Brazil and Mexico

The Fruits
of an Education
In June, July, and September, Fr. Carrón met with groups of the Movement in two countries of Central and South America. During the meetings and dialogues, there emerged a life that has become history, involving an increasing number of people and realities in the context of an experience, in an unexpected flowering of works born thank to AVSI that make the experience better and more human. The following pages report on the two trips

Mexico
by Julián De La Morena

June 28th, arrival
Fr. Carrón landed in Benito Juarez, the airport of the world’s largest city, on June 28th, in the midst of the season’s tropical rains, which this year were already late. In the ancient capital of the Aztecs, located 2,500 meters above sea level, surrounded by mountains and active volcanoes, a group of friends was waiting for him. Even before setting down his little suitcase, he went to greet the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Bertello.

June 29th, Oaxaca
At dawn on June 29th, Interpol arrested one of the most wanted drug traffickers in Mexico, and in the midst of exceptional security measures, was transferring him to the Benito Juarez airport to extradite him to Israel, just as we were heading for the airport. The day began with fighting traffic on the Churubusco artery. In the nick of time we were able to catch the plane for Oaxaca, a beautiful colonial city in the heart of a valley, in south-eastern Mexico, a place whose exceptional luminosity attracts ever greater numbers of artists and artisans. Here, the Movement began 15 years ago, with the arrival of the Memores Domini, who educated a community that has grown and begun to create works. “We don’t want to take over your responsibility, but accompany you in your growth,” said Carrón to the requests of help from the heads of the works born from the community.
The Alecrim nursery school and elementary school are, together with the social work of Dijo (see box), some of the first works created and supported by Latin Americans of the Movement.
A group of ladies from the Fraternity of Saint Joseph told about their own life, meeting in the art gallery run by one of them, Dora Luz Martinez, an important cultural work that unites the more prominent local artists and their works. In the evening, School of Community was held in a former convent from the colonial period, restored and converted into a hotel on one of the main roads of the city. The auditorium is full to overflowing with people of the most varied backgrounds, including university professors, local authorities, and humble indigenous people. “This man has confirmed that Christ is alive and that the Church is my responsibility,” said an illiterate local artisan, summarizing what she had learned from School of Community.

June 30th, Mexico City
Once again on a plane, back to the capital. The day began with Mass at the foot of Tepeyac hill, site of the church that preserves the miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Lunch with a group of responsibles of the Movement ended gaily with a trio of mariachis who sang typical local songs. In the city of Mexico, better known as the Distrito Federal, the community began about twenty years ago with the arrival of three Memores: Amedeo, Bruno, and Stefano.
That evening, there was an assembly of School of Community in a cultural center of the city where you’re not allowed to speak of religion. At the end of the evening, the director of the center thanked Fr. Carrón for his presence, saying that this was the most important meeting that the center had ever hosted since its foundation.

July 1st, Campeche
The third stop on the trip was Campeche, an old pirate lair, in the southern part of the Gulf of Mexico, on the Yucatan Peninsula. It was very hot, with 80% humidity. Waiting for us at the airport was Rodrigo León, the responsible for the community, with a small group of friends who accompanied us to the Memores home to see Roberta, ill with cancer, who welcomed us from her wheel chair. Summarizing the meeting, she said, “The Movement and its responsibles move for only one person: Christ!” Since it was a workday, the community, together with friends from Merida and others from Villahermosa, took advantage of the noon lunch break to meet with Fr. Carrón. Thus, about forty of us, adults and university students, got together for lunch and a cordial and dense dialogue that lasted until it was time to leave for the airport.

July 2nd, National Assembly
for Responsibles and University Students
There were over a hundred people from all over the Republic, some who had traveled twenty hours by bus to be present. Before a very lively assembly on the theme of the Fraternity Exercises, Fr. Carrón said, “First of all, I want to bring you the moved gaze of Fr. Giussani, charged with the same intense vibration with which he looked at us, and looked at each of us, that your humanity may feel truly embraced, as it is now by him, and through him, by Christ Himself, because we have nothing greater, we have received no greater newness than this gaze full of esteem and affirmation for each of our lives, the newness that Christ has introduced into the world.”
Before a group of mariachi dancers entered to express, in Mexican style, the gratitude for his visit, Fr. Carrón told us about his history following Fr. Giussani. “Accepting to learn what I believed I already knew saved my life. I took seriously Fr. Giussani’s educative proposal, because of a way of mine of dealing with reality, and because I wanted to know whether Christianity could respond to the whole exigency for truth that I had inside. For 15 years, I had no other responsibility than that of a normal member in the Movement. I saw Fr. Giussani once a year, and from afar. I said to myself, “If I can’t do the walk of everyone, I don’t care,” and for this reason, I say that the walk that I did, anyone can do. How did I learn? I lived, and since I didn’t have anything else, I sought Fr. Giussani in what I read of his works. When I made mistakes, or when I was hurt by the bad I had done, I searched for him more. I learned from how Fr. Giussani put me in front of life. I learned a gaze on reality. For this reason, when Fr. Giussani began to tell me, “You have to come to Italy,” I answered him, “Whatever you ask me, I can’t tell you no, because you made me live life with an intensity, with a fullness that I can’t say no to you; if you want me to do it, I’ll do it; if you want me to come, I’ll come.” I saw his reactions to what I told him; in the reaction, even if it is only an instant, there’s everything, and so I understood whether I was going on a mistaken walk or whether what I sensed was confirmed. For me, these months–even in the little bit I have seen–have been decisive. And being able to talk with him tranquilly, in the situation he was in, was the confirmation of a walk that was decisive for my ability, then, to continue after he left us.”

July 3rd, visit to the Cardinal and
the Memores Domini
Sunday, more meetings awaited him, with the Memores Domini and a visit to greet Cardinal Rivera Carrera, Primate of Mexico, who, just back from Israel, kindly received us in the metropolitan cathedral before Sunday Mass, under an imposing painting of Villalpando celebrating Saint Michael the Archangel. Once again, victory and battle.