Letters

EDITED BY PAOLA BERGAMINI
pberga@tracce.it

Cameroon
My Road
My dear Fr Giussani: When I look at your picture, I am filled with admiration for this older man to whom I owe the light in my eyes, because it did not take years of reading for your writings to make me a new person. I grew up in a family in which my parents were greatly taken up with their own affairs, and at an early age I threw myself into soccer, which was the only way I had to express myself and to console myself for my lack of affection. My mother, the few times she realized I was alive, could not stand the way I acted, which she barely understood, and she would beat me to the point of drawing blood. Every day that passed, I grew farther and farther away from her. As for my father, I do not remember ever hearing a word come out of his mouth. He is a man of great silence. I learned to read this silence, and to recognize a father’s love in his gaze on me sometimes in the past. All I have of them is their memory, since I left them when I was still young, to throw myself into the world. Thus, I cut all family ties. At the age of 11, I was spending time on the streets, and by 16, I was living there all the time. I was my own father, mother, brothers, sisters (I have six of them). I needed a place in this world of intrigue and violence. I had to win it, to make people respect me. I had to impose respect on others, whatever the price to pay. Whatever I had to do, one thing alone drove me: to be the best; to show that I was the best! But, unfortunately, the streets are not a mother who protects, chastises, and takes you back tenderly into her arms! No! The streets do not forgive!!! No one escapes from the enforcers of the law. So I found myself in prison. To whom could I turn? In whom could I confide? Nobody came to see me–nobody!! It was then that I noticed that four times a week, at 2 o’clock sharp, a priest came to visit the juveniles (I was in the juvenile section of the central prison of Yaoundé). As soon as they saw him, the kids would run up to meet him. I had learned to stay by myself and did not trust anyone. Why should I get close to that priest? Why should I stoop to gather the crumbs he gave to the children? No! I would rather die! On the streets, I learned what honor is. They respected me. I had passed all the tests. The days passed, and I noticed that this priest took an interest in me. At times, he would break away from the group of youths to come over to me. He would smile at me. That face weakened me… I began to become attached to him. When I got out of prison, I would see Fr Maurizio when he came to see the street kids. He would take me aside and we would talk. I opened up, and he made me talk about myself, something I had never done with anyone before. Little by little, he became “my person,” as we say here about someone we love very much. Through him, I met Mireille, who would come with him to the streets. I found myself becoming attached to her. Something true and profound made her different. So I had two people with whom I could open up unconditionally. Thus it was that they invited me first to the CL Mass every Thursday, then to School of Community, which I now attend every week. This is when I encountered you, Fr Giussani. Your writings fascinated me. My admiration grows every day. I cannot express here what I feel. Now I am 23 years old. I still play soccer and hope to make a career of it. The rest of my time I spend at the Edimar Social Center or with Fr Maurizio, Mireille, and other educators. We work toward inserting street kids back into their families, society, and professions. I have resumed contact with my family. I pray to the Holy Virgin to watch over you, Fr Giussani. All my best wishes to you and to the great CL family all over the world.
Bali Désiré

Bucharest
The Only Meaning
Monsignor Giussani: Thanks be to God, because you exist, because you wrote the book At the Origin of the Christian Claim. I was honored to be present at the book’s presentation in Romania, and it changed the meaning of my life in an exceptional and real way. My name is Monica. I am married to Cristian and have a five-year-old son, Mihai. I am from Bucharest, Romania. I do not want to go into detail because I do not want to waste too much of your time with my simple language. The presentation of the book was a beautiful beginning, followed by the testimony of two special people, Ezio Castelli and Rosetta Brambilla, and an invitation to participate in School of Community. Now my journey in life alongside some friends I now have has only one meaning: to follow Christ, to follow his teachings, because nothing is more beautiful and true than the recognition of “this total embrace, this possession that an Other has of us, an Other, the Mystery,” as you say so wonderfully. At night, I sleep to wake up in the morning and pray to Jesus and Our Lady, to pray and to thank them, just as you have taught us so many times. But that’s not all: I am writing this letter on a very special day for me and my family. I received in the house where I live five wonderful children, children from an institution who need a family, the care and love of a mother, the warmth and protection of a father. It was a day charged with emotion and joy. You may be wondering, as my friends do, why I did this. I answer from my soul: an inner force that comes from the heart, something greater than love and mercy, something that I cannot define is pushing me to take care of six children. God’s strength is great, and just as I love Him, in the same way I feel His love and mercy on me and my house, and I am convinced that He will make our living together possible and beautiful. Fr Giussani, I cannot help hoping for great health for you, as well as for me and my family that is today starting down the path of a new beginning. I kiss the hand that wrote this book, At the Origin of the Christian Claim. I hope you have a long life in which you can still write many books that, if God wills, may come all the way to me.
Monica

Africa
At the Source of the Nile
Day by day, I am discovering what Fr Giussani says, that Christianity is not a religiosity, not a religion, but a problem of life. Christianity unveils the problem of man. I took the course that Clara, Kizito, and Giovanna taught on The Risk of Education. There was classical music, something I had never considered before. With music, all I heard was noise, but Giovanna said, “Listen to this note, this movement.” I began to appreciate classical music. The same thing happened with The Risk of Education. I had put it aside, thinking it was only for teachers or those who had something to do with education, but no, it made me understand and go more deeply into who I am and who man is in general. When they started talking, I thought that if Fr Giussani had been the first missionary in Africa, he would have conquered all of Africa! I wanted to do the same thing for my orphan children who are going to secondary school this year. So we organized a field trip. There were 70 kids and 2 adults (Teddy from the Acholi Quarter and I). These children have never been out of their slum, and we took them to the source of the Nile. We sang and played. The kids did not want to come home. But neither did the bus drivers; they told us they enjoyed being with us. With the kids, we talked a little about freedom and about what is being published in the newspapers. I was afraid they would not be able to understand, but I remembered what Fr Giussani says: when you call forth a value in someone else, you call it forth in yourself as well. When you speak to someone else’s freedom, you speak to your own, too, and you propose what is right for you. Indeed, the kids looked to me in search of the answers to their questions–not that I am the answer, but perhaps they glimpsed something. One of them, Olak, told me that he wants to be baptized, and another, Jimmy, wants to be a priest. Thus, I understood that freedom has to do with the correspondence of the truth, but the way in which the truth corresponds to us is mysterious. What has to be communicated is the road to reach this. I learned from The Risk of Education a method everyone can use to find this out. It is not a question of convincing the other person, but of having the other find out for himself. On the field trip, there were also a few disastrous kids, who expected to be judged both by me and by their companions. But they discovered, instead, that we were not there to judge, but to walk together.
Rose, Uganda

Italy
Teaming up with Argentina
We publish a letter written by two GS students to some friends in Argentina
It was GS’s beginning-of-the-year field trip. Degio talked to us about the situation in Argentina and the crisis there, and she outlined a very interesting project of offering scholarships to Argentinean children who are below the poverty level. My classmate and friend Cristina and I looked at each other and decided immediately to take part in the project. We proposed it to our class, but they did not pay much attention to what we said and did not understand the importance of this initiative. But we did not give up, and we went with the other GS students in our school to talk to the principal. She listened to us, and it was she herself who proposed that we talk about the problem of Argentina to the entire school. During Christmas vacation our school organizes a little fair and market, and we decided to use the proceeds of this for the project that Degio had outlined for us.
Vale and Kry, Como

Three Hundred Times the Beginning
Dear friends: I regularly receive the updates to the CL website. The article “Three Hundred Times the Beginning” has just arrived. In the middle of the report of the testimonies of the Diakonia of North America, I stopped and read, “It is not we who have to teach the Movement to you, but we have to learn the Movement from you.” This was Fr Giussani’s message given to Vittadini for the communities of North America. I asked myself, “How is this?” It is thanks to Fr Giussani that the Movement has spread throughout the world, and we all learn constantly from him, while he himself, now, at the age of 80, wants to learn from one of the youngest communities? Thank you to our American friends, because reading their testimonies, for me the emotion of the Event “here and now” happens all over again, 6,000 miles away. Thank you for keeping us informed about the most important events and documents via Internet, so that we can share in the life of the Movement everywhere and in real time. Finally, thank you Fr Giussani, for the wonder, gratitude, and sonship because of the Encounter we have had, that happened again this morning as I read your message.
Paolo, Rome

Our Mission
We came into contact with a man named Fr Charlie who is the Pastor of the San Jose State University Newman Center and Catholic Campus Ministry Center. Through a series of e-mails, we made plans to drive down from Sacramento to San Jose and meet this guy who had met the Movement in a particular way. Through an article in a magazine called Mission, Fr Charlie was able to get the e-mail address of Damian Bacich and begin to learn what the Movement is about. His openness is so clear. During his homily, before we met him and talked about the Movement, he made a judgment that struck us: “We need to be a presence. In the world around us that is full of darkness, we are the light. This is our mission.” How amazing it is that on the same day that we go to meet him, he says this exact thing! After Mass, we were able to meet some of the students of San Jose State who are very interested in the Movement and in the reasons why we were there. We met with Fr Charlie, whose interest was directed toward learning about the community and how we live with Christ in our everyday lives. In his two or three years as the Pastor of the Newman Center, he has been trying to find ways to make Christ a concrete reality in the daily lives of the students. For us, this is a sign of certainty that what we met is true. Through the face of another person, we see a human desire so much like ours, and every man’s, that Christ’s presence becomes reality for us. In this, a friendship has been born. This makes us aware of another truth: that every day is a possibility for a New Beginning. It is a sign that we will always move forward toward Christ because of this desire for Him and the opportunity for this new beginning.
Matt, Melissa, and Mary Alice, Sacramento, CA

From One Simple Gesture
Ten years after the death of the Italian Catholic writer Giovanni Testori, testimony from one of the first to meet him
What resulted from a simple, naïve gesture by a little group of university students is so out of proportion, unexpected, and intense that it still surprises me to think about it. It was a simple gesture to go see an editorialist for the Corriere della Sera who amazed us by his editorials and whose words, as opposed to everything else written in the newspaper, had to do with life, and specifically with our life–its questions and expectations. Giovanni Testori commented on the events of the day, talking about us too. We knew and had already been won over by a priest who spoke about life and God, talking about us, each of us–that was Luigi Giussani. So, one evening in 1976, in a filthy student apartment, I proposed to some friends to go visit this writer. “How many times have we said in our meetings, “If only we had been able to meet Giacomo Leopardi, to discuss things with him, thank him…” Well, Testori is on via Brera–let’s go meet him.” This was my simple idea, the cue to our action. What came out of that first idea and then our encounter was so out of proportion and unexpected: it became, in a short time, a chain of meetings and initiatives, a real friendship between a group of university students and an “isolated” intellectual and writer–isolated not from life (quite the contrary: he was in it over his head), but from all those banded together for power or personal interest. It was a friendship that lasted, I believe, and lasts, because it was born of mutual surprise–the surprise of us young university students, and his surprise at being the “teacher.” It was the surprise of a friendship based on a passion for life and reality, the greatest “interest” a man can have. This relationship was the starting point for individual and group progress in various ways; it forged painters, writers, and journalists. We would meet to create exhibitions, meetings, and debates. Books, magazines, a circuit of cultural centers, and a theater company were born. Existing weeklies were revolutionized, and others still were conceived. Testori’s house soon became a real meeting point, a school. Listening to him meant learning in a lively way. He refined our judgment; above all, he taught us youth of 1977 that culture and life are originally and inextricably amalgamated. We talked about Rimbaud or Tanzio of Varallo as of real people able to introduce us to the mystery of life and reality. Testori encouraged us to dare to sail the open sea, proposing a challenge for each one of us, accompanying us out of the calm ports of our security and protections, urging us never to be afraid. “What are you afraid of?” he would ask. “Everything around us here is a soup, a mixture of petty interests and exchanges of favors. You are so full of life. The gift you have received is not yours, so what is there to frighten you?” It is impossible to relate everything that came of this, also because the adventure is not yet over. Perhaps it is impossible to point to what, of Testori and this friendship, most affected everything that followed. I will just say two Thank yous, among the countless thanks that I should say. The first Thank you. Words that have nothing to do with life or, more specifically, with man’s life, are banned. This is because it is right there and only there: in reality, in man’s life, that the sign of the creature, i.e., the sense of our being in the world, can be found. The story Testori told us during the fifteen years we knew him has always seemed to me to be contained in one of the first episodes I heard him recount. Testori, to explain to us where his passion for words was born, for words so fraught with life, always related an episode from his childhood. One evening, as he was out shopping with his mother, they crossed paths with a man chained between two policemen. Meeting the little boy’s gaze, the man said something–maybe “Hi,” maybe something else. And when he was farther away, since the boy continued to look at him, the man turned and opened his mouth, saying something else. “Well,” Testori would conclude, “I remember his mouth every day and I wonder, ‘What did he say to me? What can I do so that this mouth that opened in the face of a man being taken to prison does not die? So that it is not diminished? What was the word? And what could I make him say?’” He said something similar to me during an interview I had with him while he was ill. Testori commented on the pictures of malnourished and dying children that the newspapers and TV were using to tell about the terrible famine in the Horn of Africa in these words, “Those terrible images of children judge me. I imagine meeting those emaciated faces in heaven, and they will hold us to account for our lightheartedness, for the falsehood of our words and our lives. Those children only apparently do not speak. We shall hear all their words on Judgment Day.” “All you have to do is love reality always and in every way; run from abstractions,” Testori would admonish. Truth has no other place, no other home than reality, man’s life. “Make reality, make life speak, look for words there, make them spring forth from there.” My second Thank you. Freedom: with him we learned the freedom that derives from a sole, greater, and humble “Yes” to the one and only necessary dependence. “The freely expressed thought is not always free.” Testori–a true independent, rebel, protester against every band of people, disdainer of any official post, an irregular–loved to quote this line from Alfieri to tell precisely what freedom is, where freedom originates in work, in life. “Don’t sell out, don’t sell life, not your own nor that of those you meet. Don’t sell your thought and your words; grab all the liberties that only your ‘Yes’ to the one great mystery enables you to grab.” Fifteen years of lessons on words and freedom, even for a journalist who had to repeat a year, was truly a grace from God.
Riccardo Bonacina