A year and a half ago, something happened that changed my life significantly. In January 2023, after returning from a short trip to Italy to see my parents, out of the blue I got the chance to substitute teach religion at a Catholic high school in Rochester for the last quarter of the year. It involved teaching full-time to 118 students divided into four freshman classes and two junior classes.

One of the greatest and most beautiful things I have learned from belonging to Communion and Liberation and watching some friends who live this way is that each person’s life is a response. We look at reality and live with a question and desire what is given to us. If we look at reality with a question before the Lord, in it we can trace the signs of Him speaking to us. God uses a unique and particular language with each of us, making it immediately recognizable. It's an unmistakable way that makes me say without hesitation, "It's You."

Faced with the school opportunity, I was sure that this was God’s call. I felt inadequate and afraid, but at the same time, I felt great peace, which happens when I am certain that things are not done by me but by the Lord. So, I embarked on this adventure, which started as a three-month substitute position and then became a permanent job. I began this journey with the precious advice of a friend printed in my mind and heart: "Go to class prepared, but let the Lord happen." "Let the Lord happen" became my morning thought as soon as I woke up. At my school, there is a beautiful chapel with a tabernacle, and every morning before starting work, I go there to pray and say to Jesus, "Come! Reach my heart and the hearts of these kids, make us yours, and if you want, use me and shape me."

The months passed quickly, and my life changed radically. Relationships flourished with both colleagues and students. This year, I had 115 students. Each of them has their own story, temperament, way of being in things, and responding. Each of them is a universe. They enter your heart and never leave. During these months, I realized that you can enter a classroom with your lesson plan ready and do what you planned to do, or you can let the Lord happen, being open to changing the lesson if a student asks a question or makes a comment. The lesson becomes a response to what happens, and thus, the four freshman classes, which are supposed to be the same, become four different lessons. Same thing for the two junior classes. Life in the classroom is movement.

In class, I never explicitly talk about CL, but I carry my story, the certainty of my belonging. My love for the Lord is infused with what happened to me through encountering Him via the Movement, and my way of communicating reflects my belonging. One day, in one of my junior classes, we read a passage by John Henry Newman together. It talks about Callista, a young Greek woman from the third century AD, who is not Christian but accused of being one, and is very close to three Christians. During her trial, she declares that she is not a Christian. To prove she is telling the truth, her accusers ask her to sacrifice to the pagan god in front of everyone. Callista refuses because, although not Christian, she knows that the Christian God is the true one. She knows this from the way her three friends are and live: more humanly and attractively. Their God "speaks" to them, and through them and their way of living, He speaks to her as well.

We were in a very lively junior class, but during the reading, there was complete silence. Suddenly, a hand went up. A student said, "But this is us! This is what happens to us too! We also know the Lord this way today. We can listen to Him, see Him, touch Him, even smell Him." You can imagine what was happening in my heart while hearing that student speak. Then he asked me, "What is your parish?" They don't know the Movement; the parish is what they know. But with that question, he was saying that he understood I have a place that generates me, and he wanted to know what it was.

A few months later, in another junior class, we were reading the Acts of the Apostles, the birth of the Church, and the first Christian communities living in communion, sharing everything and supporting each other in faith, prayer, and even in concrete needs. I asked them, "Do you think a life like this is attractive? Do you think it is possible to live this way today? Can you give examples?" They found this way of living attractive but couldn't find concrete examples close to them.

So, the next day, I brought a short video about Cometa to class, a place dear to me for many reasons, including teaching me what life in communion is. I also brought a letter written by a GS student from Washington, telling the story of their summer vacation last year and how they helped a dear friend who can't walk to join the vacation and even go on mountain hikes. He wrote about how they supported each other in buying a special wheelchair and sharing the daily needs of this friend, and the joy that they experienced. After the lesson, a group of my students asked if I knew those kids, and after telling them yes, and that I had also participated in the vacation, they asked very decisively, "So, when are we going? We want to come too."

Towards the end of the semester, the school organized a retreat day for the juniors, and I was asked to participate with other colleagues. At the end of the day, as I was heading to my car to go home, a dozen of my students approached me. They said, "We have a proposal for you: we would like you to lead a club at school where we talk about life in the light of faith." I was deeply moved by this request and invited them out for a burger to understand better what they had in mind and what they desired. During that meeting, they repeated, "We want to start a new club at school led by you. The idea is to meet regularly, you give us a reading on life and faith, we prepare, and then when we meet, we discuss it." Without knowing it, they were asking to do School of Community. They added, "We also want to do volunteer work. But not just once in a while, like we do now, but something consistent, because otherwise, you don't change." And so, they were also proposing charitable work. That evening, I cried tears of gratitude and joy: after six months of classes at school, they had understood what they desired and needed, and they proposed a path and asked me to accompany them. But Who does these things? Who works with our hearts in this way? Only the Lord.

This summer, two of them came with me to the beautiful GS summer vacation in Washington, without knowing anyone there, without knowing exactly what GS is. They were completely free and came back very happy because they saw with their own eyes what they had started to desire and ask for. They returned even more certain of what they had asked me. It moves me to think that all this happened without me asking them to do anything. The only constant invitation I made was to pay attention to what was happening in class and in their hearts, and thus, the questions about life emerged. I just accompany and facilitate, as best as I can, what they ask and what happens. My daily prayer, "Use me," is heard. Starting in September, we will begin a School of Community and Charitable Work. I belong to a place, and that's where I point them.

No matter how prepared, skilled, or brilliant we are, we are always just us. There is no newness if it is only us, even if we are very talented. For me it has been a true joy to see that in classroom 107 every day with me, and despite me, there is Another at work who works with our hearts and intelligence, and who leaves signs of His presence. It is an experience of great freedom because I have nothing to defend, no agenda to push – I only have to respond.

The relationships with the students are beautiful, but the real joy is seeing Another at work among us. I cannot imagine entering the classroom without first getting on my knees. Without the Lord, it is impossible to love, and you can't even see who is in front of you. "Shape me": this journey is a continuous dialogue with Him.

Raffa, Rochester, MN