I am convinced that light and shadow—those difficulties rooted in physical, psychological, and spiritual fragility—belong to all of us: children, young people, friends, parents, adults. To everyone, without exception.
When I was thirteen, at my parish church of San Gioacchino ai Prati di Castello in Rome, I began attending Faith and Light. From the start, I discovered that it was possible for people to come to know one another, to communicate, to share experiences and lived realities—and that this was a source of profound richness for the human soul. But it was also through the hand-copied bulletin called Together, created from the beginning within the community in 1973, that this way of life began to become known and to spread. Slowly, it broke down those barriers that had seemed impossible to cross, making it clear that encounter is always possible, anywhere at all.
Read also: We Keep Growing Together!
It was in this way of life that families discovered something extraordinary in their journey: beyond the shadows that had fallen upon their lives, a light exists. It can be seen. A transformation is possible—in how we understand ourselves inwardly, in how we live, in how we relate to the world. These shadows, lived with suffering and awareness through a difficult process of inner transformation, deepened sensitivity, hospitality, and listening to others. All of this opened the hearts of those who came first as volunteers, like me, but who soon found themselves drawn into profound friendships instead.
With all this energy on board, shadows need not frighten us
With all this energy on board, shadows need not frighten usThis radically different vision of life brings a clear awareness: no one is perfect. We all carry light and shadow—essential ingredients for building, day by day, an experience of welcome and shared life where we are all traveling together in the same boat.
The symbol on the pin representing Faith and Light took on deeper meaning: the sea, a boat with people aboard, clouds, clear sky, and sun.
I found a much larger key to understanding what it means to be in the same boat—a relationship of mutual aid where each of us needs the support and attention of the other, where we all carry wounds and fragility, and where each person has their place and full respect. Those clouds, seemingly at odds with the sun, remind us that after darkness comes clear sky. And that sun, which illuminates the entire boat and everyone aboard, not only warms—it also casts shadows.
Shadows and light, in countless forms, exist in every human being, in every person who boards that boat. Learning to see them clearly in each person—and in myself—was a Copernican revolution for me. These shadows no longer frighten me. The other, wounded in mind and body, even in silence brings light into my being, teaching me to see myself, my own fragility, and slowly to make peace with it.
A magazine like Shadows and Light fills me with hope for our world—a mission to understand the other, whoever they are, to love them for who they are, to find paths of relationship. In encounter, in friendship, in dialogue, in mutual support and solidarity, lies the way toward a lasting peace.