Venetian Arsenal in Heraklion in Crete. Via Wikimedia Commons

The Church Here and Now

Since 2007, I’ve been living in Heraklion, on the island of Crete, with my husband Diego and my daughter Vittoria. The letter you wrote on the occasion of the Bishops’ Synod has been for us a provocation to judge the time we have spent here...

Dearest Fr. Julián:

Since 2007, I’ve been living in Heraklion, on the island of Crete, with my husband Diego and my daughter Vittoria. The letter you wrote on the occasion of the Bishops’ Synod has been for us a provocation to judge the time we have spent here. Our loneliness and the effort to settle down in this new and sometimes hostile environment brought to light the extent of our neediness. For months, we lived immersed in the nostalgic memory of the companionship that we left in Milan, thus censoring our overwhelming desire to recognize Him in action. By the grace of God, our daughter has been, and still is, that instance of reality where the faithfulness of His presence becomes evident. We started seriously committing to the work of School of Community, and asking ourselves the meaning of our belonging to the Movement and the Church, here and now. In April, at our parish, we met Nicoletta from Viterbo, Italy, who is married to a Greek doctor, and has been living on the island for the past eight years. We approached her after noticing that she had an old Traces issue on the seat of her car. Since then, we have been meeting weekly for School of Community, and with the passing of time we have grown in familiarity. Paradoxically, what Father Giussani says is really true: we are living proof that friendship is generated by obedience. We differ in age, temperament, and personal history, but we are becoming friends because we bumped into the same charism, and we desire to share our journey to happiness. In August, two young Polish priests were sent to lead our parish. Despite the limits imposed by the language barrier, a friendship is growing with them, too. They didn’t know anything about the Movement, but they accepted the invitation to start the work of School of Community. Reality is still tough, and we are not completely free from the temptation to complain. But we are starting to see evidence that, if we offer to God our lives and the companionship that is growing here, we can experience satisfaction.

Chiara, Heraklion (Crete)