We have recently moved to a small town near Leicester, aware that the local CL community is tiny and spread over different cities; we were, therefore, wondering if that would have made living our faith more difficult and if we would have 'felt alone'.

However, we are actually experiencing quite the opposite; we are, in first place, grateful that THERE IS a community. The fact that we have to travel to meet our friends in Nottingham, Coventry, Cambridge makes us ask ourselves every time: what are we looking for when we go there? Will it be worth it to just have some company over the weekend? The answers became particularly clear during the pilgrimage to Walsingham: no, we did not go that far to get soaking wet and to barely have the time to talk to each other; we went because those friends were leading us in front of Our Lady, we would have not got there alone. Putting our needs in front of Mary was the only way to regain the courage to remain present in front the small and big challenges we are facing.

Secondly, we are not scared by the fact that there is no one of CL in our town. Of course, we would like to have someone close to share the difficulties of our jobs and kids, someone that wants to live FULLY even the little things of an ordinary family life, someone that wants their faith to enlighten their work and relationships. But we are sure that, if we want that, there are many other people in Oadby who want just the same! We just need to ask our Father for the grace to meet them, for open eyes to be able to recognise them, and the patience to accept His times and not our own.

Margherita, Oadby