EDITED BY PAOLA BERGAMINI
pberga@tracce.it

FORLÌ
Beyond my “Measure”
I attended my third Easter Triduum with my GS high school group, the moment of the year to which I most look forward, as each time it is new and ever more beautiful. Kneeling and singing Here Next to You in the midst of 6400 kids during the Way of the Cross, I understood that I was wanted, chosen, and sweetly embraced by Jesus–despite my betrayals and my countless faults and limitations. My heart was truly full of joy, and I was happy and serene, but back in the hotel after the Way of the Cross, during the sharing in which we talked about the two magnificent days we had spent, I was very sad. This year I had forced myself to live these three days together with a friend of mine to whom I had not been speaking for a while and who no longer came to the GS gatherings. Making up with her had become by now my only goal, and this bothered me because my “measure” (as Father Giorgio called it) had become at this point more important than anything else. The problem was that it was my measure, not reality. The reality is that I was absolutely not living the three days with her, and this made me suffer terribly. This is why I was so sad. Despite that very sweet embrace, I managed once again to say, “No.” I preferred to remain a slave to my own scheme, which had blown up in my face. I preferred to remain blind to the reality that had been given to me, which is that in any case she was there, she came to the three days, and it was a miracle. But as Father Giorgio said, no matter how much I say, “No,” the embrace remains and I can’t run away; if I have felt it at least once, it remains. In the end, this pain was turned into entreaty and offering to the Lord, to the point of enabling me to live the three days seriously from beginning to end. My friend, too, even though she is no longer part of GS, lived the experience completely. This moved me and, after all, since we had had the same experience, it was as though we had had it together. I called her on the phone this evening, and this simple gesture was in any case full and beautiful. So then, thinking this over, I say: isn’t it maybe better to be attentive to the circumstances of reality and live them, instead of building up for ourselves abstract and impossible ones? As Camus’ phrase on the Easter Poster says, “Greatness comes, if God wills, like a sunny day.”
Bianca

Madrid
Beginning to Sing
About two weeks before the CLU [CL University] Retreat, José Miguel Garcia (Responsible for the university students here in Madrid), asked me to put together a choir. Besides the fact that there were very few of us, almost nobody had the faintest idea how to sing in a choir, with even less knowledge of music. What is more, I had never directed, and the whole thing seemed to me quite impossible. But when someone makes such a personal proposal to you, you understand that it is reasonable to adhere to it, at least tentatively. So we started practicing and preparing some songs. Where to begin? I thought: the Movement’s singing started when Father Giussani began teaching a small group of young students the songs True Love is Jesus and O Gentle Heart; well, why not start with those? And incredibly, after hours of practice and desperation on all of our parts, these were the two songs that turned out best during the three days. What amazed me was that whenever I tried laboriously to teach them notes, tempo, crescendo, and breathing, nothing happened. Rather, the more “technical” concerns I added for them to keep in mind, the worse the singing was–dragged out, choppy, out of tempo, and sometimes hitting wrong notes. I was close to nervous collapse, and they were collapsing from boredom! Then, during a practice, Giussani’s phrase, “pure charity is song,” popped into my head. I said to them, “Guys, you can’t sing except out of love for someone; no one sings except out of love for someone or something. You can’t really sing this song unless you have before your eyes a face, two faces, three faces whom you love. I understood this because I was not able to stand there in front of them, directing and singing with them, without having constantly before my eyes the faces of my friends, of the people in the choir in Milan (where I began my own choir instruction). “Please, sing now as if you were singing for the greatest love in your life, because no matter what, saying, ‘I sing for Christ’ or ‘I sing for the community,’ can still be something abstract. But saying, ‘I am singing for that person there, that person whom I know, whom I love, who has this face, this temperament, this fault,’ singing keeping that precise face in mind, is what changes you, and it is no different from saying, ‘I sing for Christ or for the community,’ because for me the community is the same thing as those faces that I have in my mind, and Christ makes Himself present to me through them.” The singing started to change, and I could see in their faces that it was changing–they were changing as they sang–and it was clear that, keeping the faces of their friends before their eyes, they knew for whom they were singing; rather, they knew Whom they were singing.
Ilaria

Bologna
Sacred Space
I am sending you the letter that Sister Chiara, Enzo Piccinini’s sister, sent to me from Venezuela after she heard about the death of my husband Giorgio
“Dearest Annalisa: I heard through Barbara of the death of your husband Giorgio. I was immediately struck, and my affection reached out to you, even if I do not know you. I know that you have children who are still small, one of them a newborn, and I am thinking of how much you miss his physical presence, his cherished companionship. Grief is a sacred space, where no one can come in, and I know this by my own experience with Enzo’s death. Death remains an absurdity, but the Lord has penetrated its non-sense that wounds us all. By living our daily life with faith, including all things (great and small) that life contains, we shall learn little-by-little to live death, limitations, and need as a sign and a reference. I am close to you in the entreaty for this faith and in the path that Our Lady opened up for us with the surrender of her ‘Yes.’”
Annalisa

Following the Cross
The School of Community in Rochester, Minnesota, led the Way of the Cross on Good Friday again this year. Bishop Bernard J. Harrington, of the Diocese of Winona (which covers southern Minnesota), carried the Cross while a group of over 250 people followed through the city of Rochester. We began at the Civic Center with song and readings from Péguy, the Passion according to John, and a message from Fr. Giussani. The second stop brought us to the Peace Plaza, which is outside of the Barnes & Noble bookstore, located in downtown Rochester next to a shopping mall. As we listened, reflected, and sang songs, there was a group of young people from “generation x” who were being rather obnoxious. It was a reminder that not everyone sees the victory of the Cross in the same way. Our journey through the streets of the city of Rochester, which is home to the Mayo Medical Community, was particularly interesting because of the many people who suffer. A public gesture around the Mayo buildings recalls that suffering is redemptive and sacrifice is no longer inconceivable because Jesus Christ died on the cross and won victory for us all. Christ makes sense out of our lives and it is no longer nonsense when we journey with all of the struggles of humanity. As we were moving toward the Church of St. John where we had a Good Friday Service at the conclusion of the procession, we passed by a Muslim woman. It is obvious that for her this cross would not announce the sign of victory, love, mercy, and compassion; it would be difficult to know what it might mean for this Muslim woman. Bishop Harrington in his reflection in the church reminded all of us that Christ Jesus loves the group of young people from “generation x” and that Jesus loves the Muslim woman, as He loves all of us when we betray or contradict or are not able to see as God sees. A number of folks spoke of their reluctance to join the procession because they are not accustomed to going public with their faith in such a powerful way, but they came because of the invitation or of a desire to accompany the others. They realized that “going public” is the call for each of us, everyday in the work place, in our neighborhoods, with our friends. We may be a bit uncomfortable, but this tension is a beautiful challenge for us to ponder as we recall the Paschal Mystery and the dying and rising of Jesus Christ. Fr. Giussani blesses all of us with the strength and clarity of his message that sacrifice has become interesting and orders our life by following the Cross and calling us to go on mission in the name of Jesus, always aware of the surprise of the Holy Spirit.
Father Jerry, Rochester