Breaking Ground

I first met Fede e Luce in Viterbo, at Castel d'Asso, during their summer retreat in 2024 at La Bicoca, a property run by Volta la terra. It was by chance. But as I listened to their story, something clicked—I felt at home, among family. Because I had a beautiful experience at L'Arche Daybreak in Richmond Hill, near Toronto, Canada.
I visited regularly for gatherings and shared prayer. I had met Jean Vanier at Saint Michael's University and Henri Nouwen, drawn by their witness. Nouwen had lived a profound human encounter with Adam Arnett, who died in February 1996. Nouwen planned to write about it. But Nouwen himself died that September (I remember his funeral Mass), and Sue Mosteller, director of the Henri Nouwen Center, completed the work he had begun. Adam, Beloved of God (Queriniana, 2019 edition) is the Italian title of the original Adam, God's Beloved. Nouwen writes: "In caring for Adam, I have not only come to know more about God, but Adam has also helped me discover and rediscover, through his life, the spirit of the living Jesus in my own spiritual poverty."

Nouwen was and is a great spiritual writer, forged in personal suffering and in an attentive, love-filled Agape toward those who needed everything. In a world so harsh and shadowed, discovering oases of light is a gift of hope that will not wither among thorns but will flourish in good soil.

Breaking free from rigid liturgy to enter the lived reality of those who long to meet God's embrace

I spent wonderful hours with the Fede e Luce guests in our countryside. The church service, which I adapted for those present the way I had learned at Richmond Hill, freed me from the constraints—beautiful as they are, but often incomprehensible—of rules. I could enter the lived world of those who hunger to meet God's embrace without losing themselves in specialized language or misunderstood rituals.

Breaking bread for those with no teeth is not disrespect for the bread, but love for those who wish to taste the wisdom and goodness of the Lord. What the families and volunteers of Fede e Luce give to our brothers and sisters in difficulty is the hand of the Lord bending down to touch their wounds and caress them gently, as the Samaritan did. That caress is prayer. It is liturgy. It is an offering pleasing to God. While we help them, they enrich us with wisdom, patience, attention, deep listening. Their "poverty" enriches us and our lives.

I would love to open a Fede e Luce community here in Viterbo—to teach many to see struggle not as burden but as opportunity for spiritual growth and service. Mother Teresa of Calcutta used to say: "If these are ideas that please God, they will grow, sooner or later." For now, we prepare the soil. We speak of it, we listen, we meet, we come to know. Like breaking ground to receive the seeds. OL

See also: A Third Way? by don Mauro Santoro