I am not a catechist. I am simply a friend of Marco and a friend of Jesus, as He has called us to be.
Over eighteen months of preparing for Confirmation, my community and I walked beside Marco. For me and for all of us, it was a special chance to draw near to the Lord.
So many images stay with me, in my eyes and in my heart:
- the little houses we built last year, where Providence and the Carnet de Route had thought to include a "friend of Jesus" each time, to help us reflect on friendship with the Lord;
- walks with Marco talking about what friendship means and what it means to choose someone in your heart; the weekend centered on Confession (Marco's initial resistance and hesitation, and then his irresistible rush of joy, exuberance, and freedom the moment he received Reconciliation, embracing each of us one by one, and I am certain he was embracing the whole world in his heart);
- an afternoon in the Church of San Marco, getting to know more closely the saint to whom Marco and I had asked for special help;
- the care with which Marco took to heart and honored the commitment he made at New Year's Mass to pray every day until his Confirmation (January 13th)—an Ave Maria for each of the other three confirmands, an Ave Maria for the bishop who would celebrate the Mass, and an Ave Maria for our entire community;
- the almost paralyzing emotion Marco felt that morning of the 13th, the communion and closeness that opened between him and his parents, the seriousness in Marco's response when he received the sacrament of Confirmation.
…When I think back to those early questions about whether our young people really needed special preparation at all, and now that I have seen and lived through the seriousness with which Daniele, Federico, Marco, and Michele received the sacrament of Confirmation on the afternoon of the 13th, I can only thank the Lord for guiding us not to settle for the gift of the sacrament's grace—which our young people would have received in any case—but to trust Him. And so we gave His little ones some time so that the Friendship chosen on Confirmation day, like every true friendship, would have a story. A story made also of time spent together.
Roberta Tarantino, 2008
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