“I worked in a cooperative for fair trade,” Leonardo recounts. Cristiano, on the other hand, formed part of the human resources personnel of a multinational automobile company. They were ordained deacons on February 5 in Madrid, together with 6 other young people

Leonardo, 37, has joined the Society since 2012. He studied engineering for industrial organization in Padua and Barcelona, worked for a short time in Paraguay in a cooperative that produces sugar for fair trade. “I joined after getting to know Ignatius and experiencing the Spiritual Exercises and the life of a beautiful community in Bologna, Villa San Giuseppe. I resided there for a year and a half to discover the many scattered pieces of my life story between travels, conversions and attempts to find happiness ". Within the Society I immediately felt at home: "because I was not asked to wear a robe, but to find what the Lord had always prepared for me ... and I am still searching, but now no longer alone. These were two exciting years spent in Turin taking part in the pastoral activities of the Social Institute. Now I am studying theology in Madrid. I feel I have been brought here in a caravan full of Jesuits and more or less believing friends. They are the words which the Lord uses to write my life story. I could simply respond “Yes, thank you! ".

Cristiano grew up in Sassari, in the north of Sardinia. After studying literature and obtaining a master's degree, he moved to Milan in the mid-2000 to work in the human resources sector of an automobile multinational company. In the meantime, he met the Jesuits of San Fedele. “I discovered that religious life could do for me, who knows! For a year and a half, I spent my weekends at Villa San Giuseppe, experiencing the Spiritual Exercises and fraternity. I joined the novitiate in 2013″. After the first two years in Genoa, he arrived in Rome to study philosophy at the Gregoriana. “Another two intense and fascinating years. Then I am catapulted to another continent: Africa, Uganda to teach in a boarding school in Gulu. I finished my Regency period in the Neapolitan suburbs, in Scampia”. Then his studies in theology in Madrid. The diaconate? It is an undeserved gift. It opens the door to the responsibility of freely proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus, with His same attitude, I came to serve and not to be served "

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