LETTERS
edited by Paola Bergamini / pberga@tracce.it

A School Trip with a Surprise
Two weeks ago, I went to Tuscany for three days with my class, on a school trip. There is a very beautiful girl in this class, and I was immediately struck by her. The second evening, after drinking and singing, I came back to the hotel with my buddies a little drunk. This girl started coming on to me quite strong, until we found ourselves alone in her room. Here she started kissing me…. I was greatly tempted to go along, but at a certain point I said to myself, “I have experienced a relationship that is much more than a mere adventure, and it is the relationship with Christ, which for me takes the form of precise names and faces, a history, and I cannot forget it because it is part of me.” (I didn’t go along because I wanted the best out of that relationship, not because I am a saint or a sucker!). I realized that she had not had this experience, but in order to understand why I did not want to give in, she had to know about it. So I started telling her about my life; I told her about the community and Fr Giussani, and I went on for a good two hours. She listened to me and said, “You care more than I do about you. I trust you.” She hugged me and burst into tears. Since that moment, an extraordinary relationship has begun. We help each other at school, and she often confides in me in letters–letters in which she talks about me–a poor wretch like so many others–as a presence that makes her get up in the morning with a smile on her face before she comes to school. She writes that she has begun truly to live thanks to this relationship. This girl is an atheist, but in her letters she speaks of presence and describes something that happened to all of us when we became a part of the community.
A reader

Long-Distance Adoption, Live
When I arrived in Mozambique, I didn’t know what Africa was like and I was very frightened, but I was immediately welcomed by an original group of friends who made me feel right at home. So, when Domingos (responsible for the “long-distance adoptions” project) asked me to give him a hand translating some case stories to send back to Italy, I said yes at once. In the beginning, when I read the stories of those children, I could not help crying. Most of them were without parents, and they lived in huts, without water, electricity, and often without anything to eat, since no one (grandparents, aunts and uncles, a quantity of cousins of every degree) worked. Then it occurred to me to think about what I was doing: every letter I wrote could save a young life, thanks to long-distance adoption. So then, every minute detail was important; the more attention and love I put into it, the greater chance these children had for a better life. From that moment on, every stroke on the computer keyboard became a prayer. Then I got curious–I wanted to see those children. So one day I had Domingos take me to visit one of his projects. A group of friends, with few resources, were giving their lives to offer some children not only food and enrollment in school, but above all a friendship and an accompaniment that their families could not give. Then I thought of offering my help, to try to optimize the time and cost of their work. Now I drive them around in the car, to the hospital, to buy things that are far away, etc. Two episodes have struck me. The first was the field trip to Catembe. We took 35 children from very poor families, between the ages of 12 and 15, to the beach. Many of them had never been outside their slum. We all caught the bus outside the church, and then the ferry to the beach, everyone crowded together. There, we organized games and went swimming, then we ate together (I had made seventy sandwiches and a cake) and sang. As I looked at them, the question tormented me, “What will become of them?” I pray to the Lord that He may always keep them this simple and full of enthusiasm in the face of the difficult reality that they are called to live. The other episode is the story of an 11-year-old girl from one of the poorest families, one of a set of quadruplets (in Africa, multiple births are considered bad luck), who swallowed a needle. We took her to the hospital (a place where there is not even electricity and where you feel faint from the smell). They operated on her, opening her up from the neck to the waist, (poor little thing), but the operation miraculously was a success. I stayed with her every day, holding her little hand. When she went back home, we asked her why she swallowed the needle, and her answer was, “I was tired of living.” I thought to myself, “I understand her, in that house without running water or a floor, without ever receiving a hug or comfort.” But Rosalia, a Mozambican girl who works for AVSI and who is also very poor–she lives in a house with a tin roof, her mother is dead, her father an invalid, and she has her brothers to support–said to the little girl, “You have to be strong. You have to study so you can get a job and leave this house, but above all you have to do like I did, find some true friends, so that life is no longer difficult. You have to stay with me.” Then I understood what “long-distance adoption” really is.
Silvia, Maputo

In War, the Fatherhood of the Pope
Dear Fr Giussani: Thursday, after the Movement’s Mass, I was selling Traces with Anne Nganda. A Sudanese man wanted to buy the magazine, and saw the picture of the Pope, Saddam, and Bush. He said, “I do not agree with the Pope. I am a Christian but I do not agree with what the Pope says about the war.” I asked him why, and he said that the Arabs want to take over all of Africa, and we will end up their slaves. Well, I had never thought about it like that. I would hear people talk about Sudan, how they treat the Africans, and I would think: at least the Americans do not torture them like the Arabs do. I supported the Pope because he corresponds more than the others to every human heart, every human being; he feels and is moved in front of every person who suffers, and would like to do something so that others suffer less. I felt what the Sudanese man said to be true, because it is what happens between the Arabs and Africans who are there. I thought, “Who can save us more, Saddam, Bush, or the Pope?” I am surer of the Pope, because I know he cares about me and cares about the destiny of every person. The Pope is a concrete “I” who looks with a forgiving tenderness, and so one feels forgiven. I was almost convinced by the Sudanese, who came back to tell me to support Bush. But a concrete “I” corresponds more, and every relationship becomes friendship. The Pope says things that seize your heart, that correspond to you. Maybe this is why, Fr Giussani, the human heart imitates the humanity of Christ. It is an emotion that reaches the point of saying, “Woman, do not weep!” This is the fatherhood of the Pope–he looks at man in his value and would like Saddam and Bush to be saved. A nothingness that is not lost. Quos redemisti, tu conserva Christe. I answered the Sudanese that a mother would not like to lose even the stupidest child, even the craziest one. She would die for all of them. This is the Pope’s heart. No heart can deny that what the Pope says is true; it can only betray. The Pope says that Christianity brings a new man into the world, who experiences reality, has a consciousness and feeling about reality, a different relationship with reality. This man makes lots of mistakes, sins many times, and yet he cannot deny that the Pope and Fr Giussani correspond to all the factors of the “I.” Defending life corresponds more than denying it. Supporting the Pope, it almost seemed to me that I was not defending my land from the Arabs, but I belong neither to Bush nor to Saddam. Belonging to them is like belonging to nothingness. I belong to the Pope who cares about me, because he defends my “I.” And I love him too.
Rose, Kampala

Swamped by Requests for Traces
Dear Fr Giussani:
We wanted to express our gratitude for the opportunity our Fraternity group was given to sell Traces at the Retreat. We wanted this gesture to be beautiful, and so we felt the need to be recognizable during our promotion. We had fun making a red scarf to wear, with the T for Traces. Then some of us said, “The ones who attend the Retreat are probably all subscribers. What should we say to promote our magazine most effectively?” We prepared a lot of fine and true phrases, to overcome these and other objections. Then the reality was different. For Fr Pino made the announcement so convincingly and the price was so good that we found ourselves in the opposite situation: we were literally swamped by requests! People often told us to keep the change as an offering, to make our work easier. We were struck by the truth of the possibility of doing this gesture on other occasions, with a more precise responsibility on our part, in the neighborhood or the city squares. Selling Traces on a stable basis in several places, putting our effort into play, is a harder road, but now we are different. This gesture had been proposed to us countless times, but this occasion has changed our awareness of its meaning and our belonging, and our affection for our community and the tools it gives itself has grown.
Bruno, Milan

Under the Sky of Ireland
Never before as this year has the Spirit given us so many signs of His work around us, signs that ask of us only simplicity and the attention of recognizing them. The first great sign is the motherhood of the Irish Church toward us, which we experienced this year as never before, thanks to the example of our friendship with the Apostolic Nuncio, who affectionately accompanies us in many of our gestures, and to the meeting with Bishop Field on the occasion of the anniversary of the Fraternity, during which he expressed his gratitude for our presence and asked us to continue along this same road. And this year too we had our first informal meeting of mutual testimony with the Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Desmond Connell. Before Christmas, our university students had attended the annual Mass for youth presided by the Cardinal. After the celebration, our friends, the only group that had sat in front together, expressing unity and friendship, went to introduce themselves, to thank him, and to invite him to dinner. The Cardinal accepted, and spent an evening with our university students in recognition of his sharing our passion for Christ and the Church. Shortly thereafter, the parish priest of one of our families invited himself to dinner because of how the Cardinal had talked to him about us. Another great sign for us was seeing that many people, with whom we have simply risked an invitation to some of our gestures, are struck and moved by what they find in front of them. An example is the bank manager of one of us who, after having been to the presentation of The Religious Sense, brought her son and a friend to the Way of the Cross. Another person, too, who had been to the presentation of The Religious Sense (a painter who is famous here in Ireland), after the Way of the Cross said to us, “I was moved by this gesture in the same way that I was struck by reading The Religious Sense.” And too, a journalist who was present at the Way of the Cross for the national network thanked us because the gesture had struck him greatly and he wanted to know about us. Now he wants to do a presentation of the Movement in a TV program. A last example is the technician for the satellite transmission of the Retreat who, his curiosity aroused after two days spent with us, wanted to know who we are. One of us replied by telling him that we were there to find an answer to our questions. The technician said, “I have never had concrete answers from any priest.” So our friend invited him to the assembly and the technician was deeply impressed by it; this week he has started up a friendship with some of us. Another sign of the unpredictability of the event was the arrival of some people who came to live in Ireland this year. Among them are some Memores Domini who have opened a house. Even the gestures we do every year, like raising money for AVSI and the pilgrimage to the Marian sanctuary at Knock, have this year revealed themselves to be occasions for educating us to recognition of the Lord’s Presence in our lives, a recognition that alone–Carrón reminded us during the Retreat–is the true change. We were particularly surprised at the vacation, in which 100 of us took part, because of the experience of unity and the sincere desire to follow the charism. Finally, the ordination as deacon of one of us, Andrew Carvill, on Easter Monday was, as his Bishop John Magee said, an event as much for the local church as for the community.
Raffaella Sorensen, Dublin

The World at War
This morning while I was driving Christopher, my 3-year-old son, to pre-school, he commented, out of the blue, “The whole world is at war.” Naturally, I was surprised to hear this from his young mouth, but he so frequently floors me.... I told him, “You know, Christopher, it’s true that people in the world are at war and people are fighting all the time, but what’s different for us is that we have Jesus and we just need to stay close to Him.” He responded, “But how do I stay close to Jesus?” I told him, “We stay close to Jesus by being with those people He has given to us. Do you know who He has given us?” Christopher responded, “Mary [actually, it was pronounced ‘Mawy’]…and our family.” I told him, “Yes!! He gives us Mary and our family and our friends too. We stay close to Jesus by loving our family, going to His Church, and by staying with the friends He gives us. He gives us our friends to show us how to be happy. He really loves us and wants us to be happy and He is with us when we stay with these friends.” We then took inventory of a huge list of our friends... thanks for being a part of this list!
Cara, Sacramento

The Toil of Living
Dear Editor:
I have had in mind for some time writing to thank you for the article “Young Hope,” in the February issue of Traces, and to thank the teachers who took part in the meeting. Your work made a significant and authoritative contribution to a meeting of dialogue on the same topic in which I participated. “For me, everything comes to mind” (Fr Giussani). Much more than we suppose, young people ask themselves if life is worth living, if it is worthwhile facing “the toil of living.” So many extreme transgressions are the wrong answer they try to give to the meaning of life (I am thinking of Saint-Exupéry and the title of his book A Meaning for Life), the wrong road for responding to the need for happiness–“black grace,” as Fulton Sheen called it, however not without the possibility for redemption. On the positive side, a young girl said to me two days ago, “This place [the monastery of Vitorchiano] is so important. I am not here to rest; I was looking for a place where it is worthwhile to give one’s life. I’ll be back. Teachers and places full of meaning.” This is the fruit of your spending your lives for what is worth most and to help young people find the “taste for life.”
A reader, Monastery of Vitorchiano, Italy

A Family History
Dearest Fr Giussani:
For some time, I have been wanting to write to you to tell you about our experience as parents who do not belong to Communion and Liberation, while our children do. Born into the Christian faith, at a crucial moment in their lives they encountered people in the Movement who were able to transmit to them the most profound richness of the faith that you have planted. I’ll tell you briefly the story of our family. We met the Movement about fifteen years ago, through a priest who was in our parish. To begin with, he was different from most of the priests we knew–even if he was not an easy person–because he did more or less what he wanted. However, our children, the youth, and the adults, too, liked him. He was good for my children in particular; he helped them a great deal in every circumstance. For example, when the time came for summer vacation, we could not afford to pay for them, but he said, “Go anyway,” no problem. So they went, one year to Picos de Europa, another to Formigal…. What I know is that my children, after the first vacation, never wanted to miss out again, because they belong to the Movement and they live it with great gladness and faith. For us parents, it was hard in the first few years to see our children in a movement with which we were not familiar, about which we knew nothing, even if it originated with a priest. So there were constant arguments at home, especially with the oldest boy, who was the most involved. In fact, he is the one who adhered most profoundly, joining the Memores Domini. On one hand, we are pleased, because we see that he is happy and glad about the decision he has made, but on the other it costs us effort to understand this decision. We would have preferred to see him become a priest, but the Lord knows where to sow the seed. Now, as a mother, I have seen how my children have established relationships with a group of people and especially with priests who have helped them greatly. I have seen that they have always managed to take part in everything that concerned caritativa [charitable work], the Fraternity, the Retreat, “the happening,” the meetings. To tell the truth, every time they took part in some initiative, I questioned them. I have always wanted to stay informed–even at the cost of being a bit heavy sometimes–about where they were going and what they were doing, even though today each of them has taken his own path in life. I want you to know that your seed has borne good fruit, and that through our children, my husband and I too are benefiting from it. We have been through some very hard periods of conflict in our marriage, and with the help of some priest friends of theirs, and living their faith, we are finding some stability in our own life, above all living the faith in the Church.
A reader

Errata Page 28: The first name of His Eminence Theodore Cardinal McCarrick was printed as Edgar instead of Theodore. Traces regrets this error and respectfully apologizes to His Eminence.