Amelia Mazzitelli should have written this article herself, telling the story of how she encountered the world of disability from her vantage point as a sister in Unitalsi, where she served for thirty years, eventually becoming national vice president. She helped breathe new life into an association founded in 1903 to transport the "sick" to Lourdes, an organization that now centers its mission on prayer and service alongside people who are ill, disabled, or struggling.
I write it instead—a sister in Unitalsi and friend of Fede e Luce—because Amelia departed this life at dawn on March 17, the Sunday of the Transfiguration. A coincidence, a "God-cidence," as she might have called it, that speaks volumes about her and her relationship with suffering, and about how her service to those she loved to call "our smaller friends" had transfigured her, them, and everything around them.
"The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve," Jesus says. Amelia lived those words fully, without hesitation in witnessing them. This is how she drew so many people to Unitalsi—with maternal tenderness and magnetic grace. She welcomed everyone: people of every kind, carrying any illness, handicap, or burden of the heart. She walked with them, accompanied them, with that genuine smile of someone who knew deep down that we are, despite everything, beloved children and instruments in God's hands.
You arrive convinced you have something to give, but then you understand that what you receive is far more than what you give. Amelia said this always. To step aside, to welcome, to walk together: whether you are healthy or sick, handicapped or whole, young or old, you can always love. That is what service is—love. And love can be expressed in countless ways.
Serving does not mean stealing time from those we love. It means opening wider, building bridges between people, tearing down the walls we construct without even noticing.
Serving does not mean stealing time from those we love. It means opening wider, building bridges between people, tearing down the walls we construct without even noticing.
To serve and care for both those you serve and those who serve alongside you—that is an extra measure of grace. How many times I heard Amelia remind us to pay attention to our companions in service. It's easy, she would say, to comfort and forgive someone with obvious limits—someone who cannot walk or speak or hear or see or understand. Far harder to do the same for someone who seems just like us. That is where we can be truly merciless. When you learn to see the invisible within the people whose paths cross yours, when you begin to listen with your heart—that is where service and love transfigure you. As Amelia let herself be transfigured, finding meaning even in the deepest sorrow a mother can bear. When she became mother to a son in heaven and a son on earth, she never stopped serving, embracing, and entering into the stories of others.
When she too took flight to heaven, her son Sergio—in a church overflowing with love and tears—found the most beautiful words: "Thank you for your example of love, giving your time to others. Especially to all our friends in Unitalsi, who were always a second family to you. As I grew up, I came to understand that you weren't taking time away from me—you were teaching me how to love."
Sergio was right. Serving does not mean stealing time from those we love. It means opening wider, building bridges between people, tearing down the walls we construct without even noticing, walls we build to protect ourselves, only to discover that protection leads nowhere but decay. Amelia would not let sorrow destroy her or let her innate sense of beauty rot away. She remained strong, gentle, and beautiful like Mary at the foot of the cross, like the mothers of Fede e Luce I have spoken of so often. In giving herself to others, Amelia lived her femininity, her natural grace, her aesthetic sense, and her booming laugh—along with her endless cigarettes—with fullness, in faith and service.
This was service for Amelia. In Fede e Luce, we don't use the word "service." We prefer to speak of friendship, because we worry that serving the young people and their families might cheapen genuine friendship into absent charity. From Amelia's testimony, I conclude exactly the opposite. Life, friendship, affection, work, relationships—all become service when we live them fully with the eyes of the heart. That is the whole point. It comes down to the angle from which you choose to see life. That is what makes the difference between living and merely surviving.
I was fortunate to share pilgrimages and summer camps with Amelia. I received the gift of her friendship. For me, it was a service her soul rendered to mine, as she did for so many others who remain indebted to her for love and attention. I had the privilege of sharing wonderful moments with her these past months. Her absence weighs heavily, and yet it is clear that I must not waste her legacy—her presence for everyone, for each one. I close with words from Saint Paul that she often repeated, words that describe her path: "I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me."