Gift, gratuitousness, and care. The Meeting we would like to tell you about goes beyond appearances, represented by dozens of young parking attendants who are the special interpreters of this story. They spend their days under the sun, yet they smile at everyone. They welcome thousands of visitors with courtesy, that quality that seems lost in our hectic cities. However, they embody it with simplicity. They have faces and names like that of Cristina Vai, a 21-year-old from Milan. "I used to come here as a child," she confides after some insistence, "with my parents. We were asked to do this service, and everyone is expected to say yes. This is how something great is built."

But where does happiness come from? "I also wondered," Cristina adds, "why am I so happy when I’m here sweating in the heat? Perhaps because I’m giving something of mine freely?"

Gratuitousness at the Meeting is also discussed by economist Stefano Zamagni during the talk "Right to Health and Charity." He also speaks about the gift. "The gift is the expression of gratuitousness," says the professor, "and gratuitousness has infinite value."

In hospices, every day is a gift, suggests palliative care physician Marco Maltoni. "The hospice is a place of life," the doctor dares to say, even when there is nothing more to be done. "But there is always life," echoes Elvira Parravicini, a neonatologist at Columbia University (USA), during the meeting organized by Tracce on "The End of Life." Yes, because a moment before death, there is life. And a life always has meaning, whether it lasts a hundred years or a hundred days.

The gift can also be revolutionary, like forgiveness, which sows peace. The seed has yet to germinate in the Holy Land: this is current news. But the story of two fathers, Rami Elhanan and Bassam Aramin, gives hope. The first is Israeli, the second Palestinian; they are friends despite both having lost their daughters to terrorism by the other's people. They shared their story at the meeting "A Hope for All" in Sala Neri after being received by Pope Francis a few months ago.

"The first choice is obvious, revenge," writes Colum McCann in the book about their story. "It's what is expected of you. The easiest path." But the encounter with Parent's Circle, the association that brings together families who have lost a child or loved one in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, changed Rami's life. "I met Palestinians, and they were human beings who suffered like me. I saw this woman who carried a photo of her daughter on her chest, just as my wife carried one of ours." That’s when he understood: "We are not predestined; it is not our destiny to continue killing each other. We can break this cycle of endless violence."

The poet Rumi wrote: beyond ideas of right and wrong, there is a field, I’ll meet you there. "Well, they met there," journalist Alessandro Banfi notes. "They wanted to kill each other to achieve the same goal: peace and security. They achieved it in another way."

The presentation of Don Luigi Giussani's podcast "Who Do You Say That I Am?" closes the circle of a day marked by gratuitousness. "Jesus asks us," says the Abbot General of the Cistercian Order, Dom Mauro Lepori, "do you love me? He asks us three times. He asks for a moment of love. A moment of love that creates an indivisible unity." Listening again to Don Giussani's voice asking those questions makes hearts vibrate and brings them closer to Jesus. An audio recording with Don Giussani's intense words reminds us that "we are loved more than we err." To lay down one's life for one's friends: no greater love can exist.

From the podcast "L'altro Meeting", curated by Daniela Verlicchi and Francesco Zanotti.