{"id":17861,"date":"2026-05-15T14:53:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/parlava-direttamente-a-me\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T14:53:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T12:53:46","slug":"he-was-speaking-directly-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/he-was-speaking-directly-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"He was speaking directly to me"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Santiago<\/picture>
Celebration in the parish of Maria Madre Admirable.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n

Year 2000<\/strong>. Jorge is studying History at the Catholic University of Santiago, Chile. One day, entering the university, he receives a flyer with an image of Matisse\u2019s Icarus<\/em>, signed by Communion and Liberation University. He shows up at the meeting place where he finds many young people all together reading a text and speaking. He participates in this first meeting and remains struck by their friendship but then does not continue. He leaves the church for many years and is civilly married to Lyla.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2024.<\/strong> A new church, Madre Admirable, opens right next door to Lylya and Jorge who, in the meanwhile, have had a daughter, Florenica. They begin to participate in the life of the parish: Jorge senses a certain consonance between what he had heard at that meeting twenty years before and the words of the priests of this new church. He looks up \u201cThe Fraternity of St. Charles\u201d on Google and discovers that it is tied to the same people and the same ecclesial movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, leaving Mass, Jorge asks me: \u201cBut are you guys Communion and Liberation? Is there a group in the parish?\u201d. Little by little, Lylya and Jorge begin to participate in the School of Community on Friday evenings, a meeting where other young families of Puente Alto, on the outskirts of Santiago, read together a text of Fr. Giussani and compare it to their own experience. With time, the newly arrived feel the desire to get married in the Catholic church. Lylya was born to an Anglican family but participating in School of Community has transmitted to her a profound affection for Mary: and so she decides to become Catholic too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 28, 2025<\/strong>: Lylya is welcomed into the Church, receives her First Communion and is married to Jorge. In the same celebration, Florencia is baptized and they receive the exultations of the friends of School of Community who prepared songs, flowers, decorations and readings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThey were new words for me which went beyond my defenses\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Lylya tells the story of her conversion at a meeting for parents, and Iveth, who is listening, born Pentecostal Evangelical, feels the calling of her friend as if it were addressed to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iveth had come to the parish because her eight-year-old daughter wanted to be baptized and receive First Communion; in the meanwhile, her Catholic companion had proposed to her a religious marriage. Iveth recounts: \u201cWe had to participate in marriage preparation, which was completely unknown to me. I went without much expectation and a bit skeptical. I thought: \u2018What new thing could these two young priests possibly tell me?\u2019. Fr. Francesco and Fr. Tommaso began to speak about \u2018life as vocation.\u2019 They were new words for me which went beyond my defenses and my preconceived ideas. I felt for the first time that someone was speaking directly to me. Every Wednesday, at the marriage prep meeting, my heart opened a little bit more. I began to have questions, a desire to learn and to become closer to God from a new position. A few days ago, accompanied by Fr. Farncesco, I went to Cerro San Cristobal. Arriving before the image of the Virgin Mary, which for years had just been a statue for me, I felt something different. I prayed and I understood that I was not alone. I discovered in the Virgin a maternal companionship, silent and constant. I felt that she had always been there, waiting for me. From then on, I see life with other colors, perfumes and sounds. I do not know how to put it into words; I know only that God is with me at every step, in every thought and in every moment. And this certainty fills me with joy. For this reason, I have asked to enter the Catholic Church.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeorge, Lylya, Iveth: persons surprised by an encounter that changes their life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"He was speaking directly to me - Fraternity of St. Charles","description":"Jeorge, Lylya, Iveth: persons surprised by an encounter that changes their life."},"footnotes":""},"categories":[378],"tags":[473,477],"writers":[14],"regions":[1244],"cities":[439],"class_list":["post-17861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-testimonies","tag-missione-en","tag-vocazione-en","writers-francesco-babbi","regions-south-america-en","cities-santiago-de-chile-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17864,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17861\/revisions\/17864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17861"},{"taxonomy":"writers","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writers?post=17861"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=17861"},{"taxonomy":"cities","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sancarlo.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cities?post=17861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}