Why, yes—why?
Our son Vincenzo is eleven years old. The other day, on the train home from a specialist's appointment, he kept asking us over and over: "But Dad, what does daun mean?" We tried to give him an answer that made sense, but he just kept at it, stubborn as could be: "Come on, Dad, what is daun?"
The real question was different. "Why do the kids at the playground look at me funny when I play with them? Why did that mother call her daughter away when I came near her?"
It's easy to say we're all handicapped in some way or other. It's also easy to help Vincenzo understand that his difference comes from one extra chromosome. We can tell him that we're sometimes handicapped in the heart—when we don't know how to smile, forgive, or love. What isn't easy is answering the "why" that a pre-adolescent with Down syndrome keeps asking. Why him and not someone else? Why does it show on his face? Why do so many people stop at what they see on the surface? Sure, when things are going well, it feels simple enough to say that young people like him have a calling to save the world, that their prayers matter to God, that they know how to touch the hearts of those who approach them with love.
But how do you say that in the moments when you're discouraged, exhausted?
What could I have said the first time I held Vincenzo in my arms? All I could do was repeat: Why, why—just as he would later. That cry of the poor who doesn't understand, the cry that God knows how to love. (OL no. 158).
F.S.
They Have Gone On
In the first months of 2007, all the Fede e Luce communities in Lombardy were deeply marked by the loss of beloved friends who, from the very beginning more than thirty years ago, had helped launch and sustain the Movement.
We remember them: Luciano Carrozzi (husband of Giovanna Testa, national treasurer of Fede e Luce for many years), Orazio Goffi (father of Maria, whom we all know), Beatrice Pezzoli (Trixi), and Olga Sargentoni.
We are certain that the Lord has taken these friends into his arms: now they contemplate his face together with all the other friends who have gone before us into the Heavenly Jerusalem.
To their loved ones, our heartfelt embrace.
Fede e Luce Lombardia
I Feel Confused
I woke up early, and I feel confused, and I wonder why they get married; how Agnese managed to convince him. I went, with my mother Paola Pisenti; dressed in a dark jacket, with a tie and black shoes that hurt when you're not used to wearing them. The Mass was fun. I went to church willingly and to the reception too, which was toward Monterotondo. All the Fede e Luce friends were there—I know some of them only by sight.
I think it's a selfish thing; one person stays alone with her and then you take the trip, I'm missing something like that, a person who follows me and tells me: "You can do this! This one, no! Don't be reckless and don't be jealous!"
I won't hide that I'd very much like to have a love story with a girl, but I don't know if it's possible or if it's been forbidden to me. I only know that they're both my friends and I'd like to know what they think of me. You can find things to talk about—gardening, music, jokes, that sort of thing.
Everything went well, really. I'm glad the work and life in community keep going well.
Bye from
Giovanni Grossi
I Can't Stand These Things!
(...) The latest thing I have to tell you happened during Saint Joseph's week. A missionary came for a pastoral visit with another man; I was hoping for a simple, friendly conversation, but nothing like that happened. His visit lasted no more than five minutes. He asked nothing, did nothing even near Francesca, not one word of comfort. Nothing at all. I was disappointed in a way you can't even imagine. Francesca is not a PARIAH; she is a flower, an angel!
Why did he come, what kind of pastoral visit was that if he didn't have one word of comfort for me? Why are there moments when you need to hear—Be strong, go on, God helps you, he's close to you and your whole family—and you hear nothing? People in the parish say I'm a sinner because I never go to Mass or take part in the things they think are important, but which to my eyes are just shows. For example, the second Sunday of March they came to tell me they were celebrating World Day of the Sick and that if I wanted, they would come pick up Francesca to take her to church. I said I'd see how she was and let them know. Francesca wasn't well, but Nando told me some incredible things. He said they made the sick people parade, they put a ramp in the church to get them in with their wheelchairs. Then the ramp disappeared. Only that one Sunday could the sick go to Mass; the other Sundays, no; Easter, no—because they couldn't have the sick parade.
I'm sorry, but I can't stand these things. Around here they say—They want to wash your face for you—I don't need that. If I sin with my husband, God will deal with us in the next life for not having lived a peaceful and just life before him.
(...) These days I see Francesca differently, but in a positive way, because sometimes I have the feeling she understands me, that she knows I'm her mother. She's become a cuddler; she always wants someone next to her in the evening when we put her to bed. Her brother or her father has to sit with her, and then get up, and if you don't do this carefully she won't fall asleep. Or if at eleven in the morning I don't give her juice, she starts whimpering, and that's the signal that means—I'm thirsty!—I see things now that I didn't see before. I hope these signs keep going in a positive direction. I keep hoping for something more.
Immacolata Guardalfiera Campobasso
A Letter to My Daughter with Cerebral Palsy
Dear Pinuccia, child without dreams and without hope, your small hands could not write your dreams the way other children do.
You have grown up in suffering. You could not express your hopes, what each of us dreams of doing. You could not plan the dreams of childhood, of girlhood, of adolescence.
You could not have wings to make your desires and your thoughts fly. You are like an angel. I don't know what passes through your mind, what makes your heart beat, you have no purpose in life. You are as if lost in the middle of a world that doesn't care about your problems, your fears, your drama. Your hands have never been able to pick a flower, you have never had the joy of seeing a little bird fly. Now even your eyes are losing their light, and you cannot see the things around you.
Who will take you by the hand one day when your parents are no longer here?
Dear Pinuccia, you will never be able to understand these words I am writing with so much pain. If someone reads this letter to you one day, you won't understand. You live in an unreal world, far from normal things, you don't belong among normal people. You are an angel.
Let us hope that one day you too will have wings to fly together with all the angels of God toward eternal light.
Your mother
Maria Antonia De Simone Nuovo Germoglio — Fede e Luce Mazara del Vallo
A Treasure in the Field
About fifteen years ago, I was volunteering at a residential center for people with severe disabilities in Modena. I was trying to learn and to understand how to build better relationships with the people who lived there and their parents. That's when I discovered Jean Vanier's books and the L'Arche communities.
Both have been a tremendous help to me. They shaped not only my work as a volunteer in that setting, but also my life as a husband, a father, and a Christian.
And finding Ombre e Luci was like finding "a treasure in the field." Even though disability isn't present in our family—there are five of us: me, my wife Sandra, and our children Silvia, Daniele, and Riccardo—your magazine helps us reflect on life, on faith, on hope. I have to confess that I've written down the thoughts, prayers, and reflections from the back cover, and I reread them from time to time. With each new issue, it's the first thing I look for.
When I received an invitation to the opening of the L'Arche Arcobaleno community in Quarto Inferiore, I was struck—how could this be? A community in Emilia, just a few kilometers from Modena?
With Stefano, a family friend for a long time, we arrived at the event with surprise and disbelief. We were welcomed—even though we were a bit out of our area—with warmth right away by the parish priest and then by so many strangers bound together in a wonderful atmosphere of friendship and brotherhood, beyond all else and every difference.
In the presentation of the community's birth, in the show put on by the young people, in the speeches of the authorities, you could see how the seed of the Gospel proclaimed by Jean Vanier and witnessed by the L'Arche communities—through the people who are part of them in different ways—could produce wonderful fruit that gives meaning to life and transforms the suffering and difficulties of every day into a burden we can bear, one that can transform itself into love.
Seeing how the whole town had participated in preparing the celebration, without ideological divisions or anything else, how it had brought together the strength and people of every age—it was a splendid sight. These are the occasions that confirm a conviction I've been forming for some time now: even the smallest gesture of love can change the world.
Jean Vanier's talk was music to the heart, the mind, and the spirit. Too bad I wasn't prepared to record it. In the face of the madness of everyday life and the image that television and other things offer of our world, Jean Vanier appears like someone from another planet. But you only need to sit for a moment and come into harmony with his truths, lived and experienced, and the whole picture changes.
A warm hello as well to the L'Arche "il Chicco" community, whom we got to know and whose welcome and friendship we appreciated so very much. Thanks to them, Stefano was able to get a photo with Jean.
Thank you so much for the invitation, on behalf of both myself and Stefano Barani.
Ermanno Modena