At the end of June, I went to Italy for a month—like I have been for several years—to spend some time with my mom who is now elderly and help her while my sister goes on vacation for a bit with her family. I always leave the US with the desire to respond to what the Lord will ask me there, to be the best possible daughter, but often I get bogged down in my reaction to the circumstances, He becomes distant, and I am full of regrets.

This year, soon after I arrived, I went to daily Mass for the Feast of Saint Peter and Paul, and I prayed the Lord, “Please make Yourself present, help me recognize You, save me with Your presence!” Since it was Friday, there was an open market near the church and I decided to walk through it. As I was admiring fruits and vegetables, cheeses and breads, clothes and fabrics, all of a sudden, I decided to look for something as ordinary as some socks. I stopped at a stall and the vendor, a woman of about forty, invited me behind the table to look at various brands. As we talked, it came up that I had lived in the US for a long time. She asked me how I liked it, and it just came out of me: “For many years I cried a lot, but my faith has grown a lot!” She immediately asked me, “What does it mean that your faith has grown a lot?” Other customers started to come to her table, so I thought of the essential and said in a rush, “When I left Italy, I was following the Church, trying to be a good, giving person; I believed in God, but He was distant. I felt that my happiness was tied to human friendship, but the two were on separate planes. After I moved to the US, different circumstances made me feel very lonely and my desire for happiness became huge, but I didn’t know I was looking for the Lord, I was exhausted trying to correct the circumstances and find friends. Then, after many years I met some people who are part of the Church and it was as if the Lord explained to me, ‘It is me you are looking for, and I am here.’ It made me feel explained, understood, saved, because to a real person, I do give my life, and everything started to make sense, have meaning in this relationship with a Christ who is real, who attracts me. It was a love recognized that I want to return, not separated by what I am asked to live daily; things were unified. I started to follow these people and something totally new began.” Her eyes had filled with tears and she said, “This makes me tremble, you don’t know how much I needed to hear this, that Jesus is real, because in the past year I felt I had lost my faith. Now I have to care for those customers, but can you stay a moment longer? Please stay…”

I was trembling too: The Lord had answered my prayer, He had become present, for her and for me. Through her with her tears of joy at encountering Him, He had made me remember what He had done in my life: I felt a great joy, I felt saved again. I stayed, time flew, we spoke for almost an hour between customers. I couldn’t leave, I didn’t want to leave! We spoke more about the Lord’s presence, about our desire, how He corresponds to our desire and we can recognize His presence, how the two of us meeting and talking like that--that sense of correspondence to our desire--was more than just us, it was His mysterious presence, and we spoke about the provocation of the human and the divine in the Church. I told her that everything I was able to say to her was because the Lord had encountered me through these people, this place where He is present and helps me to see, that I need to stay with Him in them and in His Church to continue to see and live this real relationship with Him.

I eventually had to leave, and we hugged as if we had known each other forever—in a true sense, we did—and she said she hoped I could go back to see her the following Fridays. I was happy to go back, and since I had brought with me the book L’Attrattiva Gesú in which the intro, Peter’s “Yes,” is exactly what we had spoken about, I brought her a photocopy to leave her something. I also left her the phone number of an Italian friend in the Movement in case she wanted to contact her, and she taped it to the back of her phone!

This event marked my summer, it gave and has been giving me a renewed and clear sense of purpose—what the Lord wants to do with me. I have felt more free and at peace with a great sense of trust and expectation because I saw how He uses everything to become present, and I don’t have to worry but just live my desire to the core, stay rooted in the place/with the people through whom He helps me to see, and live what He presents me with in my days, no matter where I am. This helped me to recognize how similar, less dramatic interactions continued to happen also when I was back in the US visiting several friends with my husband during our vacation, and it also gave me a different awareness in dealing with concerns we had for my husband’s health and other challenging family situations. It was a summer of great grace!

Elisabetta, Pennsylvania, USA