“When the telephone rang on Sunday morning, at the other end of the line was my husband’s son weeping: his friend had been among the victims of the massacre in Orlando. The tragedy had come right into our own home.” Kathie felt that the only possible response to such pain was love. She gathered the family: “We joined the 18:00 moment of silence that enveloped the city and the state, and then we went to Mass to pray that God would comfort the families, the wounded, my stepson and his friends.” Eva’s beauty parlour is only a few miles from the Pulse, and her colleagues knew several of the  club’s customers. “I hadn’t turned on the TV and wasn’t particularly alarmed by the sound of sirens in the night, so I heard about the shooting at church where it was announced that one of our parishioners had been killed. They were our friends. What happened to them could have happened to me or to others around me. I asked myself if I had really done my best to love the people right beside me. Bullets had killed those young people, but I couldn’t make love die.”

Many testimonies arrived from Focolare members in the hours after the massacre in Orlando where, in a popular night club for the LGBT community, 49 people were shot by Omar Matee, a man with serious psychological problems who wanted to carry out an act of murder under the guise of religion. Current investigations are revealing that Islam had nearly nothing to do with the killings, and that the assassin had long been known for his belligerent and aggressive personality. “News of brutal killings like those of Sunday seem to have become an ordinary part of life, and the general tide of indifference seemed to carry me away,” Martin admits. “Why go on believing in brotherhood and love when faced with the impossible task of overturning evil? When so many of my Muslim friends were being taken by abstract thoughts such as these, I physically felt the pain and desperation that they were feeling because they were once again being labelled as terrorists. I couldn’t ignore the many hours spent in dialogue, getting to know each other, as well as the many hours spent in helping one another. I can’t and don’t want to ignore the good there is that can allow this world to become a better place.”     There is a strong risk that Muslims will again be blamed of favouring great acts of violence, but the reality is altogether different, because they were the first to step up and donate blood for the many wounded and, in many cities, the night prayer during Ramadan was dedicated to the murder victims of Orlando. Sandra, Milagros and Joyce, who are less than 70 years old between them, had to admit once more that the Gospel is the only weapon that doesn’t injure others, but only one’s own egoism and pride. “It’s all so senseless what we are going through, but we can’t let ourselves be paralyzed by fear. We have to demonstrate that love, precisely because it begins small – from peace in our workplaces and with our neighbours – can change much and bring hope and forgiveness.” “On Sunday morning, when I learned of the tragic events far from my home, among people whose choices were different from mine, I thought that difference cannot divide us: They’re my brothers and sisters.” With these words Celi began her testimony, her network of prayer and communion. “The only answer to hatred and terrorism is to never stop living by this belief in love and, especially, to do it together with all the people who never stop extending God’s caress to everyone.”