What did we recount during those days in Assisi? Thirty years of wounds or healings? Both, of course, because we traveled through thirty years of that extreme vessel capable of harboring unspeakable resentments and loving to madness, stirring incredible sacrifices or the worst cowardice: that abyssal vessel we call the heart. To pursue hearts as we do at Faith and Light, and as Marie-Hélène Mathieu asked us to continue doing, is beautiful and dangerous for this reason: because among the 1,300 pilgrims in Assisi, we will never know whether there are more wounded or healed. But we have no other choice than "communion of hearts" if we are not to betray Jesus and ourselves.
All the great gatherings of Faith and Light contain two opposite optical illusions. The first is that of collective healing through the power of numbers: if there are many of us and if we continue to grow, our young people cannot help but feel this wave of love and benefit from it. But Jean Vanier and Marie-Hélène Mathieu warned us long ago that this is not how it works. If we do not attempt to reach "each one," the "all" may not work; the "we" may not become "you." It seems to me that the weaker moments of the pilgrimage were those that, while perhaps interesting in themselves, hardly engaged the young people or their parents.
The second illusion—symmetrical to the first—is that of the incurable wound: there are so many of us, we have worked so hard and for so long, is it possible there is still so much suffering around us? Could those be right who say we are trying to empty the sea with a spoon? As she closed the pilgrimage, Enza Gucciardo, the national coordinator of Faith and Light, seemed to want to push back against this illusion. She admitted that facing certain mothers and fathers so worn down, we feel inclined to apologize rather than "give account" of the joy and hope within us. But then she gave the floor to a mother newly part of Faith and Light, and it was good to hear her say: "keep going like this." You are not emptying the sea with a spoon, but you have found the courage to dive in because you know that the sea of suffering cannot be drained—but you can swim in it together.
And so, as always, there was great joy, for those who have been swimming longest, in seeing again the swimmers from one season or many seasons, the friends whose faces or voices we remember and whose names perhaps we do not, and as we embrace we sneak a glance at the name hanging on a lanyard around their neck. "It's like the big political rallies," a very longtime friend told me. "You just have to be there."
Yes, you have to be there. To stay. To remain. Even without speaking, even without thinking, with your torso upright and your hands on your knees, as in the prayer of the Poor that Father Larsen, our international spiritual assistant, reminded us of. To remain in company with your own wounds and the wounds of others, without fear of stillness, because standing still and walking are the same thing if the destination is peace of heart and your traveling companion is Jesus.
Vito Giannulo, 2005