At the CLU Spiritual Exercises, I was struck by the questions that arose after we listened to the witnesses. The dominant question was, “What is the meaning of my life?” I was greatly disturbed by this question throughout the Exercises and I felt I had to answer it, so that I can know who God is and the role He plays in my life. But I realized that the answer could only be found through an experience, which could only happen with time, and that all I could do was pray. After the retreat, I was talking to a friend who is not in the Movement, and I told him that I feared death because of the uncertainties of the world beyond. He responded by saying that he was scared of dying before accomplishing his purpose in life. From all that he said, I realized that truly the life we are living has a purpose, and that our lives are given to us by our Creator. The next day, the CLU students had an assembly to discuss what we had witnessed during the Exercises. Two of the key questions posed by our responsible were “Where do our needs in life come from? Who satisfies these needs in one way or another?” God is the answer to both, although I think we have to go on our own journey to verify this. After the assembly, it was raining and I was talking to Nicholas, a friend from the Movement. We spoke briefly about the assembly, but mostly focused on general things. As I went to my hostel that night, I thought about our conversation and realized that I was not as happy as I had been in our previous conversation where we had talked about Christ and the events happening in our lives. I asked myself why this was so. We had been rained on after the assembly and my clothes were still soaking wet when I returned to the hostel. Surprisingly, though, I felt content and happy and I wanted to know the reason for this; how could I feel happy after being rained on? I later discovered that it is because Christ fulfills me. He is the answer to my questions and He reaches me through the faces of other people. I realized that He is the one who gives meaning to my life. I pray that the lesson from the Spiritual Exercises, that we are seen by Christ, will enable us every day to see Him as Zaccheus did, despite his limitations. Our task now is to keep knocking at His door like the Unnamed in Manzoni’s novel, with the poverty of a child seeking its mother, so that the encounter that happened in our lives may happen in each instant. We should never tire of doing this.

Yvonne, Nairobi (Kenya)