Pino
My dearest Pino, beloved son, holy and blessed by God and by your mother, as you liked to call me. You must be happy now to see your beloved family, your friends and relatives, all gathered to give you this final earthly farewell, here in the parish where you spent so much of your life, taking part in religious services, masses, and celebrations. You served Jesus at this altar with such joy in your heart, with all the peace and gentleness you possessed.
I remember one day when you came home and told me: "Mama, today I made a proposal to Jesus. I said to him: Listen Jesus, if you come down a little from that cross—you must be so tired—I'll take your place so you can rest a bit. But he, Mama, wouldn't leave that cross. But one day, you'll see, I'll convince him."
My dear son, how many times we saw you cry after receiving Holy Communion because you said Jesus spoke to your heart, but you weren't satisfied because you wanted to hear him with your own ears, face to face. You would always tell me: "Mama, please! Take me somewhere very high, close to heaven, maybe then I'll hear him." One day I wanted to make you happy, so your cousin Alba and I took you to a little church high up on a mountain and said: "Here, Pino, now we're really high, close to heaven. You can shout as much as you want and Jesus will surely hear you."
But you, drawn to that church, fell to your knees and prayed for a long time, then you told me: "Mama, I'm sure that this time Jesus truly heard me."
Now you're up there, where you always longed to be, asking Jesus to call you soon so you can embrace him and your father. At last you can be happy and celebrate this great day both up there and down here with all of us, present on this altar you loved, perhaps more than your own home. Now I, your brothers—the big brothers as you called them—your relatives, your friends, we all thank you for having lived your earthly life among us. I don't know where I'll find the strength now that you're gone. You were the staff of my old age, my company, my comfort. Now you carry a great piece of my heart with you, but I'm sure that even from up there you will always be present among us, and you will pass on the light you had to your brothers. I hold you tight, so tight in my heart forever.
Olga, your earthly mother
Giacomo
Hello Giacomo. I've been thinking for a while now that I should write to you, because since you left, we've all felt your absence keenly—myself and everyone in the community.
It's true that, sadly, we saw signs of your leaving coming long in advance. We grew distant, though only physically, because you were always present in our hearts during our times together as a community and beyond.
Your aches and your dancing heart didn't stop you, as long as you could, from taking an active part in community life. In fact, you always brought so much joy and clarity to our meetings. You made our journey easier—the journey we walk with and for our young people.
Today we recall with longing your powerful renditions of the "Alleluia of the Lightbulbs" before our pizza nights and shared dinners, your passion for opera, the great love that shone through in your tender behavior toward Luciana. I smiled at your gruff manner while, with such tenderness, you listened to Michela's scoldings, pretending to be angry but smiling happily in your heart. The attention you gave to everyone: parents, friends, and especially to the young people, to whom you passed on calm and the joy of living.
We were all so happy when you were with us!
I remember the long conversations you had with Giorgio, Silvano, and Enzo—your lifelong friends—and with all the rest of us who came later into our open family, our community. You were always generous with advice and open to any topic. When you told us about your work, your passion for it shone through in every word. You always sought to help those who needed it.
You were also an excellent cook. At our shared dinners you always brought some specialty, and when we asked out of curiosity, you'd give us the recipes seasoned with your own little secrets to make them turn out perfectly.
For all of this we must thank you, Giacomo. We will surely treasure your teachings. You were an example of how to live, and you'll always be present in our hearts.
In your new life experience, you'll surely benefit from all you lived through with us in the first part of your journey. And I'm certain that between one conversation and another with the "Big Chief," you'll manage to slip in a request for some small blessings for all of us "earthlings," and maybe a few extra for the great Fede e Luce family.
We love you, with deep affection
Your whole Community of Fatima
(Written together by Ary, Matteo, Luisa, Silvana, Mario, and Rosario, on behalf of the entire Community)
Natalia
Natalia
Dear Natalia,
I met you not long after my marriage to Francesco, when you had recently arrived in Italy. I felt in you—half Swiss—a certain foreign quality. Perhaps that's what bound us in a special way. We often compared Italy with our countries of origin, finding both advantages and weaknesses in each.
You were a woman of great elegance, in bearing and in spirit. You were always ready to find the positive and beautiful in what surrounded you. This helped me greatly as I searched for the best way to settle in and understand better the country where I had come to live. When I dared to voice a complaint about different customs or attitudes that didn't match my own habits, you never countered vehemently. Instead you would say: "But think about it…!"
Even in our discussions and sometimes heated exchanges of opinion in the editorial office, you would respond with your steady, innocent "But think about it…" which at first might irritate us, but which I later understood, was meant to ease tension and invite us to think more deeply and find solutions through reflection.
Your "but think about it" often led me to find a more open and welcoming path.
I remember once, during a car ride together to Ombre e Luci, when I was complaining about Rome's lack of bus schedules: "What a disgrace, what disorder, not knowing when the bus arrives!" You didn't respond with the obvious thing—that Rome's heavy traffic makes precise schedules impossible—but instead said: "But think about it…! Do you remember how nice that bus driver was who brought the au pair girl home at three in the morning? He changed his route and stayed late at the end of his shift, saving her from having to walk a long way by herself." I had hoped, with your Swiss background, to find an ally on my side. Instead you guided me with gentleness and grace toward seeing the good side of things right away!
You always showed your love for whatever work you did with deep personal commitment. You never held back and were always ready for new challenges.
As a mother, grandmother, wife, and daughter—even in difficult moments—everything you did was done with love, simplicity, and modesty. Thank you for this, and for your dedication to Ombre e Luci and its cause and to those in need—it was palpable but never boasted about.
Huberta Pott
Lucetta
Lucetta was a generous and sincere friend. She gave herself freely, rushing to wherever she sensed a need for attention, welcome, listening, and genuine friendship. She understood and shared the suffering of those less fortunate, those living in loneliness with their disability. Lucetta let that suffering move her and worked to ease it with her presence, by standing beside them. This care characterized her entire life.
Following a visit from Belgian Jesuit Father Roberti, who came to Parma to proclaim the spirituality of the Fede e Luce movement, she founded, together with Father Francesco Marchini, the community gathering called "SS. Innocenti"—one of the first Italian communities bringing together people with mental disabilities, their families, and friends. A few years later, another Parma community, "Amici insieme," also joined Fede e Luce.
Lucetta was drawn to the message of Jesus's preference for the "little ones," for the marginalized, for those who count for nothing but who have the gift of transforming the hearts of those who welcome them and enter into communion with them. Fragile health had shaped her life's journey. To receive treatment, she had to leave home periodically, far from her loved ones. This gave her reason to deepen what truly matters in life and to question her relationship with God, with life and death, and with others.
She found answers to these questions in listening to and pondering God's Word, in prayer, in meeting the message of Jean Vanier. In a reality dominated by appearance, competition, and division, fragility is the space where God can intervene to restore unity and bring peace to the heart. God takes this seriously and loves each person "just as they are." Through community—places of tenderness and love—each person recovers trust in themselves and in others, discovers their own gifts often hidden, and is encouraged to share them.
I met Lucetta around 1980, and I must say she knew how to pass on to me her passion for Fede e Luce. In the years that followed, through exchanges with her and Father Francesco, the community in Fidenza also decided to join the movement.
The strongest teaching I received from her was not to let myself be paralyzed by the difficulties and fragility that each of us carries and experiences within ourselves. She loved to weave together, nurture, and cultivate those relationships that she considered essential, indeed vital to communion—the greatest good. She struggled to accept anything that wasn't precise, beautiful, and prepared with care down to the smallest detail. Yes, for her young people she always wanted the best because she was certain they deserved it. This was her style, whether at work as a teacher or in the community.
Lately her health made it impossible for her to serve the community as she would have wished. But despite the difficulties, whenever she could, she would visit families who could no longer leave home because of age or illness. She continued to be present, expressing her closeness through a visit, a greeting, a newly arrived letter from Jean Vanier… And that was her joy!
Lucia Casella
We have received from the coordinator of the Fede e Luce communities in Campania a letter sent to the "Mattino di Napoli." We publish here a summary; the full text can be read at www.fedeeluce.it
The incident reported in the "Mattino" on the 9th of this month—"He is autistic, communion was denied to him"—is a study in loneliness.
Fabrizio's loneliness. His mother's loneliness and that of his family. The loneliness of the Jesuits. The loneliness of the parish community of Villa S. Luigi. The loneliness of Fede e Luce. The loneliness of those who wrote the separate pieces of that story.
We do not wish to justify what happened. But we do not wish to fall into the trap of wielding the powerful rhetorical capital that lies hidden in that article. That leads only to cultivating negative attitudes that block new possible relationships. Pope Benedict XVI, in November 2012, invited Jean Vanier to Rome to teach catechesis to the Roman clergy—a catechesis meant for both healthy and disabled people alike. So there is no need to call for a format reserved only for the disabled. A careful reading of what is readily available on the internet would have allowed the journalists to spread the message of Fede e Luce with greater accuracy.
Fede e Luce does not run catechism courses. It does not run camps or schools. It does not provide social services.
It is true that Fede e Luce was born so that parents would not be alone, but so they could connect with other forms of life and gain the inner knowledge that "the weakest, the most despised, are truly important for humanity and for the Church."
It is therefore necessary to clarify that Fede e Luce is present in Campania thanks to Father Jesuit Enrico Cattaneo, with four communities in four parishes: S. Maria di Piedigrotta, the Church of Maria SS. del Buon Consiglio of the Augustinian fathers at the Vomero, in Cardito at the parish of the Redeemer, and in Acerra. The communities become visible in the parish's life by sometimes enlivening the liturgies and gathering in its spaces for twice-monthly meetings.
Fabrizio's mother's desolation and indignation could find in the Fede e Luce journey an answer to breaking free from isolation—in the knowledge that "her son is truly a person and that God loves him too." Fabrizio's mother and family, and first and foremost Fabrizio himself, would discover in our meetings the reality of a human movement nourished by the Spirit and striving to put the Gospel into practice. "To create a Fede e Luce community you don't need so much money as you need the desire to gather, to form a group of people willing to make a mutual commitment."
The strength of Fede e Luce communities lies in friendship. But "if we want Fede e Luce to become a dynamic, living, and missionary reality, it is not only the young people but also the parents who must heed God's call to transform their hearts and open them to the Gospel, so they might discover a path of peace and union with Jesus." Fede e Luce therefore rests on a threefold calling: that of the young person with a disability, that of their family, and that of their friends.
Bruno Galante
The italicized passages are taken from the book by M. H. Mathieu and J. Vanier Never Alone Again