Here I am again, stepping into a role I honestly wish she were still filling. It's obvious. But for this issue, at least—our double edition—everything is dedicated to Mariangela.
This special is our way of remembering what we lived through together, making space for others in our hearts, letting those who only heard her name or read her articles in our magazine come to know her a little. We're not ending the conversation here. Rather, we're determined not to let slip away too easily the message she bore witness to, the path she walked, the direction she showed us. Perhaps it's too soon for many of us who knew her well. But we tried. We gathered what she had written or said, woven together with the memories of those who knew her. Memories near and far in time. Fragments of life and moments of personal encounter with her.
For thirty years, these pages almost always carried something from her—a message, a testimony both tender and authoritative. A message that offered a new way of seeing the reality we live in. A testimony that often reached us with an invitation—sometimes gentle, sometimes urgent—to become fully part of this reality, each one of us, without exception, bringing whatever small or great gifts we possess. A message able to show us what in this reality we must painfully accept and what we might dare to change, even boldly, sometimes ambitiously.
These messages and testimonies drew their power from a heart—hers—that weathered storms and moments of grace. A heart nourished above all by the love of those around her, especially by the man who stood at her side for over fifty years.
A heart fed by a rigorous faith—the discipline to give proper order and necessary time to prayer, reading, meditation, and conversation.
A heart that could see from below, that perceived the needs and wonders of the smallest ones. A heart that could reach toward the Father like a child, especially when He seemed distant, never stopping her search, her call, and finding Him in those near to her and finally within herself.
She truly sought out so many "neighbors." She engaged seriously, fully, willing to walk even a short distance with each one.
She marveled at the gift of wonder in the smallest meeting or gesture.
A heart that could sense the movements of those around her, even those who hardly showed it. A heart that read silences and truth in both the simplest and most complicated words.
Not an angelic heart, despite her name. Imperfect. Impatient. Easily hurt. Sometimes utopian. But aware of her limits—and because of that awareness, able to console others and help bring about things that seemed impossible at first.
Through the struggles she lived, she testified that the Cross becomes the possibility of redemption.
A heart that bore witness to following Jesus, knowing that He transforms our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. A heart like an inkwell—one that knew how to let us share her journey and make us its continuers, leading us down other roads, always beside the weakest, in many different ways, each at our own pace, toward places perhaps only now waiting to be discovered.
Cristina Tersigni, 2014