Let us be honest: in the historical climate in which we live, confronted each day by ever more alarming news, speaking about courage can almost seem out of place. Everything appears to conspire towards discouragement, as we find ourselves caught between uncertainties far beyond our control and the relentless pressures of modern life and its demands.
Yet courage does not mean being free from fear, pain or a sense of powerlessness. Sometimes it simply means refusing to be overwhelmed and finding the strength to keep moving forward. More often than not, that strength emerges precisely when we do not face life’s challenges alone.
As Chiara Lubich wrote: โIf there is one mysterious reality in our lives, it is suffering. […] Even those who love us and stand beside us are often unable to solve it for us. Yet sometimes it is enough that someone simply shares it with us, perhaps in silence.โ [1].
The key word is โshareโ. For it takes courage not only to endure our own struggles but also to step beyond ourselves, to draw near to others, and to refuse indifference to what they are experiencing.
Even in the darkest moments, let us seek the strength to overcome evil with good. Rather than withdrawing into ourselves, let us remain open to others, caring for them through simple and tangible acts of kindness, both in the ordinary circumstances of daily life and through social commitment aimed at building the common good.
At times, one person’s courage is made possible by others who, at a crucial moment, choose not to look away. This is vividly illustrated in a story recounted by Mario Calabresi about his encounter with Ali, a highly regarded tailor working in a small shop in a town in northern Italy. As Calabresi writes: โHis is a life that challenges anyone who wishes to escape the oversimplifications of our age. Think of the labels that could be attached to Ali, reducing him to just another statistic: โrefugeeโ, โundocumented migrantโ, โillegal arrival by boatโ, โasylum seekerโ… For Ali has been all of these things. Yet he succeeded in building a peaceful and ordinary life, the very life his parents had dreamed of for him, because he encountered people who, at the most difficult moments, reached out a hand and refused to let him sink.โ This happened, he explains, when a voice in a forest near the Bulgarian border warned Ali to change direction to avoid being shot by border guards; when his friend Ahmad pulled him onto the deck of the boat carrying them to Italy, preventing him from suffocating; when the mayor of a small town in southern Italy welcomed him into the home of a recently deceased aunt; when two retired teachers in a village at the opposite end of the country opened their home to him so that he would not have to sleep in a railway station or a public park; and when a group of friends provided the guarantees needed for him to rent a shop. Calabresi concludes: โHis story reminds me that other people can make the difference. And those other people are us.[2]
Perhaps courage is precisely this: moving forward because someone has extended a hand to us and, when our turn comes, having the courage to extend a hand to someone else.
THE IDEA OF THE MONTH is currently produced by the Focolare Movement’s “Centre for Dialogue with People of Non religious Beliefs”. It is an initiative that began in 2014 in Uruguay to share with non-believing friends the values of the Word of Life, i.e. the phrase from Scripture that members of the Movement strive to put into practice in their daily lives. Currently, THE IDEA OF THE MONTH is translated into 12 languages and distributed in more than 25 countries, with adaptations of the text according to different cultural sensitivities. www. dialogue4unity.focolare.org
[1] C. Lubich, Parola di vita marzo 2005, in eadem, Parole di Vita, a cura di Fabio Ciardi, (Opere di Chiara Lubich 5), Cittร Nuova, Roma, 2017, pp.745-746.
[2] Mario Calabresi, Ricucire la vita: https://mariocalabresi.com/ricucire-la-vita-2
0 Comments