From July 14 to 16, a Katimavik took place, welcoming campers from Alfedena and representatives of Faith and Light groups throughout Italy.
Together we sought to:
- Deepen what it means to be "Responsible in Faith and Light"
- Recharge our spirits
- Set the direction for Faith and Light's year ahead
Here now are the reflections of Pierre Debergé.
Three months have passed. Yet when I think back on those days at Alfedena, I feel a certain nostalgia. We tend to remember only what stirred our hearts—the joys and sorrows.
Those three days of Katimavik left all of us with an unforgettable sense of brotherhood and friendship.
But—and this may surprise some—we paid a price for it.
I remember the logistical problems, the tight sleeping arrangements, the food shortages. I remember the hard labor during the camp itself. I remember the dread and exhaustion that gripped many of us the Friday before, the repeated refrain: "This is madness," "We'll never pull it off."
And then Sunday evening came: the sadness of saying goodbye, some of us in tears, all of us shaken by the sense that we had lived through something profound.
How distant those Friday-night doubts seemed by then. And the singing didn't stop—one enthusiastic testimony after another.
Yet we have to admit: all the material obstacles we'd feared didn't vanish by magic. Casa Biondi didn't suddenly expand. The bathrooms didn't multiply.
What changed was something else. The smiles and the welcomes—more frequent than usual, it seemed—no longer belonged only to the walls and trees they had always graced. They had come alive on human faces that had forgotten how "no one is so poor they cannot smile."
Fortunately, Pablo was there.
He arrived like a ray of sunlight, along with M. Francesca, Alessandro, Roberta, and Valeria, to remind us that "we are the light of the world, and we must let this light pass through our lives, our experiences—becoming clear and transparent, reflecting the light of God itself."
When each of us met the gaze of one of these "smallest ones," something shifted. Suddenly we felt responsible—for preparing the signs, tidying the rooms, leading the vigils, cooking the sausages. We felt responsible for everything we'd been given to do.
M. Hélène Mathieu spoke to us about what it means to be responsible in Faith and Light—about the need to commit ourselves fully, to act as faithful servants. She wasn't teaching theory. She was naming what was already happening around us, what the entire Katimavik had become. We had set aside our anxieties, our small exclusive friendships, to make room for something larger: the spirit, listening to the smallest among us, discovering in each person "something unique and irreplaceable" (as Patrik said).
Light had driven out darkness and fear.
We came to understand that fraternity in Faith and Light cannot rest only on songs and enthusiasm—that risks becoming hollow, touching only those already happy to be together. Rather, through our most vulnerable brothers and sisters, we discover our own weakness and poverty. And that discovery is the beginning of everything.
It is by discovering our weakness with the help of the smallest among us that we will know how to build communities of forgiveness, turn toward the other, and live as faithful servants.
Perhaps during this Katimavik we glimpsed a piece of paradise—the kind Valeria spoke of, which we can already see realized here on earth if we know how to read the signs. But since, as she added, this joy is not the happiness of those for whom everything goes smoothly, who have lived without suffering, I cannot help but think about the year that lies ahead.
Two sentences stay with me. Rather than ending this reflection, may they nourish our thinking and our prayer.
"The spirit of Faith and Light is life. Without incarnation, it becomes mere ideology. Without spirit, action easily becomes agitation.
"With a flower, we often see only the stem, not the root or the bloom. So too with a problem. We must see the root—what gives it birth—and look to the flower, which is hope." (P. Louis)
Pierre Debergé, 1978