Matt O’Donnell, Chicago, IL
Community of Sant’Egidio | February 7, 2017
… anything is possible, except maybe finding a more original ending to this quote. I have been sitting here for a few minutes now, trying to think about a funny, quirky, memorable way to finish the title of this post. I decided to run with the cliche because I wanted to be sure I wrote something today – the 49th anniversary of the Community of Sant’Edigio.
I have known the Community for only a year, but I can feel the momentum and love of the previous 48 years behind me. One of the actions of the Community that resonates the most with me at this time is the Humanitarian Corridors project.
It is a shining light in this time of negativity and fear towards refugees and immigrants. This program has three main goals:
Reduce refugee and immigrant fatalities due to dangerous passage across the Mediterranean.
Reduce human trafficking caused by the exploitation of those desperately seeking to flee their war-torn homelands.
To grant vulnerable people legal entry on Italian territory with an opportunity to apply for asylum.
If you are looking for a way to help immigrants and refugees, I urge you to consider donating to the Humanitarian Corridors project. All it takes is a small gesture. A donation, sharing this post, or even using the hashtag #humanitariancorridors. While there is currently uncertainty in the United States about immigrants, it is important we help countries whose borders are open to safely accept refugees. Italy is one of these countries.
We often forget that small actions are extremely important. One small act can lead to another small act. And many small acts lead to one great result. We also forget how important the motive behind these small acts can be. One man acting out of hate can compound over time to create mass movements of fear and exclusion. One man acting out of love can compound over time to create mass movements of love and peace. Today I think of one man who 49 years ago decided to act out of love. He began with himself, his love for his fellow man, and no more than a few friends. Today, Andrea Riccardi continues to act out of love each day, and I am thankful that he does. The Community and Andrea are have shown us all what is possible when motivated by love.
Matt O’Donnell, Chicago, IL
Community of Sant’Egidio | January 31, 2017
It has been a little over a month since Christmas. As a Chicagoan, it means that my mind is now firmly set on June 1st, the date I can feel confident there will be no more snow (for at least a few months). As an employee in corporate America, it means that as President’s Day draws near, so too does the drought of three-day weekends (Memorial Day you can’t come fast enough). And as a Catholic, this time usually means that the “warm and fuzzies” of the Christmas spirit have faded away and I likely will not yet think about Easter until I see my first fellow Catholic donning their ashes on Ash Wednesday.
This year, though, I made a note. I wanted to make an effort to not let Christmas slip away so easily. I hope to do this by holding onto a message from Pope Francis’s Christmas Eve homily. I set this as a goal for myself because the messages we hear every major Christian holiday are not meant to be left in their respective holiday seasons. They are meant to be lived out during the year. They are not meant just for Catholics. They are meant for all of us.
Below is the YouTube video, with English translation, of Christmas Eve mass at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. It starts playing at the beginning of Pope Francis’s homily. My hope is that those reading this blog post take the time to listen to and read his homily. I hope you are able to find something in it that resonates with you: a message, a theme, a new way of thinking. I hope you find something that you will carry with you beyond the holiday season and into the year ahead.
For me, this was when Pope Francis said this about the birth of Christ:
“He appears not in the splendor of a royal palace, but in the poverty of a stable; not in pomp and show, but in the simplicity of life; not in power, but in astonishing smallness. In order to meet him, we need to go where he is. We need to bow down, to humble ourselves, to make ourselves small.”
As I get older, I notice that my faith, and how I interpret it, is constantly evolving. In high school, I may have interpreted the words above to mean that I must humble myself before God, that God manifested himself in the human form, so that he may guide us. Although I can still see merit in that view, my current views are a bit different. I now read these words and think that God does not appear in the splendor of being a deity that is separate and apart from us. Rather, he appears in the simplicity of life, which is within all of us. He can be found in the astonishing smallness of the person who sits next to you at work. He can appear as a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, or an atheist. God can be American, Italian, Iranian, or Japanese. As corny as I may sound, I think this is an apt message for where we find ourselves today. We need to be reminded to humble ourselves in front of each other so that we may see the good in each other. So that we may see God in each other. It is not easy to do this. It takes courage. When we act in fear, we puff out our chests and isolate ourselves. It is a natural instinctual reaction that we have to protect ourselves. This leads to division and disarray. If we humble ourselves, and quiet ourselves, if we go to one another, and meet one another, maybe it just might feel a little more like Christmas year round.
Matt O’Donnell, Chicago
Community of Sant’Egidio | August 26th, 2016
It’s late August. A time occasionally referred to in the film industry as a “dump” month (elegant phrase, isn’t it?). A month where studios release, in a large quantity, films that they were contractually obligated to produce. Typically, these films are of a much lesser quality than the blockbusters from earlier in the summer. It can be a real downer because it means that the malaise of summer winding down is starting to set in, and we are still about two long weeks from conference play in college football. So, at a time when entertainment is sparse, the days start to shorten ever so slightly, and families prepare for yet another year of school, I thought I would try to provide some relief by sharing the story of my trip to Rome earlier this year.
I’ve told this story to several friends. Many responded by saying how “cool” or “awesome” it was that I had successfully flipped an emotionally and financially bankrupt situation into something positive. But of these reactions, one really stuck with me. It was, “wow – that’s like something out of a movie, man.” And when I thought about it, the way that I came to meet the Community of Sant’Egidio did seem to have some of that Hollywood magic. Not because it was glamorous or extravagant, or because of anything that I did, but because – well I don’t want to give it away in the opening credits. You’ll have to keep reading:
The story starts like many of our favorite romantic comedies – with love lost. I had been seeing someone for the better part of five years. We got along well and really enjoyed being around each other. When she found out last October that she would be spending the first half of this year in Rome, I immediately purchased my ticket and began planning a three-week trip to see her in February. However, two months later, around Christmas, we had decided to go our separate ways. It was really difficult but before I could reflect on what happened, I knew the first step was addressing the expensive elephant in the room: my round-trip ticket to Rome.
What would I do for three whole weeks in a country where the best I could do to communicate was speak some Spanish? I couldn’t do it. I would be by myself, miserable, for three weeks. I told myself that I had to cancel the trip. Canceling the hotels was easy, but the airline was a much more formidable opponent. So I concocted a story that stretched the truth a bit and called this airline during one of my lunch breaks. Now, for all the fine people who labored as my educators throughout the years, you know firsthand I was very creative when it came to where my homework assignments had occasionally and mysteriously vanished. But I stood no match for Debra from United whose argument was, “I’m sorry sir but you bought a non-refundable ticket when you had the option to buy a refundable one.” Damn Debra, you’re good – now, I have to go.
At this point, I pivoted my thinking. I had to. I was going to make the best of this trip and use the next seven weeks to figure out how. So I got to thinking. What would I do once I got there? What is something I always enjoy? Well, that one was easy – helping others. From Polar Plunge to coaching high school Mock Trial (shout out to Cristo Rey Chicago, we’re winning it all this year), I always enjoy helping others. I thought about a story I read in The Slight Edge, a book my good buddy Ben recommended. The essence of the story is a six-degrees of separation type thing. If I remember correctly, the man in the story wants to start a business in Germany, so he constantly asks about Germans. Eventually, he met someone who knew someone else that knew Germans. So what did I do? That’s right, ask about Italians. Who knows any? Who? Where? How? What do they do? And sure enough, someone knew some Italians. Not only did they know Italians, but they also put me in touch.
I started the next chain of connections. I e-mailed Father Bob Maloney, a friend of my friend. He connected me with his contact, Gianni. Gianni e-mailed me back and put me in touch with Paola. We scheduled a time to speak on the phone and we made plans to meet at a Saturday evening mass at Santa Maria in Trastevere, a neighborhood in Rome. Finally, Thursday, February 11th arrived and I got on the Blue Line after work to go to the airport. That was it. I was off. Not a clue as to what the next eighteen days would hold. And that’s the part of the story that feels the most cinematic. I was alone, lost, and unprepared. But I was willing to seek out grace and friendship and I was definitely challenging myself to accept them both if they came my way. When I met Paola that night after mass, she welcomed me with open arms and spoke to me as if I was an old friend. The next day she picked me up and we went to celebrate mass in Primavalle with some elderly and intellectually disabled friends (or as they are more aptly in Italian called gli amici, “the friends”).
The rest of my time was day after day of meeting wonderful people and encountering life long friendships. Friendships with Paolo, Gabriella, Natasha, Odair, Fernando, and Zeger. Friendships with Gabriele, Gianni, Monica, Arnalda, Rafaela, Giulio, Mauro, and Elena. People who gracefully pulled me through the obstacle of the language barrier. Like the time I kept calling a baby a nuotano (which literally translates to I swim) instead of a neonato (newborn). People who surrounded me with love and made me forget any sadness I had brought with me. Like when I found out upon arriving that my apartment was four blocks from where the person I bought my ticket for was staying and that to get to the Vatican I had to walk past it (definitely the stuff of a romcom, right?!). And people who taught me that you are limiting yourself if you view helping others as service work. Like when I met with the amici for the last time before my return journey to Chicago and realized that this was not a service trip, but a trip that provided me with dozens of new friendships. Friendships on the other side of the world that had only been waiting for me to take the first step.
And that is what the Community has meant to me since I’ve returned to Chicago. It has taught me that, yes, service is great because it pushes us to share our time and talents with others. But friendship is there too and like the air we breathe it is something we all have within us. To me, Sant’Egidio is not a service group. It is not a “church group” or set of rules on how to live your life. It is an invitation to friendship. An invitation that is addressed to everyone and only asks of the recipient that they share this invitation with others. The actions of the Community show this every day. From working with the Italian government to bring refugee families safely to Italy through the Humanitarian Corridors program, to the march through the Jewish quarter in Rome in remembrance of the deportation of the Jewish people in the thirties, to the D.R.E.A.M. project that fights AIDS and malnutrition in Africa, and to the yearly Christmas lunch celebrated simultaneously each Christmas Day in the communities around the world. Sant’Egidio welcomes everyone as long as you are willing to accept love and friendship and peace and share it with others.
That is why starting a Community in Chicago has become important to me. Most days I am proud to be a Chicagoan, but there are many days I am not. I fear that the violence and tragedy that happens on a weekly basis has become so commonplace that we are numb to it. But I know that with friendship and patience we can change that. We can curb the violence and shine a light on so many positive and wonderful people and things that go on in this city on a daily basis. The fact that the outside world views Chicago as an extremely violent city just provides us with an even greater opportunity to be a profound example of change. As one of my American heroes, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., famously said during a 1957 sermon, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” To me, friendship is the primary vehicle through which love travels. To me, this is what the Community of Sant’Egidio offers us all. Even if I can’t establish a group that can stand on its own, I think an important start is to change how I act, and do so by inviting all I encounter into a friendship.
So, if you ask me, yeah they could definitely make that into a movie – one in which I would obviously be played by either Leo DiCaprio or maybe even Tom Crusie. But in all seriousness, when I look back on this experience, it shocks me how blessed I was to have had it. The experience was one that I could not have foreseen – it was completely unscripted. And that’s the beauty of it. All I had to do on my end was look. When I opened my eyes and looked, I found friendships. I found love. I found peace. I found hope. It reminds me of one of my (fictional) heroes, who once wisely said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop to look around once and awhile, you just might miss it.”
Matt O’Donnell, Chicago Community of Sant’Egidio | July 12th, 2016
I recently met my buddy Ben at an International House of Pancakes. Although slightly closer to Chicago than Grand Rapids, Michigan City has been a convenient halfway point for he and I to meet a few times a year. As are many events that inspire one to write, this particular meeting was an irregularity in the previously linear and relatively uneventful history of our friendship. It was nothing in particular that either of us had said, but more the considerably muted nature of our interaction that struck me that day. On my drive back to Chicago, the first thing I took note of was how this has been a trend that has occurred over the last few times I had seen Ben or any of my other close friends from college and even high school. As I journeyed down this rabbit hole of maturity, I saw these friendships in a different way for the first time. I previously had thought of my relationships with my buddies as being bound by our proclivity for debauchery at all times.
I feel that often, our tendencies for this type of behavior are highest at the time in our lives when we turn 18. Whether you are off to work or starting your freshman year of college, 18 is one of the more sobering and obtrusive signals that adulthood is imminent. As it did with most of my friendships, I felt for a long time that it was our resistance, and quite honestly fear, towards the uncertainty of what was ahead of us, that made us close. Our defiance was always our absurd conversations, texts, and pranks amongst other activities. But after my recent meeting with Ben, I realized that the fear of the future, and the childlike behavior it induced in me, is present in many of us to some varying degree. So, as someone who understands better through analogy, indulge me as I briefly deploy one here.
In the road trip of life, I began to think of my reunions with friends and family members as exits on my journey (it’s corny but stay with me). For example, each time I would see Ben over the years since college, I was a different person. He was a different person. With each exit and cup of coffee and plate of bacon pancakes, I began to see beneath the surface of our friendship and realize that there are other qualities that made us such great friends. Although we never talk about these types of things, because guy code of course, we both have an understanding that it is important to do the right thing, to help people who were given less than you, to be kind to others, and that the highest grade fuel for the cross country trip of life, can be found in friendship. And friendship can be with anyone. I feel lucky that on my drive home that day, I began to see that these were the qualities that constituted the foundations of all my relationships and I felt bad for not having realized this sooner. I also came to understand that had I not been following the idol of my own conceit, thinking that in times of need I could hack it without good friends or that I could skip a family gradation or event, I could have seen the importance of friendship sooner.
I started to think about how too often, I march brazenly into the future, led by my own pride, without pausing to reflect and learn from the past, or sometimes more importantly, listen in the present. I thought about the many times that I allowed my fear to convince me that there is security in isolation, that my involvement in something would be too little to make a change, and the countless excuses I would come up with so that I could avoid meeting someone different and unknown to me. And then I remembered the two recent blessings in my life that provided me the new frame of reference that allowed me to encounter these realizations: my introduction in February to the Community of Sant’Egidio and my newest friend, Arthur.
In February, I was forced to challenge the isolation, the apathy, and the fear that I had always carried with me. I had bought a plane ticket to Rome in October 2015 to visit a friend of mine who would be studying there this year. Needless to say, I let my insecurities tear down this beautiful friendship, and by early December I was stuck with a non-refundable plane ticket to a language barrier and no one to see. Be it the grace of God or just coincidence, I had the idea that I would turn this negative situation into a positive by looking to get involved in some service work. Through some asking around I was put in contact with a member of the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome.
I was extremely nervous. I had never done anything like this before. For instance, in college, I was all signed up and approved to study abroad in Rome, but came up with some excuse to stay home. Anytime I had a wonderful, horizon-broadening opportunity ahead of me, I folded and played it safe. This time, I was locked in. And every day since I returned from that trip, I am so grateful for being challenged to overcome my fears. Throughout my eighteen days in Rome, I saw many things and made many new lifelong friends. However, the main thing I brought back with me was the ability to identify that fear is what drove many of the negative actions in my life. I came back to Chicago with a new frame of reference – one that showed me that how important it is to seek out friendships. I told myself that now I must push past the irrational fears, and if I did this, I would encounter something wonderful on the other side. That is exactly what happened when I met Arthur.
I met Arthur on Palm Sunday at St. Michael’s in Old Town, an old historic church in Chicago. I sat in the second row and across the aisle from me was an older gentleman, with a walker, who was quietly praying. The presider of mass that evening then called everyone to begin mass at the back of the church with the procession of the palms. As I started toward the back of church I turned and saw this man sitting there. Instead of continuing on and ‘leaving it up to him or someone else’ I approached him and asked if he needed help getting to the back of church. He assured me he was fine and said that he appreciated my offer. I thought the interaction was over until after mass, when he called to me. I introduced myself and he introduced himself as Arthur. He then asked me to ask his last name. Upon doing so, he promptly replied, “-itis.”
That was all it took for a friendship to be born: an offer to help and simple joke. Art is at the 6 p.m. mass every Sunday and I am there sitting across from him most Sundays. After mass we talk about the Cubs and White Sox and we now call others over to join us. We’ve developed a wonderful little Sunday evening group now. And all I had to do was overcome the irrational, initial fear of rejection or failure. Once I did, I made an invaluable friend and learned yet another crucial lesson – the importance of the elderly in our lives.
After a few weeks of chatting after mass I learned that Art was going in for dialysis three times a week and I began to visit him on Saturdays when I could. We would talk for four hours, but often it seemed like only four minutes. At 85 years young, as he always likes to remind me, Arthur Daravanis has seen this world change immensely. He has seen a world war, the beginning of the Civil Rights movement, the Great Depression and the exponential progression of how we communicate with each other. He has also seen many changes in the immediacy of his own life. He played college baseball at Illinois State, he owned a restaurant and he moved to Pittsburgh with a woman he met on a retreat and lived there with her for over forty years. Although we both talk, I find myself mostly listening as he tells me about life, love, and the importance of taking the time to care for others.
Paola, Arthur, and Paola from when the two Paola’s visited Chicago.
Despite all he had been through and all he had seen, Art tells me that nothing brings him greater joy than practicing empathy and giving back. When I think about the realization I made in the car that day I was driving back from Michigan City, I see that I sometimes allow myself to think that I have all the answers – that I know everything. But that is surely not the case. When I take a moment to actually listen to my grandma, or reflect on what Arthur and I talk about, or even mirror the positive attitude of a person I’m visiting at a nursing home, I realize that there is wisdom behind these words. The shame is society often marginalizes the elderly and dismisses them as useless when they are actually a bountiful source of joy, energy, and knowledge with still a lot left to give.
This is invaluable in such an instantaneous world, where much more self-reflection and patience is needed amongst us all. The elderly can help us with these things and we can come to realizations about the relationships in our lives before it is too late. And not just the already established relationships we have, which can always use some polishing, but with the people we have yet to seek out. The thousands of friends we have yet to make across the world. I truly believe this is after meeting Arthur, my personal example of how someone who I have very little in common with, can teach me something about making the world a better place. And for some elderly who are unfortunately entrenched in closed-mindedness from fears that they were never able to overcome, they still have valuable things to teach us about the world. In conjunction with the desires for pluralism of our generation, I truly feel we can make significant progress towards a peaceful existence in the decades to come.
So, in a world where our headlines can look like this;
“DOJ Says South Dakota Holds Thousands in Group Homes Unnecessarily…” “Conditions Deteriorate In Aleppo As Syrian Forces And Rebels Drop Bombs…” “Weekend violence pushes number of people shot in Chicago this year to 2,100…” “Orlando shooting: 49 killed at gay nightclub…” “Grief in Baton Rouge days after Alton Sterling shooting…” “Dallas Sniper Attack: 5 Officers Killed…”
Let us take pause. Let us say hi to the young girl we ride the same bus with everyday and ask her how school is going. Let us help the elderly woman we see struggling up the stairs as we ask how her day has been. Let us invite our new, quiet male co-worker out to happy hour. And let us find friendships in all groups of society by realizing that despite some struggles unique to certain groups, we all share many of the same challenges and we all have the capacity for empathy and friendship.
USA Youth for Peace 