Letters

EDITED BY PAOLA BERGAMINI
pberga@tracce.it

Taipei
Revolution
While my schoolmates were choosing university life, I decided to marry a man who belonged to a very traditional family. There were 40 members in the family, and their lifestyle and culture were profoundly different from mine. I felt the emptiness and the extraneousness of those who lived around me. I had learned to share everything in my family, but here I learned silence. I often felt desperate and unhappy. What my marriage brought to me was only a feeling of oppression and burden. About a year ago, I met, through Marco who was working in Taiwan for about six months, two Italian friends who were recently married: Andrea and Cecilia. I felt immediately free in my relationship with them; it was the first time that I saw a man trust others, and in an understanding based on few words, they had a family. I did not often hear God mentioned in my presence, but I could see Him in their lives. They are happy and full of life and energy; they love life, they love each other, and they love others. What they are living is the reflection of God. This is why I had begun to be interested in Catholicism. I started searching the Internet for information about Catholicism and about a church near my house (because I do not live in Taipei, where Andrea and Cecilia are, but in a city about an hour away). Knowing my husband’s family, I was sure that he would never approve of my interest in Catholicism, so I started going to Mass every Sunday in the morning, when he knew I was out shopping. I began studying the catechism. Five months later, for Easter, I knew it was time to say something to him, and I was surprised to find that he did not oppose it. This was for me the biggest miracle and perhaps the sign that God in that moment asked me to take on a responsibility: to be the sign of Christ and His love for my husband and daughter. Now I would like my daughter, too, to encounter and live what has been given to me, the grace to live. I will not be able to accompany her for her whole life, but Jesus can. For a year, every Monday, Sister Alicia has taught me catechism. She has been not only a good teacher but also a great friend. She has been consecrated to God for more than fifty years, but her heart is younger than mine. During the Easter vigil this year I was baptized with the companionship of all my friends. I have never been so happy.
Julie

Muggiò
21 Years of Secretariat
Dearest Fr Gius: This year, too, I participated in the Retreat by working in the secretariat; if I am not mistaken, I have been doing the secretariat at the Fraternity Retreat for 21 years, and much has changed in the procedures of preparation and organization, because the event has become incredibly large. Thus, the secretariat has grown along with it. This year there were 56 of us; other friends have joined, including young people who have just finished the university. For all of us, it is a great opportunity to be at the heart of the Movement, to learn the heart of the Movement, and this took place. Among us, friendship, esteem, and dependence have increased within a journey of fraternity. What do I take home from this Retreat? Above all, your face and your voice; I saw and listened to you from the stage (I was seated next to Fr Pino), when you reminded us who our God is. When you repeated to us, “Woman! Do not weep!,” I understood that no limitation of mine can keep God from loving me. Thank you, Fr Gius, for telling me again about God’s mercy, for showing it to me with your face and your words. Then came my (re)decision to entrust myself completely to the Movement, to yield to this human experience of the Mystery. Certainly I must continue to do well, with a sense of responsibility, the things that life has entrusted to me, but I cannot remain alone: I must keep my eyes lifted high, I must find time and space to have the Movement accompany me. I need the Movement’s embrace like that of my wife and children. Dearest Fr Gius, I salute you with all my heart, thanking God that I encountered you and hoping to be able to be an echo of your heart, your faith, and your humanity… starting with those who are dearest to me.
Terenzio

In the War of Life
The reason for my wife’s illness is a mystery, and I will not be able to discover it until I am face to face with the Lord. But after all, the reason, or rather the vindication, the recrimination for an injustice, which this question often masks in reality, ultimately does not interest me any more. In these two years I, my wife, and our very friends have changed greatly; our way of facing, leading, combating, resisting, and conceiving of life is different, it is new. We are all so young that at times I am in awe of a certain wisdom that emerges in our gestures and in the things we say. I call wisdom this sense of profound truth that rises to meet what we are most strongly and intimately seeking and awaiting. Thus, in these by now numerous days that are always so hard and arid, without our realizing it, something new, alive, and beautiful has been born. And yet, no matter what, within all this, our hearts and our minds are new: capable of loving, becoming attached, identifying, fighting, knowing, and looking as they were never capable before. The new fact is the experience of Christ as the flesh, content, substance, and shape of what we are living, of what surrounds us, of what we love or of–it’s useless to deny it–what we hate, sometimes wrongly, sometimes “almost” rightly (oh yes, because certain human actions are real, true injustices). Christ the living flesh! Because of this, it has been possible to share with our friends–indeed, to identify with each other. There are even those who, even in difficult situations, try to help a dear friend as best they can. In the beginning it was, as it were, a polite way of offering to be available, but then an affection grew up, so magnificent that the love of Christ has been revealed in our friendship. This at times unfolds in sporadic telephone calls, at times it is manifested in a triumphant evidence of activity (one does our shopping for us every Saturday, others come one day a week to keep us company but, when needed, they wash the dishes–even the men). This friendship is what enables me, my wife, and our friends to hold our positions in the war of life. Otherwise, the world, so poisoned by the devil, would sweep us away without any effort. We hold our positions, i.e., hold fast to the fact that the Truth of life is Christ, while the whole world–with an intensity which only a few realize–wants to teach us that the truth of life is a high standard of living. What a lie! Life is above all a task; our vocation is a very precise responsibility in God’s plan (this is why friends are given to us: in order to live the vocation faithfully, even when things get rough). We must work together for this; we must make ourselves available and fight for the glory of Christ on earth–that is, to build the Church, the world’s salvation. What are we living for, if not to serve the One who in every moment makes us? The stringent affection for my wife that grows every day is the fruit, the demonstration that to live serving Christ enables us to possess everything, and first and foremost what we most would like to possess: a powerful, but delicate possession that–beyond every human capacity–does not destroy what it loves. My wife and I are going to Our Lady of Lourdes to ask for only one thing: healing, which is the greatest good we can imagine for us.
A reader

The Glory of God
Dearest Fr Giussani: Last Sunday, at 2:10 pm, Gloria was born. She is our first child after more than sixteen years of marriage. As you will remember, Giuliana discovered by chance that she was seriously ill a few months before our wedding. For six years we watched the illness advance, and for seven more, dialysis gave rhythm to our days, up to the transplant four years ago and complete healing. This baby arrived when we did not think we would have children any more, at more than forty years of age. Unexpected, to the point that the doctors realized it before we did, she has made the gladness of our life even greater and more astounded. When the doctors told us to be cautious and to wait to tell people about it, given the great risks involved, we said to each other, “No matter what, there is a child, there was a child. A child has been given to us,” and we were filled only with gratitude. Our little Gloria has thus become a sure authoritativeness about our life. She is named Gloria because, like Abraham and Sara, we have been visited by the Mystery, our friend. Gloria bears the name of the Trinity. It is impressive these days to see how many people are moved by this miracle. For those who know our history, she is a powerful sign of the Lord’s faithfulness. Everyone speaks wonderingly of a miracle, even those who say they do not believe. For such a long time, we asked Our Lady, San Riccardo, and our dear friend Cilla for Giuliana to be healed. But a miracle like this, a sign for all the people, we could never have imagined.
Massimo, Giuliana, Gloria Carol, Baltimore

Witnesses to Faith
Dear Paolo and Agostino: Receiving the copy of Huellas [Traces] that you sent me, I have realized that, along with the entire Movement of Communion and Liberation, you are living something very important: the Twentieth Anniversary of recognition by the Church as an association of faithful of pontifical right. This is not only to congratulate you on this anniversary, but to give thanks to God for what your presence has meant in Concepción, as witnesses and instruments of what man most impellingly needs, in his deepest being: the encounter with Christ. The fact that you are realizing this can be seen in the university parish where many, who belong to this world tempted by the subjectivism and relativism that make life so sterile, are discovering Christ to be alive here and now, and the encounter with Him signifies a Paschal event. I continue with my prayers and constant spiritual closeness in the apostolate that you are carrying forth in this diocese, for the fruits of which, especially in the sphere of the university, we can already give thanks to God. With fraternal affection, in Christ,
Msgr Antonio Moreno Casamitjana, Archbishop of Concepción

Treasure hunt
On Saturday, April 20th, to take advantage of a vacation day in an entertaining way, we wanted to do something together, something more than the usual soccer tournament and picnic. From the outset, the proposals were numerous: going out, fields trips, games… At a certain point, the idea came up of a big treasure hunt all over Milan. So at 2 pm we met in Piazza Udine and, defying a rain that turned into a downpour, our adventure began. We faced trials of every sort, like running wearing masks, snorkel, and fins around the big fountain in Piazza Castello, throwing a goldfish into the fountain and then fishing it back out, “mooching” a Euro from a passerby at Porta Venezia, having our picture taken with an employee at McDonald’s or a group of Chinese in Piazza Duomo, or engaging in a philosophical discussion on love, knowledge, and truth with a stranger, describing the façade of the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio… being taken for madmen more than once and putting our reputation, of which we have always been so careful, significantly at risk. Our responsible, who helped us in the organization of the game, proposed that we sell Traces during the treasure hunt, and it was a brilliant idea. In effect, having to sell the magazine, if not in our own interest at least to get to the treasure first, got us all into action, and all of us tried hard to be convincing. In this way, we were forced to bring out the reasons why we wanted to propose this experience of ours, receiving the broadest range of reactions (to me, a woman who bought Traces offered a comparison with Zen philosophies). What is more, this helped us to keep even more in mind what we were aiming for in going on this treasure hunt, which could not be only the basket full of salami, wine, cookies, and packages of pasta which was the prize, but was something else, or better, Someone else. This is the same One that our companionship invites us to pursue every day, in everything we do; the same who animated the people in New York who organized the Way of the Cross on Good Friday, that appears on the cover of the issue of Traces that we sold.
Filippo, Milan

Marriage Preparation Course
Dear Fr Giussani: I am sending you the invitation to School of Community that I read to the couples participating in a marriage preparation course. After having brought my “I” to all the meetings, in the end I couldn’t help bringing the “we” that constitutes my experience of the Movement. Here is what I said to them: “In hopes that the journey begun with this course is only the beginning for you all of a road that will lead you to a deeper happiness, the new thing that I particularly want to say to you, and that I have understood with difficulty and lack of constancy, is that it is not possible for a couple to remain isolated, remain alone. It is not possible because it does not correspond to man’s nature, to what a man and a woman were made for. I am certainly not talking about maintaining friendships for fun, entertainment, or other purposes. I am talking about remaining without Jesus Christ, without the Church, which is made up of men and women who are conscious of being marked by limitation, human and personal limitation, but who at the same time are outstretched toward a fullness of the heart, toward a happiness that only here, only in the Church of Jesus can be found. I, who did not believe it possible that I could experience such gladness, was sought out by God, who overcame my initial resistance, my subsequent betrayals, my continual pettiness. He came to meet me mysteriously, gratuitously, and discreetly, without asking me for anything. Jesus did not ask me for anything; He wanted me just as I am, just as He made me. That’s all. He came to meet me, saying simply, ‘Come and see,’ just like He said to Andrew and John, the two who were the first to follow Him, as testified in a famous passage from the Gospel: ‘Rabbi, where do you live?’ ‘Come and see.’ In my life, this ‘Come and see’ has taken concrete shape in a little group of friends. Certainly, from that first original instant, my freedom was put forcefully into play, my freedom to follow that invitation, that collision, fascinated by the evident different way of living glimpsed in some people who testified to the living Christ. Brought into play too was my freedom to resist Him as the claim of my flesh. The grace of Jesus that is working in me has given me the courage up to now to grasp the determining value of the path I have undertaken, going every day more deeply into the reasons for my adherence. But this grace, this gratuitousness that has struck me, has certainly not been given me just for myself. And so now, at the end of this course, which opens for you the door to your life’s calling, I cannot help wishing for you every good, every fullness, fecundity, and gladness in your lives, and I cannot in turn help telling you to come and see the place that for me reveals the wellspring of my being, the place, the road that is Christ, the way, the truth, and the life, discovered normally through the mediation of other human beings. There is a name that identifies my path and it is right that there be a central, clear point that cannot be taken away, an authoritative presence in order to avoid the risk that we may become abstract, that we may interpret the Christian message subjectively, at our pleasure. That name arises from the charism of Fr Luigi Giussani and the Movement of Communion and Liberation. I am given the opportunity weekly to rediscover that Jesus Christ is not just a distant name, but is here in our midst, in the face of my friends. And this is the invitation that I give to each of you. Every Thursday at 9 pm we meet at Fr Beppe’s house. Our weekly commitment has one sole purpose: to recognize with profound wonder what Jesus Christ is in our everyday life, and to acknowledge that every man and every woman needs someone, a friendly presence to accompany us on the journey we are on, which is life.”
Giancarlo, Saluzzo