"It is not with scruples that a man will become great. Greatness comes about, God willing, like a beautiful day." (Camus)

Fr. Giussani said, and I paraphrase, 'it's been 50 years or so and you don't understand and then, one day you are hit with Beauty and Truth and you understand. That is a beautiful day!' This happened to me last week while working with Guido in San Diego with our colleagues, who are veterans with disabilities. We had meetings, a big Christmas lunch together, gave the CL Christmas poster to Tina (who proudly displayed it in her workspace), and stopped for a coffee in Little Italy. I was recommended to reach out to one of our colleagues in a particular way, which was not what I thought was best, but I did it anyway. These normal things took place over the span of two working days.

It was at dinner that the Beauty hit me and something new opened up! I said to Guido that the last five years of coming down to San Diego, working with our veteran teams and the many challenges we faced, and still face, have taken on a new meaning because today is a day where everything is prepared for me! E V E R Y T H I N G! All of it, everything we have experienced has been prepared for me; and all of history, all the time leading up to this day, including the suffering and the things I don't know how to do, all of this was essential for Beauty to hit me, to have an experience of the intensity of the historical Beauty, full of love and mercy.

It certainly has not been a calculation or plan. No way. It's the Good Lord who one day, the beautiful day, reveals Himself and all of history makes sense. I understand in this present moment more of what we have been living; how that, through all the sufferings, joys, tears and all the laughter, there is the Good Lord calling me to Himself. All of history has been for this moment, for the conversion of my heart. A conversion of my heart to more love and more life. It really happened, this happened to me! Un bel giorno, a beautiful day!