Simone Moretti prepares to be priest of the Fraternity of St. Charles Borromeo, belonging to the charism of Communion and Liberation, studies at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. He was born in 1988 into a Catholic family that educated him in the faith. Like many young people today, after receiving the sacrament of Confirmation, he left the Church. He did not see the connection between faith and concrete life.
However, the Lord did not leave him and went out to meet him again. He recovered him in an activity of Communion and Liberation (CyL) when he was still a teenager. That experience marked his life. One summer he was invited to a camp in the mountains by Juventud Estudiantil, the youth group of CyL.
In this community, participating in camps, retreats and community life, he also saw and experienced an intensity of life that fascinated him.
In time he realized that the source of this intense life was in faith. Participating in the life of the movement, he saw that the relationship with God, which had been fraying, regained its consistency and acquired vigor and strength. Through this encounter, he rediscovered his relationship with Jesus and returned to the Church, a place where Jesus Christ reached out to him and accompanied him.
It was in this atmosphere of faith, prayer and friendship that Simone first thought about the priesthood. One day, during Mass in the parish, he imagined himself in the priest's place during the homily, thinking about what he could say. After Mass, he had the feeling that the image was not accidental.
With that idea in his head, he went to his mother, the one who had passed on his faith to him. And he asked her: "What if God wants me to be a priest, because I don't want to! Her wise answer pierced his heart: "Do you think God could ask anything of you against your happiness?".
During the following years of high school, the joy and happiness of that encounter with Christ began to germinate, thanks also to a pilgrimage to the Black Madonna of Częstochowa, Poland, where he met for the first time some priests of St. Charles Borromeo, the fraternity of Communion and Liberation.
Physics studies
With that seed in his heart, he began his university studies in Physics while participating in activities and formation with other members of Communion and Liberation. In this reality of the Church, he forged some of his deepest friendships, all united by the bond with Christ.
In those years he was able to experience how faith in Jesus had to do with everything: with study, with university classes, with friendships, and how it made everything more beautiful and true. As a phrase of Romano Guardini says, in the experience of a great love everything that happens becomes an event in its own sphere.
The friend who left everything for Christ
And then came another turning point in his life. God would not let go of his hand. Towards the last years of university, a friend told him that he intended to give his whole life to Christ. And that's when it crossed her mind and heart that he could do the same. At first, it didn't sit very well with him: he had other plans, a girlfriend....
He tried to continue with his life project, but the Lord kept knocking at the door of his heart. He would not leave him alone. So he broke up with his girlfriend and went to Spain to pursue a PhD in Physics, thinking that the sting of God would disappear. He then worked at the university and was a researcher and PhD in Physics in Spain.
But the sting of the Lord did not disappear....
In search of a path
"During all this time, however, I kept asking the Lord to help me, to accompany me. Above all, I asked him to show me the way and give me the strength to follow it. His words often came to my mind: "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and then loses himself?
Simone had everything she could wish for: a good job she liked, a good salary, another girlfriend, but the more she ignored the Lord's invitation, the more all the things she had lost their flavor.
Finally, he gave upI decided to face this invitation from the Lord who was very patient with me and waited so long, never ceasing to call me gently. So I entered the seminar and I finally experienced the peace of responding to the Lord, the peace and joy of telling him every day "Here I am", betting everything on his fidelity and his grace".
Gerardo Ferrara
BA in History and Political Science, specializing in the Middle East.
Responsible for the student body at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.
