August 2012. At a rooftop table with a view of the Miami River, the waiter had just served spaghetti allo scoglio. Enrico, who until then had remained silent, said, “The moment of departure is beautiful, because it is an experience of purification.” Alberto, holding his fork, looked up at Joep and Pepe, who had not answered. He thought to himself: “He’s crazy. ‘Purification,’ why does he use that word?” It was his first night in Miami: as he sat with his friends who were also Memores Domini, he thought he would be sharing the “ideal” of his mission in the coming years. He left Italy so that the entire world could meet Christ. “Other people” need Him. But Enrico’s words puzzled him. “In my own arrogance, I didn’t understand that the one thing I need is for Christ to be present in an event before my eyes.” His story would become intertwined with those of Carie, Rachel, Luca, and many others who lived in Gainesville, Jacksonville, and Tallahassee, cities in northern Florida, names that that night were still unknown to him.

Thinking back on it today, seeing their faces during the vacation near the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia, it seems incredible. And yet, here they are. They were introduced into the story one by one, one friendship at a time. A myriad of faces that, for him, are “delicate possibilities,” as Giussani would call them, through which the Mystery has become present over the years. It is something unimaginable, unplanned. An itinerary brimming with encounters, circumstances, and life, all of which make it worth reliving, in order to understand how a community is born.

Beginnings. Monsignor Felipe Estévez first met the CL community in Miami, where he was formerly an Auxiliary Bishop. In July 2013, while in Jacksonville, he asked if it would be possible to establish a Memores Domini house in Gainesville, in his Diocese, which is also the location of one of the most prestigious universities in Florida. In November, Alberto, who had been teaching Italian to Latino students at Saint Brendan in Miami, not literature as he had hoped, wanted a change of scenery and made himself available. So far, the “missionary encounters” had been slim to none. He contacted the Bishop to get a sense of work opportunities for himself and for Luca, a friend he has known since college, who would be joining him in Gainesville. Monsignor Estévez proposed two teaching positions, Latin and History, at Saint Francis, a Catholic high school in the Diocese. In August 2014, Alberto received a forwarded email from friends of a friend asking if there was anyone in the Movement living in Gainesville, since they had just moved there. Alberto himself was days away from moving there. He looked for a house near the couple while he waited for Luca to come. At the last minute, Luca was denied a visa for bureaucratic reasons. For the time being, it would not be possible for him to join Alberto. Alberto was alone. “It was a turning point. I wanted to give up. Then, there was a transition: from feeling incapable to realizing that I cannot live without my vocation. I could forget to recite Lauds, to take a moment of silence for one, two, or three days, only to realize that in fact I need these things. I went from being anxious about ‘what to do’ to discovering that I can call Enrico in Miami, to ask his advice about any decision.” And he was not alone. There were James and Sandi, the couple he had heard from. She was Baptist, and wanted to know more about the experience her husband had recently encountered. They began to do School of Community and, before having dinner together, they always read questions provoked in them by the text. “I had deluded myself into thinking that I was there to accompany them, since ‘I already knew’, instead I was learning from them” recalled Alberto.

Two months later, Carie (see Traces, n. 2/2016) and Rachel arrived. They were both introduced to the Movement in Pensacola by Father Jimmy and now they lived to Jacksonville. Carie had moved for work; Rachel to move back to her family. Carie, a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Navy, had spent a year traveling five hours to Pensacola to attend School of Community. She would return home very late, sleep a few hours, and then report for a helicopter mission. The hour-and-a-half drive to Gainesville seemed like a walk in the park. In time, more people joined: one of Alberto’s coworkers, friends of James and Sandi, people who came once. Toward the end of the year, Bryan came. He had been a student at Notre Dame, where he met the Movement, and through a friend of a friend, was put in touch with Carie. For him, though, an hour-and-a-half seemed too much. “But it is impossible say no to Carie,” he said. He never missed a meeting.



In January 2015, Alberto was admitted to a Master’s program. He asked the high school principal: “Could Luca take my place?” The principal replied: “If we hire him, does that mean that you’re no longer by yourself?” “Yes.” “Let’s do it!” Around the same time, James and Sandi moved to South Carolina. Then Luca arrived. On his first night there, at dinner, Monsignor Estévez said: “Lord, bless this little house of Nazareth, so that these two friends may live their ‘yes’ to their vocation.”

New friends. Alberto and Luca were complete opposites. At first, Alberto wanted to help Luca by listing all the problems he would run into, and then the potential solutions. Life became really difficult. For Alberto, who did not see that his friend did not understand; and for Luca, overwhelmed by advice for problems he had yet to encounter. Then there was the Bishop, who had sent for them so that the Movement could grow there and invited them to parish events, to pastoral meetings... All good things, good things “to do.” At night, they would spend dinner in silence, so as not to argue. In the back of his mind Alberto was thinking, “I still have a lot to give, and if worse comes to worst, there is always Plan B: return to Italy.” Until one day when he realized that the benevolent Mystery was knocking on the door of his heart through these faces he had encountered. And that, “It is enough to be in front of Christ present. This is the only thing that saves our vocation.” That word, “purification,” had become flesh for him.

One night, after School of Community, Rachel said: “Father Jimmy called me. He has been transferred to Tallahassee, where I went to college. I want to visit him and introduce him to my friends at the Catholic center. There are a few I am still in touch with. What do you think?” Luca and Alberto offered to go with her. On December 3, 2016, the three of them had dinner at Fr. Jimmy’s house along with twenty other guests. Before dessert, Rachel said, “I grew up in a Catholic family, and as you may know, I have always enjoyed going to retreats and remaining hours in adoration before the Eucharist. In Pensacola, Father Jimmy invited me to School of Community. One thing he said there struck me, ‘We want to know the truth of our experience.’ I
went more than a year without understanding much, but I kept following and at a certain point, I discovered that I could live my faith in my everyday life; I didn’t have to wait for when I’d go on spiritual retreats or for adoration. That....” Her friend Rachael had interrupted her: “OK, when do we start this CL thing?” The next day, they met up for School of Community. Two weeks later, some new friends came to Gainesville. Luca asked them: “Why did you want to start right away?” Whitney answered, “We have known Rachel since we were in college, and we were involved in youth ministry. When we graduated, we didn’t know what to do; we felt lost. Instead, she had changed, she kept growing. We wanted to know what had happened to her, so we followed her.” The following summer, Whitney entered a convent in Connecticut. In her suitcase, she carried the book of School of Community.

The Tallahassee group was small and diverse and slowly grew because those participating could not help inviting their friends. Some were able to attend the New York Encounter, and five went to the Summer Vacation for the Florida communities. In June, Father Jimmy returned to Pensacola, and they continued this experience of friendship that was so different from the parish groups they were used to. This experience was important for everything in life. Luca went to visit whenever he got the chance, not with the intent to participate in “meetings,” but because he was captivated by what was happening. He barely discussed this group with Alberto and didn’t ask his opinion about it. Alberto would get mad at him, but then he “saw” that this was a simple way Luca was being called into a relationship with Christ. Not long after his arrival in Gainesville, Maurizio, another Memores Domini already living in the U.S. for several years, told him: “Your greatest challenge will be to let what you see prevail over what you think.”



Orders and the question. On December 30, 2016, at the pier in Norfolk, Virginia where aircraft carriers were docked, Luca and Rachel held up a sign reading “Welcome Home.” Joined by Vincent, who had come from Tampa, and Alberto, they waited for Carie, who had left seven months prior for a mission in the Persian Gulf. In her cabin hung the Easter poster, a photo of her friends, and there was also the book for School of Community. Her job is to obey orders. Always. For her, during those months, the question had been: “What does my experience in the Movement have to do with the Navy? Or with the fact that I will be serving my country on active duty for the next four years?” She finds the only answer: “It is here that I meet Christ. I have been called to this life, and I wake up every morning praying to be able to say yes to Him.”

After ten months of being home, in November 2017 she was given a new assignment: Corpus Christi, Texas, near the border with Mexico. Carie was in tears. Alberto told her: “We will take you there. In fact, we will begin the trip early and we will make it a road trip. We will stop in the places life has taken you and meet all your friends.” A week later, Rachel entered as a novice in the Missionary Sisters of Saint Charles Borromeo.

One night, Alberto and Luca received a phone call from Monsignor Estévez: “Our Diocese is receiving a new seminarian, Clay. He will be here for one year serving in campus ministry. He has spent two years studying in Rome and I would like for him to practice speaking Italian. So I thought of you.” They met a few days later at a Starbucks for coffee. Clay told them that he had actually met the Movement in Rome, through Ralph, an American seminarian. He began to go to School of Community. He expected to be very busy with the activities of the campus ministry. He had a generous heart; he never held back. Then, after a School of Community, to which he had arrived late again from another commitment, he told Alberto: “I am about to burst. I cannot go on like this and I am not happy living this way.” “Who did the Bishop instruct you to follow?” “Father David, the university chaplain.” “Why don’t you go tell him?” Clay thought it over: to admit that he is “not up to the task” meant that this might not be his path. The next morning, he took courage and after the chaplain had reviewed with him his tasks for the day, he said: “This isn’t working for me. I do a lot, but I accomplish nothing.” “Tell me what you need.” “I need School of Community.” “OK. Make sure everything gets done, but you may keep your Thursdays open.”

Among those who need that group of friends are Ashil, whom Alberto accompanied as a catechist until becoming his godfather at his Baptism; Richard, who is also in the U.S. Navy; and Mary Alice, a university student who in 2016 bought a ticket to the New York Encounter the day before it began because her friend Rachel had suggested to her: “Come.” And then Sonya and Kelsey... All of them personal encounters that have generated a new life. As he reflects back on this story today, Alberto smiles: “Look what I would have missed had I chosen plan B!”