I met Mariangela in 1962 when she arrived in my fourth-year gymnasium class as a literature teacher. She was a fleeting presence. Almost at once, she left to give birth to her first child, a girl named Maria Francesca.
When she returned to the classroom, her silence and drawn face showed no sign of a new mother's joy. We were adolescent girls hungry for stories and knowledge, eager to hear about her baby, to see photographs. She never spoke of that child. Only much later did we learn she faced grave difficulties.
After gymnasium, I moved on to Liceo Virgilio. I heard nothing more of Professor Mazzarotto. Our paths seemed parted for good.
But in 1974, through my aunt—also a teacher at the Nazareth Institute—Mariangela tracked me down, along with every former student she could find. She invited us to Villa Patrizi (via Morgagni) for an afternoon of celebration and friendship with young people who had severe cognitive disabilities and their families.
It was the small, tiny seed of Faith and Light, which did not yet exist in Italy but which Marie Hélène Mathieu and Jean Vanier—who had begun the movement in France four years earlier—hoped would take root here too. They wanted to organize, after Lourdes 1971, a Faith and Light pilgrimage to Rome for the Holy Year 1975.
I went with Carolina, a friend from my Nazareth days whom I'd reconnected with at university and stayed in touch with (we still are!). We went mostly out of curiosity.
That afternoon changed my life. Through Mariangela and Chicca, the Lord himself was waiting for me. He wanted to give meaning to my own suffering, to all my "why?" questions after my mother's illness and death, after our family shattered. He wanted to reveal to me, slowly, the fathomless mystery of His love. I let myself be drawn in, overwhelmed by Faith and Light, by Mariangela. I didn't just help start Faith and Light communities for the pilgrimage. I wove and wove, stretching the web wider and wider.
Mariangela's desire never exhausted itself: to reach as many parents as possible, to return hope and meaning to their grief. For us young people, she offered something solid and true—a deeper sense of life itself, of fraternity.
The pilgrimage happened. It succeeded. The Faith and Light plant began to grow and spread with real vigor. For years, much of my free time (I worked in a bank) was absorbed by Faith and Light. I drew my sister Lucia into it too. Together, we found a new family and friendships that would last forever.
If the tree grew, if many birds nested in its branches, it was due—yes—to countless, nameless people who worked in silence. But above all it was Mariangela's courage, her stubborn persistence knocking on every kind of door, especially the doors of the heart, improbable hearts, so that other families with a "special" child would not suffer the rejection, abandonment, and loneliness she had known before finding Faith and Light.
When Chicca went to heaven at the end of 1978, Mariangela did not slow down. Nothing and no one could stop her burning thirst to offer each person the consolation and support they needed in their trial.
The school of Faith and Light, led by Mariangela, guided many of us young people down the safe paths of life. To some, she suggested studies and professions aimed at serving the world of disability. To others, she taught how to fling open family doors and widen their boundaries. (Those memorable Faith and Light wedding receptions were far more precious than any charity favor.) To still others, she taught how to listen more carefully to the Lord's call.
For me, the deafening silences of Sabina, Noris, and Clelia, the incredible "why?" of Carla, the cunning smiles of Gianni and Mirella—these were that "gentle breeze" of which the Prophet Elijah speaks (1 Kings 19:12), in which the Lord and His will are revealed.
For a long time I asked myself whether to follow Guenda's example—co-founder of the Chicco—something you, Mariangela, perhaps hoped and waited for. But another call won out: "I must tell everyone that God exists and is love" (M. Maria Oliva Bonaldo CM, Foundress of the Daughters of the Church). He is a Father who never abandons any of His children. In the Church there is room and need for everyone. No one is discarded. Only together can we make the world beautiful. Only together, only looking at it with the wide-eyed wonder of Pablo, of Gianna, of Carla, can we learn to find joy in a blade of grass moving in the wind. Only with Patrick's strength of soul can we rejoice in arriving dented and aching at Monte Meta, at the summit of our daily mountains.
Thank you, Mariangela. You and your family—not only Chicca, but Paolo, Nanni, and Manolo with their quiet trust, and the whole Bertolini clan—were the open window through which I glimpsed and tasted distant, precious horizons. It led me, in my journey through the world, to meet, to embrace, to try to ease infinite forms of disability, infinite loneliness and sorrow.
Sr. Maria Grazia Pennisi, 2014
I met Mariangela in 1962 when she arrived in my fourth-year gymnasium class as a literature teacher. She was a fleeting presence. Almost at once, she left to give birth to her first child, a girl named Maria Francesca.
When she returned to the classroom, her silence and drawn face showed no sign of a new mother's joy. We were adolescent girls hungry for stories and knowledge, eager to hear about her baby, to see photographs. She never spoke of that child. Only much later did we learn she faced grave difficulties.
After gymnasium, I moved on to Liceo Virgilio. I heard nothing more of Professor Mazzarotto. Our paths seemed parted for good.
But in 1974, through my aunt—also a teacher at the Nazareth Institute—Mariangela tracked me down, along with every former student she could find. She invited us to Villa Patrizi (via Morgagni) for an afternoon of celebration and friendship with young people who had severe cognitive disabilities and their families.
It was the small, tiny seed of Faith and Light, which did not yet exist in Italy but which Marie Hélène Mathieu and Jean Vanier—who had begun the movement in France four years earlier—hoped would take root here too. They wanted to organize, after Lourdes 1971, a Faith and Light pilgrimage to Rome for the Holy Year 1975.
I went with Carolina, a friend from my Nazareth days whom I'd reconnected with at university and stayed in touch with (we still are!). We went mostly out of curiosity.
That afternoon changed my life. Through Mariangela and Chicca, the Lord himself was waiting for me. He wanted to give meaning to my own suffering, to all my "why?" questions after my mother's illness and death, after our family shattered. He wanted to reveal to me, slowly, the fathomless mystery of His love. I let myself be drawn in, overwhelmed by Faith and Light, by Mariangela. I didn't just help start Faith and Light communities for the pilgrimage. I wove and wove, stretching the web wider and wider.
Mariangela's desire never exhausted itself: to reach as many parents as possible, to return hope and meaning to their grief. For us young people, she offered something solid and true—a deeper sense of life itself, of fraternity.
The pilgrimage happened. It succeeded. The Faith and Light plant began to grow and spread with real vigor. For years, much of my free time (I worked in a bank) was absorbed by Faith and Light. I drew my sister Lucia into it too. Together, we found a new family and friendships that would last forever.
If the tree grew, if many birds nested in its branches, it was due—yes—to countless, nameless people who worked in silence. But above all it was Mariangela's courage, her stubborn persistence knocking on every kind of door, especially the doors of the heart, improbable hearts, so that other families with a "special" child would not suffer the rejection, abandonment, and loneliness she had known before finding Faith and Light.
When Chicca went to heaven at the end of 1978, Mariangela did not slow down. Nothing and no one could stop her burning thirst to offer each person the consolation and support they needed in their trial.
The school of Faith and Light, led by Mariangela, guided many of us young people down the safe paths of life. To some, she suggested studies and professions aimed at serving the world of disability. To others, she taught how to fling open family doors and widen their boundaries. (Those memorable Faith and Light wedding receptions were far more precious than any charity favor.) To still others, she taught how to listen more carefully to the Lord's call.
For me, the deafening silences of Sabina, Noris, and Clelia, the incredible "why?" of Carla, the cunning smiles of Gianni and Mirella—these were that "gentle breeze" of which the Prophet Elijah speaks (1 Kings 19:12), in which the Lord and His will are revealed.
For a long time I asked myself whether to follow Guenda's example—co-founder of the Chicco—something you, Mariangela, perhaps hoped and waited for. But another call won out: "I must tell everyone that God exists and is love" (M. Maria Oliva Bonaldo CM, Foundress of the Daughters of the Church). He is a Father who never abandons any of His children. In the Church there is room and need for everyone. No one is discarded. Only together can we make the world beautiful. Only together, only looking at it with the wide-eyed wonder of Pablo, of Gianna, of Carla, can we learn to find joy in a blade of grass moving in the wind. Only with Patrick's strength of soul can we rejoice in arriving dented and aching at Monte Meta, at the summit of our daily mountains.
Thank you, Mariangela. You and your family—not only Chicca, but Paolo, Nanni, and Manolo with their quiet trust, and the whole Bertolini clan—were the open window through which I glimpsed and tasted distant, precious horizons. It led me, in my journey through the world, to meet, to embrace, to try to ease infinite forms of disability, infinite loneliness and sorrow.
Sr. Maria Grazia Pennisi, 2014