One day, Luca arrived at our parish post-confirmation group with a proposal. He had recently moved to Axa, a neighborhood in southern Rome, and wanted us to form a community within our parish: Fede e Luce, a group for people with disabilities and their families—a place of encounter, celebration, and shared life. Our catechist, Biancamaria, who had guided us through adolescence and faith, didn't hesitate: "Go. It's time you put what you've learned into practice."
So with other young people from various parish groups, we formed the Santa Melania community. I began with a simple mindset: "Okay, let's do this good work." At eighteen, dedicating my Sundays to people with disabilities felt like something I was doing to please God and solidify my identity as a good daughter—the expectation of my parents, which I wanted to meet. More than that, I wanted to be "the best" at everything. School, sports, the arts, physical fitness—my life was a frantic search for activities that could confirm this image. So for me it was "interested sacrifice," not true charity as Saint Paul describes it.
But Luca didn't seem to be making a sacrifice when he was with the disabled youth. He was at ease, and his stories about these groups had intrigued me. He explained how the gatherings—called "casetta"—worked, and I was struck especially by what he said about assignments and the "fourth moment": we young people (called "friends") would try to get to know one person and family better, building a deeper bond. Maybe we'd visit them at home, go out together.
The day of our first casetta arrived. I was immediately drawn to Francesca: a girl perhaps my age, with very pale skin, large blue eyes, and light hair. She made strange sounds. She seemed like the "most difficult" girl—perhaps the hardest to approach among the others because she didn't speak and appeared not to communicate in any obvious way. Perfect for someone like me, who always chose the hardest challenges. Francesca sat with her head bent, hunched over her hands held near her mouth, which she kept wet with saliva. It was an unpleasant thing to touch, but I pushed myself past it because she stirred more compassion in me than anyone else.
I sat down beside her. Every so often she would lift her head, swaying it gently, but I couldn't tell who or what she was looking at. For a long time I didn't know what to do. Francesca stayed there, bent over her wet hands, occasionally rocking her head and making small sounds with her mouth. Then, during prayer, the music began and we started to sing. The sweetness of it, and finally Francesca opened into a smile and turned her gaze toward me. And so my assignment became officially Francesca. I met her mother, her father, and later her older brother. Her mother especially taught me so much about Francesca: her seizures, her medications, what she liked and what bothered her, her way of communicating. She invited me to look beyond Francesca's apparent withdrawal, allowed me to get close to her and care for her during gatherings. I was afraid, but I wasn't alone. With the other friends and as we all shared our hesitations and inexperience, everything became easier—almost natural. We even went on our first retreat together, rather recklessly, driven by friendship and the desire to do good, together.
I began visiting her at home, in her room, just the two of us. Francesca often held me with a fixed gaze, her eyes looking straight into mine, and I could read questions in them: "Who are you?" "Do you really want to learn to love me?" Inside, I answered "I'm trying," filled with doubt.
At first, Fede e Luce was only a small part of my life. My real life was elsewhere: studying, friends, romantic interests, sports. Fede e Luce came after all that. But everything changed when I hit my first real failures. University didn't go well. I broke up with my boyfriend. I fell into a deep depression. Suddenly I wasn't the best anymore. I kept going to Fede e Luce, but what drew me now wasn't the singing and laughter of my friends, the games and jokes. I wanted to sit quietly beside Francesca. When she had a seizure, I felt especially close to her. I held her hand, stroked her hair, shared the anguish I felt in her, the uncertainty. Together we would wait for it to pass, for her breathing to calm. Sometimes our eyes would meet, and together we would finally rest.
I discovered how much like her I was—needing simple things: tender glances, radiant smiles, someone sitting beside me. Slowly I found another kind of joy, not the joy of achievement and reached goals, but the joy of being together in fragility, of sharing the uncertainty of our days and the comfort of daily routines. I slowed down.
I, who had been a bulldozer, owe it to Francesca and people like her that I learned to recognize another person and their needs, that I finally stepped outside myself, outside my perfect and deeply selfish world. I learned that what makes me feel loved is not the degrees I've earned, the prestigious job I do, my perfect mental and physical health, the admiration of others. Those things actually kept me distant from people, unreachable and far away. Finally, I had my fall from the horse: my failures, which I despised, allowed me to see others more carefully, to recognize their wounds and discover that I too am fragile. Francesca was my small sacred chapel, where I could worship the mystery of life and love that passes through wounds—sometimes very painful wounds—but wounds we can care for together, each other, with infinite tenderness.
This experience changed me so deeply that I decided later to study social work. I married a social worker too, someone who, like me, works with people with disabilities. There are countless other gifts that Francesca and young people like her have given me. I keep them all as treasures, pulling them out when I struggle and need to find what's essential again. I feel profound gratitude for what I received, for the gift of Francesca's life and the lives of the other young people. It's too little to say they made me better. Francesca—who went to heaven a year ago—and the hand of God have done something far greater in my life.