Every Saturday evening, with Luca and Garrett, I go to visit the elderly and sick who live in an assisted-living facility in the Roman neighborhood of the Magliana. Two of these persons are Raphael and Vittorio, who share a room and, at first sight, are very different from one another. Vittorio, Roman, for all of his life worked close to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. Not living in the area, one of his passions was to go by foot around the Eternal City. How many times has he told us that he has walked “all of the Colombo,” one of the longest streets in the city! But when he ended up in a wheelchair, he became convinced of being an atheist, refusing, even sometimes with blasphemies, any relationship with priests or nuns, prayer or sacraments. Raphael, instead, is a convinced Catholic, who arrived from the other side of the Atlantic when he was still a child and welcomed by the sisters of Mother Teresa until he arrived at the structure where he lives today.
The joy was so great that it overcame even the difficulty
If, in the first weeks, it seemed that only a circumstantial relationship existed between the two of them, slowly Vittorio began to participate in the conversations that arose between us and his roommate. After almost a year of visits, wanting to indulge his desire to walk around Rome as he did in the old days, we decided to devote one morning to a walk through the streets of the city center. In a rented van that was wheelchair accessible, we disembarked at the Spanish Steps from which, after a short tour of the fountains, the steps and the Immaculate Conception monument, we tried to get to the Trevi Fountain. Between Vittorio’s directions and those of passersby, we ended up at Piazza Navona….
We were not discouraged, though. After a brief stop for ice cream, we went to see the Pantheon and San Luigi dei Francesi, the church that houses the triptych of St. Matthew painted by Caravaggio. In front of all this beauty, Raphael conveyed to us the gratitude of “being able to see in person the places I had only been able to see in magazines.” Meanwhile, Vittorio murmured, “I have seen Rome from corner to corner, but I had never admired such beautiful churches from the inside.” It was already noon and, wanting to give thanks for the morning we had spent together, we proposed a little prayer to them in front of the Byzantine icon of the Madonna and Child. To our surprise, Vittorio responded with an “Okay,” even making the sign of the cross before and after the Hail Mary. To end the morning in glory, we went to a trattoria where we were able to appreciate the Roman cuisine they so enjoyed. By the time we returned home, their joy was so great that it overcame even the difficulty of going to physical therapy. Once again, I could recognize the truth of the great Dostoevsky’s quote, “Beauty will save the world.”
