Thank You
I have been receiving the magazine OMBRE e LUCI for some time now, and I appreciate it greatly for the topics, experiences, and information it offers. These contribute to my education and broaden the knowledge of all who read it. The various themes, though deeply engaging and profound, are presented in a manner that is clear and accessible to everyone. Thank you for your dedication and commitment.
Maria Gabriella Rinalducci
Opening Mind and Heart to Communion
Some time ago I received a letter requesting names of people I know who might be interested in receiving the magazine "Ombre e Luci." I gave your request considerable thought, as I would have liked to suggest people willing to receive it, but I find myself unable to recommend anyone, for two reasons:
First – I am elderly and retired, and the people I might suggest are also elderly retirees like myself. Today, with expenses beyond our daily needs, we simply cannot afford additional costs.
Second – Among my circle of younger acquaintances, there are no families particularly motivated to explore the issues the magazine addresses. It is sad and painful to say, but unfortunately, when people are not directly touched by disability, they prefer to pretend it does not exist.
As for myself, I love the magazine very much (my ten years of loyalty are proof of that). I look forward to each issue with anticipation and read it entirely and at once. I find in it ideas that make me reflect and help me to open my mind and heart ever more to understanding and communion.
Annamaria Russo
Fatima: The "Three Secrets" of a Pilgrimage
About two months have passed since I participated in the pilgrimage to Fatima, organized by the LuZitana Province for the 40th anniversary of Faith and Light. Vivid images and sensations continue to return to me. I am discovering within myself what, secretly, this pilgrimage gave me. Things absorbed almost unconsciously that have now become an integral part of me: these are my three "secrets" of a pilgrimage.
The first secret belongs to the world of colors. Moments of light and clear sky, where the white silhouette of the basilica's bell tower stood out against the horizon, alternated with leaden and decidedly rainy moments in which the green of the olive trees and umbrellas were the only notes of color. The morning we traveled to Aljustrel, the village in the Fatima parish where the three shepherd children of the apparitions were born, we were surprised by a real downpour. We stopped at the well of Arneiro, where one of the Angel's apparitions occurred, and one of our group read the story of the place. An elderly woman, dressed entirely in black, sat on a wall of grey stones. With her rosary, she prayed silently. That same day, because of the rain, we had to give up processing as pilgrims of joy through the streets of Fatima. But the surprise of the pistachio-green ponchos worn by the Province members who welcomed us, the colors of the countless banners, took the place of the grey of the rain. I will not easily forget these vivid ponchos that, throughout the entire pilgrimage, I saw in continuous movement, encouraging, helping, animating, welcoming with a smile for every need. When language proved difficult, the luminosity of smiles made up for it. A strip of white cloth, about thirty meters long, opened the procession of the Via Lucis. Sewn onto the cloth, in no particular order, were small woolen rosettes made by crochet. At the center of each rosette something shone in the sunlight, which on that last day of pilgrimage shone decisively. The white strip of cloth became a special spectrum that brought colors to light: not only the traditional colors of the rainbow but truly all colors, encompassing all our shades of Faith and Light.
The second secret is the moment of the Spirit that blows where and when it will.
While Lourdes is the destination for healing spirit and body, Fatima is the place to pray with and for all of humanity. The three shepherd children, in 1916, were prepared for the apparitions of the Madonna by three apparitions of an Angel who exhorted them to ask forgiveness "for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love You."
On the evening of the rosary, the steps of the great basilica slowly filled with small lights. There were so many others who, like ants, with their candle, found their own place and joined us.
In the reception house where we gathered for the moments of pilgrimage, the chapel had its door always wide open for anyone who wished to remain in prayer, according to their own rhythm.
The third secret belongs to perceptions of Faith and Light that I had at Fatima.
The welcome—as we know, one of the charisms of Faith and Light—was simple and familiar. We were about 180 in number and had the feeling of participating in an ordinary community gathering. Everyone found the songbook and the ceremonies translated into their own language, and during the plenary sessions, translation was always provided. If by chance you forgot what the next appointment was, you simply turned the badge hanging around your neck and found the entire program printed on the back. The involvement of the parents of many of the young people present made me reflect on their joy and on their being messengers of joy. Parents, some of them quite elderly, ready to take on roles: in institutional positions, in the mime of the Via Lucis, in testimonies. It was during the celebration that I saw parents who seemed somewhat weighed down, a bit tired, a bit isolated and rigid, suddenly burst forth with an outpouring of energy. Naturally there was also the joy of the young people, many of whom were adolescents, and the joy of the friends who gave their all. But having seen parents involved more than the young people and friends themselves—this is the secret I am carrying most deeply within me. I find in it the meaning of having gone on pilgrimage, the meaning of what I received, the meaning of a path that remains open.
Bruno Galante, Naples, June 30, 2012
One of us undertakes and accompanies someone well. My nephew, because of his handicap, is rigid and not very able to adapt to others. Yet this rigidity did not prevent him from sensing what a woman he knew needed—a woman who was ill and alone in the hospital. Because of her health condition, all visits had been forbidden her. Once discharged from the hospital, she told us that my nephew had entered her room, sat down beside her, and said to her: "Don't be afraid, I am here." And he stayed that way for hours, without moving. "I felt safe," this very anxious woman reported, "no one else had done this for me."
Being present is not dictated by emotion, but by the desire to be close to the other in such a way that he may feel himself important simply because he is himself and for no other reason. This "himself" can matter only if he is part of our lives, if we care for him as flesh of our flesh.
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
How do we accompany the other? By learning to love ourselves, otherwise the other will always appear to us as someone who steals a bit of our life, someone to whom we must sacrifice ourselves. Choosing between the other and ourselves is impossible because both are important.
Loving ourselves is having toward ourselves a tender compassion, not judging ourselves on what we show of ourselves, desiring what makes us live, believing in this mystery of goodness and beauty that we have deep within us. If I learn, little by little, to love myself, my horizon will not cease to expand and "every other" will become part of me. Loving ourselves with our weaknesses, loving the other with his weaknesses, will become one and the same.
When it comes to fragility, what priority should we give between what we like most and what we like least? We like what we accept, not what we resign ourselves to. One cannot deny handicap; it exists and can be exhausting, yet it is not what defines the person, who cannot be identified with his handicap but who always conceals a mystery. Emmanuel Mounier, a philosopher, when he looked down at the cradle of his seriously handicapped child, adored God in her. He could only give her all the love she needed and thank her for all that she gave to her parents, because in the end the other is a gift.
Let Us Try to Feel the Need to Be Together
The other, sick or handicapped, needs us out of necessity and at the same time for the pleasure of being together. It is often isolation that makes suffering a bearer of death. Being together changes everything. It is not enough that the other matters to us. I had occasion to verify this while staying close to an elderly aunt near the end of her life: she was important to me, but I did not love her so much that I needed her.
Every human being has something to give… themselves, before anything else. One can be thrust into solitude and die because there is no one to receive the gift of one's own being.
Sick or disabled people have so much the impression that they are useless that they must feel that we are poor so that they can give us a gift, sometimes even without knowing it, of what they yearn to offer us.
But do we truly trust in the other, especially when the image they offer us of themselves is not one of strength? If so, then we will no longer seek his good in what we believe to be his good, but rather in what he needs.
What Do We Want?
The choice that is continually presented to us is between the forces of life and those of death. We cannot achieve everything, but we have the possibility of choosing life. To choose life "is to go where one does not know, along a road one does not know." To choose life is to be together. The "we" that we form together, with all our miseries and all our riches combined, is a source of life renewed for an indefinite time.
Nicolle Carré, 2012
Ombres et Lumière No. 185
(1) Philosopher, 1905–1950. Founder of the magazine "Esprit" in 1932, he initiated the movement of communitarian personalism.