We are G. and A., married for 24 years and with two beautiful daughters aged 14 and 21; we want to tell you about our very strong experience of love and forgiveness. One summer evening, some convicted criminals, sons of a well-known mafioso in our town, set fire to the car of one of our neighbours following a trivial quarrel over nocturnal noise. Unfortunately, our new car was parked adjacent and was completely destroyed along with that of our neighbour. You can imagine our bewilderment and anger: the two of us, esteemed professionals (all home, Church and work) were involved, even if indirectly, in a criminal act which made the news, and our names appeared in the local newspapers. Clearly, we had to buy a new car… and we are not going to tell you the costs because they are widely known to everyone… We had experienced firsthand what it means to suffer a mafia act, and, above all, we felt great anger towards these criminals. We joyfully accepted Pope Francis’ invitation to “go out to the existential peripheries” and sometime later, since we do catechism in the parish, we proposed to our parish priest to do an itinerant catechism in the families of the children who were preparing for their first communion. This was the beginning of a beautiful experience that involved all the families of the children and ensured that the sacrament of the Eucharist also became a moment of encounter between families. On entering these various families, we experienced moments of profound fraternity, sharing situations of joy but also of pain due to illness, lack of work and even problems with justice. Oh yes, problems with justice… That very year, the youngest son of that criminal, the little brother of those boys who had set fire to our car, was also supposed to make his first communion, and we had not even considered that we had also to go to their house for catechesis. The problem, however, did not arise in fact, the mother called us and told us that we could not go to their house because in the meantime the older children, having committed other crimes, were under house arrest and this prevented any visit. At the same time, this mother opened up to us and confided her great pain for the very serious family situation: she placed all her hopes in this little boy who was forced to live and breathe the atmosphere of a mafia family … However, she did not want him to miss the opportunity to experience this moment of catechesis in families, she did not want to make him feel different from his companions.
This cry of pain deeply touched us: what could we do to help this mother? How could we alleviate the pain and sense of failure that this woman expressed?
When Jesus gave his disciples his commandment: “Love one another“, he also specified the modality: “as I have loved you”. Jesus wanted to show us the measure with which we must love one another: to the point of giving our lives for one another. And by giving his life on the cross, he also revealed to us that this love was closely linked to forgiveness: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” At that moment we also recalled these words of Chiara: “Forgiveness is an act of will and lucidity, therefore of freedom, which consists in welcoming our brothers and sisters as they are, despite the harm they have done us, as God welcomes us sinners, despite our defects. Forgiveness consists in not responding to the offense with offense, but in doing what Paul says: ‘Do not let yourself be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good’. Forgiveness consists in giving the possibility of a new relationship with you to those who do you wrong“.
It was obvious therefore: to love that woman and her whole family concretely, we had to use forgiveness, we had to fully welcome this family without conditions. And how to welcome them? Proposing that they come to our house, to do the catechism scheduled in their house at our house. And so, the family of the local boss entered our house, in the centre of our beautiful town, under everyone’s gaze, for such a beautiful catechesis that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives. The parish priest was deeply embarrassed by the situation in which we had thrown him, but in the end, he thanked us and said that through us he had had a strong experience of “frontier catechesis” and we had experienced that unconditional love breaks down all borders!
(www.focolaritalia.it)
