Discovery of a unique world

A small square, the small Treviso flat land just below the pre-Alps between Veneto and Friuli. Here is the picture that has accompanied and marked my childhood. I am Giacomo, the youngest of my family, having an older sister (married with children) and two cousins with whom I grew up.

Two things make my home very busy: our shoe shop and scouting. The first made me walk, work, learn to be with people and be patient. The second has made my life an adventure made of play, nature, responsibility, service and brotherhood.

To this I add the passion for the guitar and the electric bass since elementary school, bringing me to do a lot of things, finding myself divided between different groups and people, styles, languages, without a true underlying unity.

My story changes when I arrive in Padua for university: from the size of the little village to the small city, freedom opens me up in front of courses, spritz, new and old acquaintances, life in the apartment … It is in this open prairie that even the Lord can find some moments to be heard, touching the heart and asking for something more than the rules, the holy mass, the moral. In contact with the Scripture and prayer, the words acquire a greater thickness, they touch me inside, they remain in my mind. Even people and their needs question me, making me ask spontaneously to Jesus: “What do you want me to do more? Do not I already do enough for You? “.

But with my heart and mind in confusion I find a girl who seems to correspond to all my needs, with which I can think of something serious.

With her I feel good, but after a few months I feel a different desire in my heart. I want to give all myself to that love that I feel poured out on me, free, indeed, undeserved, which reveals itself from rather simple things and opens up to something I do not see immediately.

Wanting to go deeper, I interrupt my relationship and put myself into play in a discernment group for a couple of years, finishing engineering studies at the same time. It has been a period of ups and downs, between the joys and rushes to serve and give my life, the fear of being cheated and the misunderstandings in the family and with old friends.

Then comes the moment to choose and I start a journey in my diocese towards the seminary. It is a period of two years living with other young men who verify a call to the priesthood, beginning to study theology and above all having a time to get closer to Jesus.

Precisely in this not too much secluded space, among the Prosecco hills, I feel the desire to serve Christ in a different way and the attraction to the Jesuits emerges as a weak sprout. I met them personally earlier in Padua thanks to a scout service, and their spirituality, thanks to my previous spiritual father.

Presenting this to my superiors and after having examined how the feelings of joy, the related thoughts, the fears and the various sadnesses work, I decide to approach the Society. I live for a year in the community of Padua, progressively moving away from my family – now glad to see me happy in this choice. Here I can gather the many threads collected in previous experiences and verify the entry into the Novitiate. I hope I have understood well where the Lord is calling me. And here I am!