Trust cannot really be discussed. Trust is lived, and once lived, it stays with you forever. We lose our footing so easily. But how do we hold on to faith in ourselves, in God, and in each other? Trust and hope are nearly the same thing. They emerge in the darkest moments, in moments almost unbearable to endure. In those moments, we feel something larger than ourselves that lets us carry on.
It's a force, but you can't say where it comes from. I believe it reaches us through the people we know—parents, friends, and someone else: the One who lives within us. Even when we want nothing more to do with Him, He holds us up and tells us: "Go forward. Do not be afraid."
My Mother's Smile
I was fourteen when I discovered—through my mother, in that moment—this possible presence in each of us, this mysterious wellspring. My father died suddenly at forty-five. Five minutes. He left behind a family of ten children, five boys and five girls, and a small mother, outwardly fragile but immense in her goodness. We lived in northern Italy; my father died in Rome. I waited for my mother to come home, asking myself: "What will happen now? Will she weep? Will she dress entirely in black? Will we never laugh and sing and dance in this house again?" I saw her arrive. She was smiling. She embraced us, still smiling, and said: "I have great faith in you. Help me."
In that moment, through my mother's smile, I understood something profoundly important: weeping, sorrow, anguish, despair—these are easy. We all have reasons to cry in life. Many reasons. We could cry for a long time, cry always, stay there forever pitying ourselves. But the hardest reaction is to smile. To smile in hours of great pain and great grief. Not a foolish smile, but one that says: "Life, no matter what happens, is always worth living." I say this not because I have escaped suffering. We all know what suffering is. It is not beautiful. It seems all darkness. Saint Francis of Assisi wrote his beautiful Canticle of the Creatures when he was already blind.
The Painful Years
We were engaged for seven years because we had no money. We would say: we'll marry next year, next year, and then the year after that, and time just slipped away. Finally we decided to marry with nothing at all. Yet we were happy. Two months later, I was expecting a child. The joy was complete, because we both wanted this so much. The pregnancy lasted longer than usual. We were already in the tenth month when our daughter was born. I heard a cry different from other babies' cries. I thought: "That's strange."
When they showed her to me, I understood that something was wrong. The nurses kept saying: "She's beautiful. She's fine. She's fine." But I stayed worried. I was sad. The doctors assured me she was normal. Yet from the moment of her birth, we knew she wasn't what we had expected. At one year old, she weighed almost nothing. She didn't eat. She didn't sleep. It was bewildering. They told us she couldn't see and couldn't understand. And it wasn't true!
We moved forward as best we could. My husband was steadier than me. Very strong, very brave. He helped me when I fell into a kind of paralysis. I didn't even dare cry. I shut myself away completely. I taught. I did everything I needed to do (thanks to one of my sisters, who cared for Maria Francesca each morning), but I hid my daughter. Paolo, more open and generous than I was, loved Maria Francesca as she was. I didn't. I was in terrible rebellion. I didn't know how to love her. She was there, but I couldn't reach her. I didn't know how.
Nanni, three years younger than his sister, was always so tender and attentive toward her, suffered from the situation—though I didn't notice. He helped me escape my inner prison, especially the day he walked into the kitchen at four years old and asked me: Mama, why do you never smile?
We Go to Lourdes
Maria Francesca was about eight years old when my husband said to me: "If you want, let's go to Lourdes." We went with her. My heart was more closed than ever. I had no faith at all. And yet, I had spoken to the Blessed Virgin throughout those eight years, even with my heart shut. I told her everything: "You can't understand me. This never happened to you." Sometimes I accused her, sometimes I begged: "Help me. If you can, help me!" I never abandoned the Lord or His Mother. I kept them, somehow, in my heart. I think they heard me, even if it wasn't visible right away.
At Lourdes, what my husband calls "the small great miracle" took place. I was very dark inside. One day Sophie's mother passed by and handed me a slip of paper. Back at the hotel, I read it: "Madam, if you wish, come to a meeting of parents of handicapped children." I told my husband: "If you want to go, you go. I don't need it." My husband insisted: "No, you should go," and I went—with Maria Francesca!
In that moment, I understood I was no longer alone. Until then, I truly believed I was the only mother in the world with a child like mine. There I saw other parents with very demanding, very difficult children. In that place was a weight of suffering that cannot be described without becoming indecent.
During the meeting, the mother who had invited us said: "There is no point in weeping. We must find mothers like ourselves, help them leave their houses, help them." Suddenly, the assistant began to sing the Magnificat in French (I was the only Italian there). I will never forget it for the rest of my life. I was absorbed by that song. I said to myself: "If these parents can sing, 'The Lord has done great things for me,' something is wrong. Either they are mad, or I understand nothing." And then I found that I was singing too—with some difficulty, but singing with them. That song set me free. It opened, just a little, a heart that had been, I think, like stone for years and years. Finally I wept.
Returning to Rome with my husband, we wanted to share the message we had received. We realized that we had never encountered children like Maria Francesca—not on the street, not in church, not in shops, nowhere. Following Paolo's idea, strengthened by Lourdes, I went to see my parish priest.
—Listen, you know my daughter.
—Yes.
—In our parish, are there other children like her or not? How many people live in this parish?
—27,000.
—Only one handicapped child? That seems very few.
—I don't know of any others.
I went home.
A School for Maria Francesca
A mother from Lourdes wrote to me often: "Have you found anyone in Rome?" I would answer: "No, no one." Then one day a friend called: "I know where you can take your daughter. There's a school for her." I didn't believe it: "That's not possible. They've always told me there's nothing for her." But my friend insisted: "Go. You'll see that you can take her there."
The first visit to this center shook me. The school was called "Serena," but that name had nothing to do with reality. It seemed a mockery of the one hundred twenty children and adults there—what Rome calls "the most severe." And this is where I was supposed to leave my daughter! If I had followed my instinct, I would have said: "Never in my life. Impossible!" My husband and I hesitated greatly. We said to ourselves: "But where are these young people's parents? How do they live? Who helps them?"
We decided to send Maria Francesca to this school partly to meet other parents.
Our Second Chapter Begins
When we returned from Lourdes, we felt that our daughter should receive the Body of the Lord. It was in our hearts as a very deep desire—nothing sentimental about it. We had spoken of it often. It's hard to explain: for Paolo and me, it was essential to finding the strength to continue, to go forward. At Lourdes they had told us: "If you wish, we can give your daughter Communion." We refused, because when we went home, everything would end there. It wasn't worth it.
A Child of God
Perhaps someone won't understand, but I want to say what I felt in my depths. Before me was a child no one cared about, a child about whom almost no one ever asked. The temptation—often very strong, very painful—was this: Is she a child? She has never spoken a word. How could I discover in her expression the words I longed to hear with my whole heart: "I love you, Mama"? I needed someone to tell me: "She is God's daughter like everyone else, entirely." For me, the sign of that belonging was that Maria Francesca receive the Body of Christ.
I began to meet various priests I knew and ask them this question. They would always ask me: "But does she understand?" And I would answer: "I need you to tell me: Is she God's daughter? And you keep asking me if she understands anything! If the child could understand, I wouldn't be here!"
What I absolutely did not want was for priests to agree out of pity: "Well, let's do it—poor mother, she's crying, she needs this." No! I wanted them to be truly convinced. My husband went back to the parish priest, who was deeply moved and spent an entire night searching through his theology books for the answer to our question. He concluded there was no formal prohibition.
We prepared this event, so fundamental to us, through prayer. Finally came the great celebration of Maria Francesca's Communion—in a way, the second miracle of our lives. We thought: "We will walk with her, and we will present her before others."
I owe much to my husband. He was not ashamed. He would take her out. I did not have the courage. It was very hard because everyone would turn and stare and comment. Once at the beach, I saw people make a detour to look at her more closely.
After the great mystery of the Body of Christ entered into her, we felt a great surge forward. Some friends began to visit us at home. They spent time with us, helped us, invited us. I couldn't understand. I was almost dazed to see that gradually, it was she who drew people to us. But the hope growing in us had to be shared. It was necessary. Even though the suffering remained, we lived differently now, with many beautiful moments. We found ourselves forty people eating together, sitting on the floor! The house was open to everyone.
We said to ourselves: "If Maria Francesca does this, we must tell others." This was when Marie-Hélène Mathieu and Jean Vanier arrived in Rome in 1975 and astounded us with the pilgrimage of Faith and Light. It was an extraordinary event, full of wonder, but when the pilgrims left, we said: "Now we must really start Faith and Light!"
Trusting in Each Other
The most severely handicapped people gave us the faith we needed to begin. They, who can do nothing, trust us. They are in one person's arms, then pass into another's, and then another's. We carry them here and there. We transport them. And they never say anything. They are true experts in trusting others.
We also met parents who hadn't left their homes in fifteen years! These things are invisible, but it's the pure truth. By "leaving home" I don't mean going shopping at the store downstairs. I mean taking a trip, going on holiday!
The young people contributed greatly. They too gave us their trust. We truly don't know how they managed to leave their homes to come to us. Not just once a month—that was far too little for them. They would say: "But if we only come once a month, we're not really helping you."
It was an encounter of friendship so deep that it seems like a miracle on earth. I wonder how it's possible that young people who study medicine, who work, who go to school, find free Saturday afternoons or Sundays to take difficult children with them and bring them everywhere, with joy—you might even say carefree joy. They walk down the street, take the bus, go to churches and parishes, play. And for some mothers, this was a call to profound conversion. When you convert toward the Lord, you convert toward everything around you. There is a new direction for beginning your life in another way.
When suffering comes, we look for someone to blame. We begin to hurl stones at God, saying: "You wanted this. I don't love you anymore. I have a child like this, and I want nothing more to do with you." This happened to us, and it happens to almost everyone, even those who have not suffered so greatly.
But it is not His fault. And to discover that He is not the cause, what must we go through? One day you discover that God is good through your brothers and sisters who give a special love.
Eternity Before Us
The most important thing for a Christian is to witness that joy and suffering can exist together. It is terribly difficult to live. It is possible only insofar as we trust in the One who gave us the example and can help us, if we rely on Him. I cannot speak without emotion of the third chapter of Maria Francesca's life, so painful for us.
When, in 1978, the Faith and Light communities set out for Assisi for the first Italian pilgrimage, Maria Francesca, who took part before undergoing cancer surgery, gave her silent farewell to the six hundred pilgrims: "Farewell. I have left you my message. What I wanted to say, I have said. Now I must do other things."
What she shared with us, with all her love, is that children like her have, mysteriously, a prophetic message for today's world. We have lived it, and we believe it. "They" have something very important to tell us. Before them, we cannot speak in terms of the future anymore.
We have eternity before us. This is why they help us convert continuously, day after day, to the message of the Beatitudes that Jesus left for us.
Mariangela Bertolini, 2014
from a lecture given in Paris for the OCH, 1980s
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