Dear Jean, a few days ago Massimo died. He lived in Il Carro, the group home where I have made my life with my family for more than twenty years. Massimo had been with us only a year and a half, but I had known him much longer—more than thirty years—through an encounter that Fede e Luce had made possible: a meeting with his parents, with his mother who, like so many others, lived entirely for her particular son. Massimo could not walk. He could not speak. He depended completely on the loving hands and eyes of those near him. Years ago, his mother and father told me that when they passed from this life, they hoped Massimo would have a place in our home. And in all the years since, until his death two years ago, his mother Rossana—whom I rarely saw—would call me faithfully every two or three months, to make sure I remembered her and her Massimo.
Why do I write these things to you? Perhaps it is a way of grieving his loss—something that has happened in our house-family for the first time. We have walked with many of our young people through the death of their parents, but we had never lost one of our own. Yet what moves me most deeply right now is something else: a sharp awareness of, and gratitude for, the part you have played in my own story. When I first met you, I was a young man discovering, at the very beginning of Fede e Luce, how life could suddenly find meaning precisely where the world sees none. I remember meeting you at Mariangela's house, where you were like family with Paolo and Chicca. Over time, I got to know you better, listened to you speak at the various gatherings Fede e Luce offered—pilgrimages, Katimavik, retreats—and worked beside you on many occasions to make these events happen.
Meanwhile, my bonds with our "young people" (we still call them that, even though many are now well past sixty) and with their families grew deeper. I began asking myself more and more about what "faithfulness" meant: faithfulness to love, to an encounter, to a personal history, to a calling. That search shaped the decisions that followed, leading finally to the most important one—to share my daily life with our most vulnerable friends, to be family with them and for them. It was no accident: this calling came to me after listening to you once more, and realizing that something was still missing from my life.
So I need to tell you: THANK YOU. Thank you for showing me that another way of living is possible. Thank you for opening my eyes to the riches and depths of our most fragile brothers and sisters. Thank you for teaching me that relationship, forgiveness, and love are born only when we discover and accept our own limits and hidden frailties.
Today, with my wife Ivana and our three daughters, we try to live from what is small and simple, supported and challenged by our "adopted brothers and sisters," who always point us toward what matters. Yes, it is not always easy, with all the noise and pressure that comes from the world around us. But every day we discover how this rootedness in shared life keeps us grounded, forces us to discern daily. It is the constant question—"Do you love me? Do you see me? Do you listen?"—that keeps our hearts from hardening, that makes them flesh again and again. And alongside the words of Jesus, it is still your books, your meditations, the memory of your witness, that guide us and remind us the how and the why.
Massimo's death now seems to add another piece to the meaning of this path. And I think of you, who have let go of so many loved ones, and who are drawing near to your own time of departure.
I give thanks to the Lord for His gifts, especially those He has given through you and your gift for speaking as His prophet to the small and the lost. May His goodness grant you, as evening falls on your life, to feel the love, the closeness, the gratitude, and the prayers of all the hearts you have transformed.
