{"id":308072,"date":"2021-10-21T01:00:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T23:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/what-does-happiness-taste-like\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:42:46","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:42:46","slug":"what-does-happiness-taste-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/what-does-happiness-taste-like\/","title":{"rendered":"What does happiness taste like?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.<\/em>” (Mt 25:40).<\/em> Gustavo Clari\u00e0, an Argentinean focolarino in Lima, recounts an experience that makes this Gospel passage come alive.\u00a0 It\u2019s \u00a0a \u00a0story that communicates a sense of joy that comes from small gestures that break down walls between people and make others happy.<\/em> The first time I saw him he was standing there, motionless, with something in his hands which, from a distance, I couldn’t quite make out. The double mask and the hat only allowed me a glimpse of his eyes. He caught my attention because he seemed to have no expression at all and was just staring into space.\u00a0 As I drew closer, I saw that he was holding\u00a0 a box of sweets. There was no doubt he was there to sell them, yet he did nothing, not even a gesture to offer them to the people who were passing by. I greeted him, but got no reply. When I left the church at the end Mass, I greeted him again, but there was no response. \u201cThis sad man must be my age,” I thought, “how unfair life seems sometimes. Yet God loves him immensely as he loves me.\u201d I promised myself that I would always greet him, but was this really what he expected? After all, he was there to do his job and obviously hoped that someone would notice. I decided to buy something. I’m not in the habit of spending money on sweets or eating them at any time, but I had to start somewhere. I stopped in front of him and took an interest in the variety of his products as if I were in a big sweet shop. After careful consideration, I chose a mint chocolate. I paid, thanked him and said goodbye, without eliciting any reaction. Exactly the same thing happened for several days. I went away for about a month but then I returned and went to the parish Mass. He was still there, in the same place. I greeted him without expecting any response, but surprisingly, as he recognised me, a smile escaped his lips and he seemed happy to see me again. I could not believe it. During Mass, when it was time for the collection of offerings, I rummaged in my pocket and found a two euro coin. I was about to put it back in the basket when I thought: “Jesus\u00a0 identifies with the people who suffer the most. With two euros I can buy some more sweets.\u201d On the way out I went to him and said, “What can you offer me today?” For the first time he looked at me and, with a complicit gesture, began to search in his box until he found what he wanted me to taste: “You will like it, it is a very good strawberry-flavoured chocolate and it costs two euros.” It didn’t seem real to me. It was the longest dialogue in the world. He had uttered a complete sentence just for me. I thanked him infinitely for his kindness and left happily. I can’t wait to see him again to confirm his choice: that strawberry chocolate was really good. <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Gustavo E. Clari\u00e0<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gustavo Clari\u00e0, an Argentinean focolarino in Lima, recounts an experience that makes this Gospel passage come alive.\u00a0 It\u2019s \u00a0a \u00a0story that communicates a sense of joy that comes from small gestures that break down walls between people and make others happy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308072\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}