“Our daughter, after a painful delusion (her breaking off with her boyfriend), came to live with us with her baby girl. She is often bitter and aggressive. One morning, for a trifle matter she mistreated me and her brothers, and shouting, left for work, slamming the door. I was really hurt and I felt she had simply gone over the limit and that we really did not deserve all this. I asked myself how I could let her see that I loved her. I prepared a special feast-day lunch with a cake, and set the table with the nicest tablecloth… When she returned, I greeted her as if nothing had happened. She smiled and I felt that I had not only forgiven her, but also forgotten the event. Harmony was reestablished among us.”

(R. B. – Italy )

“Last Saturday, my parents and I were about to close our grocery shop when two hooded characters came inside and ordered us to open the safe. Dad thought it was the usual robbery at gunpoint with a toy gun, and asked them to leave. Instead, the gun fired a shot which wounded him, though not seriously. After the bandits escaped, in a split second I remembered the group of people who, in another part of Sicily help the youth in the high risk districts of their city. So with my friends, I decided to do something myself to stop some other kids from getting involved with gangsters. Though a bit hesitant, I started going to an area of the city having highly delinquent residents, and once I found out what the real problems were in that district, I talked to the local administrators and the families of some police officers who had been killed. We formed a group to testify to people, especially the youth, that a better and nonviolent world is possible. That Saturday has changed my life.”

(M. – Sicily, Italy )

“I was 12 when my parents separated. It was a painful thing, and particularly one detail did not leave me in peace: I could not forgive my dad for leaving us to form another family. Initially, when he would call, I didn’t even want to talk to him. Then one day, I asked Jesus for help, and found the courage to show him that I did not hold it against him. On father’s day I tried to show this concretely by preparing a gift. When he saw it, I saw that he was deeply moved. He then confided that apart from the rest, the most important things for him were his children. From that moment on, I felt I had opened my heart to him once more. Much later, knowing that he was lonely, I spontaneously started to talk to him about God who loves each one of us immensely. It assured him and he expressed the desire to know more about this topic. The experience with dad is helping me to see that we all make mistakes, but that each person must be given the chance to rise up again.”

(H. – Brazil)