Dear Mariangela, thank you for your letter, which brings comfort in a sorrow so vast it remains your sorrow too. Thank you for remembering our son, who is always with us, as dear to our hearts as on the day we first heard his cry.
God, in His infinite mercy, called him home at the very moment when Andrea had rediscovered His Light, and for this we give Him thanks. We are grateful too that He gave us the great gift of friends around us who, through the strength of their Faith, taught us to walk our path of thorns with peace and reach toward Him.
I am certain that Chicca and Andrea and Gabriella and Alessandro help us with their prayers and are near us, weaving that invisible web made of shared Faith and love that binds us beyond ordinary friendship. We will certainly come to Rome, and I am doubly glad to promise it because Monica's improvement now allows it—she is jumping on my knees and letting me write only these scratchy lines.
We will be three insignificant grains of sand, but I am sure that with your example, we too can be of some use and live with you moments of dedication and joy with our children. Our great sadness is seeing you so rarely, but we feel you near us in our thoughts, and that is enough.
We are eager to leave for Lourdes to kneel before Mary and ask Her to help us not look back at what we have suffered, but to give us strength to look always higher, where our son's smile calls us. Lourdes, where we will feel much regret, remembering that a few years ago Andrea was with us there too.
I cried that day, embracing my two children before the Virgin, not knowing how much I should have been happy instead! I did not yet understand the richness that Monica carries within her, nor how important her presence would become in our life. The love, the devotion she has awakened in all of us, helped us build with Andrea that wonderful bond of understanding and openness so dear to our hearts. Never, as in this time, have we grasped how good the Lord was in giving us a daughter like Monica. We are proud to be her parents. And we are proud to be Andrea's parents too, even though our regret is deep and our sorrow immense.
Jesus taught us a beautiful prayer: "Lord, Your will be done." Remember us as we remember you, and thank you for your words.
Yours, Maria, Enea, and Monica (Parma)
On February 18, 1858, the day of the third apparition, the Virgin spoke for the first time: "Will you do me the grace of coming here..." She desired that Bernadette return to the grotto.
For two weeks I searched for words to say to those who act only on human "common sense"—that the Madonna's invitation is meant for each of us as well. Maria Varoli found those words, I believe. And they need no explanation.
Mariangela