August 2010. After my high school graduation, I was invited to participate in a pilgrimage to Czestochowa, Poland, proposed by the Movement of Communion and Liberation to entrust to Mary the beginning of my time in university. After several days of walking, in front of the icon of the black Madonna, I confided in her with this prayer, “Make me understand, during university, what my vocation is.”
At that time I had a girlfriend and in my mind, the word “vocation” meant the form of marriage. What I did not suspect, however, was that Our Lady would not stop at the image of what I wanted. Already from that first moment, she had begun to respond by giving that same word a deeper meaning: what the Lord had planned for me. In September of that year, I began my studies of Economics at Bicocca University in Milan. At the same time, I started to get to know some Spanish university students from CL. Because of my friendship with them, I decided to go on Erasmus to Madrid during my third year of university. Those six months were among the most important for my growth as a man and as a Christian, especially for my vocation.
It was in January of 2013 when, toward the end of my time in Madrid, a friend invited me for dinner. At one point, she asked me, “Are you happy?” “Happy? I wouldn’t know,” I replied. “I am serene, though.” She retorted, “But when are you happy?” Without even thinking about it, I answered her out of the blue, “I am happy when I see Christ present in my life.” I had never thought of such a thing and I didn’t even know where this idea came from. But over the next few days I kept thinking about my answer. At one point I asked myself, “If this is true, why not give my whole life to Him?” As soon as this question arose, I tried to hide it from myself to avoid looking at it.
“I am serene, though.” She retorted, “But when are you happy?”
In the meantime, I had returned to Milan where I met Fr. Marco, then the chaplain at Bicocca. In my relationship with him, for the first time, I brought up with someone the questions with respect to my vocation, but reiterated several times that becoming a priest was not what I wanted. He listened to me and tried to accompany me, but I remained stuck in my ideas. During the summer, after graduation, he tried to get through to me: “I’ll give you a week, after which I will call the seminary in Milan to tell them that you will begin a vocational verification journey with them.” My answer was a clear no: I had no intention of doing something like that. In the meantime I started my master’s degree at the Catholic University of Milan. I continued to see Fr. Marco, but I didn’t talk to him about my vocation anymore.
That year was very difficult for many reasons. One sums them all up: it was becoming increasingly evident to me that I was running away from the Lord’s call. In August, as I do every year, I went to the Rimini Meeting and, talking to a friend, I decided to bring up again the questions I had with respect to my vocation. He, at one point, said to me, “But what are you afraid of?” There I realized that the only answer I knew how to give to that question was:“It’s not what I want.” We talked for a long time and among all of his words, one sentence cut me to the core: “When the Lord gives us such obvious signs, the only thing we can do is to follow them.” Back home I went to Fr. Marco and asked him to begin the journey of verification that he had proposed to me a year earlier. Thanks to the meetings at the seminary in Venegono and the CLU exercises that year, I understood that the Lord was really calling me to become a priest. I had another question inside me: to become a diocesan priest or a St. Charles missionary? Thanks to the help of Fr. Antonio Anastasio, it became clear to me that the Lord was calling me to join the Fraternity of St. Charles. So, after a year of interviews, on September 8, 2017, I arrived to Via Boccea. This summer, after 14 years, I will return to Czestochowa as a priest, to thank the Black Madonna for listening to my prayer.er ringraziare la Madonna nera di avere ascoltato la mia preghiera.
