San Cirillo
Everything changed in a matter of weeks. San Cirillo held its first meeting in September.
The joy, the friendship, the simplicity that emerged in that gathering made us feel an urgent need to meet again soon.
As the group took shape, we realized how hard it can be to welcome newcomers—families and young people attending for the first time, some who had heard about Faith and Light by word of mouth, others who came out of simple curiosity. How should we respond to them?
It's difficult. And yet it's simple too, because we carry within us that love, that joy of being together, of walking the same path with simplicity.
Santa Silvia
We are a family of roughly sixty people.
We don't face serious problems living together, helped by the presence of many children—both disabled and friends.
Like any family, the Santa Silvia Faith and Light community spans all ages: from two years old to... This diversity brought real liveliness and peace to our first quarter, mixed now and then with tears, shouts, and chaos.
The experiences we've lived through this quarter have strengthened our unity.
We've learned that having clear, concrete goals helps tremendously. Each person has shown an ability to do something beautiful for everyone, with a spirit of service and without calling attention to themselves.
Meeting in small groups at each other's homes gave us what we were aiming for: "living communion" in direct contact and simplicity. Fear held us back—worry about being intrusive, about striking the wrong note, about not knowing how to pray simply. We want to keep going, knowing we have much to learn about praying together.
San Gioacchino
We think it's important to say that no group activity can exist without a close-knit team eager to work with joy. This year we focused on building a leadership team that could slowly learn what unity means—keeping commitments, listening to one another, learning to pray together, being creative, reporting back clearly.
I think we're on a good path. Even though most of the team is made up of young friends right now, I believe we'll gradually be able to draw in more parents and adult friends, inviting them to take on greater responsibility and bring their valuable experience to bear.
San Paolo
The highlight of this quarter was meeting the Pope, who spent time with all the groups at our parish center, including our "Hands Out" group. There was deep emotion on both sides—from the Holy Father and from the members of our group.
Villa Patrizi
The new Villa Patrizi group has about ninety members, with an average attendance of around seventy. Our immediate goal is to know one another more deeply, so we can build the unity that is essential before we can truly live together.
Our meetings include moments of prayer and carefree joy, along with activities for everyone. We're trying to prevent people from feeling isolated or left out, and we want each person to feel the weight and responsibility of their own commitment to the group's journey.
San Giuseppe
In this first quarter, we've mostly worked on getting to know each other and adjusting to being smaller than we were last year. We met twice at Villa Patrizi and once at the little house—a new experience for many of us—and two or three times in people's homes.
Our planned prayer meetings (one or two a month) didn't draw many people and mostly turned into laughter. Some people want to return to the larger group. In the coming months we'll try to move forward together. We're opening more toward the parish, which seems ready to welcome us. We're holding to our prayer meetings and above all giving as much space as possible to small gatherings in people's homes.
Milano
There are now two Faith and Light groups in Milan.
The first has about a hundred people. It started three years ago and gathers for its monthly celebrations in the parish hall of San Giuseppe della Pace. The parish helped us at the start by introducing our initiative to the community, which allowed us to make our first connections.
Recently our numbers have grown enough to make a split possible. Some friends living in another part of Milan have managed to start a second Faith and Light group in their parish of SS. Silvestro and Martino.
Our meetings follow this rhythm: on the second Saturday of each month we have a celebration, often replaced by outings during good weather. On the fourth Saturday we gather at San Maria di Lourdes parish hall for group activities.
Every Wednesday evening we meet at someone's home. Usually one evening focuses on a topic suggested by parents; the other three rotate between prayer and reflection on a Bible passage, chosen by the family hosting us. We also have frequent personal contact among group members to help each other.
Our celebrations happen in a beautiful atmosphere. Maybe because in those hours together, we glimpse the small hope each of us carries in our heart. This doesn't make us forget the troubling presence of so many difficulties and sometimes real suffering. It makes us deeply aware of how little we can do to help one another. But it also calls us to seek every path available to us, so we don't betray that fragile hope we see in ourselves and in our friends.
Don Pierangelo, who decided to help us after the pilgrimage to Assisi, now does everything he can to support us. But if another group should form—and we hope it does—we'll need and we very much hope that another priest will sense the urgency and importance of this calling.
With this hope, which we know you share, we greet you, dear friends in Rome, and friends in Cuneo, Parma, Genoa, and elsewhere.
Cuneo
I'm Marcella from the Faith and Light group in Cuneo, and on behalf of everyone I want to tell you about a beautiful day we shared at our last celebration on Sunday, January 7th. The Confreria parish that hosted us had put at our disposal a room with a (mini) stage. We were celebrating Epiphany—and many of those present were celebrating their birthdays—honored that day by Teresin' Arneodo in fine form.
Mass was our strong opening, led by our "don" Gianni. Through the nativity we had set up, we learned to see and recognize Jesus as Love, and to think a bit about the real importance of the days just passed, so that our whole life becomes one continuous celebration.
Later, in the hall, we gathered in great numbers: children, parents, old and new friends, and three wonderful clowns who got us singing and laughing. Then came little skits prepared by the group that meets on Saturdays, with children as the stars in a "jingle about good cheer." The story, shown through big drawings, showed a procession of colorful dancing flowers, followed by a lovely train with Mariangela at the front as the engine (struggling a bit because the stage was narrow, but no cars got detached). After a circle dance came puppet soldiers, perfect little fighters, and war casualties, and so many confetti nearly buried the audience as hands went wild with applause.
Big sweaters and then... the star of the show! The Epiphany witch, dancing at full speed with her broom and sack full of the famous edible stockings, handed out to everyone! The rush for sweets and treats followed—they vanished like magic. The party went on with singing and general joy; the last ones still whooping it up volunteered for cleanup.
Even though the afternoon flew by, something stayed with us: a great joy.