This month's idea can give us food for thought on some of the difficulties that can arise in interpersonal relationships, especially when we don't want to stop at merely superficial dating.
In fact, the dilemma has always existed in social relationships: should we favor friendship or the truth? Very often life presents us with different situations that require us to make choices. This leads us to focus on the concept of freedom. The dynamics are complex: even in groups with consolidated experience of commitment and reciprocity, changes are never painless. As mutual knowledge increases, we also get to know better the limits and defects of people, but also the "rust" of habits that do not always correspond to the original values around which we met. We cannot exclude the possibility of being faced with behavior that is even unethical, immoral or that abuses the trust of others.
Equally difficult can be the confrontation with new opinions that question tradition: this also happens in our groups and communities, where the welcoming attitude of the "last arrivals" can even scandalize those who consider themselves better than others or custodians of some indisputable truths.
Faced with these dilemmas, a possible solution, perhaps the only truly universal and authentically free one, is Love: it allows us to welcome everyone and build increasingly sincere relationships with everyone, of mutual knowledge and understanding, to the point of being able to also build a relationship of truth and justice.
It is essential to have disinterested attention towards the weak brother, who has a fragile conscience and little knowledge of things, in order to be able to experience brotherhood together.
Chiara Lubich, recovering the deepest roots of her inspiration, reminds us that sometimes it is better to give up one's ideas to maintain the relationship of unity, "for the less perfect in agreement with others is better than the more perfect in disagreement.” From a courageous life choice, often painful and apparently involving the renunciation of one's freedom, unexpected fruits of renewal and growth can arise.
The experience of Bishop Franҫois van Thuân, who spent thirteen years in prison in Viet Nam, of which nine in total isolation, testifies that when love is true and disinterested it elicits even more love in response. His testimony was great: without rebelling and "simply" continuing to live according to the Art of Loving ("everyone", "always", "in pain", "sharing the life and concerns of others", even of his jailers) he was able to transform even the terrible situation of prison.
During his imprisonment he was entrusted to five guards, but soon the leaders decided to replace them every two weeks with another group because they were "put into crisis" in the depths of their conscience by van Thuân. In the end they decided to always leave the same ones, otherwise he would have "contaminated" all the prison police. This is what he himself says: «At first the guards didn't talk to me. They only answered yes and no. […]One night a thought came to me: “Franҫois, you are still very rich, you have love (…) in your heart; love them (…)”. The next day I began to love them even more (...) smiling, exchanging kind words with them. […] Little by little we became friends"
In prison, with the hidden help of his jailers, he will create a cross that he will wear around his neck until his death, a symbol of the friendship born with them. A few pieces of wood and an iron chain: all he had.