testimonies My Yes to the Mystery of Anna The testimony of a Christian man, of a family, and of a work: This is the recognition of a mysterious Presence that changes daily reality and that gives birth to the discovery of life’s meaning, and the consequent enthusiasm that gives origin to the Christian people as victory, as affirmation of life and of the positive, against all the looming nothingness by Mario Dupuis Dear Fr Giussani: Thank you for these thirty-four years that you’ve been a companion for my life. I still remember your face when I told you, in 1981, that I wanted you to give others the responsibility for the Movement, because Anna’s birth, the early years with her that were so difficult, and the situation in Padua, characterized by the new experience of Gino and Graziano, suggested and objectively permitted certain changes. Thank you, because you understood that it wasn’t an issue of pulling back, but of dedicating myself to this unexpected event in the life of my family, because it had everything to do with the experience of the Movement. From that time, it has become ever clearer for me that the Movement was movement toward Christ, acknowledgment of the Mystery present, who “knocks” in unexpected ways and forms in life, and who demands, for this reason, a friendship that isn’t a project, but an affirmation that He is among us. I have always desired more and more to be and feel alive, not because I had so many things to do in Jesus’ name, but because I recognized Jesus within the flesh of the circumstances, starting from my daughter Anna’s situation, so excruciating and offended by limit. I remember, when I was still responsible for Padua and the Veneto Region, and then the years of CLE, when I recounted problems with so and so, or about such and such a situation, you told me, “Look at your daughter Anna. Judge these things, looking at her.” Now I understand more that she was the locus where another measure of things affirmed itself–rather, the non-measure, the non-advantage, the non-return on your investment, because it affirmed the Mystery present, not alongside life, to suggest something for life, but within the real, that obligates you to deal with it, or at least try to deal with it, in another way. This was even clearer to me when you told us that before a face, you shouldn’t just stop at how it appears, but enter within, within, within until you recognize what makes that face exist, so the limited face does not disappear, but affirms another thing. Then, what love and devotion is born for that face! This love and devotion begin inexorably to also define the human gesture with which you treat that face. I believe that this is charity, the knowledge of the Mystery within the real. This journey, long and patient in your sequela, has brought me to the work of Ca’ Edimar, in Padua. We are two families, and have 13 young people living with us, with another 30-40 who we care for during the day. Most of them don’t have a family able to educate them, or their family has become impotent because of the difficult situation their child has gotten into. We take them as they are, with the certainty that the children, ours or those of others, have been given to us so that we can experience Being who “asks to be recognized” within their flesh, as you wrote us in last year’s “Letter to the Fraternity.” I always say that the experience in Edimar is as if Being, Mystery, is asking us to be His companions, because He is still not acknowledged by the creature we have welcomed, and at the same time, to be companions for the creature who does not yet know how to acknowledge and welcome Him. The great thing for me is not so much the work with its numbers and results, but that we and others continue to experience the possibility of recognizing the Mystery present within the flesh of reality and circumstances; this is what generates passion and humanity for everyone and, for example, for these young people, on whom no one bets anything anymore. The social services would be happy enough if we just organized good projects for these kids, but these kids, once you’ve met them, are Mystery that keeps knocking and asking, “Acknowledge me.” So they’re yours forever, and so you do what you can for them, but, as you once said to Cesana, truly everything you can. I don’t know how long the work of Edimar will last or if it will enlarge. My only interest is that it be a house where it’s possible to experience love for Christ through forgiveness of the diversity within which He draws us to love Him, exactly as we are, as you taught us with Peter’s “yes.” These young people are this continuous diversity that helps us not fear sharpening our awareness of diversity in the relationship with our wives or children, because what you’ve taught us is true, I’ve experienced it myself: you’ll never welcome diversity so wholly as you will if you embrace it with this awareness. All this, these things so much bigger than us, within and through our small, poor selves (dwarves on the shoulders of a giant, you always told us), always need help and comfort so as not to give in to the appearance of things. In our case, this would mean reducing ourselves to an educative work that saves a few kids from the street–which is not a small result–but, we were not born for this alone. Thank you. Yours always, Padua, September 3, 2004