Life is too short. Why waste time on things that are not of love?
In 1980 Alberto Micchelotti was twenty-two years old; Carlo Grisolia, twenty. They were both from the Genoa area, which was then marked by sharp social contrasts and plagued by a high rate of crime and drug use. Like other young people they were seeking happiness and love. They knew what it was to feel lost and alienated. They were keenly aware of their weakness. One day they discovered the secret to their problems—living out the Gospel without compromise.
Foundations
One day Alberto heard a clear voice saying: “Before you stand many mirrors. By continually staring at them, you waste valuable time. Break them!” The youth made a firm decision to join a group of young people who sought to create a civilization of love. This is what brought Alberto and Carlo together.
A building needs to have proper foundations. Jesus tells us: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Every one who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep, and laid the foundation upon rock” (Luke 6:46-48).
Alberto and Carlo began the grand adventure of putting God’s commandments and the laws of the Gospel into everyday practice: “Love one another”; “forgive your neighbor if he has hurt you”; “love your enemies”; “do to others what you would have them do to you”; “give and it shall be given you”; “blessed are the pure in heart,” etc. In the evenings they gathered with the others around a bonfire and shared their experiences of living out God’s word without compromise. These exchanges strengthened them. They began to compete amicably in living out the Gospel. Love gave birth to and liberated joy.
Carlo was by nature a withdrawn, introverted person. In his letters of the time he confessed: “I assure you I’ve never cared for anything—that’s right, anything!—beyond myself. (…) I keep shutting myself away along with the problems that beset me each day. I just can’t open myself up.” But gradually love conquered all. Carlo allowed it to transform him. God’s word tells us: “we passed from death to life, because we loved our brothers.” This was the way that led to freedom.
Love freed Carlo from himself, enabled him to take notice of the needs of others and become a gift for them. The boy sprouted wings and embraced all kinds of initiatives. With his friends he organized the distribution of Christmas presents to those who had nothing and no one. He visited homes for the elderly and looked after children in the district. He went for holy hours in the parish and wrote musicals.
In a letter to a cousin he wrote: “When I think of myself as I am, selfish, fearful, lazy, and frivolous, I feel myself unable to take a step even. But our life can change—we can love. When you feel depressed and unable to smile, love, love, and love with all your heart.”
Acts of love
Carlo and Alberto showed extraordinary ingenuity in acting out their love. Their imaginations passed up no opportunity. Never to be outdone, they were the first off the starting blocks when it came to helping others—which required that they forget about themselves. There were thousands of such opportunities: being present here, saying a kind word there, a smile, lending a hand, sharing with another whatever one happened to have—all these acts of love stretched their hearts and enabled them to sacrifice their life for others.
Carlo’s friend Roberto recalls: “One day a gas cylinder exploded in the house next door to [Carlo’s]. It was August, and the people living there were on vacation. A fire broke out. The fire brigade was slow in coming, so Carl and I dashed up the stairs of the building and put out the fire. As soon as we’d finished Carlo left the scene. I couldn’t get him to stay behind for the firemen and the reporters so as to be congratulated. We had done a heroic thing, and he just left! I didn’t understand him. Later he told me, ‘The important thing was to do it and not to appear in the newspapers.’”
Their love was contagious. It overflowed onto others. Naturally these others wanted to discover the Secret behind their way of life. So it was with Alberto’s girlfriend, Orietta. When they began going together, the boy did not seek out occasions to be alone with her. Rather, as Orietta tells us, “he tried to live out with others the Christianity he loved so much—especially with me.” They put their time to good use. Often they spent whole afternoons in the hospice, or visited the elderly, or listened, or were just present, to a certain girl suffering from depression. Alberto knew the secret of a beautiful relationship. He knew authentic love did not close a young couple in upon themselves, but rather motivated them by the fruits they enjoyed—strength, joy, enthusiasm, and peace—to share themselves with others.
Arduous climb
Building a relationship this way was not easy. Like other normal boys, Carlo and Alberto had to fight more than one battle with purity. In this the two supported each other. Neither of them was running the race alone, forgetting about the other. Whenever one of them found himself in difficulty, the other was there to help carry his burden.
In a letter to Carlo, Alberto wrote: “I think of you in your struggle with chastity. In my heart I feel this difficult time you are going through. (…) Jesus keeps on telling me we can’t stop: Love, love everyone, rip open our hearts so that true love can come out—the love that is born out of suffering. I know, I know my weaknesses and yours. Maybe this very day the temptation will go away. But [Jesus] asks me and He asks you to keep on loving.”
Once more on this occasion love conquered all. Love overcomes weakness and temptation. It restores purity and gives it profound meaning. Since it knows no compromise, love makes a diehard—a radical—of the lover. Alberto said to Carlo: “A few days ago a girl let me know I could take advantage of her if I wanted to. No! It’s precisely then that you understand your freedom—the kind of freedom no one knows. Carlo, help me to live out my freedom always!”
Choosing Jesus 100%
One day Father Mario, the boys’ spiritual advisor, sensed in his heart God’s plan concerning Alberto. The priest told him he had discovered the source of the way of life he had conveyed to the boys. It was the Focolare Movement. Alberto wasted no time in entering more deeply into that spirituality. At his first youth congress he stated: “I am beginning to realize that life (…) is above all about conversion—choosing Jesus 100%. I feel He is asking me to change radically in two respects: chaste living and choosing Him in every suffering one encounters in life. (…) It is beautiful to realize you need to change your attitude in many areas: at home, with your friends, in the parish. With your girlfriend you are Alberto no longer, but Jesus, which means manifesting your divinity or, better still, leaving everything behind. (…) Jesus has called me in His own peculiar way—that is, without reserve.”
These were not empty words; and Alberto was quick to act on them. One evening he confided in Orietta. “He told me: ‘I’ve come to realize that though I love you dearly, we cannot be together now. I feel I need to be free so as to better understand what God expects of me. I want to be all for Him. Do you understand?’ That’s exactly what he said to me. (…) Even though deep down I understood his words, I was unable to accept them wholeheartedly, though I didn’t feel he loved me any less.” Later she would come to a full acceptance. At one of the youth meetings, the poet and politician Igino Giordani took out a handkerchief, saying: “If you ask me for this handkerchief and I give it to you while holding on to it by a corner, it will be of no use to you or to me. Don’t be like that with God: give your life to Him entirely.” Orietta understood the reason for Alberto’s decision and discovered in it proof of a greater love.
The sprint
At this time Alberto’s race seemed to speed up. He persuaded Carlo to follow him. They became 100% engaged in helping the poor, the rejected, drug addicts and migrants. They did this out of love for the Abandoned Jesus, whom they chose as their All. It was He who drew them. He was the foundation of their relations with others, since behind theirs stood concealed the Face of Jesus.
Of this “choice,” Carlo would write in a letter to his friend: “Understand that now everything becomes a ‘grand adventure’ since Jesus is your friend—a friend that never disappoints. Your eyes are opened and you see everything in a new light—through the spectacles of love. The whole world seems to join with you in glorifying God. But remember, love is not only joy, gladness, beauty, and tenderness, but also pain, suffering, misunderstanding, confusion, murkiness—‘a dark night’. It is also Jesus crucified and abandoned. Jesus at the start of the era of the ‘civilization of love’ asks us to choose Him crucified and abandoned, since He is the one, the preposterous ‘key’ that opens all doors, who has the answer to all the ‘why’ questions asked by every human being and all of humanity. (…) You need to have faith. (…) Do not wait; do not waste time. Who knows how many people, how many brothers are waiting to discover God through you.”
This choosing of the Abandoned Jesus puts all things in a different light. It enables us to love in the most difficult conditions, where love seems impossible. Alberto wrote to his friend Bruno who was then in the army where keeping one’s values and living a Christian life is scarcely easy. “Expect nothing from others. Love everyone. Be the first to love. Become the ‘servant’ and you will find joy and the sincere friendship of others. (…) To me, love there, in the army, seems an extraordinarily beautiful thing. God really wants you to be the mustard seed, that smallest of all things which ends up casting enough shade for a whole forest. Really, I say this out of the simplicity of my heart: love everyone and be the first to love!”
The anchor
This insane love for all people would have been impossible without the anchor of a personal relationship with Jesus, a solid sacramental life, and the daily Eucharist.
“One day after 11:00 pm—recounts Fr. Mario—there was a buzz on the intercom. It was he. ‘Father, it’s Alberto,’ he said. ‘Could you come down and give me Communion?’ I came down and gave him the Eucharist. After that we lingered in the lobby and talked a while. I asked him why he hadn’t come for Mass at 7:30 pm. He told me he’d met a young drug addict and stopped to talk with him. After that he invited him over to a bar, bought him a snack, and gave him the bit of money he had in his pocket. Only then had he been able to come over to receive Communion. He also said to me: ‘Father, without the Eucharistic Jesus whom I receive daily, I’d never manage. Jesus really is my strength.’”
Alberto found in sacramental confession another special moment in which to experience God’s love. His confessor, Father Vito, recounts: “Alberto often came to me at the parish for confession. Those were special moments for him—moments of communion, I’d say. (…) You could tell he confessed not so much because of some sin he had committed, but so as not to fall into sin again.”
The boys also attended holy hours before the Blessed Sacrament at the parish. They never neglected the daily rosary, not even when on vacation.
The finish line
On August 18, 1980 Alberto was mountaineering in the Alps with his friend Tiziano. The time was 4:30 am. The approach to the summit was perfect, though increasingly more perilous. Suddenly Tiziano saw Alberto lose his balance and plunge headlong into a 600-meter-high chasm.
They gathered around the coffin. Alberto’s friends and street chums were present. The atmosphere was holy and solemn. Only Carlo was missing. He had just been admitted to the hospital. The diagnosis: cancer. His forty-day sprint to the finish line had began. The hospital seemed to experience an upheaval. Carlo’s presence brought a new, hitherto unknown atmosphere to the place.
Even here Carlo did not waste time. Even in this situation he believed in God’s unbounded love and responded to this love. He had an encounter with the Crucified Jesus and offered Him his sufferings. To a friend, he confided: “I’m at the end of my strength. I wanted to tell you that at this moment we should be ready to offer up our life for others. I’m offering mine for you and all of suffering humanity. For the boys in my district. For everyone I know.” Forty-two days after Alberto’s death, Carlo also departed for that most important of encounters. He had prepared for it all his life. “I live so as to meet Jesus” was one of his last sayings.
The process of Carlo and Alberto’s beatification is currently underway. To set fire to the world with love, that is what Jesus calls us to do. To permeate our everyday life—our words, intentions, thoughts, little deeds—with love. To build bridges of profound relations with the people we encounter. That is the revolution of love to which we are called!
Jesus wants us to live out His word and commandments in every situation. He wants us to embrace with His arms all those we come into contact with; embrace and love them even as He would love these people if He were in our shoes. It is this love, present at every moment, that prepares us for that most important moment of our life—when we come face to face with Our Savior. Alberto and Carlo left us a special message: “Life belongs to God who may take us to Himself whenever He desires. It is important that we be ready for that moment.”