"Come on, Mariangela, but how can I do this? I'm not capable... I'm different from you..."
"What does that have to do with it? We're all different. Come on, you'll see it's not so hard."
"But... Marta is little, I have so much to do, so many things on my mind..."
"We all have things on our minds. If that were the standard, nobody would ever do anything."
Every so often she would call me on the telephone because she wanted a Faith and Light community to start here in Milan too.
She had real persistence. Once she had something in mind, she never let go.
And when things finally began to move here, the phone calls kept coming, and her enthusiasm, her conviction, traveled through those wires and gave us energy, strength, new ideas. She was a volcano, Mariangela, and little by little she managed to transmit her passion to us—her enthusiasm for this thing that was beginning to take shape here and there. She knew that many mothers felt as alone as she did, as she still felt.
Mothers who wanted to see their children not avoided, not kept at a distance, but loved and honored as God's cherished sons and daughters—capable of giving love and helping us through their simplicity and natural goodness.
And so when the first community here took its first steps, she arrived from Rome with her young people, her mothers, their friends—all infected by her enthusiasm, ready to pass on the Faith and Light contagion that was beginning to spread through Milan too. That's what Mariangela called it. Because interest and the drive to join Faith and Light came only through contagion.
Mariangela had the gift of speaking from the heart. You could feel immediately that the force animating her would convince you, would help you. That's what happened to me, for many years. Thank you, sister.
Annamaria Mazzarotto, 2014