Traces - July/August 2008
What one desires

Discovering the Noblest Time of the Year
Vacation? It’s a privileged moment, Fr. Giussani said: “because it is the moment when you commit yourself as you want to the value that you recognize as prevailing in your life; otherwise, you don’t commit yourself to anything and then you are foolish.” Drawing on the Cometa “gang,” two group of Schools of Community, and a Madrid family, we offer here four simple testimonies about the most beautiful way to live the summer, and freedom

by Paola Bergamini

Vacation time. Finally, free from work, studies, the routine of commitments that mark everyday life… There’s no obligation to do anything, unless it’s what you desire. And this is where the rubber meets the road. You can let vacation time “pass by,” filling it with experiences and emotions that you don’t normally have, and in the end your vacation becomes merely an escape from reality that at best makes you say, “What a pity, over so soon.” Or... Or it’s a full, dense, charged time, the preferential occasion to discover and deepen the awareness in your relationships with friends and in reality of what you live for, what’s motivated you all year to move, to get up in the morning, to go to work, to study, etc. Either you empty the day in a harried rush after things to do, however motivated it may be by good intentions, or you let each instant be filled by what your heart desires and which reveals itself. So then, what’s the difference with the rest of your time? Deep down, nothing, except that your freedom enters into play even more strongly; it comes out into the open. You can’t cheat. The choice of the place, the friends with whom you go, how you organize your day, even prayer and repose shine with this choice of freedom of faith. Unexpected encounters and facts happen. We asked some friends to describe their vacations, from their preparations to their unfolding. Emerging in their simple witnesses is this desire to leave space for what the heart desires.

> The full text is in Traces no. 7, July/August 2008