A Contagious Thirst for Life
Ekaterina Yurina - My encounter with the Communion and Liberation movement began in 2008 when Lyubov Khon arrived at our school. Her outlook on life and her approach to work were very different from our typical mindset, where everything felt like a difficulty or a problem. At a certain point, I became curious to understand what allowed Lyubov to look at our lives in such a different way: she didn't blame anyone or waste time on idle talk, but she knew how to listen and engage us in dialogue, even after difficult situations.
Little by little, I began to follow her, because her way of relating to everything had become an inner necessity for me—fascinating and compelling. It was then that I began to understand what kind of community I was in and who was the source of everything I had been given. In this community, I heard the words "faith" and "love" again, but they had a completely different meaning from what I had known before. These words took on faces, flesh, and places.
It was then that I first heard about a person, Luigi Giussani, whose perspective on my life and my family's (even without knowing us) changed everything completely. Before this encounter, the word "faith" was just a term I associated with a building called a church. I had been baptized in the Orthodox Church at the age of 13 because my aunts wanted to heal me from an illness, but after the ceremony, all my ties with the Church were severed. It was only 19 years later that I began my true journey toward my destiny, thanks to my encounter with the charism of Father Giussani and with friends who, without imposing anything on me, opened up horizons I had never known before.
Encounters with Priests and the Mayak Center
Then came my encounter with the priests of the Movement, who struck me with their openness and their profound, paternal gaze. During a meeting with Father Adelio, when I was at the beginning of my journey of rediscovering the Orthodox tradition and didn't know what to do, I asked him if I could switch to another tradition. Father Adelio replied, "Go deep into your tradition; discover the beauty it offers you, the questions it answers. And when you have done all this and still haven't found the answers that are most important to you, then come and we'll talk."
That answer was a gift, giving me the freedom to walk my own path and truly encounter Christ. What strikes me about our friendship is that there are no divisions based on age, nationality, or religious affiliation. What matters most is each person's destiny. I continue to learn this way of looking at things and this humane approach toward everyone I meet.
Encounters with Julián Carrón
One of the most important things for me has been the spiritual exercises and community schools led by Father Carrón. I have always been amazed that, through a screen, he spoke about exactly what was worrying me at that moment. It seemed that, thousands of miles away, he was talking to me about the very difficulties and problems I was experiencing. His books have been the source of my questions, my doubts, and my discoveries.
Once, during an online community school with Father Carrón, I was able to share my experience. In a short time, through his questions and comments, he changed my perspective on the problem and my attitude toward it. He helped me get to the root of my question—not by giving a concrete answer, but by allowing each person present to respond from their own human experience. His book Is It Possible to Live this Way? Vol. 3: The Fascination of Discovery became my reference book for a long time because everything he communicated through friends' testimonies and his personal experience gave me the certainty that every difficult situation contains the possibility of a positive outcome.
Teaching and Charity
I work as a teacher and try to convey to my students, their parents, and my colleagues what I read, hear, and experience in my meetings with Father Carrón. For example, in The Fascination of Discovery, Carrón talks about the importance of awakening profound questions. When I started talking to my students' parents about their own questions—about themselves, about education, about what it means to be parents and what it means to be human—I saw how unsettled they were. We read short passages from Giussani's and Carrón's books together so that these adults could become an example for their children and share this thirst for life with them.
One of the most beautiful things that came about in Karaganda, thanks to Don Giussani's charism, was the Mayak Inclusive Youth Center, where I teach English to young adults and also dance and sing with them. When I come to this place, I feel great gratitude for our friendship. It nourishes in me a vision full of love and a desire to share what I have received through my charity work: to embrace and be embraced by everyone who crosses the threshold of our center.
This is a charity that doesn't just last for the two hours I spend with the young people, their mothers, and their friends; it penetrates all areas of my life. What I receive at Mayak, I carry in my heart, in my family, and at my work. In this way, the priests accompany me in my daily life and help me not to remain on the surface, as our culture often suggests. They encourage me to engage more deeply with the gift I've been given.