Cristina Acquistapace remains the only consecrated religious with Down syndrome that we know of in Italy. Ombre e Luci interviewed her in issue 2/2009. We have drawn several passages from a video produced by the National Center for Vocations, in which Cristina helps us reflect on the meaning of a true vocation and the steps necessary to answer a calling that demands, as she says, a complete response.
My parents raised me not as if I were normal, but as their daughter.
I was blessed to go to Africa, to the mission where my aunt is a nun. I saw great poverty there, but I also experienced the greatest joy a person can ever know—the joy of a vocation, of a calling, a special calling.
The biggest shock, I think, came to my parents when I spoke not just of vocation but of consecration. "What are you consecrating yourself to do?" they asked me. I told my mother, "Have you understood that I have to live my life, not yours? When God calls, half measures don't work!"
It wasn't easy. The church wasn't ready yet.
And I only made it because of certain people I met along the way—like Bishop Oscar Cantoni of Crema, who oversaw vocations at that time.
You know how it is when you decide to hike in the mountains? You reach a point where there are many small paths, and you don't know which way to go, which vocation to choose. Then, from a distance, a figure draws near and says: Follow me! What do you do? You can follow or not. But as you climb higher, you see the most beautiful landscapes. You see people. You try to live your story, your vocation among them, within your own story. In the end, you arrive together with others in a beautiful meadow full of flowers, and you gather what you have sown throughout your life. If you have sown love, you reap love. If you have sown wind, you reap a storm. I believe that hell and heaven are things we choose for ourselves, things we build. It is we who decide them, using well or poorly the freedom the Lord has given us. That's all there is to it.
Having chromosome 21 is somewhat complicated. (…) I don't know if you realize that we have a Father in heaven who delights in taking his child into his arms. So why deny him this great joy? Let yourself be held.
We have to abandon the land of toys we live in. We have to grow up. We have to grow up. We cannot be Peter Pan forever."
Cristina Acquistapace, 2016