This morning I woke up and I really desired an encounter. And I received it in the most unlikeliest of ways. I was just going through my emails looking for a homework assignment and I happened upon the community email for the week with the article The Fascination of an Unarmed Beauty, and noticed it was only three pages, and decided to read it quick. And it quickly unlocked my heart and showed me why I've been having such a hard time over here in Rome.

I realized in reading that I had replaced my fascination with God with an empty moralism; saying 'if you do these things, then life will be fulfilling', with the lie that maybe God will love you. And now it feels like in the course of an hour God has transformed my view, and through the writings of Fr. Carron and Fr. Guissani I have found a way to follow again.

It has done so much that I hope to print this article off for my brothers and hopefully they can read it and discuss it, because I have very much experienced that loss of fascination in a place where I thought it would be the easiest to be fascinated. But I realized most clearly now that not even all the churches and most beautiful art in the world can compare with that encounter with a person, whom I now encountered in Fr. Carron.