Mal di Mare
This year my brothers and I had the chance to take part in a sailing camp at Pescia Romana, at the "Club degli amici" campground with the sailing school "Mal di Mare."
During the week I was there, there were eleven of us: three girls, nine boys, and four instructors—all really friendly.
The base was well set up. There were four tents, but we used two: one for the boys and one for the girls. Then there was a little house with a kitchen and a dining area covered by a canopy.
We'd wake up at 7:30 in the morning, have breakfast, and then at 8:30 head down to the beach along a path through the scrubland. The kids twelve and older went out in the bigger boats (laser 1; laser 13; 4.20; varienne) and the younger ones took the small boats (optimist).
Around noon we'd come back to base for lunch, and at three we'd head down to the beach again until six. There was also a rotation system—three kids at a time would set the table, clear it, and wash the dishes.
The school welcomed disabled kids too. During my week, there was Nicola, fourteen years old, who loved music. He sang with a smile on his face, and he sang really well. He was crazy about Ligabue.
He'd sing in the boat and keep you happy—he wouldn't let you think about anything negative. When he hugged me, it felt like he was passing some of his happiness on to me… in plain words, he was wonderful.
He loved sailing, and as soon as he got in a boat he'd pull all the lines and say: "I'm setting all the sails!" In sailing terms, that's what it means. And he was so happy when he learned to steer—he'd go really fast.
He was with us the whole time, and we liked him. I got along great with him, and I hope to see him again next year. Being around him made me feel good and relieved, and I think if he hadn't been there it would have been boring. I care about him a lot.
Sara Bertolini
I Don't Agree
I'm a lay reader of yours, and I've followed with great appreciation the work that "Fede e Luce" has been doing for many years without any pretense about its Catholic inspiration.
That's why the article by Prof. Vittore Mariani published in your issue 115 surprised me so much.
It reminded me right away of the gratuitous attack made on TV the other evening by the self-proclaimed ultra-Catholic minister Sacconi against a mild and bewildered theologian, Vito Mancuso, who had expressed his shame as an Italian citizen about the customs and behavior of our national political leaders: "Shame on you instead for the killing of Eluana Englaro!"
In his article, Professor Mariani assembles mismatched arguments that include a condemnation of the Enlightenment—without which we would still have the "Inquisition," "serfs," and "Nobles and Clergy" owning land by divine right—in order to address questions of great delicacy and complexity, questions that cause profound and lasting suffering no matter how we approach them.
He overlooks, among other things, that Pope John Paul II, on his deathbed, asked his doctors to stop treatment and care so he could "go to the Father's House." This shows a complete lack of respect for those—Catholics and church members included—who have come to different thoughts about the great mystery of life and death, thoughts that are certainly not settled by our professor's pronouncements.
Paolo Mazzarotto
Heavy Burdens
I've thought a lot in recent days about Prof. Mariani's letter, and especially about so many painful events we can find ourselves living through, dramatic situations, the problems they bring to all of us—lay people and believers alike. Something like an answer came to me only during today's Mass—Gospel according to Matthew, verses 2/5: "The scribes and Pharisees sit on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their works; for they preach, but do not practice. For they bind together heavy burdens and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them even with a finger." In his homily, Father Innocenzo Gargano quoted a thought of St. Augustine: "In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, freedom; in all things, charity." These seemed to me like good starting points for deepening our reflection.
Best regards and good work to all.
Signed Letter
A Gesture Without Meaning
I want to share this with everyone who takes part in the Fede e Luce experience.
A few years ago, at the San Camillo da Lellis Hospital in Rome, where I volunteer with A.R.V.A.S.,
a lovely Down syndrome teenager had been admitted a few days earlier with bilateral pneumonia.
During the long—but sadly brief—days before this young person's death, I noticed, at first superficially and then more clearly, that she kept making what seemed like a repetitive, meaningless gesture: she would try to link the hands of two people standing at her bedside, clasping them together.
This gesture, seemingly trivial and repetitive, actually had a profound meaning.
The two people whose hands she wanted to join were, in fact, two young men—as the head nurse told me later—her uncles, her mother's brothers.
The crux of the situation was that there had long been a deep rift between these two men and her mother, a family conflict that had kept them emotionally separated for years.
This girl, gifted perhaps because of her physical difference with an acute sensitivity, desperately wanted to see them reconciled and united before she died. She understood how painful it must be to live with a fractured family.
I wanted to tell this story because it could be a prompt for many of us toward serenity, forgiveness, tolerance, the absence of bitterness, and the irrepressible desire to love everyone without prejudice, without conditions, without calculation or hidden motives.
From this episode, I've had the chance to reflect on our immeasurable presumption, arrogance, and superficiality. And I couldn't help thinking how much more peaceful, easy, and livable our lives would be if we were less poor judges of things, people, and situations we cannot fully understand, and more human, more compassionate, more tolerant toward everyone. As my grandmother used to say, "happiness only visits us when it passes through despair."
Maria Gabriella Paribacci Riccetti