The other day I heard one of my dear friends over the phone. He was back for the Christmas holidays in Trani, our city of birth. He told me a little about himself, about his new job at the University in Paris, about his move to France from the Basque Country, etc. Among the many things heard, among the stories of our local culinary traditions and a bit ‘of anecdotes about friends, one thing more than all resounded in my heart: “I returned to Trani now,” he told me, “but I do not know anymore what is my home “. This statement has worked a lot inwardly and has not left me since I lowered the phone. And it was not homesickness. No. It was something deeper, more radical. It was something that had more to do with our being human and our human nature. The house here is to be understood not as the physical place where we live, but as the place of our being, where we ourselves are and we feel “at home”. As written by Fr. Silvano Fausti, in a profound spiritual text on discernment, entitled “Occasion or temptation?”: “Man is an eccentric animal: he has his center outside of himself, which unbalances him towards the object of his desire. Only there lives, because there is home. One lives where he loves, more than where he is. This is why he continually moves, to reach where his heart already dwells, because he can not live without a heart “.

I was reading this text right in the period when I had that lovely conversation with my dear friend whom I have not seen for some time. The experience has led me to no longer believe in coincidences and for this I will not believe this either.

I thought, on the one hand, who knows how many people live without ever feeling at home, while never knowing why; to how many people are moved by internal motions to which they often fail to give a name, that they can not understand where they come from and where they lead. On the other hand, however, I felt that, despite being very far from “home”, I felt at home living close to God, living a life oriented to the consecrated life, in the particular vocation of the Society of Jesus, even though I did not lose the nice to see my city again, my friends, my family.

The words of that spiritual reading found echo in the heart of my friend and mine, despite the kilometers of distance, the differences, the time that divides us. Two people, same question. “Where do I feel at home?”. What an amazing fact! It seems that in everyday life, in the reality of small things, of details, the Spirit becomes flesh, the Word becomes life.

Is it really all just a coincidence?

Nicola Uva, Novice of the second year