Dearest Mariangela,
On Tuesday, June 24, I will celebrate my twenty-fifth anniversary of ordination as a priest in my parish in Noci. In these days of preparation, I find myself remembering so many events I have lived through, people I have met, words I have spoken and heard. I am trying, gathering the pieces together, to discover God's design for my life. While you live from day to day, you dare not look at the whole picture. That is what I am doing now.
I realize that in every pastoral experience of these years, God has taken my hand and guided me, even through dark valleys where he lit the lamp of Faith and Light.
Your witness as mother of Chicca, as a woman who admires and loves priests so deeply, has built me up. During my formative years in Rome, Faith and Light helped me grow in humanity. It was a tremendous help to have respect for myself, to overcome the shyness that is part of my nature, to draw me out of isolation. In the end, I am grateful to FL for teaching me the grammar of community life, even while living through a seminary formation rooted in community.
Among the virtues I cultivated, I learned authenticity, humility, the art of listening to others in their difference; I learned to know and accept my own limits, to smile at myself. How many laughs there were at those Faith and Light camps, where, even in the face of tiredness, we found the creativity to invent games.
I remember that at Alfedena you showed us the little chapel of the Blessed Sacrament as the heart of Faith and Light.
What you were telling me was not new, for our spiritual directors in seminary kept repeating it to us constantly. What was new for me was your witness as a mother of Faith and Light. Behind your words was a believing heart.
The Lord allowed me to give back what I had received. If he made me take root in FL through the method of "come and see," he made me fruitful through the parable of the grain of wheat that dies and decays, where the timing depends not only on you but also on God's patience.
Yesterday the Lord filled me with joy.
I had invited the Faith and Light communities of Puglia to come to my parish in Noci to give their witness as preparation for the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration. It was the feast of St. Vitus, my patron saint. The most beautiful gift they gave me was their joyful and courageous presence, because in Noci disability is often hidden away and lived in isolation.
As I led them to the parish house, the old women of the old town were amazed by this sight, and some of them remembered, thanks to FL, to offer me their best wishes.
The communities from Bari came to the 11:30 Mass, while those from Monopoli and Conversano led the 7 p.m. Mass. Although not everyone could come in the morning, from 4:30 until 6 p.m. we were all in church. We prayed, we sang, there were testimonies, and above all I showed a video of about ten minutes of my ordination as a priest. Unforgettable the faces of Alessandro, of Giulio, of Roberta... of Pierre Debergè, of Sankalè, of mothers Enrica Cofano, Rita Cortese, of Maria Grazia Pannisi... I keep with affection the stole, a gift with the image of FL, made by F. Gammarelli, as well as the photo album where are captured the people and the experiences we lived together.
At the 7 p.m. Mass there were four altar servers. Pasquale said his simple prayer, in the gospel style: "Let us pray for Don Vito, a priest. Amen." Efrem read prayers, carefully prepared, moved in the way only he knows how.
Dearest Mariangela, pray for me. Thank God with me for the wonders he has worked in my life, so that in the continuity of conversion, the love of Jesus may be faithfully rooted in me.
- Don Vito Palmisano, 2003
