When I am asked to do something, I always discover that it is an opportunity to receive something far greater for myself than any of the paltry things I could ever give back to the friend who is asking (which is why I am always reluctant to say “no, I can’t” when asked something, even if my “yes” isn’t always very certain!).

In reading the panels and allowing myself to enter into the meaning of them, which was also an occasion to enter again into my own experience of a “lineage,” or history with the movement, I have the “clear perception of…being loved” by those who invited me to help proofreading this exhibit, and by Jesus. By the time I got to Panel 22, (“I will never forget this”), I was sure of that, and of Don Giussani’s love too, which continues now for all of us from heaven.

Reading the panels moved me greatly. There are so many beautiful items that were chosen for the exhibit. Some of the things I read here, I read many years ago, but had long forgotten. It moved me like the first time to read these things again, such as the story of the poor woman who bought lipstick with the charitable donation a zealous charitable worker had given her, and to read again Giussani’s correction. I first heard this story at a meeting in New York years and years ago when I was there with my sister, Mary. Giussani’s response struck my sister back then as so true, and as such a beautiful and true approach to the person (mostly because Mary loved beautifying herself with lipstick and other fine things), that she threw herself enthusiastically into things of the movement.

Now she has very advanced Parkinson’s and lipstick is probably the last of the needs she has, but I will share this passage with her again, because there’s a lineage to our needs too, and all of them are true or, I should say, rather they are the means given to us to discover what is really true, as suggested in one of the powerful witnesses of the conclusive panels of the exhibit.

Thanks to all of the Canadians who put this exhibit together. It comes alive on reading it; or I did, because it helped me remember people I’ve met along the way, and it reignites a desire to share life with others in this very simple way. I’ve just downloaded Chopin’s Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor so I can listen to it now on the way to my meeting. I want to see what moved some friends who are mentioned in the exhibit, who refer to this musical piece that was so dear to Fr. Giussani.

My favourite Giussani moment (from the exhibit) though is the following, which I’d never read or heard before, when the young girls says:
“Thank you, Fr. Gius, for everything. But it is not good for me to continue here. My humanity gets depressed.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don't know.”
“Then, wait, I'll go home and pack a bag and come with you.”

Christine, Vancouver

Click here for more information about the exhibit of Don Giussani at the NY Encounter 2023

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