School of Community with NATO

Two years ago, we were transferred from Katerini to Larissa, Greece, a small town about two hours’ drive from Salonicco. The thought of this change cheered me up at once; I had heard that there was a small Catholic Church in that town, and an Italian priest. I imagined that church and that priest to be the possibility of a Christian companionship and therefore the way out of the loneliness that weighed on my family’s life in the years we spent in Katerini.

Spurred on by that new and cheerful image, the first time I went to Mass with my husband and two children I asked to be introduced to some members of the parish community. The reply was sadly brusque and disappointing. I was told that the priest came only once a week to say Mass in that predominantly Orthodox town, that there was no Catholic community there, and, even worse, that there would never be one.

This cynical and disillusioned statement had a terrible effect on me: was there really no chance of finding friends here in Greece? Was it really true? Couldn’t I even hope? I didn’t want to resign myself to this prospect; I was convinced there must be a way out. Spurred on by this hope of positivity and by my need for company, I prayed to the Lord until one day something changed. One Saturday, I had dinner with some people who went to weekly Mass. The group was made up of foreign immigrants and Italian officers serving in the NATO contingent based at Larissa. They were people like me, feeling very lonely and homesick. It was this separation from the affection of loved ones that gave form and content to our discussion that evening.

During dinner, I was surprised that although we didn’t know each other, every one of us felt the need to speak frankly and straightforwardly about himself and his need for company. They all wanted to share their lives with someone, and they wanted something that would help them to face up to the present moment and its difficulties. It was right in that moment that I first felt the need to tell them briefly about my encounter with the Movement and then to suggest that we meet once a week to read The Religious Sense together, the text that has helped me to live and face up to the stress of these years in Greece.

So it was that, week by week, a year went by. After that first evening, we never stopped meeting at least once a week, and the faithfulness to this appointment has produced its fruits in each one of us. Claudio, a lieutenant-colonel in NATO, told us, “In my former, private life of social intercourse, I had never had such an intimate relationship of reflection by myself or with others on the true existential values, a moment of sharing with people that I discovered have the same interior needs as I do…” And Fausto, a colonel in NATO, said, “In the organic, consequential and logical development of reasoning, led by a kind of open debate in the group, and always following the way marked out by Fr Giussani, I found a window opened up on the subjects and on the panorama of life that have always provoked my mind: is there a reasonable answer to the religious sense? Is it possible to find a link between the present and destiny? The answer is yes!” Then there is Carmen: “I’ve found a new family;” and Alberto, a NATO officer: “What is happening in Larissa with the School of Community is offering me a new way to deepen my being Christian. The moments of encounter become meaningful moments, with a wealth of new discoveries, moments in which personal certainties are challenged, moments of interior growth…. I can affirm that my religiosity comes out strengthened from these engagements, and my view of the world, too, in the hope of being able to transmit to my family the positive things I am living and learning.” Gianni said, “The opportunity we have been given for me has meant, above all, a way to find Jesus again, to continue that relationship with Him that I had thought impossible, since there was nothing happening here in the parish. The Saturday Mass was not enough for me.”