A group of junior high school students, after the summer vacation entitled “Friends for life”, arrives at the Meeting and meets Rose Busingye of Meeting Point International in Kampala. Here’s what they said,
“I don’t want to live in vain.” This passionate phrase of the young Fr Giussani was the provocation that accompanied the journey of the Knights (the Christian experience of middle school kids, ed) throughout this “strange” year spent in the pandemic. Distance learning, meetings via Zoom, attempts at face-to-face shooting, the Promise, holidays … A life never suspended, a proposal never interrupted: a true friendship.”Friends for life” was the title of the Knights’ holidays this year. Undoubtedly the modality is different, but the desire for research and discovery is irreducible: what is friendship, and who is the true friend? This is how we arrived at the Meeting. And on Monday 23, about 250, between children and adults, (plus an equal number connected through the AVSI Facebook channel) met Rose Busingye, who had already helped us with her testimony to live Easter. The songs, the waiting, the arrival of Rose and we begin. Don Marcello and Gloria (heads of the Knights) open the dialogue: “We saw the exhibition” You are a value “, where hundreds of Ugandan women in conditions of poverty, abandonment, illness, tell what has been generated in them and from them, blowing up a beauty that is greater than everything. We met some of them. But where does all this come from? ».«I can tell my story», Rose begins to reply: «I grew up because someone, Fr Giussani, hugged me and told me that my life is worthy. He told me: “You know Rose, even if you were the only human being on earth, God came the same, indeed God came for you, for love of you he went to the cross. He died and rose and will be with you every day until the end of the world”. This was a revolution: God who made heaven and earth came down for me ». And here Rose uses an expression that will recur several times during the meeting: “He” made me dizzy “”.A revolution. “How I thought about my life has changed, how I ate and drank has changed. That man looked at me as an infinite value. My job is, therefore, to shout to everyone that life has an infinite value, regardless of successes and failures ». “And the experience of the limit?” Urges Don Marcello. «The value does not depend on what we do» resumes Rose, «God came down from heaven to be with you every day so that nothing is lost. Fr Giussani said to me: “Go to the mirror, look at your round face and see that in that face there is an Other who is giving it to you now”. It is this Presence that saves the world. And when one is looked at in this way it becomes contagious ». This contagious presence that takes those women (the exhibition begins with the photos of women who have been mistreated, betrayed) who not only start living again, but ask for a school: “Because in this way our children can learn mathematics by discovering their own value”.Rose accepts the challenge and “Luigi Giussani High School” is born, which now has 600 boys, and “the school is like a wave: from women to children and from children to women. In a month we have seen the eyes of the boys change, like that little girl who had attempted suicide four times. She changed her mind about herself when a professor called her by name “.Alberto, eighth grade, can’t sit still and asks: «How did the kids react when they knew they could go to school and study? I ask because … in the common Italian imagination, not everyone has a great desire to go to school … “. Applause from the audience. “Our kids live in huts and don’t have cell phones. During the lockdown, our teachers prepared their homework on paper and went on a motorbike to the boys’ homes, looking for them one by one to give them their homework and then to return to pick them up. When there was the exam, our kids were the first, for this very reason: when you are loved, the brain cells multiply their work! Our kids want to go back to school because where they are loved ».The dialogue continues, the questions of children and adults follow one another: what does it mean to educate? What makes you even happy when a guy says no? How can joy coexist with so much pain? … “It is a problem of knowledge, knowing oneself is really a beautiful thing“. “But how can I find my worth?” finally asks Rebecca, another very young girl. “We all have value,” concludes Rose. «We just need someone who lets us know, who tells you about it, looking at you as an important, precious thing. And when you’ve met him, you can even jump the fire. “Stefano, Monza
31.08.2021
Source: Communion and Liberation