"Friends who are handicapped, you are precious to the Church. In your closeness to Jesus and Mary, you are privileged witnesses to God's love for each of us. May God bless you."
Pope Francis's words at the general audience moved me profoundly. In an instant, I saw dozens of faces. Not just those gathered in St. Peter's Square, but so many young people I have met over my twenty-nine years with Fede e Luce. It's true—we didn't have a space entirely our own that day. We felt scattered among Bernini's columns. The Pope didn't deliver a speech dedicated to our movement, but in those few words, he named what we have been telling ourselves for years and what we still, so often, struggle to recognize and witness to.
I thought I could have gone home happy on the strength of that message alone. But there was still so much to experience. And in the eyes of friends—parents and young people who were blessed to greet Francis up close—I saw that immense joy again, that truth: "God's love is in you. Carry it to everyone you meet."
But that was only the first great event of the pilgrimage. There were many others to live through. And if I'm honest, I moved through most of them with my mind on all there was to do, all the schedules to keep. I missed simply being together, being present to the other communities. Those moments came mostly at meals, wedged between tasks and things to sort out. Yet there are images I cannot forget: our arrival at Santa Maria degli Angeli, all the banners and signs; the upper basilica packed with people, and that cross made from our stones, our burdens, laid at the feet of Jesus who embraces us from his cross; the dance of friends from Galilee, radiating such joy all those days.
And then to see on the theater stage the bricks and colors of all our communities—beyond all the strain of walking together, beyond the daily struggles each of us carries, there was an energy I breathed in deeply. In the end, the mimes and the Canticle: Francis is right. The handicapped are precious to the Church. It falls to us to remember that, in every parish and every city where we live.
Angela Grassi - Coordinator, Un Fiume di Pace Province
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