Some people face their disability without surrender. As they grow, they learn to fight for the ideals they believe in—and that fight becomes a calling. A vocation to follow Christ in chastity, poverty, and obedience. Thirty years ago, Maria Grazia, a young woman in a wheelchair, asked the Secular Institute of the Little Apostles of Charity if she could join their order and follow Christ as they did. For three decades, the institute resisted her request. But they came to recognize her vocation was genuine. In 2001, Il Roveto opened in Sant'Ilario di Nerviano, near Milan—a barrier-free house that welcomed four women in wheelchairs with spastic tetraplegia (Maria Grazia, Laura, Nunzia, and Francesca) and other sisters who chose this path of consecrated life. Sister Anna Maria tells their story.
I live in Nerviano, near Milan, in the Community of the Secular Institute of the Little Apostles of Charity, alongside eight sisters. Four of them live with severe physical disability. They move about in electric wheelchairs and use computers to write and communicate, with sophisticated assistive technology to help them.
Their story stretches back years, and it is remarkable. In the Church, they are the only people with grave motor disability welcomed into a Secular Institute of Consecrated Women and living in religious community. Through the Association "La Nostra Famiglia," where three of them received rehabilitation and breathed in the spirituality of its Founder, Blessed Luigi Monza—a spirituality rooted in the charity of the early Christians and in the "smallness" of a grain of wheat—they came to feel, through the work of the Holy Spirit, that God was calling them to give their lives to the Lord through vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
It is true: the Lord does not look at appearances, but at the heart, and He speaks to the heart. "Every day I feel the joy of knowing myself called by Him, who is the rock of my life. He is my Lord. His nearness in prayer, in hearing His Word, in the Eucharist—all of this gives me courage to go on."
—Nunzia
Knowing that God shows special love for the small and the weak, and with the support of Monsignor Luigi Serenthà, our beloved Cardinal of Milan Carlo Maria Martini, and don Giuseppe Beretta (who continues to guide the Community with great passion and care), they began their journey of total self-gift to God in consecrated life in September 2002. They were welcomed into the Institute of the Little Apostles of Charity. Fourteen years after entering the Institute, they witness to the world that "nothing is impossible with God"—words that Maria Grazia, the oldest of the sisters, loves to repeat.
On September 24, 2015, Laura, Nunzia, Francesca, and Maria Grazia celebrated their tenth anniversary of Consecration.
Blessed Luigi Monza used to say: "It is not what we do that matters, but the spirit with which we do it—even the simplest action." Francesca, Laura, Maria Grazia, and Nunzia are a powerful and vital presence in the lives of people in this town. Their peace, their attentiveness to others' suffering, their promise to hold people in prayer, their full participation in the life of the parish, their love for one another—all of this speaks louder than any words or pastoral initiative ever could.
Their presence stirs many people to offer volunteer help: transportation, repairs to their orthopedic equipment, care of the house, and much more.
In my life as a consecrated secular, I feel called from deep in my heart to bear witness to a credible life—to reach out to others and help them, showing sensitivity and care toward the struggles I learn about, and praying for them with all my heart.
—Francesca
This is also a witness to the Church: people with disability are not merely subjects needing care and assistance. They are people who can offer their gifts to make society more human, more attuned to the last and the different. They are fountains of spiritual riches—a call to solidarity, to listening—skills that grow rarer every day.
We are always happy to welcome anyone who wishes to know us and spend time with us.
Anna Maria Viganò
Most people assume that disabled people approach life and its choices in a completely different way from those without disability. But the truth is simpler: every person is unique and faces life in their own way. The meaning we find in life, the choices we make—these depend on who we are, what values we hold, and how we respond to what happens to us. That holds whether we are disabled or not. When I—someone with spastic-dystonic tetraplegia—finished my teacher training, I asked myself what to do with my life. But I did not say, "I am disabled, so that and that are impossible." Instead, I stayed open to every possibility. I put my personhood first, and my handicap second. Someone else in my situation might have done the opposite.
There are people who live their disability with anger, insisting only on the rights it gives them. Others worry only about their own interests and fear the future, leaving their responsibilities to others. Still others let life happen to them, drowning in self-pity. But there are also disabled people who make their lives a gift: through their work, through marriage if possible, and now through consecrated life too. This is true for those with physical disability, who have full freedom to decide their own path. But I also want to say this: even people with mental disability, whether their difficulties are grave or mild, deserve to have their human dignity protected and to be helped to live a life of dignity. Only by saying yes to the Lord have I found true freedom.
Now, with my sisters—disabled and not—we try to live the charity of the early Christians, to love one another. We bear witness to everyone we meet that it is beautiful to live in love. People seek love, self-realization, joy—all in different ways. I have found them. I caught a glimpse of them in God. And seeking His Love, discovering it more deeply each day in my life, living it in relationship with others—this gives meaning to my whole existence.
Mercy goes far beyond forgiveness of sin. It is the driving force. If it had been left to me, I would have stopped at the first contradiction—inside me or outside me. But God has shown me, and continues to show me, that there is always a way forward, always a way to live through contradictions and daily struggles, so that they resolve according to God's way. It takes trust in the Lord to see contradictions healed.
These two brushstrokes are key: mercy and a fresh start. They color and give movement to everything else—the struggles, the joys, the work, our sisterhood, our prayer, our apostolate. Together they paint a colorful picture that forms my following of Christ.
I close with one final, great brushstroke—words from Blessed Luigi Monza. They represent the highest ideal I long to reach, the goal I still journey toward: "That charity which does not stop halfway, but knows how to go all the way because the will guides it, and knows how to see in enemies the friends they are, that knows how to lose itself so it can give itself more fully to others." This is the highest ideal of Love. It is vivid red. It is the Love of Jesus Himself.
Laura, 2016