EDITED BY PAOLA BERGAMINI
pberga@tracce.it

MILAN
September 11th
After the terrible events in America, I would like to jot down some thoughts I had about it then and that continue to come into my mind now: 1) There is no doubt that what we saw is the spectacle of evil in its most perfect expression–the concrete putting into action of a completely abstract plan. The first impression I had, as I watched the plane smash into the south tower, was that I was in an American novel–one of those best-sellers made up of theorems, all abstraction, full of cruelty, and where everything squares up in the end because it is not squared up with reality. The poet Testori always said, “The worst enemy is abstraction” (Fr Gius would say ideology). The massacre in New York and Washington is striking for the abstract perfection that lies behind it, for the perfect, clean, mathematical thought of the one who ordered it. It is a thought that reaches reality, destroying it–and cannot do anything but destroy it, because it does not start from reality; it is not born out of reality. 2) I do not think that Bin Laden and whoever else is doing this believes in God; even if America razed Afghanistan to the ground, they–ultimately–would not care at all, because, for minds like that, man is only cannon fodder, whether friend or foe. But in this I am struck by an inhumanity that has no boundaries of race or religion–abstraction is generalized, the criterion used by the attackers is the same one used by a large part of American culture in its thinking, so much so that earlier I spoke of an American novel. 3) It seems to me that the thoughts that I have picked up in the streets or in listening to the radio all run, now, in the direction of concern about the future. It is true, we have suddenly been set back decades, not only in the Middle East, but also in terms of the structure of Western societies (the so-called open society), the economy (will we all become poorer?), politics, etc. This does not worry me too much. What comes back to my mind, instead, is what we always say, which is that Mercy is the very name of God, and that the manner God used to make Himself known as Mercy was to become man, in the womb of a woman. Doing this, God glorified reason in its truest sense, which is not that of an abstract plan–of which Americans and Talibans are equally, globalistically capable–but the embracing of reality in the totality of its factors. The events in America etch even more deeply into my body and soul the truth of this judgment that makes us say, “He alone is.”
Luca Doninelli

KOSOVO
A Kosovar Vacation
In the village of Letnica, with its sanctuary, the goal of numerous pilgrimages, AVSI [Association of Volunteers in International Service] organized a vacation for 70 young people coming from all over Kosovo. Fr Lush told us that for the Feast of the Assumption on August 15th, usually 15,000 faithful arrive from all over the Balkans. It was here in 1928 that Mother Teresa of Calcutta saw her vocation come to maturity. The presence and echo of the clashes in nearby Macedonia bring back a reality in which peace is still far away.
When the kids got off the buses in Letnica, they studied one another with some distance. Most of them only knew two or three friends from their own parishes and felt some diffidence in approaching others. Only the group from Pristina seemed to feel immediately at home, enlivening the atmosphere with Albanian songs and dances. The first evening dispelled the shyness and created an air of familiarity. The walk the next morning also helped to produce a climate of friendship. At the end of their walk, the Italian kids who volunteered to join in the vacation taught some mountain songs, and in return the Kosovar young people drew everyone into their local songs. The moments that came afterwards, from outdoor games to evening songfests, were lived with the same great enthusiasm. Sr Albina and Sr Teresina, too, playfully and fiercely threw themselves into things. But the youth were very attentive also in serious moments. They listened carefully to the words of Fr Lush, Mother Teresa’s biographer and a charismatic figure in the life of Kosovo, who came to share this unique experience with the young people of his land. The words and the gaze of Bishop of Prizren, Most Rev Sopi, who came to the sanctuary specifically to meet the young people, testified to his wonder at the experience these Kosovar youth were living. There was also great participation in the group discussions on the theme of the vacation: “Life is reborn in an encounter.” For most of them, this was the first time that they had been able to talk about their life and their faith in front of other kids. And yet, they managed to overcome their shyness and to talk about themselves, their friends, the war. There was attention and curiosity, but above all a desire to learn from the experience of others. As the hours passed, there was no longer a separation between Pristina and those from the other cities and villages. “I discovered,” Mimoza said, “a greater unity, stronger than local differences.” The title of the vacation began to be for the kids no longer an abstract phrase, but a reality that could be perceived and experienced. Even the parish priest of Letnica, Fr Krista, at the outset reticent and reserved, realized what a great thing was happening among the guests at his sanctuary and enthusiastically entered into the climate of the vacation. There was a very human veil of sadness over the moment of departure, but at the same time there was the great desire that what they had lived not be lost. The words of the kids are clear: “The fruit of this encounter,” said Astrit, “is knowing each other so that we can continue.” Albert, from Pristina, pointed out that the beauty of this encounter had to be communicated also to all the kids who did not come: “Hope causes life to be reborn also for the young people who were not present here.” There is the awareness that the richness of these days is a treasure to announce to all the world. And really a great number of young people, after this time in Letnica, have manifested their desire to meet regularly, even though the logistical difficulties are considerable. They came together again in Pristina in early August. And for the AVSI volunteers, too, work has been picked up again with a new and unexpected enthusiasm.
Filippo

NOVOSIBIRSK
Visiting the Imprisoned
Since June, every Wednesday I go to the prison. In the beginning, I was a bit fearful, above all about not being able to understand well what the inmates were saying, or not making myself understood. My first contacts were with Juri, who was freed a few weeks later and who, in one way or another, I still meet with every two weeks, and with Evgenij, the 21-year-old who has been in jail since he was 16 and still has another four years to serve, all for stealing in a supermarket! He always came to look for me, from the beginning. In the first weeks, he said little or nothing, but he was there. One of the first, I gave him The Religious Sense to read, also because he asked me for books to read. Ever since he started reading it he has not stopped, and he tells me that now he understands his life better, he is more serene. Since he kept telling me that he really liked the book a lot, I told him to write to Fr Giussani to thank him. One evening his mother called me to thank me for the change she has seen in her son since he met me. But what did I do? Pure and simple companionship, and the little time I have when I go there. I have met, up to now, about fifteen persons of every age, from Ghennadij, who is around 50 or 55 and has passed thirty of those years (thirty, the greater part of his life!) in prison, to Pasha, 20 years old but with such a baby face that he looks 16. And every time, especially when I meet someone new, while I am looking for the right way to start out so that he does not run away from that first encounter, inside myself I say over and over, Veni Sancte Spiritus, may the Spirit illuminate me, may He put me on the right path. Up to now, three people have asked to be baptized and to start catechism. The biggest problem is to give some continuity to these encounters; sometimes a lot of time passes before we see each other again, either because of treatment they are undergoing, or because some problem in the “zone” where they are confined keeps them from reaching me. We have formed a little group, with Evgenij and three of his friends, and we want to start reading The Religious Sense together. On August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption, I proposed to everyone, making some signs with Evgenij’s help, an encounter of prayer for Our Lady’s feast. Evgenij was the only one who came, but our purpose was achieved: to entrust that place and those confined there to Our Lady. Now they are no longer entrusted only to me: Valerì has begun to work as an interpreter in a firm that imports furniture from Italy and has enrolled as a doctoral candidate. She is in great shape. We have talked at length on many occasions about virginity. I had lent her Si può vivere così? [Can One Live Like This?], and she started literally to make the judgments and criteria of the book her own. To the point that, when she went to Jakutzk for a week (as an interpreter for an Italian tannery), she phoned me to ask me to dictate the Angelus to her in Italian, because she taught it to the Italian manager. And she told me she had had discussions with him and others on possession and virginity.
Fr Ferdinando

KRAKOW
Pilgrimage
We publish here the letter sent by Cardinal Macharski, Metropolitan Archbishop of Krakow, to Fr Giuseppe Bolis, who led the CL pilgrimage to the Black Virgin of Jasna Gora
Very Reverend Father:
In the days from August 6 to 11, 2001, starting out from the tomb of St Stanislaus in the cathedral on Wawel hill, on the road of the “Eagles’ Nests,” the twenty-first pilgrimage, initiated after the “White March” in 1981, moved on foot from Krakow to the Virgin of Jasna Gora. This year the pilgrims meditated on the passage, “Put out into the deep” (Lk 5:4). It is my heartfelt wish to thank you, personally and on behalf of all the organizers and pilgrims, for your presence again at the pilgrimage on foot from Krakow. Your participation in the pilgrimage to the Black Virgin of Jasna Gora is an enormous richness for our pilgrims. May God reward you for it! I entrust you, the collaborating priests, and all the pilgrims of Communion and Liberation to the Most Blessed Mother and send you a cordial blessing. May God be praised!
Franczyszek Card. Macharski

Sequoia Vacation
I wanted to recount what is happening here: Every time I share the experiences I live with my friends with my coworkers, it strikes them in a very perceptive way. These people always say, “When you talk about these friends of yours, your face and your eyes glow like the face of a person in love.” The Christian experience grows deeper roots every time I have an opportunity to live an event among my friends. In reading Generare tracce nella storia del mondo [Generating Traces in the History of the World], I came to have a better and reflective understanding of how our friendship is linked with the factual experience of John and Andrew. I comprehend that those experiences, such as the power lunch once a week with Damian, the Angelus, and the countless times I have shared my experiences with my co-workers, are ordinary experiences that bring me closer to the Mystery through everyday events; these daily events would be meaningless without the awareness of the Christian event. I lived the miracle of His presence among us, in particular during our Sequoia vacation 2001, which was my brother’s wife Maggie's first vacation with CL (and her first real experience with the Movement). She had been involved in a Catholic charismatic congregation in Los Angeles, which for her has been an overpowering experience as well. Since the vacation, she's shown an even greater interest in meeting Christ, based on “facts”–which is what our friendship is. The “event” of Christianity is conclusive, even more so for me as I see my brother and his family (who live two hours away), come to School of Community every week because they feel that they are able to meet Christ through the faces of their friends. It is through simplicity that we are attached to the Mystery in a tangible way.
Claudia, Los Angeles

Fraternity in Mission
Last summer, during the vacation of the Fraternity of Russia Cristiana [a group formed decades ago to support the Christian presence in Russia] in Italy, some teenager friends of mine threw out a clear provocation: “Do you mind organizing for us a vacation in the USA next summer?”
After that first provocation, months later in Italy, I proposed a meeting with the few (I thought…) families interested: I found 15 waiting! After the first disconcerted moment and a few hundred Veni Sancte Spiritus prayers, I offered an experience of communion abroad, saying, “Are you looking for an English school? For fun? For tourism? Get out of my way! Are you looking for a challenge, based on the fact that meeting Jesus Christ through the Movement is the greatest thing that could have happened to you and, possibly, to anybody? Come and we’ll see, and we’ll also have an English school, fun, tourism, and a lot more!”
They arrived July 10th. After four weeks with them, what can I say?
I’ll let a few flashes give an idea of the light which shone on our days.
There was a bus driver who wanted to know something more about these students because of the attractiveness of their unity, and at the words Communion and Liberation and Fr Giussani he replied, “I know the guy. My father gave me a couple of his books,” and he was invited to our next School of Community…
There were the people in Boston, who stopped and asked questions at the sight of us singing in Quincy Market, or who laughed and clapped their hands when we were dancing at the Aquarium, waiting for a sea lion show…
There was the community of Washington, which invited us for a weekend and made all of us feel at home…
There was the old man in the parish, who said, “I really wanted to be with you at the airport the last day to say goodbye, but I don’t like to be seen in tears”…
And that girl, who told me at the airport, “Now I know what Paradise is like”…
There was the seriousness with which all my students shared the loss of Stefano Aletti [a teenager killed in a boating accident in Italy during that time], prayed for him, offered their own crosses for Fr Giorgio, and wanted to repeat their personal “yes” to the mysterious ways through which the Mystery behind reality leads us toward the fulfillment of our lives…
The Host of our lives, of our company, really made Himself visible and touchable every day for each one of us, in His uniqueness, so powerfully that we are a lot more certain than a month ago of our being beloved, chosen, put together, and sent.
One of the students said, “I came here because I’m tired of my summer vacations, full of fun and distraction, at the end of which it is so difficult to go back to my daily life. I wanted an experience that could continue without breaks when I returned home.” Now we are all back home, with a greater awareness of our good Companion, who’s not going to abandon us and, for this reason, has introduced us to the great company of our Movement.
Fr Luca, Attleboro, Massachusetts

Mark’s Hope
I am a university student in Florence. Four years ago we met Mark, a boy from New York, who had come to study in Florence. He works near Manhattan. This is the e-mail message that he wrote to us in response to ours after the attack: “The first thing I want to say is thanks, to you, Angela and Paola, and all my friends in Communion and Liberation. I am part of Communion and Liberation, and we are friends and a family. I love you. I am fine, my family and friends are fine. I know three people who were inside or nearby but, thank God, they came out alive. I am in shock; everyone here in New York is in shock. It is unbelievable. Perhaps I know somebody that I haven’t heard about yet. I hope not, as you do. Your e-mails were really beautiful and I hear and feel your prayers. I pray with you for the dead, for all the families who lost somebody. Everyone here was affected by this horror, just as in all the world. Truly I am very glad to hear from you and know that I am in your prayers. I pray with you (my friends) in Florence, and we are building a “bond” around the world. Hope to hear from you soon. Ciao and say hello to everybody! Mark.”
Paola, Florence

More
The evening of Thursday, September 13th, there was a dinner in Carate, Italy, to present the Emilia Vergani Foundation. The event took place in a factory building in the former industrial area of town. Recently purchased by the Foundation, it will be renovated and used by the In-presa youth aid center and the many young people who have been attracted into the orbit of its educative proposal. The invitation list was carefully compiled, and included entrepreneurs, authorities, managers, and company officers.
Each took his place, and the Master of Ceremonies felt a pleasant current of benevolence among the group. Before, outside, when everyone was standing around having a drink, there was no way to become aware of it. But now there was a strange availability, an openness and a serene air of expectation which grew all evening from an initial sensation to become a deafeningly obvious fact: who, why, on what account was there the gift of this simple openness?
In the interval between the first and second courses, the President of the Foundation presented its activities and projects, underlined the financial commitment, and introduced the young people who are part of the organization. Three short and simple stories from Maria Venere, Jonathan, and Andreina described what they found there (friendship, support, a common judgment on what is right and what isn’t, on what they want, on responsibility and responsibilities), and of what they have constructed (a job, a band, a soccer team, friendship). And then… it was time to talk about Emilia, about that point, which was the start of everything that the 350 guests were seeing: the dinner itself, the building they were in, the Foundation, the association that is a focus for more than forty young people, the certainty of a sure point of education, the jobs, the training, the many friends who support its activity. The Master of Ceremonies passed the floor to Giancarlo, Emilia’s husband, who started and ended with two simple concepts, two ideas that were very clear to Emilia and that she repeated often: 1) Those kids had a right to something more. They had to have more. And this more was the encounter with a presence that would be a fascination for their lives. They had the right to the experience of an encountered fascination; 2) Those kids had a right to enter life as protagonists. A way of being in the world that would put them in relationship with reality. They had a right to jobs, above all. And then school and vocational training and all the rest. But first, work. Addressing the entrepreneurs who were present, he said, “What Emilia had at heart represents a challenge, and at the same time, an offer of meaning, to your being entrepreneurs.” They should think about how to take up that challenge and take advantage of it.
The evening was well under way: Giancarlo’s words, the testimonies of kids who ought to “have problems” and who very simply told their stories without a trace of shyness in front of 350 people, the loudly voiced request for a song from Andreina who had told about the band and about fulfilling her dream to become a soloist singer. Her very capable performance of Country Road, accompanied by Jonathan on the acoustic guitar, the friendship among many, esteem between all present, everything moved along containedly in the expectation of bursting into the most unexpected of fireworks: an auction of fine wines organized and masterfully conducted by the man in the bow tie: Paolo Massobrio. The wines were great wines; the people discovered themselves to be great people. It was a great fund-raiser. The pleasure of outbidding for those who could, and the pleasure of participating and enjoying the generosity of others for those who could not, because the good and the beautiful, the positive, when it is there, is there for everybody. Rather, we belong to it.
The next day, phone calls would pour in of thanks for a wonderful, “unexpected” evening. In the meantime, after midnight, the noise having died down, the good-nights said with promises to continue to get together, going away into the night there was time to give one last glance to the saying by Emilia projected in large letters more than thirty feet up on a wall of the building next-door: “I have had foster children and I remember especially the first one, who was extremely agitated and anxious… so that the only possibility there was to help him was to tell him: Stay calm, your anxiety does not upset me, I am solidly planted here on a ground more solid than the ground you are on. If you hold onto me I will pull you over to my side…”
Now, going away into the night of an abandoned area, it was more evident and clear: That side, Emilia’s side, was the side of the truth.
Emiliano Ronzoni