In these days, I’ve seen all the sides of my friends that I often don’t get to encounter: hopefulness, anger, happiness, and anxiety. And yet, with all those emotions, I constantly saw a tenderness for me. Particularly for me.

In past years, I’ve always needed a physical sign that grabbed me, a sign that forced me to re-fix my gaze. But in these years of following truly with all my heart and giving up my ideas of how things should be, I’ve learned to spend my days offering up. I’ve also come to understand my stubbornness; I want things how I want them, and when I don’t get my way, I explode. Instead, in these days I’ve tried to live the outburst with prayer, and it’s as simple as a prayer asking me to recall. This opens me to see that nothing is against me, but everything is for me. Here, I see the affection in someone asking me to drive to Walmart or wash dishes, and when things get out of order, I try to look at what is instead of how my plans got ruined.

I came here with the expectation to learn to adhere better, and I have. I’ve also learned to be poor, to be a beggar, because it’s only here that I can truly be open and free in front of everything, including my history, my past, which is filled with many traumas. Here, I’m able to say Christ was there too. Instead of saying, “Christ came when I joined the Fraternity,” with these people, I’ve learned to look back and recall, and through that, I’ve come to see that MY Father has always been present. It’s clear that we are still broken and imperfect, but we help one and other face Christ for who He is. Christ is a man who died for me, so if I think He suddenly appeared in my life at seventeen, it’s because I couldn’t understand His loving gaze on the totality of my life before that.

So, the Fraternity is seeing my Father in all of my life, seeing that the desire I’ve had for home has been here all along, waiting for me to say “yes,” and allowing people here to enter into pain, joyfulness, hope, anxiety, and everything else with me.

I leave here with a heart filled with joy and with hope. I continue this pilgrimage of my life asking for the things I think I need, but most importantly asking to remain as open to reality as I have been in these days, especially because I see I’m often distracted by what I want to see, and how I want things to happen, instead of what is and what’s being given. Either way, Christ still comes, but I really want to do the work more than ever because of the Fraternity.

Elizabeth, New York, USA