I had already been a priest for a few years when I encountered Fr. Giussani: I was going through a terrible crisis and meeting him changed my life. It is a long story, but I believe it is worth it to underline a few things to understand what allowed this corner of paradise called “Foundation of St. Raphael” to be brought to life. It is a foundation that is autonomous from the parish, certainly; however, it is a reflection of the charitable dimension that the parish has lived and lives since the beginning of our mission.
The encounter with Giussani happened in March of 1989, on the day of the Annunciation. I felt destroyed, on a human level I was in pieces because I had lost the meaning of my life. The origin of this depression was owed to a grave affective crisis that had led me to fall into the conviction that life no longer had any meaning, that nothing made sense anymore: I had understood that without a great companionship, a great father, I would never have been able to get out of the deep hole in which I had fallen.
This is what led me to ask Giussani to see me at his home on Via Martinengo, in Milan. He welcomed me with great joy and when he saw that my eyes were full of tears, he embraced me, saying: “What’s going on with you, Fr. Aldo?”. I burst into tears and told him everything that had been happening to me as of late. Looking at me squarely in the eyes, he said, “Well, this is wonderful, Fr. Aldo! Now, finally you will become a man! Yes, because what you are going through is a grace for you, for the Movement, and for the whole Church.” I was unable to believe that he would respond like this: no one had ever given me so much value, embraced and esteemed me so much before in my life.
Then he added: “It would be good if you found someone who could accompany you in this moment of difficulty.” At that point, I objected: “But, don Gius, where can I find someone available to stay close to someone who is depressed and schizophrenic?!”. And he said: “Then that means that this summer, all of the month of August, you’ll stay with me in Corvara, participating in all my meetings.” And so, during that month at Corvara, I was able to get to know one of his friends, who was also a professor and a psychiatrist, Eugenio Borgna. I remember during an assembly with CLU, Borgna said: “We are all somewhat schizophrenic.” To which Giussani applauded energetically and added: “Yes, we all have this schizophrenia within ourselves, we all experience this division of the I every day in what we are living.”
And the clinic is beautiful, beautiful like Christ is beautiful, beautiful like the person ill with AIDS is beautiful
To the question on how to get out of this paranoia, his initial response was: “Through a companionship, someone close to you to whom you can entrust your whole person: what we need is the embrace of someone who testifies to us a gratuity towards our person.” I immediately understood the profundity of those words and, thanks to this, understood what was happening in my life. From that moment of embrace, Giussani began to follow me personally every time I needed him: I was able to call him at any time of the day or else he would invite me to come and see him at the seat of the Movement in Milan.
His tenderness towards me was then expressed in the decision that he made to send me to Paraguay. I remember that, at Collevalenza, I said to Giussani: “How can you risk a task so great on a person who is this disabled and depressed?”. He responded: “I have faith in you and I am sure that this challenge will be very good for you.” For this reason, on September 8, 1989, he accompanied me personally to the Linate airport, helping me board the plane that would bring me to Paraguay.
Many years have passed since then. In this time, great has been the pain and suffering that I’ve experienced here in Paraguay. But the Lord has allowed me to have great friends like Fr. Alberto and Fr. Paolino. After almost 10 years of living in Paraguay, the works that today everyone can see and touch began to come to fruition, like the expression of the embrace that Giussani gave me so many years before. There is nothing of these works that is not the fruit of this tenderness with which Giussani accompanied me from the beginning. You cannot embrace anyone if first you are not embraced by someone, and for this reason all of the works here are the fruit of the tenderness of God that reached me through the embrace of Fr. Giussani.
There is no explanation that one can give to everything that exists here, but the Divine Providence intervened and wanted to make use of this poor depressed man to reveal His relationship with the poor, the sick, the elderly, children with those who hunger and come here every week for lunch or for a bag of basic necessities. One very beautiful sign of this welcoming is that all of the patients of the clinic for palliative care have a flower on their bedside table, as a sign that the patient is the face of Christ.
Every morning, even now that I am confined to a wheelchair and cannot move around by myself, the nurse on shift brings me throughout the clinic to visit every patient, to bless them, wishing them a good day. And the clinic is beautiful, beautiful like Christ is beautiful, beautiful like the person ill with AIDS is beautiful or like the one who is mangled by cancer that is eating away at his mouth. A large part of them die after having been with us for a short while but never, to anyone, even being in situations that are truly painful, does it pass through their head to ask for euthanasia, because they feel embraced, loved. Solitude has been defeated at the root. For this reason, living with them, I’ve understood that the battle against euthanasia is played out in the capacity to love the patient freely, extending a hand to them, staying next to them until the very end.
Before I was in my wheelchair, every morning I brought the Holy of Holies to each patient; I blessed them all and to those who were conscious I also gave Communion. When someone died, we celebrated Mass in the chapel with the casket present and then brought it to the cemetery that we have in a field in the country, close to the farm. Now, in the clinic, with the help of a priest, we do the procession every Wednesday morning with the Blessed Sacrament. Not only is everything beautiful, but the educative passion for the truth shines forth, so that all of us present can experience the presence of the Mystery in every detail. Up to this point, we have accompanied to death almost 2,000 patients affected by AIDS, cancer and other maladies.
I am a poor man but God has, without a doubt, done things that move the entire world.
In the end, I want to recognize the presence of Divine Mercy in this work manifested through the beauty of every detail: all of this is the fruit of that beauty and of that embrace that Giussani gave me so many years ago. Otherwise, it is unexplainable how such a place can exist, that costs millions of dollars which I don’t even know where they come from. I am a poor man, I am almost nothing: but here, God has, without a doubt, done things that move the entire world. This is evidence of the presence of God who makes use of poor persons like me. Still today I think: “Lord, but how have You done all of these things?”. Without a doubt, I see that the Lord has need for useless folks, who, however, entrust themselves totally to Him to allow Him to do things like what already exists here.
For this I really want to thank everyone, starting with the Holy Father Francis who, when he visited Paraguay in 2015, going outside of protocol, decided to come to the clinic to bless the sick who were gathered here. Visiting the chapel he told me, “Father Aldo, this is God’s work; keep moving forward!”
And I also want to thank the great and dear friend who is here with me, Father Patricio who supports me with his humanity: with him I share this work, especially when he comes here three times a week to celebrate Mass. And I also want to thank the Fraternity of St. Charles Borromeo and the people who visit us systematically, who when they come always show me great attention and love to my person. It is always the same embrace from the beginning that is still alive and vibrant, tender and strong.
