Much has changed in how disabled people are welcomed in the Church, yet it remains unclear whether there is a specific path of preparation for them to receive the sacraments of Christian initiation. What can you tell us about this?
I'll start with my own experience. As a young priest, I worked with teenagers from the parish of the Sacred Hearts alongside the Centro Volontari della Sofferenza on via Giulia in Rome. With them—in a situation similar to Faith and Light—we spent afternoons together as friends, celebrating the Eucharist. From the beginning of my priesthood, I was fortunate to witness and learn from this world of suffering. It has been very important to me.
When I became a pastor, I was given the grace of meeting two girls in wheelchairs, Annagiulia and Paola, who needed to prepare for the sacraments—they had received neither First Communion nor Confirmation. I found Alberta, who was both willing and intelligent, and entrusted them to her care so they could truly taste what they would experience in receiving the sacrament. Not because the preparation was strictly necessary, but to give them the satisfaction of knowing they were not merely objects to be anointed or washed or given bread, but people discovering something profoundly sacred. She devoted herself with passion to their instruction and managed, through drawings, to help them understand both the biblical and theological meaning of what happens. They understood everything.
Not long ago, I was in a parish where Daniele, a fourteen-year-old boy with severe autism, came running toward me. He began to touch the crucifix around my neck, caressing it, looking at me, reaching for it again and again with no sign of letting go. After a while, I took it off and put it around his neck as a gift (note: a cross given to the bishop by his mother). Then he ran through the church, truly joyful! Later his mother told me: "You should know what happened—he has it on his bed and looks at the cross with such love." What joy for me to know that he carries it, far more worthily than I ever could. I have no doubt he is closer to Jesus than I am, through the cross and through suffering. Alberta, who was also preparing him for First Communion, told me how when she asked Daniele if he understood what would happen on the day of his First Communion, he responded by placing an icon of Jesus in his mouth—as if to say, "Jesus comes inside me." He had understood everything!
These young people have a special sensitivity and extraordinary gifts of God's love. Through this, they discover with joy what they are doing. Their happiness on that day is beyond measure because they are aware of the love of God they are about to receive.
What can the Church do to meet these young people halfway?
Do these young people have the right to encounter Jesus in the sacraments? Of course—it is Jesus's joy to enter their hearts. For them, it is a moment of a unique encounter.
If you ask me: what kind of encounter? Jesus going toward Calvary and meeting Simon of Cyrene who helps him? I would say yes. These young people, often without realizing it, are accompanying Jesus in the greatest act of love of all life. So there is a presence of Jesus unique in those hearts, in that life—but we will see it one day in paradise. We cannot imagine it now.
Can we say that the Faith and Light movement carries within it this small but insistent mission to appeal to parishes and the Church?
I would not call it a small mission—I would call it an enormous one. When I hear Him say, "Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me." Incredible! I am doing it to Him, to Jesus, to the Son of God, who identifies himself with them. There is nothing more beautiful.
For me, Jean Vanier was given an extraordinary charism by God—an urgent charism to address a dramatic problem. Families marked by these crosses, sometimes very heavy ones, need the presence of the Church. Otherwise the Church becomes merely a Church of words and sermons, not a Church of action.
This demands the presence of the Church, and those who work within this reality have, in my view, a special smile from God. It is easy to welcome children who come to you with open arms and smiling faces. But how difficult to make Jesus's love felt to these precious souls—and yes, it sometimes takes a courage and a willingness that move me when I see it. It would be strange if a priest were not alongside young people like you who dedicate yourselves to His most beloved children. It would be very strange indeed—something would be wrong.
With all this in mind, can we go further into daily practice—for instance, allowing our young people to serve as altar servers at parish Mass?
Why not? I think of that beautiful passage where God speaks to the prophet Samuel about anointing one of Jesse's sons. Samuel looks at the strongest, the tallest, the most handsome. Then comes a small boy with curly hair who tends the sheep, and the Lord says, "Anoint him!" Because man looks at the face, but God looks at the heart.
It comes down to helping the altar server who has difficulties; someone must be with him so that the mystery we celebrate can unfold. We are on Calvary in that moment, and Jesus is on the cross with us—"He wanted them near." But the priest who presides over the Eucharistic mystery must do so with full dignity, with full presence, without dividing his attention between helping the disabled altar server and attending to Jesus in that crucial half hour when Christ is truly present.
If, however, a prepared child has a lay volunteer beside him to help, standing next to the priest in his vestments, that works beautifully! It would be different if I had to hold him firmly in place—then I could not do what the Lord calls me to do in the paschal mystery.
Roberto (note: a disabled person serving as altar server on Confirmation day) was prompting me with everything I needed to do. Everything! As if I were saying Mass for the first time, having just landed from the moon. I could see his satisfaction: "I'm helping the bishop!" "Now at the beginning, your finger here, read there…" I thought, "Oh my!" Then I understood what it meant for him, so I let him guide me and I followed. Next time I would be much better prepared for his ministry—how he vests, how he handles the vestments with his help. You can see he does it all with joy.
Editorial, 101/2008