The Dream of Her Life
I want to share with the Faith and Light family the wonderful experience our family had over four days in July '92. A few months earlier, our regional coordinator Lucia Casella called to ask if we could host an elderly mother—Agnese, seventy-four—and her severely disabled daughter, Antonia, forty-eight, who were coming from London with a wish to visit Padova and Venice.
Since we lived in Abano Terme, it would be easy for us to show them these two cities.
After talking it over as a family, we said yes. Our son Gianni, twenty-one and physically disabled, was thrilled at the chance to use his modest English. Unfortunately, those very days Gianni was hospitalized for ten days with lymphangitis.
After three days of travel, various difficulties, and several phone calls, Agnese and Antonia finally arrived with their young companion, Cristina, at the Padova highway exit, where my husband and I were waiting. We brought them home, tired but very happy to have arrived at last. We did our best to make them comfortable, and our warmth and calm helped us all feel at ease during those four days.
Our sons Sandro and Carlo made themselves available too, doing what they could despite the language barrier.
Agnese was a tired but peaceful mother. Her husband had abandoned her and Antonia when he saw how severe his daughter's disability was, and she never heard from him again. For Agnese—born and raised in London but the daughter of parents from Amalfi—visiting Italy had been a deep desire for years.
When we went to the Basilica of Saint Anthony, we offered to push Antonia's wheelchair, but Agnese refused because the chair was the support she needed for her tired legs.
When we went to Venice, she was overjoyed. She had finally lived her dream.
Despite the difficulties, we all got into a gondola and took a scenic tour. We visited the Basilica of San Marco, took a short walk through the city, and came home very happy.
For our family it was a beautiful experience, and a real friendship was born between us. We still keep in touch by phone and letters.
The three days of travel there and three back were organized by Faith and Light France, and each evening they stayed with different families. Everything was well planned. They were so happy because without all this support, they could never have made such a long journey on their own.
Adriana Masiero and family, Abano Terme (Padova)
160 Communities in Northeast Europe
The region of the Baltic, Carpathians, and Urals includes 160 Faith and Light communities: Germany (7), Lithuania (4), Poland (136), Russia (5), Slovakia (4), Czech Republic (3), Ukraine (3).
Faith and Light arises and thrives amid enormous diversity—cultural and religious above all. Here are two examples.
1. Many of these countries have no structures or support systems for people with intellectual disabilities. Germany has everything: centers, recreation, catechesis. One special education teacher told me: "What Faith and Light offers? Gratuity—the gift of friendship, time spent 'doing nothing' together, shared tears and laughter, all held in prayer."
Poland is now seeing new initiatives on behalf of people with disabilities, often started by people committed to Faith and Light. It is a drop of hope for our brothers in neighboring countries.
2. Many religious confessions live side by side in these states—sometimes in harmony, often in conflict.
Faith and Light has Orthodox communities in Russia; Greek Catholic communities in Ukraine; Catholic communities in Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine; Protestant and mixed communities in Prague.
In March, in Lvov, Ukraine, seven hundred people from seven different churches gathered for a retreat with Jean Vanier: an ecumenical miracle.
In a society so wounded and unprepared, where after years of domination and fear everyone is now searching after recovering freedom—what message does Faith and Light carry?
We tried to discover this during a training session in Rakov, sixty kilometers from Moscow. The theme was: "Is the community a Holy Land?" A Holy Land? A lost paradise? No. The community is not an imaginary paradise. Our Holy Land is sometimes hard, sometimes difficult, but real. We walk it together in friendship and in hope of deeper communion. I remember a mother from Lithuania who stood a bit apart from the community. She kept telling me: "My daughter is God's punishment. I must accept it. That is right." A year later, I found her with her husband and her disabled daughter, completely at peace. Her daughter had brought her father to Faith and Light, and for months now he had been back with the family, free from alcohol.
At a gathering with parents in Moscow, I heard them speak of their lives through the language of "acceptance" and "prayer." One father asked: "Who can tell me what to do in those five minutes when I cannot take anymore, when everything collapses on me? You all know those five minutes in our lives."
Silence. Then Mariangela, a mother who had come from Rome to witness, spoke up: "It's true—when you cannot take anymore, prayer doesn't change that. You still cannot take it. What you need is the presence of friends. Faith and Light is a small thing, but it is so necessary in those moments."
Piotr Wierzchoslawski - (Area Coordinator)
O. e L. n° 93