A love that rocks

A simple yet profound experience of a teenager in rediscovering God’s love. Pierro, 16 years old and newly graduated from high school last March 2010 from the University of Cebu, shares his experience on Love of God for him.

As a child, I was raised in a Catholic family. Every Sunday our mom would bring me and my older brother to Mass. She always made it a point to do this every Sunday. At that time God was strongly present in my life because my mom also brought me and my brother up in the ideal of unity of the Focolare. I really enjoyed attending the youth meetings, the Mariapolis, etc. I was already a bit passionate about music and my spiritual life remained quite stable until I got to second year high school.

At that point I fell into a state of confusion as my faith in God slowly vanished. I was asking myself why there were so many religions in the world. And if the God that I believed in really existed, why he didn’t just say “Hey! I’m your God! Worship me and you will be saved...” My love for music also contributed to my confusion, because my genre was Punk Rock. As it is, those who like Punk Rock usually don’t believe in any organized religion nor in God, for Punks believe that religions only lead people to arguments and even wars.

I also got to know what Karl Marx said, that “religion is the opium of the people.” As my confusion grew, I decided to be a person who would just do things to benefit the human race without relying on any faith in God. As my life went on, I was happy. Even though I was an “atheist,” I still continued to love my family as before.

Into my third year high school, I still professed to be an “atheist.” At that point, I started to feel a certain emptiness within. I had thought that the good things I was doing could be enough to satisfy me as a person, but I had been wrong after all.

Once in deep thought about what was happening in my life, the words which I had heard from my childhood resounded in my heart and my mind, “Pierro, I love you immensely”. But I just ignored them. As days passed, this thought was like a voice inside me, “I love you immensely”. I knew for real it was God this time.

He used certain people as instruments to bring me back to him. One of them was a friend living this life of unity. He would talk about God who is Love, but I would always contradict him and say “Are you crazy? Freedom is Love!” But this friend spoke with conviction about God who is love. Then I really felt his concrete love when he gifted me with a Bible. I started reading it. Later on, as the days passed, I told God, “Oh God, thank you for bringing me back to you.” Now, as a Christian, I always associate my music with God and tell my classmates and friends: “Dude, I’m might be a Punk but I’m also a Christian.”

My friends in the Focolare later invited me to play guitar for their activities which I more than willingly accepted. Now every time I think about the doubts and confusions that I’ve encountered in life, I laugh because music, which had driven me away from God, is also what brought me back to him. This is what I learned from the Love of God: Freedom! People say that we are “free” if we can do what we want, but I realized that we are only free if we are true to what we are created for. We are made in the image and likeness of God and God is love. For us to be free, we must only do one thing, and that is to love.

Pierro

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Believing in God’s Love

Nonoy Pelayo from Dumaguete City, shares how his belief in God’s love helped him to overcome life’s insecurities and difficulties.

Dumaguete City is a small but vibrant town, as its universities prove. Here Nonoy Pelayo came to known the Focolare’s spirituality of unity in 1986, almost 21 years ago; but he admits that his spiritual growth was very slow, sometimes unnoticeable, and at times frustrating. He wanted to grow but it seemed that he was not going anywhere at all. Envying when he heard others their experiences about significant and automatic changes in their life of union with God, he decided to quit, not once but many times, for he thought he was unworthy and not able to live united with God.

One day though he gave up the thought of an easy conversion. He narrates, “I just said to God: ‘Here I am, unfit to become your disciple in loving. If ever you really need me to love others then let it be. I am at your disposal. But I cannot achieve my goal – to be perfectly in union with you.’” After this sincere talk with God, he started to love every suffering in life, trying to love every neighbor he meets and to live every present moment well by starting again after every mistake and failure and really love others.

For him loving God has been possible in many silent ways: not by talking to others about Him, but saying no to all that the world had to offer. He recalls, “There were many times at work that I was offered a bribe; but I refused cordially, and sometimes with a respectful smile; until nobody would approach me asking for some illegal favor any longer.”

Then one time at work, owing to his conviction to love God and do His will, he met a problem. He was sued for anti-graft and corrupt practices act.

He narrates, “It happened that, during a bidding session for several medicines, I and the Award Committee’s became alarmed about the very low price of a certain supplier– significantly lower than the prevailing market. Upon investigation, I found out that the medicines were fake and even the supplier was not qualified to supply. We disqualified him, but instead we were sued. Accused for having committed some corrupt practices, we were suspended and even issued a warrant of arrest.”

He continues, “During those times, I surrendered myself to God, and I said: ‘Whatever be your will, let it be done to me.’ I didn’t harbor the least grudge in my heart – even for those employees who had connived in the transactions and for others who had filed the case. Once, the conniving official even approached me, quite mad, banging my office door and even shouting, telling me that I was trying to take revenge for the case filed against us; but I told him calmly that all that I was doing was just part of my regular work. He was still madly shouting at me, but because I was loving God inside me and inside him, I was aware that even this man, who seemed to be an enemy, should be loved. Thus I manage to stay calm and not say anything negative.”

Because of this situation he had to quit his job, but he was sure that God’s love would take care of his needs in this very insecure world. Of course there were times when he questioned himself: “Can I still find a job at 44 when I will be fired? Can I support my family? The growing needs of my children? Can I send them to school? At the same time he knew that he had left his job out of love for God, so He would provide him with something better.

He started to work as an accountant, but it was really difficult to be in public practice, and with just very few clients he could hardly meet his family’s needs. Every time he experienced a feeling of insecurity, he would visit the Blessed Sacrament, to assure himself that God loved him, and with the help of his friends in the Focolare, who gave him strength to go on, he tried to live every moment meaningfully, to embrace all difficulties even though he often questioned God about them. By embracing and accepting suffering, he understood how God wanted him to love every difficult situation in life, especially, the painful ones. God did not disappoint him as He cannot be outdone in generosity. In fact, he was later given enough clients for his needs and he can now even send his children to school as well as to university.

Carlo Gentile

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