After the 1971 pilgrimage to Lourdes and the launch of Foi et Lumière—the international movement founded by Jean Vanier—a small group of young people, parents, and friends returned to Rome with a dream. They would plant the first seeds of what would become known as Fede e Luce.
Mariangela Bertolini and other parents and friends began meeting at the Nazareth Institute in Rome, on Via Cola di Rienzo in the Prati neighborhood. From those early gatherings came plans to organize participation in a major international Foi et Lumière pilgrimage—one that would take place in Rome during the Holy Year of 1975, the Jubilee declared by Pope Paul VI and called the "Year of Renewal and Reconciliation."
By 1974, the movement was searching for a way to share its spirit more widely. The answer came in the form of a small, simple, but powerful publication: "Insieme - Bollettino di Fede e Luce" (Together - The Newsletter of Fede e Luce). Its purpose was modest but clear: to reach into the homes and hearts of families with disabled children, one household at a time, carrying a message born at Lourdes: "Our children are the beloved… if we stay TOGETHER, we will know how to show it."
The newsletter was also a call to friends and educators—an invitation to experience the simple act of being "together" with those who, at that time, still lived hidden away, whether behind closed doors at home or within the walls of an institution.
Every issue of Insieme, including the first, was printed at the Nazareth Institute by Mother Annarella Pantanella, an extraordinary nun whom all of us who knew her called "Nonna"—grandmother. She gave to everyone the warmth of her welcome and the tenderness of her care. She prepared the typed text, drew many of the illustrations—simple and stylized, yet full of love and feeling. She even operated the old Gestetner duplicator to print them. Everything was homemade, really: made in the Institute, by hand, with heart.
That newsletter kept us all bound together "TOGETHER." And when you are together, the burdens grow lighter, the joys are shared, and sorrow becomes easier to bear. Nothing extraordinary—and yet, somehow, it made the ordinary, the simple, feel sacred.
- Stefano Guarino, 2020