Among my many memories of Mariangela—vivid even now, years after I left Fede e Luce—one returns to me whenever I pray Psalm 126.
Only hours before her daughter Francesca died, Mariangela leaned close and whispered these verses in my ear, words she often repeated: "Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. They go out weeping, carrying the seed to be sown; they come back singing, carrying their sheaves" (Psalm 126:5-6). Then she added: this psalm is about us.
Mariangela was not thinking only of herself and her husband Paolo. She spoke for all the families living through the same trial. A woman of faith, resolve, and courage, she knew that at the heart of Christian hope lives the One who walks with us into our darkest solitudes and brings meaning and fruitfulness to what, by human measure, appears barren and senseless.
In the name of this hope, Mariangela fought her whole life to give courage to those who had every reason to despair. She worked as no one else has to birth and nurture Fede e Luce into the great family it became. Long before Pope Francis recalled it in his beautiful apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, she knew—from living it in her own flesh and in the lives of the families she so often accompanied and upheld—that a saving mystery dwells in the poor.
Thank you, Mariangela, for letting me understand this and for casting such a particular light across my life as a priest. Thank you to all the friends of Fede e Luce I met in those days and carry always in my prayers.
Monsignor Pierre Debergé, 2014