Annamaria De Rino, 87, was there at the beginning of Faith and Light in Italy. Speaking at a vigil in Milan held in memory of Jean Vanier, she recalls: "I didn't have much personal contact with him. It was my sister Mariangela who, in those early days, shared with us everything she absorbed from him—above all, this new way of seeing the world and the people in it. It truly divided the history of our family: before Faith and Light, and after. I'm so grateful to God for putting him in our path." Mariangela Bertolini had joined her family on pilgrimages to Lourdes; on the second trip—it was 1969—she met Friquette, mother of Sophie, a child with severe disabilities. Friquette invited her to a gathering of parents raising children with similar conditions—"very demanding, very difficult," as Mariangela would later write, "in a situation that carried a weight of suffering you cannot describe without becoming unseemly"—and this invitation became the turning point in her life as mother of Chicca, a child facing equal struggles. Friquette asked the parents gathered there to find others like themselves, to bring them out of their homes. At last, an unforgettable Magnificat rose from the hearts of these parents. Mariangela wondered if something were wrong—"either they're mad or I understand nothing"—but then she too began to sing, releasing tears she had held back for so long. That moment drove her and her husband Paolo to seek out other families like theirs when they returned to Rome. Even after long hesitation, she enrolled Chicca in a special school—partly to meet other parents who otherwise stayed hidden and shut away in their homes. Meanwhile, Friquette kept the parents they'd met at Lourdes connected through periodic letters.
This was the fertile ground Jean recognized in Mariangela one February day in 1974. He and Faith and Light needed an Italian coordinator to organize the pilgrimage for the 1975 Jubilee. Jean, Marie Hélène Mathieu, and Mariangela found themselves guests of Mother Ida Maria. The nun was one of the few Italians who had attended the first great Faith and Light pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1971. It was she—according to accounts from Marie Hélène—who insisted strongly that a new pilgrimage be organized for the Holy Year. Father Renzo del Fante, one of the Italian delegates, would later say it was this spark that ignited the movement in Italy. Among the friends and volunteers Mother Ida wanted to introduce to the two founders was Mariangela herself—a teacher and mother of a third child only months old. Mariangela spoke fluent French and sat beside Marie Hélène. At the end of lunch, Jean came over and they talked together. That, as Lucia Bertolini—82, Mariangela's sister and part of a family whose life had become woven through with Faith and Light—would later recall, may have been the moment when Jean presented himself as "an envoy of the Lord sent to our country to serve as a midwife, to bring to light a new thing that lay hidden in the hearts of so many people. It was a longing—no, a desperate need—for closeness, for mutual aid, for support, for friendship, for a little joy. Because he was the Lord's envoy, his help was decisive, full of authority, understanding, and love. And so the first communities of Faith and Light were born in Italy.
"So many years have passed. Are we satisfied? We know you don't stand still—you move forward or slip back. It's true that much has changed in society, but there are few churches where what Vanier dreamed of is visible."
"So many years have passed. Are we satisfied? We know you don't stand still—you move forward or slip back. It's true that much has changed in society, but there are few churches where what Vanier dreamed of is visible."
It was Jean's insight and persistence from that very first meeting that moved Mariangela to accept the role of Italian coordinator for Faith and Light and to organize the Jubilee pilgrimage in Rome. Together with other families and friends like Nicole Schultes and religious figures like Sister Italia Valle, they legally established the association Faith and Light in Italy on November 18, 1974. The first communities sprouted: Rome, starting with some parents Mariangela had met at Chicca's school. Then Vercelli, Cuneo, Milan—with the help of Anna Maria and her husband Sergio—and Parma and Abano. At the heart of these gatherings was the very theme chosen for the pilgrimage itself: "Reconciliation Between the Church and the World of Disability." After the Jubilee, Faith and Light in Italy continued to spread its light, in part through the innovative experience of summer camps—something new for that era.
"So many years have passed," Anna Maria reflects. "And now… do we still do Faith and Light? Are we satisfied? We know you don't stand still—you move forward or slip back. It's true that much has changed in society, in the way people feel about things, but there are few churches where what Jean Vanier dreamed of is truly visible. Who knows—perhaps now he can do something even greater. Maybe organize a beautiful celebration in Paradise!"