Writing my personal story of how I came to know Faith and Light is an exercise in deep humility. I must reveal a chapter of my life that became wonderful, yes, but began in a way that still shames me, more than twenty-five years on. To expose the smallness of someone considered "intelligent" and "capable" demands real honesty and full trust in God's mercy and in the charity of others—both of which I came to know through my friends in Faith and Light.
In 1986, I achieved a dream I had long held. As a young Augustinian priest, I received permission from my religious superiors to go to Rome for advanced studies in moral theology. After several years of intense pastoral work in Argentina, I had been offered a chance to come to the place where I could meet the brightest and most celebrated minds in academic theology and in the hierarchy of the Church. I arrived in Rome happy and determined not to distract myself with pastoral work or other activities. I would study only, and I would try to draw the greatest benefit from the excellence of the academic world.
A few weeks after I arrived, Father Brian, Prior of the Augustinian International House Santa Monica where I was staying, told me that a group was looking for a spiritual assistant. They met only twice a month—hardly any work. He thought I could do it and asked if I would accept. The idea didn't appeal to me, but I was willing to accede to my Superior's request. When I asked what group it was and what I would need to do, his answer devastated me: "It's a group of people with intellectual disabilities, and they want to share your friendship."
I could not admit it. I told my Superior I would think about it, since I had come to Rome to meet intelligent, wise people—not to spend my time with disabled people. (I used words far more discriminatory and offensive than I dare write.) I considered the proposal almost an insult to my intelligence. Brian understood me. With patience and charity, he said it wasn't an insult, told me to think it over, and asked me to speak with the coordinator of Faith and Light. I must confess—and here I show my smallness again—that when Maria and Enrica first called to invite me to a meeting of the Villa Patrizi community in Rome, their calls disturbed me. I gave them ambiguous, evasive answers, hoping they would stop calling. But these women of Faith and Light—they persevered calmly and steadily until one day I was ashamed of myself and my evasive responses, which bordered on rudeness. So one day, bluntly and curtly, I answered that I would come, but only to celebrate the Eucharist, and then I would return to my studies.
God was waiting for me in the faces of Marina, Raffaele, Roberta, Massimo, Cristinona, Maria Cristina, Franco, Maria, Giovanni, and so many others. I was greeted with smiles and hands that caressed me with a familiarity that only children and siblings permit themselves. I, scholar and professor, was simply Alberto—poor Alberto—who understood nothing. I was disabled in my own way: incapable of reading the deepest and most important pages of my own life, unable to discover the profound secret that God shares with each person who bears a disability.
In that first meeting, during the first Eucharist, I learned that the spirituality of the small and the simplicity of joy demand an evangelical humbling and humility. Just as Peter denied the Lord three times out of fear, unwilling to be identified as his disciple, so I had denied out of fear and unwillingness to surrender the world of the wise.
That first encounter with the people of a Faith and Light community—my community, Villa Patrizi—was so decisive that two years later, when I finished my studies and returned to Argentina, I had only one certainty: I would bring Faith and Light to my country.
I had little experience and didn't know how to organize a community or who would help me start one. My superiors sent me as pastor to the city of Mendoza, in western Argentina. I spent a couple of months in my new position, and I kept asking myself how, when, and where to begin a Faith and Light community. I wanted to be sure, to organize things well. I found no one.
I kept circling around the idea and taking precautions, until one summer afternoon, after lunch, I went for a walk in the neighborhood. There was no one on the streets—in Mendoza, siesta is sacred, especially in summer—except for two boys with Down syndrome, walking cheerfully along the sidewalk. I approached them to ask their names and where they lived, thinking that if they were nearby, perhaps I could visit their families and talk to them about Faith and Light. Daniel said at once: "I live here. Do you want to come in?" We were at his front door, fifty meters from the parish. He was my neighbor, and I had never met him. Juan Sergio lived a hundred meters away. With them, their families, and a group of friends from the parish, the first community began: San Agustín. Little by little, Faith and Light grew in Argentina and today is present in several cities in the country.
One day we went to La Serena in Chile, because we knew that Marie-Hélène Mathieu was arriving. We told her that we had been on the journey for a couple of years and already had three communities. She, with her smile and the peace we all know, said to me: "We have been praying for years for communities to be born in Argentina, and you never told us they already exist?!" She informed us that there were two other communities near Buenos Aires, which we knew nothing about. Joining the worldwide family of Faith and Light was like being born again, and we never stopped growing.
Today I cannot imagine my life without my special friends, and no book would be long enough to tell all the gifts and graces I have received through them and through the loving guidance of Marie-Hélène and Jean. In both my ministry and my academic life, the spirituality of the small, of friendship and celebration, has been a constant source of meaning and purpose. Jean Vanier once told me: "Don't stop including people with disabilities in your studies and your writings." I can say with certainty that because of all my friends who have been part of this story—my story—I have come to understand, love, and live what God had destined for me: a happy life in the Beatitude, the feast of understanding that life holds a secret that God has entrusted to people with intellectual disabilities, and only they can reveal it to us.
Alberto G. Bochatey, OSA, 2011