"There's this Faith and Light community that could really use a hand—they're struggling a bit." That's how it started, my long adventure with Faith and Light. Twenty sparse words, spoken by my vicar at the time, Don Filippo Morlacchi, in 2000. The Holy Cross community had recently moved into my parish, the Most Precious Blood, and Don Filippo had just become their spiritual director. My wife Ilaria and I had just returned from our honeymoon and were looking for volunteer work we could do together.
We'd already heard about Faith and Light from friends who had been part of it for some time. We'd even met the Holy Cross community on different occasions—she with a friend once, I when the community first arrived at the parish and, as head of the pastoral charity office, I was there to welcome them.
"There's this Faith and Light community that could use a hand..." Why not? It seemed like exactly the right moment. Neither of us had experience working with intellectual disability, but joining a group also meant we'd have support if we needed it. Our only experience—which we didn't think mattered much then but turned out to be invaluable—was a friendship with two disabled girls from our parish, Anna Giulia and Paola. Today, oddly enough, they're both at Faith and Light too. From the start it felt right. We found a community that wasn't huge, but deeply welcoming, full of playfulness and laughter, yet able to shift naturally into moments of reflection and prayer. As always happens, something clicked right away—in my case, with a young man named Federico.
I remembered this big fellow, intense and energetic, who spoke in bursts, always carrying around little objects, wearing a short-sleeved shirt even though it was quite cold. What struck me was that he remembered not just my name after seeing me only once, but my surname too (while I, of course, remembered neither his name nor his surname). We sat near each other at Mass and hit it off immediately. I'd tell him not to make a fuss, and he'd actually listen—(!!)—then treat me like an old friend, putting his hand on my shoulder.
We settled into the community's rhythms right away. We loved not just the Sunday gathering at the small house, but the meetings afterward to review how the day had gone and the planning sessions for the next meeting. It was a wonderful way to feel part of something larger, to quickly grow close to people we'd just met, people of all different ages—some much younger, some much older.
Then came real friendship—with the disabled young people, with their families, with the "friends" (what we once would have called volunteers, but who were exactly that: friends).
Years pass. Some people move on, others arrive. Many get married, many have children. Ilaria and I discover we cannot have children of our own, and we begin another long journey—adoption—one that will take five years of our lives before it comes to completion.
Two years after joining Faith and Light, during regular elections, Attilio is chosen as community leader. He serves for three years and a few months, and the next time it will be my turn. One of Attilio's best insights was involving young people, knowing they have so much to give and receive in community. I had come to Faith and Light past my youth (I was thirty-five), but Attilio's idea seemed right to me. So I reach out to the parish scouts, proposing a year of service with Faith and Light. The community was stretched thin, and young people's help was exactly what we needed. They could decide afterward whether to stay with Faith and Light or pursue other paths. The result was very positive. Almost all the scouts integrated immediately, becoming essential to our Sunday gatherings. Many chose not to continue, but the experience with the young people, they say, is something they carry in their hearts and will keep forever.
As my time as leader was ending, the adoption agency finally calls: two beautiful girls, Grace and Myla, are waiting for us in the Philippines. A few more months pass to handle all the bureaucratic details, and finally we leave. I won't recount everything we lived through there—the emotions, the exhaustion, the fatigue, the longing to return home. After twenty days we're back in Italy, but now there are four of us, and we try to return to normal life in a situation that is completely different.
Faith and Light is part of our life now too. It has been walking with us for eleven years.
After a brief settling-in period—a few weeks—while Grace and Myla begin to understand what it means to be in a family, we decide to take the big step and bring them to the Sunday community gathering. In our halting English, we try to tell them what to expect (and probably we don't do a very good job). We also try to protect the young people, explaining to Grace and Myla that they shouldn't laugh at anyone and that they shouldn't cry either (because when Federico sees a child crying, he gets upset and starts hitting himself). Their first time at the gathering goes very well (at least that's how it seems to us—our daughters are still full of surprises, but they say they had a good time that evening). We owe much of that to Tommaso, the babysitter who has been working with the community's children—there are more of them all the time. Tommaso has huge success with our girls, probably because he's not only friendly but also handsome, and the girls seem to appreciate that.
Faith and Light is a splendid gift for their growth—not only because it teaches the beauty of difference (as Jean Vanier says, Faith and Light is the place where you learn that everyone is beautiful in their own way), but because our daughters are learning that they don't need to cling to us all the time to feel loved. Faith and Light is the place where Dad sits with Brunella during Mass so she can fully experience that moment, but now and then she looks over at you, and you notice and wave back; it's the place where Mom is talking with other parents, but you know she's there and that she's talking about you; it's the place where your parents are always within reach, but discreetly, watching you do activities but not doing them for you; it's the place where Federico comes up and gives you a kiss without ever having seen you before, just because he feels like it; it's the place where you sing and laugh on a beautiful sunny day, where you have fun without fancy playgrounds or expensive dolls or toys that light up and make noise.
I don't know whether my daughters will fall in love with Faith and Light the way I have. When the moment comes, they'll decide for themselves. But Ilaria and I will make sure they have that chance.
Pietro Vetro, 2011