For more than thirty years, Lucia Casella held various leadership roles within Faith and Light: community coordinator, regional coordinator, and national coordinator. She lives in Fidenza, near Parma, and belongs to the Sycamore community, founded in 1993 as an outgrowth of the Sharing group. Both communities are part of the Faith and Light province of Kimata. As her mandate came to a close, she shared with us a remarkable legacy of experience and commitment to the associative world.
Where does your story begin?
I studied in Parma and Milan, where I earned a degree in modern languages. I wanted to teach French. But when I started at the middle school, the first disabled students were being admitted to public education. The law of 1977 required schools to provide integration and support services. In reality, schools weren't ready. There were no spaces, no materials, no expertise.
The headmaster invited me to attend a two-year specialization course to prepare myself better for working with disabled students and supporting their integration and learning. So I stayed in that field, trying to raise my colleagues' awareness, helping other special education teachers, asking the town council for proper textbooks and materials, and collaborating with the local health authority. I remember how we built a strong network among the school, the town, the health service, and Caritas. Over time, it bore real fruit for our community.
When and how did you discover Faith and Light? What made you stay, and then commit yourself so deeply?
In 1975, a group called Sharing was born in my parish, thanks to our priest's attention to the many families living in isolation and social exclusion because of disability. Then, in 1979, a providential arrival: Fr. Francesco Marchini from Parma, who was Faith and Light's national chaplain at the time. Together with Lucetta Battilani, he gently introduced us to the movement. Soon I was attending festivals with friends at the Holy Innocents community in Parma.
Then, in 1980, a few of us had the chance to go to Assisi and hear Jean Vanier speak. He said: "Each of us is precious in His eyes, loved and accompanied despite our history, despite our limits and fragility. Sincere and deep love, combined with patience and skill, can gradually free the hidden potential in each of us—even in those whose lives have been deeply damaged by disability and exclusion."
And again: "Wound or fragility does not prevent us from living joy and celebration. Rather, His presence in us favors it, making it more genuine!"
These were powerful new words. Months later, that summer, I didn't hesitate to go to Trosly for about a month to know L'Arche and the movement's spirituality better. I came home convinced I had found what I was seeking.
In 1981 I was ready to join a small group from Sharing on the Lourdes pilgrimage. We were so happy to meet the large, beautiful Faith and Light family. Back home, I kept in touch with Parma—with Mariangela and Valeria—while the Fidenza community grew.
In 1989, at a regional meeting in Emilia-Veneto, I was asked to represent our region on the National Council. I remember the journey Lucia, Luciano, and Lucetta made to visit Fr. Lucio in Avenza. He wanted to start a Faith and Light community after meeting Jean Vanier in Piacenza in 1991. Such light could not fail to bear fruit!
Later, from 1995 to 1998, I served as national coordinator. Then from 1998 to 2008, coordinator of the Alps-Danube Zone. Finally, from 2008 to 2018, international vice-coordinator.
Can you explain what an international vice-coordinator does? How does the work go, and why is an international council important?
As zone coordinator, I managed elections and supported the leaders and teams in the countries and provinces under my care. I communicated guidelines from the international council, suggested possible collaborations, and helped overcome conflicts—especially where diverse ethnicities had struggled because of a painful past marked by conflict, misunderstanding, and lingering resentment, particularly among the elderly. It was sometimes delicate, demanding work, but thrilling when we saw real progress and situations turn for the better.
What do you think is Faith and Light's role in society and in the Church? Can it be a unified movement, animated by the same spirit and intent, across all parts of the world?
Faith and Light plays a vital role today: building bridges everywhere, creating bonds of brotherhood and peace—especially through those who are fragile. This is the real miracle that may escape us because we usually live in privileged circumstances.
I'll never forget our trip to Romania with Fr. Vito Palmisano, Maurizio Aurello, and Stefano di Franco. After training, we organized an outdoor pasta dinner with ingredients brought from Rome. At one point, the line of people waiting for a plate didn't get shorter—it grew. We realized that children from a nearby orphanage had discovered they could join us for a hot meal and our company. In the end, we all had fun together, and a photographer captured their smiling faces, smeared with sauce.
What changes have you seen over the years? Which felt most fruitful? Which would you have given up?
Every movement, true to its charism, must evolve. In the last ten years, with communities spread across the world, we tried to return to our roots—reflecting on our identity and mission. We realized that the movement's greatest treasure lies in the community and its members. We adapted the Constitution to our realities. After adopting it in 2008, we needed to make it more faithful to lived experience. We became more flexible while remaining true to the original spirit.
I see this as very positive. Once, there was perhaps a conviction that the same community model should work everywhere. Anything beyond it raised suspicion. A workshop alongside the community? Not Faith and Light—too confusing. Now it can be seen as "a fourth gathering," deepening friendship and bonds.
In Beirut, the movement set its priorities for the next five years: community, accompaniment, openness, renewal, visibility, new members. These are the words we must reflect on and work with. These guidelines will ensure unity. At the same time, each community will try to be more rooted in its local and ecclesial reality, better reflecting its culture and character—even in how we conduct our meetings, choosing songs, games, and prayers native to our environment.
In preparing for the international assembly, thirteen international vice-coordinators participated in two annual meetings with the international coordinator and spiritual assistant. During one of these meetings, we also confer with the movement's management board. Their role is to support and encourage provincial coordinators—visiting once a year, generally, to manage elections or formation, to listen and share, to always point back to the larger reality of the great family in which each province is embedded. The challenge is to help people look beyond their own setting and daily life. Vice-coordinators also gather needs and concerns from provincial vice-coordinators and bring them to the international council.
Nothing is overlooked. Everything invites reflection and exploration for further steps. Most importantly, through the network of friendships that forms, no one is left alone in their role.
How did you experience all these responsibilities? What were the positive and negative aspects? You worked with communities from different nations. What different fruits or paths did you see in each?
These years have been deeply rewarding and enriching. I always valued living our annual meetings in the most diverse places, especially where delicate or difficult realities needed to be shared. It wasn't easy to propose the international assembly in Beirut—perhaps it was a risk. But during the closing ceremony, when Ghislain handed over the envelope with our collected funds to our Syrian friends, I think everyone understood the value, the gift of our great family—able to act where only tragedy seems to exist. The Syrian communities can continue organizing their summer camps! Only those who live it can grasp the magnitude of this gift, the sign of hope and future it embodies, given before everyone, with tears all around.
Many changes have happened, and the evolution has been positive. Beyond what I've mentioned, it was crucial not to leave smaller realities alone—Galilee, Greece, Cyprus, and recently Albania. It's true they require significant commitment from Italian provinces. Yet their desire to be present and grow, their vitality, their gratitude for support received, greatly encourage our country, which shows signs of fatigue as some communities age. I was pleased to see this exchange's value during the youth gathering in Fano last summer.
Faith and Light: what is its reason for being?
Despite positive experiences of integration multiplying, people with disabilities still live in exclusion and loneliness. Faith and Light has not yet exhausted its role as messenger of joy and witness to the value and place every "young person" should have in society and the Church. The world walks a completely opposite path. It cannot understand, feel, or see. I believe our smile remains—the joy lived in our communities, which if made visible can still question and inspire others.
I think we're called to live our ecclesial belonging more deeply, perhaps joining parish or diocesan pastoral councils to say who we are and what our mission is. It's not enough to ask for a room, hold our meetings, and ignore dialogue with other parts of that reality. How do we live visibility and openness? I was deeply struck by a mime performed on the steps of St. Peter's during the jubilee of people with handicaps. Why not do something like that occasionally in our parish or nearby? It would say so much about who we are.
But if the families and friends who stay don't find the faith journey meaningful anymore, that's an open question we must sit with, reflect on, and ask for light.
Do you have memories of Faith and Light's founders, Jean Vanier and Marie-Hélène Mathieu?
The founders are true witnesses. I owe them much. The welcome, the attention to me as a person, the trust they gave me in different ways over time—this strength and courage have never let me give up.
Jean, the prophet of our time. Now that he can't lead retreats anymore, in his last letter he speaks of small projects still: making short videos about what he learned in Faith and Light and L'Arche. "I have learned to see the beauty and importance of the human family everywhere in the world and the beauty of each person. Each one carries a primary innocence, hidden deep within, but so often wounded by life that it becomes anger, aggression, depression, loss of self-trust. This innocence waits to be awakened so each of us can discover the meaning of our lives. Isn't this the purpose of our communities—to be transformed by the presence of those who have suffered humiliation?" Words that shine with respect for each person, love, tenderness, and self-gift.
Marie-Hélène was always tireless, a force of nature, with a capacity for work and determination that challenged anyone. She could push me beyond what I thought I could do. I remember that soon after my election as zone coordinator, she told me I had to go to Serbia to elect a coordinator for eight communities in a difficult region with both Catholics and Muslims. It was November 1998, and war was in the air. I tried to tell her maybe it wasn't the time, that we could postpone until things were safer, that I didn't feel ready to die for Faith and Light. But she wouldn't budge. Her only concession: we'd go in pairs. I met Marie-Noëlle from Paris in Belgrade, and we continued together. What a baptism! What an adventure! We found a desolate landscape, absolute poverty. Yet somehow we had a car to visit every community. Each welcomed us with a mime made from nothing—two scarves, some paper flowers, a tiny candle that somehow managed to shine in the dimness, a sign of hope and future despite everything. There was joy. There was wonder.
interview by Cristina Tersigni, 2018
Essential Glossary
Community: A group of 20–30 people.
Province: A collection of communities, usually within one country.
Zone: A section made up of several provinces, administered by international vice-coordinators.
Constitution: A document summarizing the principles of the International Movement.