Article from the blog www.antoniosocci.it
"I am writing today because going to school have breathed an air of death." Thus begins the letter that I wrote Mark, 19, of Florence. "Last night a girl who attended the third year is dead after a night of irreversible coma. The night before he was going to the disco was in the car with other kids (...) the machine crashed into a tree. Our school had already been protagonist of the great facts of death three years ago, a girl who attended the last year has committed suicide by jumping out a third floor window.
can imagine the atmosphere that we breath in the days and months following ... Today we have relived that moment: the sad faces of the professors, their faces lost in the emptiness of the students, psychological or physical absence of his closest friends and relatives. "Mark is a student who attended the last year of high school. Ever Here is just a chronicle of his usual, describes what happens when death visits our days of youth, and especially a place like a school. It happens that - after the shock of a few days - adults move swiftly to close that window wide open on 'immense, the mystery of existence, to pretend that life is just the usual theater where sadly we drag to play a role assigned. But young people do not easily distract the eye from Mystery.
It is the result of this letter I was most impressed and moved. Mark is an adventurer, thirsting for truth and a happiness that does not vanish in a moment, then continues: "The Lord is speaking to my generation and does so with force. We are talking through the most extreme suffering, through death. Not long ago, other kids have died or been seriously injured in road accidents and their history has had to weave necessarily with our faith as Christians. I'm finding more and more that this world can not give us anything. Can not give us true friendships because the watchword of the world is 'be' and whether or not you appear, you're nobody, you will always alone. Can not give you happiness because it lasts longer than 30 seconds. Can not give you the comfort that you get to sleep at night when you find yourself alone, alone with your problems insurmountable, just because your parents are separating, just because nobody loves you. She does not think that for us Christians to be ready for a new mission, which is to begin a new evangelization? ".
I was impressed to read these words in a letter from a nineteen year old, a very normal boy, but that does not become tame by 'industry the stoned. Obviously Mark has seen and experienced something so beautiful and so big that it does not dissolve in front of the breath of Sister Death. This word "evangelization", indicates a face and a name, Jesus, who amazes and touches, especially on young people that has a charm even the most powerful of the desolation of death. It speaks to their heart, thirsting for life, happiness, love.
Mark continues: "Many saints have traveled all over the world to proclaim the Risen Christ, but perhaps for our time we must begin, not from Africa or Asia, but from our house, our street, from our parish . E 'need to be taught to my generation that there is a God who loves them, who came to die for all of us, but who rose and destroyed the Death. I can assure you that these people are just waiting for us. By the grace of God, my parents joined the Walk-Neocatecumenale more than thirty years ago and this has allowed crescessimo faith. Personally I walk this allowed me to discover a God who loves me not for my merits, but as they are, especially for my sins, and that just want to treat me, wants to show his love. In our parish we found ourselves in front of so many human deaths absurd, but paradoxically the families involved in these deaths have responded with love .... "And at this point
Mark begins a shocking account of daily life. In a desperate world where the media attention only to the size of the Big Brother guests are men and women with a confidence and a love stronger than death.
"More than eight years ago my friend Nicholas died of a tumor in the cerebellum. He could only finish elementary school and did not know the age of the more beautiful life. Despite all this nonsense, which has always struck me him was his smile that he brought with him getting to the catechism, even after treatment. Since his death, the catechism of our group received the grace to remain united so far and is a true miracle, thinking about where they can be Now many of my friends. His funeral was a celebration beyond description, one of his brothers was so excited that when we accompanied his body to the cemetery was started shouting naively want to achieve in order to play with him again. That funeral was struck all present, because he had not said goodbye to anyone, it was hailed a brother that we reviewed. For the faith of his parents and for the beauty and joy of the funeral many people were questioned in depth and maybe still do today. What always strikes people is that the funeral in my parish seem to weddings: the songs are all happy and the coffin is placed over the baptismal font, which is on the ground, because it symbolizes the passage of the waters of death to new life. More recently, a boy, Jonathan, died of motor falling, something that I can not forget is the face of her mother, who invited us to be happy, because Jonathan was gone to Heaven. In the square, a friend told me that he was not surprised by this mother's response to the death of his son. He said, 'They are religious'. These deaths were an ordeal for me because I have shared so many emotions, they put me in front of the fact that we are not eternal, we can and must die. But I found that this death has been conquered by Christ. He won my dead. I am certain of this, but I wish this good news came to all my friends, to all my peers who may not know how to give meaning to their life, but I will have one and I can not reach them all. I therefore call for help to the Mother Church, in whom I trust because I have experienced that it is really her mother, who gives me the pardon and that it really changes my salvation. "
Marco writes me its urgent appeal to the parishes of his city (as meet priests and bishops?), invites them to open up the movement "because I know it's hard to live as Christians without a small community that helps you, you listen, you are correct, to hope for forgiveness, in which Christ is ... I urge all parishes in Florence to open the doors to Christ in these new forms, because Young people are the road to taking drugs, drinking, without parents, without love. Their life has no meaning and we who are the salt of the world have a duty to announce to them that Christ loves them and that they can begin to smile, they can stop pretending, can cry without fear of being judged 'weak', they can discover true friendships based on love of Christ. These guys have a right to know who their friends meet again in heaven and that there is no death that can divide us, there is only Christ who unites us to the next. "
is not out of this world? Don Giussani said that Christianity is literally out of this world in this world. "In fact, the Paradise begins here as the smile that opens up in tears and eventually takes over. As the sun illuminates the clouds and opens when the last drops of rain finally bringing the blue.
Antonio Socci
From "Free" January 21, 2009
