Why a pilgrimage?
Gatherings hold an essential place in the life of Fede e Luce: we meet regularly to share moments of friendship and prayer. But being together is not enough. We must also move forward together. Day by day, we walk a little further; the bonds deepen; the group becomes a true family where each person feels welcomed and loved.
We needed a concrete gesture to express our shared will to advance together on a path of faith, hope, and love. That is why we chose a pilgrimage.
To some, inviting Fede e Luce members to a pilgrimage may have seemed bold—even audacious. The word itself, so seldom used today, conjures an old-fashioned "demonstration" that no longer belongs to us.
Yet a pilgrimage is a significant event. To understand its meaning, we must return to what is essential in Fede e Luce: we must return to that light we receive from the smallest and weakest among us, from those whom society ignores or rejects, and who stand at the heart of our communities.
Because they are present with us, and because we have chosen to learn from them, we can decide to take the road together.
To go on pilgrimage means leaving our country, our city, our home, our small routines. But it also means answering a call we hear—or will hear. A call that pushes us outside ourselves to meet the Other.
Our response will be true only if it demands a change in our hearts.
Conversion means seeing with new eyes.
It means looking at things differently.
It means turning ourselves toward a new horizon.
A pilgrimage is a journey that calls us forward personally. For this reason, as we prepare to leave, we feel within us both enthusiasm and unease.
Enthusiasm for the departure, yes—but also unease at the thought that we are heading toward unknown land, beyond the borders we had set for our hope.
Fede e Luce
In Fede e Luce we discover another dimension of pilgrimage: we receive a special light from the fact that our brothers and sisters handicapped in intellect hold the first place among us. In a world where words often fail, a pilgrimage becomes a gesture that speaks.
Handicapped in body or mind, handicapped in reason or handicapped morally and spiritually by sin and selfishness—we are all brothers and sisters.
Together we take to the road.
In the mountains, when the path grows difficult, we follow a guide and trust in her experience. She makes her way simply, without speaking, without explanation. The others follow, sighing, crying out, stopping to catch their breath.
So at the head of our journey, we will place the smallest among us—those who, in the spirit of Fede e Luce, are chosen to "show us the way." We are traveling with them, not for them.
Those whom the world judges as insignificant, despises, or deems useless or "unfortunate," will be our guides. The Gospel tells us that the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
Through their silence, their stillness, their strange way of speaking, their awkward gestures, their simple reasoning, their tender gaze, their trusting smile and pure hearts—they will open for us the path of the Gospel lived and the Beatitudes.
Assisi
Assisi is no ordinary place. Even today one senses the presence of Saint Francis in the countryside, in the city's narrow streets, in its houses and basilicas. Every stone seems saturated with his message.
The places we will visit will remind us that our own age resembles his in many ways. In the turbulent Europe of the twelfth century, Francis—young, wealthy, and gifted—cannot find his place. His desire for glory seems destined to fail. Every door closes before him. Gradually he discovers the Gospel, which gives meaning to his entire life.
By visiting Assisi, each of us will come to know Saint Francis better: his love for poverty, his joy in suffering and trial, his life as an tireless seeker of God.
His poverty extends beyond material goods. It includes the riches of culture, power, and self-will. To love as Jesus loved, one must be poor as Jesus was poor: stripped of everything that prevents us from loving.
In Assisi, we want to leave behind all the riches that prevent us from being brothers and sisters to one another, that still divide us.
Francis's joy was to become like the one he loved: Jesus. Nothing could disturb this joy—not blows, not trials, not suffering, not doubt, not the misunderstanding of his brothers.
On the road to Assisi, carrying both our joys and our sorrows, we will find new strength to continue forward together in our daily lives.
Francis's whole soul thirsted for God. He felt that thirst in solitude, welcomed it in the rejected person, sang it with his brothers, and celebrated it in creation. Ceaselessly he marveled at having Jesus Christ as his brother and at knowing, through Him, the Father's love.
This love for Jesus never led him away from the Church. His message, so close to the Gospel, held something unusual. He went to Rome with a precise and revolutionary plan that the Pope would eventually recognize.
In Assisi, we will let ourselves be led by the Spirit of the Lord. We will feel again that thirst for God and that love for our brothers and sisters.
Francis was blind when he composed the Canticle of the Creatures, in which he teaches us to sing of the Sun even when we cannot see it. His joy was not the satisfaction of one for whom all goes well.
Sometimes we too lose sight of the sun, blinded by illness or despair.
May this Fede e Luce pilgrimage to Assisi lead all of us toward that light which calls to us.
Mariangela Bertolini, 1978