Speaking of Faith and Light means, for me, going back a long time, finding the roots of my faith and my twenties. I'm don Paolo, a priest since 1996, and I'm turning thirty-seven this year. I can't say I sought out Faith and Light. The encounter was chance, but charged with the presence of God all the same. It happened like this: quite suddenly, through a few friends from the Faith and Light group, I found the chance to bring to my parish something the Lord was planting in my heart: to speak to others, after listening myself, of the fact that every person matters and that God is far more great and merciful than any living being.
Read also: Often at Night in Silence
So we opened a new group in my parish community, San Giustino in Cesano Boscone. A few months later, I entered the seminary. I lost the chance to take part in the group's activities, but Faith and Light and Jean Vanier entered my life even more deeply than before — paradoxically. The dignity of the brothers and sisters I met in Faith and Light became a powerful push for me to think that my priesthood means giving back to each young person the dignity that God has always intended for them.
Sister Chiara Maria, whom I met in the group and who is now a Poor Clare at Montefalco (PG), still walks with me in her prayers while her community continues to suffer from the earthquake. Jean Vanier remains a great teacher who lights up many moments of my young adult group. To meet by chance, then, only to keep meeting — even though we live in different places. Thank you, Faith and Light, for embodying in so many of your dimensions a revelation of God's surprising love, shaping my ministry, and I am certain has not stopped desiring our next encounter. With God and with Faith and Light, chance is not chance.
- don Paolo, 2001
