Fifty Years of Vacation Giving Everything Gelsomina and Silvana, Sisters of the Charity of the Assumption, tell about their first GS vacation with Fr Giussani at Passo di Costalunga, in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy, in 1961 by Paola Ronconi Milan. Via Martinengo, a cross street of Piazzale Corvetto. The convent of the Sisters of Charity of the Assumption. Fr Giussani lived right here, from 1965 and for many subsequent years. In one of the convent rooms we meet Sister Gelsomina and Sister Silvana. In the early 1960s, they were classmates at Berchet High School and students of Fr Giussani. The fascination transmitted by that man during lessons led them to join the students who followed him and, in the summer of 1961, to accept the proposal of a week in the mountains. “ We went to the Passo di Costalunga, in Trentino,” Gelsomina recounts. “A group, including me, stayed further downhill, in Vallonga, because there wasn’t enough room in the hotel for all of us.” The level of the vacation was very high. The characteristic of the encounter with Fr Giussani was such that “he asked us to give our all,” both at home and on vacation. How could 15- and 16-year-old students give their all? “There was never a moment void of meaning,” Gelsomina continues. “Early in the morning, we began by reciting Primes [now called Lauds], then with Mass. Every other day there was an outing. The first days the walks were easier, then, more difficult. On the hikes, we walked in single file, keeping the same step, in a silence full of the relationship between us and what surrounded us. Fr Giussani would tell us, ‘The beauty of the mountains is a sign; all reality is a sign. This is why we walk in silence.’” On the more difficult stretches, the more expert students helped the others; the worst off had to stay in the front. “I remember once that a group stayed behind, exhausted. Pigi Bernareggi got the idea of setting the pace by whistling, and was able to bring them to the summit first, without physically pulling or supporting them, simply giving them the rhythm for breathing.” Once at the top, they sang. “Those words were full,” explains Gelsomina. “There weren’t explanations; each word corresponded to a reality, and experience. Destiny. Companionship. Freedom. We could understand the words more or less, but they weren’t a vague echo of states of mind or reasonings. Then, when we sang, the lyrics had a weight. Many come to mind. We used the Psalms a lot; it was the time of Gélineau.” [This was a Jesuit who, in 1953, created the Psalmody in French based on the Jerusalem Bible.] Silvana: “When we sang, ‘May my tongue cleave to my palate if I forget You,’ we really lived it like a question of life and death. The experience was explained by the Psalm.” And still, “‘La ceseta de Transaqua,’” Gelsomina interrupts, “was the love of the ideal, worth sacrificing for. The ‘Inno delle scolte di Assisi’ (the hymn of the Assisi sentinels) was destiny, the people, the purpose for which we were together, the vigil over the city. And we understood that we were sent into the world; we had the same responsibility as the people that wrote that hymn. Everything, everything judged our life.” Since Fr Giussani’s leit motiv was “don’t waste time,” even the time on the bus was very useful. “In those moments, we spoke, for example, about our classmates. ‘So-and-so is “open;” ask him to come with us,’ he would say to us. Or we talked about our teachers and their hostility to the Church. There we were, in the seats, crowded on each other’s laps, so as not to miss one of Fr Giussani’s words. The growing familiarity increased the sense of the grandeur in which we were placed, of the Mystery; the growing sense of the Mystery increased our familiarity with ‘Fr Gius.’ He entered into things; nothing remained outside. I have in mind the immense sweetness of those moments.” “…And an attention, a companionship that reached the particular,” Silvana resumes, “like that time during a winter trip in the snow, one boy broke the skis he had rented. He didn’t have the money to replace them. Fr Giussani paid for them, with his own money, not that of the common fund!” There were outings and games involving everybody, and in the evening, the famous spoofs. Or, “The year before, at Alba di Canazei, Fr Giussani read, a bit every evening, the entire L’Annuncio a Maria (The Announcement Made to Mary),” Silvana says. “We hung on every word. Through those pages he explained our life to us.” After the evening, at a certain hour, silence. And it was sacrosanct. “Fr Giussani forgave us anything, but he would not tolerate our wasting an experience of beauty and of sequela,” explains Gelsomina. These were the vacations together, but at the end of those days, it wasn’t over. “The books…” Gelsomina recounts, “There was a list of books suggested for the vacation, and among these, every year, one in particular, that we had to outline and send to the center. I remember Moeller’s Saggezza greca e paradosso cristiano (Greek Wisdom and Christian Paradox) and Celestino Charlier’s La lettura cristiana della Bibbia (Christian Reading of the Bible). ‘If you don’t do it’ the older ones told us, ‘you can’t come to Varigotti in September [four days together before school began, called Student’s Week]! It never happened to anyone, but we all did the outline.” And that wasn’t all the vacation homework. Silvana: “He told us to write to our friends and classmates, as a missionary attention to keep in touch and not lose the experience lived during the year. For me, it was a huge effort, but I did it; I even made the commitment to write a letter a day!” And more, “The daily recitation of the Hours and meeting each other in vacation spots. You didn’t even think of going somewhere without looking for someone from the community!” This is what “giving your all” meant. “That famous saying of Saint Catherine’s accompanied us: ‘Don’t settle for the small things. He, God, wants them big.’ Giussani made us live, as early as back then, with this grandeur.” Who knows if, after fifty years, we would be capable of living our summer months on this level? But one thing is sure: that fascination can still be encountered today.