A Mexican family: reciprocal welcome

Two voices intertwine in a crescendo of suffering and of hope, of deep emotion and of wonder. They lead us to discover the secret which has brought them to recompose that unity which seemed to be irreparably broken. It is Fili who begins their story: “Nacho and I have been married for 24 years and we have two children. I am the sixth of eleven siblings. There were many sufferings in my family, like that of discovering that my father had another wife and other children and this made me suffer a lot.”

“Me, too, as a child,” Nacho continued, “I suffered due to the absence of my father and the lack of attention from my mother. It was my maternal grandmother who took care of me. With Fili we were in love when we got married, but there was a great existential emptiness wherein each one of us identified with the other. We united our solitude, but we didn’t know each other deeply and soon enough we realized that we didn’t know how to love and even what love means.”

“Our problems started from the very beginning of our marriage – Fili continued. I was very jealous and possessive, up to the point that Nacho had to continuously change jobs».  «Her attitude – Nacho followed – caused feelings of resentment, anger and frustration in me and the discussions between us were never-ending. Our children were born and grew up in this kind of unhospitable atmosphere. Both Fili and I loved them very much, but since there was no love between the two of us, we thought that we could fill this up by showering them with material goods, when instead we should have given them a listening ear, tenderness and affection. Thus 15 years passed. Disappointed by this situation, I left our home. I had already done this before, but every attept to come back and rebuild our relationship failed. What could I do, I asked myself, when a relationships is completely broken?”

Fili continued: “In fact for me it was impossible to rebuild it, so much so that I allowed him to return only because I saw how the children suffered because they needed him. One Saturday evening,” Nacho said, “I was watching a boxing match on TV. It didn’t seem to be interesting so I changed the channel. I happened to see a religious program and out of curiosity I continued to watch it. There was a woman (later on I learned that it was Chiara Lubich) who was speaking about Love. Her word had such a strong impact on me. At the end of her talk, they showed some images of the little town of the Focolare Movement in Mexico, that is situated near our town, but which I didn’t know about».

“So, the next day,” Fili continued, “we went to Mass at the El Diamante (this is the name of the little town) with the whole family. There I was struck by the way they welcomed us, it was as if they had known us from the beginning. The Mariapolis, a gathering which was going to be held precisely there, was just a week away but we decided to go. The proposal on the first day was the phrase from the Gospel: “Forgive seventy times seven times”. I asked myself: is it possible to forgive always? I found the answer when they spoke to us of Jesus Forsaken: He didn’t only forgive us but he gave his life for us. I realized that in front of such a love, my sufferings were very small. It was not easy to start again, but the Word “Forgive seventy times seven times” has always helped me to do it.”

“For me too,” Nacho confided, “‘that Mariapolis turned my life upside down. I learned how to have faith in God for whom everything is possible. With Fili we have learned how to love each other in our diversity. Slowly we have fallen in love once again with one another. We discovered a fullness of love that we have never experienced before, not even when we were engaged, because now we love each other in freedom, in God.”