Every year we organize an Annual Pig Roast Event in Washington, DC, during the Labor Day weekend. Everyone pays a little, eats good food, we chat and dance. I learned something simple, from many small miracles, about the mercy and creativity of God.

My nephew, seeing my family busy, preparing the week prior to the event asked, "Who organizes this event with you?” I was grateful for his question. We organize the Annual Pig Roast because my husband and friends enjoy serving a good meal to our companions. From here you add the gratitude for each single friend because without this company we get lost in our distractions, limits and calculations.

The 8th Annual Pig Roast hosted 450 people: CL friends, colleagues, parishioners, families, young couples, teens, college students, seniors, priests, children of all ages, friends from Ohio, NYC, Richmond, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Frederick, professors, politicians, doctors, unemployed, mothers with adopted or in-foster-care children, the lonely and a handful of Protestants.

A Chinese student, and a new friend, told me: "Here everyone is sincerely happy!" I liked to see how new friends were comfortably involved in the serving of the dinner; it meant that they felt at home.

There are many difficult circumstances, crosses and wishes that everyone carries within, and the miracle is that in our companionship, everything can be brought together and not left at home—left in order to have a moment of distraction.

With two friends we really talked about our lives and our deep questions while we were cutting the homemade prosciutto. It was like saying that we are not alone and can re- start in God’s embrace, which is this human companionship. A friend who lost his job didn’t want to come because he was tired of questions about his job situation, which caused a sense of guilt and great pain. But then he said, "Who am I? My value is much bigger than my limit and I want to stay in front of God’s presence and therefore remain in this company where He is.” With all his pain he came, and he wanted to know about me and why God was so good to me during this summer. He wanted to verify how God answers to our needs.

A friend, with tears in her eyes, said, "I want to thank you and your husband because when I come here all my hope is reawakened."

Commenting on these days with friends, we found ourselves moved because in 8 years we have matured in affection for Jesus and to the company of friends. There is no human explanation for the number of old and new people joining together from different backgrounds, only Jesus Present can multiply bread, feed the hungry, and give hope to the lonely. I'm sure of this because even with our best attempt at planning and with our limitations (if you know our group, you would know our limitations) we could never reach such creativity and physical energy that we experience.

Who can design, like an artist, these encounters, these hearts moved to tears;
a correspondence to our needs, to the expectations always within us? Who can reawake our desires giving us a glimpse of a possible new hope? Not ourselves, obviously!

Jesus is very concrete and real to me—I just need to be reasonable and simple in order to see Him in action in His infinite love and His humanity. He will never abandon us.