One of the episodes that strikes me most from the lifetime of Rose Busingye is what occurred to her when she tried to answer the necessity of some Ugandan ladies who had been sick with AIDS. She was a nurse in Kampala and had made makes an attempt to assist these ladies, which she defined like this:
We introduced medicine to the sick, set them up with therapies. We made charts for them, and so they stuffed them out. However the day after you returned to them, the medicines can be thrown within the trash. And but they knew what these medicines had been for . . . I believed: “How is that this doable? You’re sick, you’re dying, I carry you drugs that may save your life and also you throw it away?”
It was then that one thing modified in her notion of actuality: “I acknowledged an increasing number of that what I believed was sufficient was not sufficient.”
This reality didn’t depart her detached. Reasonably, upon seeing her makes an attempt to assist folks crumble, for which she had studied and had deliberate every little thing she was doing, she was thrown right into a profound disaster. “Daily, I noticed folks die . . . I acquired to the purpose the place I needed to flee. Actually: I needed to go away to a desert island the place there have been no folks. Solely bugs.”
At that second, she obtained a telephone name from Father Giussani, whom she had met a couple of years earlier: “Shut down every little thing and are available to Italy.” She resisted, however ultimately, she gave in and got here to Milan, the place she spent months visiting Father Giussani incessantly. He did nothing however share along with her his expertise, what he had realized from historical past.
At some point he stated to me: “You recognize, Rose, slightly after the motion began, everybody left. I used to be alone at nighttime, in a tunnel. However at a sure level one thing occurred: I started to say ‘I.’ And it was as if slightly mild began to shine out . . . I got here out, and on the finish of the tunnel, I discovered three different associates. With these three, the motion began once more.”
Rose feedback: “Whereas he was talking in regards to the darkness, it was like a replay of my life.”
Throughout these weeks in Italy, she found Father Giussani: his way of life, of being in actuality, of dealing with every day circumstances. And little by little, Rose observes, sharing life with him “makes you uncover your self.” In entrance of this new consciousness of herself, one of many pillars of Father Giussani’s human place got here to Rose: “The answer to the issues that life poses every day ‘doesn’t occur by confronting the issues straight, however by going deeper into the character of the topic who faces them.’ In different phrases, ‘the actual resolves itself by deepening the important.’”[1] Usually, actually, we take without any consideration the character of the topic, and with out recognizing it we strategy issues in response to “a way that in a roundabout way reassumes, reabsorbs the cultural tendencies of the world”—that’s, in a merely reactive approach, a approach that lacks cultural originality.
The novelty that these months spent with Father Giussani launched into her way of life quickly grew to become clear, as Rose herself remembers:
I started to dwell and to work once I knew concretely how to answer the query “Whose am I?” . . . I grew to become free, nice as a result of somebody had woke up what I’m. It was evident that I wasn’t nothing; as an alternative I felt embraced and needed. It was as if his gaze informed me: “You . . . have an infinite worth.” From that gaze every little thing was born. In that gaze, actually, I found that I’m not outlined by my limits however that the non-public relationship with which God makes me exist locations in me an infinite need for him. That gaze of belonging to Christ and to the Church . . . established the content material and the strategy of my work: to speak the sensation for the limitless greatness of the existence of every individual and to supply the identical companionship towards future that embraces my life.
What number of instances has Rose reminded us of this through the years! “Father Giussani made me uncover my worth.” And she or he describes very exactly the reverberation of that gaze on herself: “I felt for the primary time an attraction, a love for myself, as if I had by no means actually checked out myself earlier than. I used to be taken over by an awesome tenderness, for me and for every little thing. I needed to indicate to everybody that life has a that means, that there’s a that means in every little thing: even in sleeping, in struggling, in dying . . . There’s a that means.”
It was the invention of a brand new world, a lot in order that it makes her talk about a real and correct “transformation of life: it’s you, however it’s not you. You’re one thing else, one thing vital. If you already know it, you deal with your self differently.” What’s extra: “You deal with issues differently.” Every little thing is invested with that discovery, as Romano Guardini reminds us: “Within the expertise of an awesome love . . . every little thing that occurs turns into an occasion in its sphere.”[2]
And so, we return to the episode of Rose along with her ladies, to the judgment that opened a brand new approach of regarding them: “I understood what was not working within the ladies, why they didn’t take their medicine.” That they had not understood their private worth. However as a way to uncover this for themselves, a proof, nevertheless right, was not sufficient. One thing else was wanted, and she or he lastly understood it: “Giussani regularly returned me to my worth. He made me uncover that. You can not anticipate others to grasp it: I’m the one who has to find it. I’ve to find Christ the lifetime of my life, in flesh and bones. To find Jesus inside me.”
Giussani at all times pushed her, making her advance step-by-step, with out stopping. And on this emerged his educative genius. She saved placing the issues of her work on the desk, and he regularly shocked her:
“Don’t fear. In case your vocation is true, the work will even come out of the rocks.” You bear in mind when Jesus goes to Jerusalem and the Pharisees inform him: “Make them be quiet, they’re inflicting issues,” and he: “Even when I made them be quiet, the rocks themselves would cry out”? It was similar to that. Giussani informed me: “Let it go, if you’re true together with your vocation, even if you’re shut in a cage, the rocks will start to sing.”
Rose observes:
Letting go in that case was very tough: I had my motives, my concepts, my initiatives. . . . If it had been to have occurred earlier than these six months with him, I don’t know if I’d have achieved it. However after, it was like this: I had nothing however my vocation, the one richness I had on the earth. I left that Assembly Level and one thing else was born, ranging from scratch. And to suppose that in any case that I ended up precisely in a spot the place they break the rocks and sing.
Every little thing appeared to take its regular course, and but every little thing had modified as a result of Rose had modified; her gaze had opened, and her purpose broadened. She speaks about herself with out reticence: “The issues that I stated [to the women] weren’t very completely different from these I stated earlier than. Even earlier than I spoke to the ladies about their price, of the significance of what that they had round them. I defined to all of them the nice causes they needed to care for themselves. However they had been explanations. Possibly deep down they weren’t actually mine.” However they grew to become hers.
In time, the distinction that she had discovered shocked the others, to the purpose that they desired it for themselves. Considered one of her ladies, raped by rebels from the North, “at a sure level informed me: ‘For the others I’m solely a pile of issues; they arrive and ask me what they did to me, the place they took me. . . . However who am I? I’m like a bucket the place folks throw their trash; however I, as Lucy, who am I?’” Giving her a hug, Rose informed her: “Sure, you’re all this drama, this disfigured face. However you might have a good higher worth. You could appear to be solely this, however you’re price infinitely extra to me.” Lucy started to indicate up on the Assembly Level. “At some point she informed me: ‘Rose, I need to dwell since you are right here. You’ve got given worth to my life.’ And I answered her: ‘No, your worth was given to you by One other. One other needs you to exist.’” An genuine cultural revolution had begun for her and for all those that had been round her.
However the story doesn’t finish right here, and Rose must yield once more to a actuality that’s at all times, stubbornly, higher than her. With the intention to face the sickness of the ladies, she thinks about opening a hospital. What was a extra apparent factor to do? However now the ladies are those to push her, the identical ones who had been relying on her for his or her every day wants. They produce other priorities: the colleges their kids attend. “[In those schools] they didn’t take a look at our kids like human beings. We needed locations that might assist them to acknowledge their worth. That is how Rose educated us.”
Because of this, in entrance of Rose’s proposal, after a second of silence, the ladies who’re sick with AIDS reply decisively: “No, not a hospital. We wish a faculty.” The precedence for them is just not a hospital the place they’ll obtain care however a faculty for his or her kids. This new judgment touches on their kids, about whom they communicate on this approach:
We wanted to grasp who we’re, and we wanted to be educated to do it, as a result of it isn’t revealed routinely. It is for that reason that we’ve our colleges. Even for those who get a PhD, ultimately you want this consciousness of your worth. And if whilst you had been learning, they didn’t educate you this, what use is your PhD? Are you in some way completely different from the one who stopped at elementary faculty? We’re all equals. There are numerous individuals who have every little thing, have cash, dwell effectively, have lovely homes, dwell in skyscrapers, however usually are not pleased. As a result of they have no idea who they’re.
Here’s a completely different gaze, one which reaches everybody. Considered one of Rose’s closest collaborators was discouraged as a result of, when she arrived on the nursery faculty, she discovered the toys that had been purchased the day earlier than destroyed. “How does this occur? They’re vandals.” And Rose: “It’s clear that you just nonetheless haven’t understood something. The issue right here is just not ‘wealthy or poor, black or white.’ Train them that they’ve worth. Right here, nobody says this to anybody. In the event that they uncover that they’ve a price, you will note that they’ll know the best way to worth even their toys, their lecturers, their classmates. . . .” This new gaze is directed even to the devices they use. “All this—the initiatives, the meals, something we use—is the instrument to say to the individual: ‘You’re nice, you’re higher than you’ll be able to think about, you’re accountable.’ And the initiatives that we do are like providing a hand to help somebody, in order that they’ll take accountability. We don’t say: ‘You’re nothing, I’ll feed you, I’ll do every little thing for you.’”
Clearly, this isn’t solely a spot to get help, however a spot that makes the self-awareness of the individual develop. The signal of change is within the ladies’s notion of themselves as protagonists. In the beginning, they didn’t communicate to anybody; that they had their heads down, with out ever elevating their eyes, an indication of a complete lack of respect for themselves. In time, they start to bop, to sing, “Now I’m free,” to say, “we’re right here, we’ve a face.”
This freedom penetrates the deepest wounds of their lives. “A lot of them,” explains Rose,
Have undergone and are present process injustices: from their husbands, from the rebels . . . However you see them free. So it signifies that with every little thing they’ve lived—many have been violated, many handled badly and are nonetheless handled badly—they’ve discovered a justice that’s much more simply than what we take into consideration. They don’t seem to be imprisoned by their issues, by their poverty, by their sickness. Do you bear in mind the lady we got here throughout this morning? That small girl who’s at all times pleased . . . ? After I got here into her room, the primary time, I stated to myself: “O God, she actually sleeps right here?” She lived in a gap. I requested: The place do your kids sleep? “Right here, on the mat.” And she or he laughed, she didn’t complain. However whereas she stated it, I used to be dying inside . . . I stated to myself: all of the complaints that I make are unjust . . . When it rains, it flows proper into their home. And but she is free, even from injustice. How is that this doable?”
Irreducible: that is what Rose and her ladies are. However in them there may be the hassle to dwell as much as the scenario. Their safety is in one thing else, in one thing that nobody could cause to crumble. Not even the circumstances that they’ve needed to face due to COVID have confused them. Rose is for certain of it: “Considered one of them, at a sure level, stated: ‘I noticed that if I used to be hungry I may ask my neighbors for a cup of beans; if I used to be thirsty there was somebody who would give me a glass of water. . . . However life? From whom do I ask for all times?’” We now have all lived the provocation of the pandemic, however how many people have been capable of ask a query like this? Paradoxically, COVID didn’t reveal solely what was missing for these folks however above all the expansion that has occurred over these years—if it actually had occurred. In Rose’s ladies, it did occur: they did develop, a lot in order that the novelty they expertise surprises them initially. Just like the lecturers who had been challenged by Rose to not lose the most effective of what occurred to them: “You will need to perceive what moved your coronary heart to go and search out the scholars. If you happen to lose what occurred in your coronary heart, all that you just do, all of the options to those issues, will solely final a short while.” What gratitude for this African “flower” that has grown within the area plowed by Father Giussani!
The story informed by Davide Perillo, in Your Names Are Written in Heaven, appears to me a cheerful testimony of the “Church that goes out,” that Pope Francis by no means tires of indicating, as the way in which to reply with life to the limitless want of individuals at present, who’re so in want of the Gospel. Who wouldn’t need to have folks like Rose and her ladies continuously subsequent to them, to go to the ends of the earth and shout to everybody, by way of the materiality of their very own existence, “you might have an infinite worth”?
EDITORIAL NOTE: This text is excerpted from the introduction to Your Names Are Written in Heaven: The World of Rose Busingye by Davide Perillo (Slant Books, 2025). All rights reserved.
