi group. He is an S.T.D., and is a professor of theology at the Catholic university near Rochester. In the School of Community we are reading your essay entitled Recognizing Christ. We spent many weeks on this, and this text too leads people to "fall in love with you" and with the gift of the charism. These two readings, Recognizing Christ and In Search of the Human Face, have a particular way of touching the minds and hearts of Americans. The question I have in my heart in this moment is how to learn to read and study The Religious Sense with the same quality as with these two readings. We easily get lost in The Religious Sense and it becomes too intellectual and not practical for life, which is a contradiction of your method. School of Community has become more real. We come together for our session and then we find that we are always meeting to eat together, a gesture that has allowed us to keep up our friendship and make it more enjoyable. One of the participants is a teacher in a Catholic high school, and I recently went to visit him in class to do a lesson together on Recognizing Christ. I drew on the blackboard the arrows pointing up and Christ as the arrow from the top going down toward the bottom, and the students really liked this image. This teacher comes to School of Community every week and then incorporates its contents into his lessons to his students the next day. He is really good at creating different lessons from this text as a result of being with us. Your friend and companion,

Father Jerry

BERGAMO
Dear Prof...

We publish here the letter sent last June from a high school student to his teacher

Dear Prof: I am a student of yours from the school year that just ended. I can tell you that in these past two years, with all the many hours we spent together, I got to know you well enough to put you on the very short list of the interesting persons who have come into my life. I will always remember the enthusiasm you put into teaching and that you try to pass on to your students, your way of thinking, and the very open mind with which you approach even the simplest things. I am not one of those students who stood out for the things said in class or who paid close attention to the history lessons, but in all this time your way of seeing things influenced me profoundly in a positive way. I am writing you this letter to thank you and to let you know that everything you do for your students is not in vain, but serves to shape our characters and to make us open our eyes in the face of all those who try to close them for us. I hope that this letter can help give you an extra boost when next year you have to start everything all over again with other students. I hope you have a great vacation and that I will have another chance to do something with you in the future. Thank you for everything!

Terry

This is the dedication that a Romanian girl wrote on her diploma to some Italian friends with whom she had stayed as part of the Hospitality Families program:

I was alone in the desert and felt the emptiness I had inside…. I was sad, lonely, and a veil of fog was over my eyes. Then by chance I met some people who took the fog away from my eyes and made me see the beautiful things I had around me. I began to trust them, I began to feel less lonely, and the most important thing is that they talked to me of Another. I began to love Him and them and in this way I began to walk on the path of happiness. Thank you for everything.

Monica, Romania