An Unexpected Meeting
I came to know Faith and Light through a chance encounter with Father Roberti at the Sanctuary of Banneux in Belgium last summer.
After he told me about life at L'Arche and Jean Vanier, Father Roberti gave me the addresses of Faith and Light communities in Rome. That opened for me a world I had never known—one of joy, hope, and love. It's hard to leave FL once you begin to know it, because it frees you from so many prejudices about our wounded brothers and sisters. It liberates you from your own fears: the fear of loving, of opening yourself spontaneously to others.
The vision of Faith and Light captivated me the way it captivates any heart open to love for those who need help, who hunger for attention and care, who have nothing and await everything from others.
I must say that FL helps me understand the suffering of Christ on the Cross in my wounded brother—someone I have always passed on the street without truly seeing.
I hope and I am ready to share everything I have with FL.
May the Lord help us live together in creative silence, in joyful communion, and in listening to his word.
Lorenzo Kapanda
Slowly... Slowly...
On Saturday, a small group of us went to evening Mass at our parish church.
I believe it was the first time in their lives that Massimo and Vincenzo had ever set foot in a parish community. Vincenzo and I went together to receive the Eucharist. Never has the nave of a church seemed so long. Never have I felt stares—kind ones, to be fair—wound so deeply. And in that moment, I understood in a new way the importance of worshipping together at Mass, the importance of friends surrounding families.
If it had been my own son, I might not have had the courage to face the judgment of others and the uncertainty of how the priest would react. But the pastor—after a brief moment of hesitation from the altar boy beside him—truly became a Father. He was a minister of this sacrament that Christ offered to each of us, without limit.
M.G.
The Following Sunday
We returned to Prima Porta the next Sunday. It was raining and cold. There was no one there. Nothing to mark where Chicca rested. Silence and the mystery of her life were present again. And yet a child was playing there, innocent and heedless of the mud among those tombs. In his brief runs back and forth, he seemed to give voice to a message of peace, of surrender—translating into a language beyond human words the mystery of death, so wrenching, the music of Chicca's soul and of all those we love who now live eternal life.
Today the message of Maria Francesca, of Mauro, of Steve, is serenity. Serenity that we must—though reluctantly—allow ourselves to be touched by.
A friend
Dearest friends,
thank you again, with all our hearts, for helping us so much in creating this issue on Faith and Light communities.
You truly sustained our hope when we were tempted to lose heart.
Marie-Hélène Mathieu
I Did Not Know
I did not know
I did not understand
I could not grasp
I could not, with all my strength,
understand Your Word.
But since I came among you, suffered with my brothers,
I have found true existence and the true value of God who unites us one to another—and true suffering: the suffering that society itself denies.
Luigi and Maria
Maria Francesca Bertolini
entered into the peace of the Lord on November 2, 1978