After a brief but intense struggle with Covid19, the Lord has welcomed Brother Bruno Castricini of the Servants of Mary, a friend from the Turin community and a father in the faith for many, into His arms. His passion for Christ and the enthusiasm aroused in him through his encounter with Fr. Giussani were, for many of us, the instrument to grow in faith and to encounter the experience of the movement. He accompanied many friends in their vocation to virginity and marriage.

He was an obstinate man and was sometimes grumpy, but he had a capacity to embrace that left you disarmed, so you could only love him. He was distinguished by his ability to accompany those who were struggling, never leaving anyone alone: he always put the person at the center and was not scandalized by our evil, re-directing us back upon our path. He was grumpy, yet he was always ready to do the Lord's will, accepting any aspect of reality as His request.

His greatest passion was educating children and young people in faith (he taught religion in primary and high schools). In his last encounters with high school students, he often repeated that he had received much more than he had given, that he experienced the hundredfold.

The week Bruno was admitted to hospital, we were all forced to stay in our homes and it was painful not to be able to do anything to be closer to him. In those days, the tenderness of the Church, Carrón's letter to the movement, was of great companionship and support to us.

At the news of his death, that "dizziness" that Carrón spoke of became, for an instant, the sensation that invaded our hearts, and it was not immediate to "embrace" that unforeseen and painful circumstance. But one thing immediately became clear to us: that our first need was to face with the question: "What saves us from nothingness?”

Read also – Seeing Him Happening

The wound we have within our hearts, in the continuous dialogue between ourselves, is gradually becoming a slit through which we can see and fix our gaze upon the face of the One to whom we ask "not to be left at the mercy of the storm." May the certainty of good and positivity in our lives, which we have already experienced many times, surprise us again, waiting full of curiosity for the answer that Christ will reveal to the questions that He has generated within us in these days.

Franco, Paola and a group of friends from Turin#Coronavirus