Letters

EDITED BY PAOLA BERGAMINI
pberga@tracce.it

Milan
Remembering Stefano
Riccardo Aletti, a third-year middle school student at San Tommaso Moro School in Milan, wrote the following essay:
Remembering the passage, “Addio monti” [“Farewell, Mountains”], tell what you felt in your heart each time you have had to leave places or persons particularly dear to you…

“How sad is the step of one who grew up among you and goes far away…”
I too thought this when my brother Stefano said goodbye to me for the last time. At that point, life no longer had meaning for me. I didn’t want to listen to anyone any more. At my house, people came and went, bringing sympathy to my mother–who was crying too–and wanted to give some hope still to her life. My father was suffering as well, and with him my whole family. The morning after what happened, I went with my brothers and sisters to the Abbey of Chiaravalle. Here, a friar heard my confession, and I asked him to give a meaning to my life now. I could not be consoled; the event had torn my heart apart. I wept a great deal, and even today I cry if I think back over those moments of all-engulfing agony. I remember, however, that I stopped crying when I turned to look at my friends who were there at the Mass in suffrage for my brother. In their faces, I saw Stefano’s face again, and I held them close to keep them from going away. Then I smiled, because I was certain that my life with them would be changed. And this did happen: today if I look at them, if I observe them, I see him again. He is in their faces. My friends, my brother… An eternity in a face, a life in a gaze, my certainty–in them. Today, thinking about Stefano again, I remember the moments I spent with him. I would come home from school and sit next to him to do my homework. In those moments, the total silence created a genuine relationship between him and me. With Stefano I had fun spending the afternoons playing soccer. Now, looking around me as I study, I don’t see him any more. When I touch his bed, I feel it to be tragically empty. “The air seems heavy and dead to me…” if no one were to give me now a taste of new life. He is there, I am here. No! I am here, and he… is here next to me doing his homework, he is sleeping here next to me, he is here next to me laughing. I smile with him. Between Stefano and me there is a mystery, a light, a hope… Hope, but also the certainty of continuing to spend afternoons together, seeing each other and looking each other in the eyes. The truth that unites him and me is the fact that we are living in symbiosis: I need him. Life, therefore, has not turned against me, it did not hit a wall, it has not evaporated into an endless absence. Rather… all this has changed me. “God who made everything asks everything of those whom He prefers in order to realize His mysterious possession of the world, which can appear to us men as only confusion, so little is it ours…” Today, I try to look at everyone with different eyes, like he looked at them. And also now, as I dry my last tear, he whispers words of encouragement in my ear, as though to recall our friendship. “The One who gave you… such joyousness is for everything; He never disturbs the joy of His children, except to prepare a more certain and greater one for them…” See you, Stefano.
Riccardo

Mandalay
New Frontiers
Dearest friends,
I am a priest in Burma, in the Archdiocese of Mandalay. This year, for the second time, we organized a summer camp for poor children. The whole thing was conceived by Fr Mauro, a friend of ours who is a Capuchin missionary in Bangkok, and by Alfonso and Gabriella Ceresani from Milan. These friends of ours came to Burma in 2000 and saw the sick and poor children in the villages. With the help of Fr Ambrogio, they succeeded in organizing the camp, thus enabling these children to come out of their villages and see the world at least once in their life. This year, Alfonso and Gabriella, along with Carmen and Chiara, arrived in Mandalay on April 6th, despite the sweltering heat, perspiration, thirst, and exhaustion. The next day, 114 children came from twelve villages, accompanied by 23 adults. We left for Maymyo, a little town in the mountains, in five vans. There, three seminarians and a friend who is a priest were waiting for us. Our friends had brought medicines, pens, toys for the children, and especially copies of Traces and Fr Giussani’s books. They taught games to the children. We took walks and taught them some Italian and Burman expressions. Each morning, before starting our day, Mass was celebrated and we all prayed together. Chiara taught the children songs with gestures. Every evening, when the children had gone to bed, we met with the 23 adults present, the seminarians, and my priest friend to do School of Community. This was the best part. We meditated on the Pope’s letter for the Twentieth Anniversary of the Fraternity and some pages of At the Origin of the Christian Claim. And thus, a week went by. The kids were happy and perceived all the affection and attentions of their new Italian friends. We said goodbye, singing through our tears the song they taught us. In the days following, the children did nothing but tell me how much they missed their Italian friends. Our vacation lasted another week. Something unforgettable and exceptional had happened during the vacation both for the children and for us. We are all happy to do works of charity. Repeating what the Holy Father said, may the Holy Spirit push you to “put out into the deep towards ever more distant frontiers in the building of the Kingdom.”
Fr Marco

Saronno
Brothers at Work
We are three brothers who run a small metal and mechanical company north of Milan, which has 15 employees. At our father’s death five years ago, we had confirmed to us what we already feared, which is that being an entrepreneur is very different from what we thought, especially because in that period it was evident to us that the business was not going so well (quite the contrary!) and that the losses were significantly greater than the profits. The mixture between our real management abilities (up to that moment, each of us only knew how to do our “own” job well) and the burden of our responsibility toward our employees and their families was suffocating, to say the least. To go out of business would have been the easiest and most convenient thing to do, but we didn’t do it–first of all, because our mother would have seen the last trace of our father disappear, and then because when you close a business and put fifteen people out of work, there are at least forty mouths that don’t eat and, too, because finally, after years of the “wrong people at the wrong time,” for whom letting things drop is a way of life, we encountered in the Company of Works a real companionship, that took an immediate and total interest in us. Thus, here’s what happened (in order): First, so as not to succumb, setting things right with the banks, which to our very great surprise, since we were accompanied by Paolo and had a precise plan, incredibly showed faith in us, and even today the directors (!!) come to the factory to see us. We finally took hold of our company (with the buildings already up for auction) and put it into the capable hands of Roberto, a business consultant. Without asking for anything, he gave us extensive and very valuable advice that marked a clear trajectory. Once the steps were marked out, the road became easier, and with this, our self-esteem grew, as did our appreciation for what we had refused up to then. Since that moment, Roberto has been our consultant and we have seen what a difference there is between the normal client-supplier relationship and practicing a profession by taking to heart the person in front of you and his destiny. We have not yet resolved all of our problems, but we are walking together, to the point that we meet every Wednesday evening with other friends from the Company of Works to do a gesture that they call charitable work–at our friend Francesco’s cooperative, “Il granello di Cislago”–and by doing this, we have understood that gratuitous does not mean that something is done with less passion.
A reader

Among the Computer Keys
I have always lived work as things “to be done,” in which always to seek out possible opportunities for encounter. I attempted to be a witness to Christ in what I did. After all, then, I think it was a “good” concern, but it left gaps of emptiness and banality in all my days. A large part of my work was banal and in a large part of my day it seemed impossible for me to communicate anything. In this way, in fits and starts, I lived some interesting relationships anyway. A certain friendship grew up with my co-workers, I got some businesses involved in the Company of Works, pro-AVSI initiatives were created at work… But all this was still not enough for me: they all seemed to me like things “stuck onto” work, but that didn’t have anything to do with this. Work, with its problems and satisfactions, followed its own path. But then I had an encounter with a person for whom “work” and “testimony” were the same thing. For this is what struck me immediately about Enzo: it was impossible to separate him as a person from what he did. Even when he was talking about gauze bandages and operations, he communicated Christ! Since then I have begun to understand. It is not a question of inventing occasions for work to speak of Christ; work, reality, already speaks of Christ! I began, therefore, to live the various circumstances of the day with a glad heart and an alert intelligence, attentive to the signs that the Mystery gives of Himself, in the expectation and in the entreaty that in every moment He may manifest Himself… in a word, praying! I found myself, to my own intense surprise, praying as I worked, both as a gaze on things and, more properly speaking, with my rosary in my pocket. This position has revealed itself to be “explosive,” also professionally: work has blossomed in an unbelievable way, my commitment has opened up to an international level, and the opportunities for encounter have multiplied! But above all, the days are no longer banal. Even in front of the computer, I am no longer alone, and every key can become the face of a friend for whom to pray, for his and my holiness, to the greater glory of Christ.
Andrea, Trento

Recitation of the Rosary
On September 11th, the world was overwhelmed by grief. At the end of September, America declared war on terrorism… The Pope urged the faithful to recite the Rosary to obtain peace. Some nursery school mothers sent out the question, “Shall we meet every morning to recite the Rosary?” Rita answered, “Yes,” and in turn extended the invitation to all the mothers she knew. We began with the intention of reciting the Rosary together for the whole month of October, every morning at 8:30 in the school chapel. We asked for peace in the world and protection for our families, our children, and the school. After the Rosary we would say goodbye and go back to our duties, with our children there… and Our Lady stayed with everybody. At the end of October, we were unable to give up that appointment with Mary… We decided to meet each Monday, always at 8:30, for the whole year, and as this choral dialogue unfolded through the passing of time and our lives, we added other entreaties. We were all together with a common purpose, without ever breaking off this dialogue, alternating with each other in the Presence… some days there were ten of us, some days eighteen, another day four, another time two, uninterruptedly, like a band of climbers roped together, taking turns, supporting each other in our toil, witnesses for each other, and always seeing our “little” prayers answered, even those not said aloud… Six years ago, in an instant, I understood that I was saved. Then I understood that I had been saved even before that instant, that I had been saved even before I was born. This year, I have understood that I am saved each day!
Simona, Milan

Real Hope
On May 19th, my wife, Morena, already suffering from a grave neurological disease at a fairly advanced stage, which had made her a complete invalid, was struck by a grave infection that spread through her whole body and put her in a coma. I took her to the emergency room and after an afternoon of tests, in the evening they put her into the medical ward, telling me clearly that she wouldn’t make it to the next morning. I put in Morena’s hands little images of St Riccardo and of Padre Pio and entrusted her to their prayers. The night passed, but the situation remained critical and, according to the doctors, hopeless. From that day and on through the following days, in Morena’s hospital room was a veritable constant pilgrimage of friends who did the impossible in order to come stay for a while with her and at the same time give me a break at the hospital, or else to keep our eleven-year-old daughter company. I don’t know how many Rosaries we said in that room. At the same time, however, the certainty was growing that, whatever her destiny might be, her suffering was not in vain, because everything was for the glory of God and for our conversion. The days passed, and some incredible things happened. One in particular struck me: a woman in a bed near Morena’s said that she had frequented CL in years past, and she was full of wonder and joy at having encountered us. She took down addresses and telephone numbers; in the evening she would order me to go home, saying that she was there (suffering from great pain) to take care of Morena. I even had to argue with the doctors who tried to persuade me not to get my hopes up, when I continued to state that there was always, in every moment, an albeit tiny chance that my wife would get better. After a month in the hospital, the situation has brightened, and even though she has not (yet) made a total recovery, Morena has been declared out of danger. It was a holiday for me, our daughter, our friends, even for the personnel of the unit. Morena herself smiled with joy all day long. Yesterday, my wife came out of the hospital and is now in an out-patient unit, and for us this is already a grace.
Morena, Manuel and Marica, Pieve Emanuele