Relentless Grace

When I first read Saul’s conversion story, I admit that I thought it was a little extravagant. Picture it: a murderous man is walking the road to Damascus, intent on capturing other disciples of the Way so that he could kill them. Then….BAM! 🙂 🙂 🙂 A flash of great light blinds this man and he has a talk with God, which convinces him to change his previous ways of folly. The temporary blindness revealed his previous blindness of the heart.

A Belly Laugh with the Big Boss: Humor, Laughter and Joy in the Spiritual Life

“Daniele, before you came here things were a lot quieter.” Padre Gervais said this to me about two months into my permanency here in Florence. Now, yes, it can be taken as a slight criticism, “Daniele, you need to chill out,” but I don’t think that’s what Padre Gervais meant. One of my favorite parts about living here with new brothers is washing dishes together after meals (“table fellowship,” as it’s called). We laugh, we sing hymns, we make jokes, we rib each other good-naturedly, we enjoy each other’s company, just being together. As Psalm 133 says that this brotherhood is “good and pleasant….like precious oil poured on the head….For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.” Honestly, before coming to Florence, I was scared that I would be entering a community that was old, lifeless, and stodgy, following the old-priest stereotype. Sure, Fr. John’s primary e-mails helped quell that fear when I learned about my amazing brothers Padre Lwanga and Gervais, young Congolese priests “who are really excited to meet you.” Padre Gervais said that even in reading my e-mails that I wrote to them before coming, they could tell I was “full of life, joyful.”

S.W.A.G. Life

Saint Anthony, doin’ what he does…. 🙂

I’ve heard the story over and over again, because I’ve asked my parents to recount it a lot: “How exactly was Saint Anthony involved in my life?” Especially when I was younger, they must have told it dozens of times. My birth was definitely not what one would call traditional. It was quite messy and harrowing, actually. I was born very premature, maybe because I just couldn’t wait to get out into the world. Thinking about it now, the way my birth came about is kind of funny: it mirrors my new, post-Urbino personality. I like to have fun, I like to make noise, I learned to love living big, going out. 🙂 I guess my mom’s womb got a little boring, like, “Pfff, I’m done with these drapes and bare walls. Time for a change.” The past two years of my life have been full of changes. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Life is a journey, not a destination. All it takes is that first step….

My Letter to a Legend

Dear Pier Giorgio,

As I was reading one of your biographies, I couldn’t help but think back to a song I heard during an Oxfam Hunger Banquet that I attended while in college, Bryan Sirchio’s “If You Eat Each Day,” which he wrote about his experiences in Port au Prince, Haiti. On his motives for the visits, he sings, “Haiti is the poorest country in this hemisphere / I go there now and then to get my vision clear / Sometimes it gets so hazy in this land of I consume therefore I am.” “I consume therefore I am.” Every time I hear that lyric, a lump begins to rise in my throat, as the guilt accumulates. See, Bryan’s song hits a cord because I come face-to-face with a painful truth: I am tied to my Earthly goods. I continue to accumulate, I continue to consume, I continue to desire. It’s as if I live in a haze of “first-world entitlement.”