3.2 A calm Spanish and my paths to Rome

My encounter with Bi makes me think of a certainty that I have in mind: when God notices a desire, however small, of a soul that longs to draw near  Him, He makes it possible in every way. Saint Josemaria Escriva said: "God does not deny his grace to those who do what they can." And I am a living proof of that. I arranged to meet Bi on a Monday night after work. She lived in an Opus Dei center in Butantã, in the north part of São Paulo, I worked in Mooca-at the east side and lived in the center- completely opposite gardens. Despite this, and even with the fact that I was a newcomer in São Paulo, I managed to get to the place and we talked for a long time about lots of different things. Talking with a person who is very close to God is a privilege and also an opportunity to do a quick check list of how we can improve, because these people, being close to God are, as a rule, very virtuous and virtue brings peace and joy. Bi listened to me, spoke a little about her and about the projects of the Work with the girls of my age and interests in Sao Paulo and recommended that I contacted the study center of Jacamar, a center of Opus Dei in São Paulo who attends spiritual direction and activities with several young professionals, as I was at the time. I was very excited about this possibility and, the following week, I already marked to go to know the center, after a day of work.

On my first visit to my forever beloved Jacamar, I came across a group of girls aged 12 to 

30 who were talking about volunteer projects in needy neighborhoods and cities they had 

visited and were also scheduling to go again on the July hollidays. It was a wonderful first 

impression. I have always admired the souls of great hearts and people who leave their  

own world to do good; this is something that, even in the most distant phases of God, made 

my heart melt and thank God for putting them on Earth. That night I met some of the girls 

who went to the Work and received spiritual direction there, and I also met a friend who 

would be one of my best companies in São Paulo until my last day of that experience in the 

capital.

A few weeks later I was already entangled with that wonderful group, visiting Jacamar

 periodically and taking part in some of the activities there. However, the biggest change

 was yet to take place. On a cold winter night in Sao Paulo, I visited Jacamar because

 I knew that there, as in all Opus Dei centers all over the world, there was Jesus in the 

Blessed Sacrament and to visit Him, after a stressful day of work, was like an oasis to

 my soul, even though I still did not fully understand at that time all the graces we receive

 from this wonderful norm of piety. So I got to Jacamar and went up to the first floor, 

where there were several girls getting ready to enter the chapel, and one of them said 

to me in a very excited way: "We are gonna have meditation with Father Xavier. 

Don`t you want to attend to it too? " I did not know what a meditation was with a 

priest and what exactly happened in that half hour. They explained to me that the 

priest would give a mini-talk on various topics related to the Catholic faith. I decided 

to stay for a few minutes. Honestly, after working all day long and being invited to

 listen to a priest in the middle of a cold night, when the other option was to go to

 my apartment and take a warm bath and throw me on the sofa, seemed to require 

too much of my good will to start entering the path of faith. Little did I know that by 

the end of that half hour there, I would be the one who would not want to leave.

I was struck by the wise words and the kind expression of father Xavier. I do not

 remember exactly the theme of meditation that night, but I remember well thinking that

 for some reason I had not yet discovered, God had told me to listen to him. After that 

night, I attended meditations every Wednesday night and everything God was saying 

to me through the words of father Xavier, plus the contact with such good girls,

 filled my heart with peace and joy.

It is funny to note, as a saint has already said, that when a soul begins to open and fall 

in love with God and to understand his or her Christian vocation, it changes everything

 without changing anything. I started to change: my interests, my mood, my way of 

working and relating to people up to my way of dressing. In the movie "Sabrina",

 the character of Julia Ormond undergoes a transformation that reminds me of my own. 

In the movie, the poor girl who lived with the parents that worked for a wealthy family 

goes to Paris and begins to discover the glamor of the French capital. In one scene,

 the movie shows the different shoes that the character has been wearing throughout

 this metamorphosis. If my life were a movie, I imagine that, at this stage specifically, 

I would be able to see very clearly the evolution of my different 'shoes': my prayer routine, 

my preferences regarding to my readings, interests and even friendships ... anyway,

 it was a gradual and wonderful transformation.

But the biggest change was yet to come and like any change, especially for  better, 

also required a painful rupture and I had mine too. It happened on one of the meditation 

nights.

After that day, my spiritual life took a wonderful turn. Until then, although I was already 

progressing and getting closer to God, I still had a 'thread' that was holding  me and would 

not let me fly. This thread was the lack of the state of grace. This is a concept that is both 

difficult and extremely easy to understand. Each baptized on the day of his baptism 

receives the infusion of the Holy Spirit into the soul - the life of grace - and we only 

lose it by mortal sin. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "grace" is 

the gratuitous gift that God gives us of His life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul,

 to heal it of sin and sanctify it. It is, continues the Catechism, "a participation in the life

 of God, a new and supernatural life". Trading in a practical way: it's the most wonderful 

thing we can have. It guides all our actions, thoughts, affections, and we proceed to act, 

notwithstanding our sins and miseries, in the same divine way as Our Lord acted. My soul 

was far from this torrent of graces long ago, and it had affected my whole walk until then. 

However, after that night everything changed and for much better ...

Father Xavier and I began having long and deep conversations, all on Wednesdays and 

on other days of the week too, for my soul was thirsty and there were still several 

concepts of the Catholic faith that I still did not understand and the main of them were

 the concepts related to purity and chastity. They seemed to me too demanding and 

even paradoxical for a Church that wanted to join faithful in the twenty-first century.

 In my mind the same questions always came back: why does God want us to live

 chastity in a world that tells us and lives so differently? Despite so many dogmas 

and seemingly paradoxical concepts of the Church, chastity was mandatory in the

 twenty-first century, for me, it was the greatest of them. It was as if a part of me still said, 

"how to believe in a Church that claims to be perfect and eternal, which claims to

 contain the deposit of faith and universal commandments if it has a teaching that

 is impossible to live?"

Peter Seewald, one of my favorite spiritual authors, talks about this in his book "My God - 

why I came back to God." He says: "One of my brothers, a passionate atheist, thinks there

 are too many paradoxes in Christianity. He is entirely right. A Messiah on a donkey. A 

Savior who can not save himself and does not come down from the cross ... 

which God is this that does not turn to the powerful, but to the sick and sinful? An 

Omnipotent One who lets himself be humbled, who out of compassion for his creature 

assumes all its pain and, and in His love, kneels down to wash his feet ... "

The irony is that it was precisely this part of the faith that brought me to the understanding. 

One Wednesday, after leaving the bank, I went to meditation as always and then it was my 

turn to speak to the priest. As usual, we began to talk and suddenly Father Xavier told me: 

"Elisa, would you like to make a general confession?" I thought, "What will that be?" Then

 he explained to me that it was nothing but a normal confession, but a little deeper. It is 

impressive the special grace that the priests have (that’s why I always pray for them all). 

Father Xavier, of course, had realized that there were some sins in the back of my soul and 

that it would be good to talk about them in confession. So I started. My conversation /

 confession that usually lasted around 20 minutes, that day lasted almost an hour and I 

washed the confessional floor with my tears. One of the most sensational aspects of 

sacramental confession is that regardless of what we confess, if we have a sincerely 

contrite and repentant heart, God always forgives us. Just as Jesus told the adulterous 

woman that  was about to be stoned: "Has no one condemned you? For I also do not 

condemn you, "He again tells us the same things in the confession, and at the end of each 

one, we feel much peace. That was what happened to me that night: an immense peace 

flooded my soul. No wonder the priest's last words are these: "Go in peace" !!

As soon as I got out of there I went straight home and I thought, "Wonderful! I am back to 

the loving arms of the Father. "

That night, Father Xavier and I talked about various aspects of the Christian life, but it was 

certainly chastity that was the theme that took our time. Until then, every time someone 

came to tell me that I should live a chaste life, I thought only of chastity as a separate 

virtue, and to tell the truth I did not even consider it such a big virtue. The biggest problem, 

however, is that I tried to reason on this subject, compartmentalizing it, and this is 

impossible to get to understand it. One only understands chastity when one understands 

what love is and this was the theme that began to take my time, from then on Finally, there 

was an aspect of chastity that made me reluctant to embrace it completely: how to explain 

to people I knew and who knew how I had lived until then that from that moment on God 

had given me abundant lights that  it was necessary to change radically my life in this 

aspect and, with that, to face the ridicule and even the discredit of near and dear people? 

And the answer came again from my friend Bi. She told me: "Elisa, there will certainly be a 

change and some people may not understand or even not approve. But if they do, you tell 

them: if you prove to me that by living your life I will be happier, I automatically change my 

choice. " This never happened.

CHAPTER 3- The first phase of the ten years being single and looking for my “Joseph” - the beginning of the conversion

Though far from God and faith, there remained, I believe, in the depths of my soul a will of God and of returning return to the right path, and more: to penetrate strongly through it. Perhaps this is a wonderful gift that God gives to all the baptized: even radically far, it is still infused in our heart this search for love and Love. It was this desire that unconsciously led me to do three things that I consider 'the beginning of the return'. The first of these was the willingness to help others, since I was aware of my privileged position in front of several of other people. So the first thing I did was to do volunteer work with children, which have always been my passion. Few things stir my heart so much as seeing a child suffer. I learned at the time that there was a philanthropic institution in Ribeirão Preto that looked after needy children who had been ill-treated. I got in touch with them and got the answer that I could go visit them whenever I wanted. They also asked me some items that they always needed, such as nappies, fresh fruits and vegetables to give to the kids etc.

After that first visit to those children so full of life and so humanly with nothing, the desire 

to help and to be a better person began to flourish in my heart. On one of the visits,

 I called my mother and one of my sisters to go with me. As soon as we got there and 

entered the nursery, there was a baby of a few months crying a lot. As my mother 

was always a fairy with children, she took the little baby in her arms and the little

 one soon stopped crying. Suddenly a lady who was a permanent volunteer came

 running and speaking loudly for my mother to put her back into the cot. Because

 we did not understand anything, the girl explained that since they could not attend to

 all the children and babies and nursed them every time they cried, the indication was

 that no one would. That fact fell deep into my soul and I realized how privileged 

I was and that as such I would do something to reciprocate. Only a few months later, 

while doing another volunteer work, this time in the Campinas region, I read this phrase 

for the first time: "Don’t let your life be barren. Be useful. Make yourself felt. 

Shine forth with the torch of your faith and your love”

Another desire, perhaps even an unconscious resolution I made after that day,

 was to go more often to Mass and not just on Sundays. I remember that I began 

to attend mass on weekdays at Stigmatinos church, in Ribeirão Preto. I was

 working at a bank and had to go very early to be able to arrive without delay to 

work. That ritual, every morning, began to do me a tremendous good.

Mass is still the best time of my day today; is like the 'strong smoothie' of my faith. 

At each Mass the sacrifice of the cross is renewed, although in a bloodless manner,

 yet the Son offers himself to us. Pope Benedict  at the end of the Italian National

 Eucharistic Congress in 2005 reported a touching episode in the early centuries of 

Christianity. It happened in the year 304, when Emperor Diocletian forbade Christians, 

at risk of death, to possess the Scriptures and celebrate the Eucharist on Sundays. 

In Abitene, a small town in Roman Africa, 49 Christians were caught celebrating the 

Eucharist on a Sunday, thus defying the impermissible prohibitions. Incarcerated, 

they were taken to Carthage to be questioned by the proconsul.

 It was significant the answer that one of them, named Emeritus, 

gave the proconsul when asked about the reason for having violated the Law. He said: 

"Sine domínico non possumus": without the celebration of the Eucharist on Sunday

 we can not live. We would lack the strength and graces we need to live day by day 

and not to succumb.

Finally, going to mass began to bring me closer to God and to grow in love for Him too.

In addition, I began willing to understand more about everything I was taught about 

faith and I started basically by the piece that makes nine out of ten young people 

ask themselves: "Why chastity? How many people, in fact, live according to this 

aspect of faith today? At that time it was that, talking to a friend who was also trying 

to settle these doubts, I came across a comment from him that made me reflect. 

He told me, "Have you ever stopped to think that if what we learn about purity and 

chastity in the Church is what is right, in the line of communion, only about 5% of 

people are really in state of grace?". With that  teaser, I became restless on this 

subject and so I began to better understand the teachings of our Holy Church

 and to go one step further towards this treasure. And that's what happened, 

a few months later.

I was still working at the Itaú branch in Ribeirão Preto when they gave me a call. 

It was a dear friend, who had studied with me in Araraquara. She also worked at

 Itaú and had walked the same way. Now she was coming out of her place in 

the corporate part of the bank in São Paulo to go to another area and wanted 

to know if I would like her to point me to that position. I stuttered a little on the phone, 

but said "of course, that was an opportunity I could not lose." Even though I knew 

of the wonderful thing that was opening up in front of me, I also knew that it would

 be such a challenge: it would mean moving alone to the capital of twenty million people, 

facing a job that I did not know exactly if I had the skills, make new friends etc. 

What I did not know, however, was that this change would be crucial to my faith.

Summing up, then, this episode: I spoke with my parents who, as always, 

supported me in everything and were super happy. However, I still needed to

 do the interview with the managers in São Paulo. They rolled me up for a few 

weeks and finally set the interview for a Friday afternoon. I prayed a little without 

knowing if I wanted to get that grace or not, and I left for São Paulo, on the Via 

Comet bus. I arrived at the CTO building in São Paulo, the building where the bank's 

system and support areas were located. I arrived like that dog that falls off the truck. 

A few minutes later, the supervisor and the superintendent called me and as soon 

as I saw them, I knew I would love to work with them, if I were the one chosen for

 that vacancy, which would later proved to be. We did the interview more like a chat

and they 'did not call me.' 'Ill call you soon' to an anxious person who is waiting for 

a 'yes' is quite a mortification. Obviously, during that period I called my friend a few

 times to check if she knew something, but there was no answer. A few weeks of 

agony and a few half-loosened prayers later, they called me on a Thursday afternoon, 

telling me that I had been approved and that they were waiting for me the following 

Monday morning.

Despite the fright, I held the phone and gave a firm yes, assuring them that I would

 be there a little before 9 am, as we had agreed.

That weekend I spent dividing myself between spending time with my family, telling 

the news to close friends and scheduling my sudden move to the capital. And so it 

ended, at least provisionally, my times living in the warmth of my parents' home and a

 quiet city.

I started working in São Paulo in April 2007 and I lived in a flat, initially, until my move 

to an apartment on my own. The first months in Sao Paulo were very solitary, a solitude 

that today I see as very good for my maturity and for the moment in which I was living.

At first, I would go back home almost every weekend, until I became interested in 

staying more in São Paulo and giving a chance to get to know the city and the

 wonderful opportunities it offers, in every way. It was then on one of the first 

weekends that I stayed in Sao Paulo that I decided to go out for lunch alone on 

Saturday afternoon, after devouring the newspaper and watching some three or 

more movies. I was, frankly, kind of embarrassed to go out to have lunch completely

 on my own on a Saturday, when, for me, girl from a large-catholic family, should 

be spent with family members. I went to the shops and noticed something that left 

me a little sad: there were several people having lunch on their own. This fact, 

coupled with the new work in the heart of a retail bank that always has the goal 

of ever greater profit, and finally the distance from the family made me begin to 

question life and my values, especially my faith, in a persistent way .

It was then that one afternoon, at my table at Itaú, I remembered Bi, a Portuguese 

lady from Opus Dei, a good friend of my mother, who went to dinner every month at 

my house and with whom I spent long hours talking about this theme of faith and 

everything that relates to it. I decided to contact her and try to make an appointment. 

So I did, and from this wonderful encounter came the 'paths that led me to Rome.'

CHAPTER 2: The life of a "non-practicing" Catholic single woman - turning away from God.

I therefore spent my childhood and my teen years at peace with God. But my faith was somewhat superficial, and my standards of piety were summarized in the Sunday masses and days of precept and a few prayers I had learned in childhood. As I learned from dear Father Augusto, my former spiritual director, "not to evolve in faith every day is to regress", the time came when temptations came and they found the house founded on the clay feet of pusillanimity and  lukewarmness. And it happened when I entered college.

I spent the year 1999 studying insanely to be approved in a public university, that are among the best ones in Brazil. So at the beginning of the year 2000, with the release of the results of VUNESP, came the announcement I expected: I had been approved in the Public Business course at the Araraquara campus. It was an immense joy and in February of the first year of the new millennium I was already packed ready to move to the city of the Sun and start this long awaited period.

The life of faith, in order not to be lost, must be rooted in an intense life of prayer and sacrifice and finally supported by the sacraments. Mine, however, was not and when this happens, although well intentioned one is, sooner or later it gets lost. That's what happened to me. The university life, living far from my parents and with loose reins made me move away from God more and more. The first virtue that began to quake was the diligence. That student from the school who did not miss a class and who stayed up late studying and clearing up doubts gave way to a lazy university student, who did only the minimum - and sometimes not even the minimum necessary to take the famous "five ball" and that spent several nights of the week in the night outs or in other student houses playing chit-chat. Nothing more propitious for the soul to get out of the way. St Josemaría Escrivá, who is known as the saint of work or ordinary life, founded in 1928 Opus Dei with new and at the same time old preaching as the Gospels that all of us Christians can and should be saints and our matter of sanctification is our own daily work, whatever it may be. And so, there is nothing worst to a baptized person who wants to follow this Path as much as laziness and neglect with daily chores.

However, the soul is not lost overnight. Just as Judas did not betray Our Lord only on the

 night of the Thursday before the Passion, we usually do not fall in a devastating way at 

one time. The evangelist St. John tells us that he "took care of the bag and took out what

 was thrown there". A soul usually begins to make small concessions before falling down 

completely.

I spent most of my first year of college as a person moving further and further away from

 God for the 'little' things of everyday life: laziness and sloppiness with my studies,

 little attention to people around me, arguments with my parents when I went back 

home on weekends etc.

This kind of behavior is a step until we drop completely. And that's what happened. 

At the end of that year I engaged my first serious relationship, and since I was not

 exactly formed and strengthened by the virtues, losing myself in chastity was only 

a matter of time. They were then two relationships and almost six years living away

 from the faith and also: questioning everything I always knew was right. This is one

of the obvious signs of when we are moving away from the Path: the intelligence that 

was once illuminated by faith and the state of grace is lost in vague and purely human 

concepts and logic is subverted.

In September 2006, however, after that long period living away from God, the source of 

all good and all grace, I came to what I consider to be the rock bottom. They say that

 after the bottom is reached, there is only one option other than to sink in completely: swim

 back and climb. And by the immense mercy of God, I took some baby steps toward the 

Light again; but as always before the glory we have to go to calvary, mine had arrived

 and with it I could understand that God really takes good from all evil.

It was the eve of the Sept. 7  holiday in Brazil and I was in this totally selfish relationship

 when that afternoon I got home from work already thrilled with the free time I would have

 the next day. My younger sister asked me to drive her to a friend's house. I got in the car, 

drove there, left my sister and was driving back home when my head started to throb heavily. 

I had had migraine since I was a child and it seemed to be worse than ever. The pain 

started coming so strong.

and so fast that I did not think I'd make it home. With the grace of God I got home and

 went to bed straight away. After a while my mother arrived and as the pain was very 

unbearable I asked her to take me to the hospital. Then began my struggle. The doctors

 gave me all sorts of analgesic, including through vein, but nothing seemed to work.

 After I had been prescribed a tramal, a very strong pain killer, but without success they 

decided to call a specialist, for my arm had already begun to tingle. After almost six

 hours on duty, the neurologist arrived and began asking me and my mother some 

questions, and nothing we answered helped him come to a conclusion. It was then that

 he calmly approached my bed, took my arm and told me: "Girl, may I ask you one more 

thing: do you take any contraceptives?" At that moment I looked at the corner of the room

 and saw my mother there, tired, for hours without food and without rest after a day that 

was probably exhausting, suffering with my pain. My mother who had taught me so many 

times what the Way was, who prayed kneeling with me and my siblings every night the

 three Hail Marys for holy purity, my mother who had been the best example for me, 

in front of her and after looking furtively at her with shame and remorse I had to 

answer, "Yes, I take contraception."

Bingo! After that dialogue, my mother and I spent the night in the hospital and went 

home the next day. When I got home, without saying anything, I took the contraceptive

 packet in my hand, threw it in the trash and made a promise to God: I would never put 

that poison in my body again, no matter what kind of relationship I would have to face.

When God sees in a soul the smallest sign of a firm will to please Him, no matter what, 

He gives us all the graces we need to keep that purpose. After that September 7, 2006, 

despite other relationships with people with much less faith, I never put a contraceptive 

on my body again.

There, at that moment, my journey began towards the Light again, and it would not be 

easy. When a Christian rises by performing noble works offered to God, the whole 

Church mysteriously rises as well. The problem is that the opposite is also true: 

every time, with the ugliness of our sins, we set bad example and corrupt those we

 should build with our attitudes, we also draw the body of Christ, which is the Church, 

to low.

In Martin Scorsese's film “Silence”, there is a scene that made me reflect on the period

 of my life when I walked away and alienated so many of God's people with my bad

 example and made me  reflect on my own vocation as a Christian. The film portrays 

the history of the two Portuguese Jesuit priests, Sebastião Rodrigues and Francisco

 Garupe, who went to Japan in the seventeenth century to rescue their colleague 

Cristóvão Ferreira, about whom they heard to have apostatized. The young priests 

also go with the intention of evangelizing that country. The scene takes place when the

 two priests are already in Japanese territory, trying to escape the persecution by the

 Buddhists. Knowing of the cruelty with which the emperor and his guards  treated 

Christians - often killing and torturing them in the most terrible forms, the two priests

 begin to discuss whether it would be worthwhile to continue the trip. One of them

 hesitates and tells the other that it would be better to return immediately to Portugal, 

because the danger was very big. What the priest responds should make us reflect. 

He says, "If we go back now, the Church in Japan dies with us." Although today,

 almost four centuries later, most of the time the mission of all of us, the baptized,

 is less radical in terms of the dangers we face, we must also remember that God sends

 us to the place where our daily life goes : the family, the work, the University, 

the sport to evangelize, and every time, with our unfaithful attitudes, we contradict 

God's plans for our lives, the small but important part of the Church that Christ 

entrusted to each one of us, in a way dies with us.