With patient and tenacious love
My uncle, a known mafioso, had been living for years in a mountainous region in Italy. He used to come down to the village every now and then, but when the police came to arrest him, he was already far away. My father had tried to keep us out of trouble with the law and with my uncle’s family, from whom we were separated by inheritance issues. As a Christian, however, I was waiting for the right opportunity to make peace with them. One day, the opportunity came with the arrival of a cousin in the village. Despite the people watching us, I went over to greet her. When she and her husband returned my greeting, I breathed a sigh of relief: the first step had been taken. Later, when I heard that my uncle was in the hospital, I wanted to visit him. My mother advised against it, telling me that I had no uncle. But he was like a brother to me. I went over and he was quite moved when he greeted me. In time, I got closer to all the other relatives. The last one of them was my aunt, the one who had made us suffer the most: I had not been in touch with her for 18 years; in fact, it took so many years, with patient and tenacious love, for peace to return to our families.
(Gavina, Italy)
Sensitive to others’ needs
As I was getting out of my car, I noticed my neighbor trying to remove snow from the windshield and other windows of his car. I went over and helped him, setting aside my hurry. With a smile, he asked me: “Why are you doing this?” I gave no obvious answer, but inside, I thanked God for pointing out the needs of others before my own. A few hours later, the same neighbor called me: “I was so happy with your gesture that I told myself: I, too, must live by being sensitive to the needs of others. And it didn’t take long: At work, in fact, I found a difficult situation, which I resolved quite easily by putting myself in the other person’s shoes. Thank you!”
(F.A., Slovenia)
A different way of seeing things
We are students at a technical institute. When our teacher first brought New City magazine for us to read in class, certain things in the magazine seemed too good to be true… However, the idea of helping to build a more united world together seemed a good idea to us. Furthermore, as we continued reading it, we realized that they were not mere words. The magazine reported news that we could not find elsewhere. It offered a different way of seeing events. All in all, what harm was there in trying to learn something from it? So we tried and gave New City a chance. Every morning, together with the teacher, we chose for ourselves a little “maxim” to live by. For example: “Love everyone” … who would have ever thought of that? Then we happened to read an article about “Adoptions at a distance.” And we got the idea to support a child, all together as a class. That small gesture of each student contributing a small monthly sum made us grow as persons. Today, Nader, the child we are supporting, even though he lives far away, has become very important to us: We talk about him, about his needs, as if he were our little brother.
(B., Italy)
Compiled by Lorenzo Russo
(taken from “Il Vangelo del Giorno,” Città Nuova, year VII, no. 3, May-June 2021)
