A few weeks ago, I took a small weekend trip from my home in Columbus, OH to Chicago, IL. Chicago is a nice city, but I can't really imagine myself driving those 6 hours by myself just for a nice city. It's really for a friendship; but not a friendship simply based on similarities. That only goes so far. What really distinguishes a truer friendship for me is a friendship that walks towards Destiny, because anything less withers away.

Although beautiful in many ways, one episode during those days struck me as incredibly revealing in its simplicity.

My friends and I went to mass in the morning on Saturday. Being in the Movement for several years, one forgets the novelty of going to daily mass with friends; in a companionship that walks, mass and prayer are essential. So, even in the best friendships, the risk is to constantly reduce the relationship, forget why we are together. Or should I say, forget Who brings us together.

Some of us waited in line for confession after mass, and while we stood in line an elderly man came up to us and asked: "Are you guys related? You've all come to mass together, and you're all in your early thirties." This struck me as not only incredibly inaccurate (I'm certainly not Italian, much less related to them), but as something very beautiful and meaningful.

Giussani has communicated to us something truly amazing. Through us being together, witnesses to a Fact that moves us even today, we can attest to the world and to each other that Christ is present, and that He changes how we live, even with the dearest things in our lives, so that everything is for us and leading us to Him. Through this walking, our faces develope; a new look for us and others, that, even to strangers, our unity (like with the early Christians) is different, but nevertheless attractive.

I can see that our bond in Christ is thick - thicker even than blood.

Tomás, Ohio, USA