Dear Fr. Carrón:

Last year, my second year of university, was one of the most difficult years of my life. I became ill, which meant that my life began to revolve around doctor appointments, drug transitions, and awful side effects. I felt inhuman, like I’d becomed a series of symptoms. This summer, my friends and I had the opportunity to participate in World Youth Day and the Rimini Meeting. It was extraordinary to come from the point of feeling totally limited, to being totally embraced in an impossible way by strangers who did not speak my language. I saw the conversion of our hearts, and became so moved in front of the new way in which my friends looked at me, and I at them. For the first time in a year, I felt my whole self (struggles and all) being engaged. The beginning of this year meant so many new friends coming to CLU, a new companionship with the GS kids, and (inevitably) more doctor appointments. I went back thinking that because I was happier, because life with these friends has become so much more beautiful, I would be better. In fact, things were worse. At first, I felt so abandoned, as if in one moment of diagnosis, all the conversion was erased. But again, He didn’t leave me alone. My sister embraced me and said, “ This is the opportunity to live your present reality intensely because you cannot look beyond it. You know now that you do not make yourself. You are given.” Who speaks like this?! On Sunday, we had our Beginning Day. I felt so loved. In you, my sister, my friends here, and the friends I made this summer, I can tangibly see that I am loved because of a love that you all have for He who makes me.

Gaby Silano, Toronto (Canada)