The word is a gift that I can use little these days, to save strength, so I write to share what my family and I have been living since Friday. Our separation upon my arrival in the emergency room was the first great difficulty: being away from my wife who had looked after me for three days, not seeing my children who had been taken away beforehand, then the impact of the most vivid suffering, of those who know that they are fighting something that is not “slightly stronger than flu”. There are continuous arrivals, of varying degrees of severity.

And there, in the midst of people, you really start to wonder if you will ever get out. First you are rational: "Well, I am below the average age, I am in good health, apart from a little asthma from time to time…”. But then the rational certainties collapse. Then what do you do? You wait, you despair, and if you remain open, you start to look for signs. Your wife writing to you: "I am praying like crazy. You do the same." You re-start from there and, even if physically nothing changes immediately, you realize that our great sin is to take life for granted. And you see things again. I began to be amazed at small details: at how new the ambulance that brought me here was. But also at bigger things: at my wife, who is living all of this with a certainty that makes her even more a sign of His presence. The certainty of a person who knows that the things entrusted to her are pieces of a journey: a personal one and a journey of communion as a couple and as a community (which I have never felt closer, even though I am not seeing anyone).

I am living the experience of realizing that nothing is taken for granted as a real educational lesson. In these days, breathing is a real effort, going from my bed to the bathroom, two meters away, without fainting due to lack of air is an accomplishment. When I do it without too much difficulty, I feel victorious. In this place, it is only difficult to find Jesus if you do not want to see him: from the gazes of other patients to those who take care of you right down to the details. Like the nurse who was with me at three in the morning for half an hour to figure out the best way to keep my pillow behind my back. I am not glad that I got sick, but I am grateful for how miraculously the Lord is making me face this circumstance.

Signed letter#Coronavirus