The Call

ALBERTO

Jesus called me the way He does; that is, without any reservations. (...) It’s beautiful when you realize you have to turn the page on so many things: especially at home, in school, with your friends – It’s not you, Alberto; it’s Jesus. That is, either you share the Divine [life], or else it’s better that you give it all up.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing Jesus has given to me is above all the certainty that I’ll no longer be alone (...) He’s told me that this is all a life to be lived together with Jesus in the midst, who vanquishes every problem. He told me that whenever I will feel alone, whenever I will make a mistake, betray my yes for the thousandth time – HE is there in the failure, in the pain, in the forsakenness, in the detachment, in the sin, in the crisis.... I entered in His heart and together He and I walk the same road. It’s something wonderful.

[From a letter to Antonio Topi, April 1978]

CARLO

...Jesus’s love! It’s something huge, it seems like we’ll burst, it seems like having the infinite inside us; It’s Jesus that cries: “I am the Risen One!” It’s the meaning of Jesus in our midst. So, little by little, you understand that everything is part of one amazing adventure because now Jesus is your friend, a friend who never betrays you; you open your mind and manage to see everything with different eyes because they are filtered by love; and all the universe seems to sing along with us in praise to God. (...) I believe that this feeling of joy is the call of Jesus to you, also because – and the Gospel says it – “It is I who called you.” We have to say yes to Him; a yes that is repeated in the joys and in the sufferings of each moment of our life.

[From a letter to Ferdinando Realmuto, 1978]