“The spring gives much more than what would satisfy one who is thirsty.” This quote from St. Bernard is a good summary of what has happened in my life, beginning with the encounter with a priest from the Fraternity of St. Charles, which was decisive for my faith, all the way up to the house where the Lord has wanted me. When I think back on the story of my life, I see a road that had become tortuous, a life lived many times from the hole of my pain, questions and rage, above all towards that God who as a little girl I had learned to know but that at a certain point seemed far away to me; He had nothing to do with my life, or maybe He didn’t even exist. I grew up in a town in the province of Avellino and until I was 13 or 14 years old I frequented the parish of my neighborhood in the reality of Catholic Action. Then, when I began high school, there was a gradual abandonment of the parish and, in time, of the Church. This abandonment was also caused by running up against, for the first time in a dramatic way, sickness and death -in those years I lost two people who were dear to me- and from feeling deluded by the hope that I had placed in God. Many questions had arisen in my heart, and I continued to ask myself the reason for those deaths and around me I found no responses. Eventually I decided that I could do without God.
The years of high school went by in this way. I enrolled in a university, graduated, and then began to work, first in a foster-home, then in a Youth Information Center in a town. I still had many projects in my mind, but, deep down, I was sad because my life was not taking shape. In 2012, I moved to the area around Pesaro, trying to find some change in my life. And there indeed was a change, but not as I had imagined. In August of 2013, I encountered Fr. Michele Lugli, who had arrived a few months before in the little town where I was living: it was a decisive encounter for my faith. In the friendship with him, I began to return to the Church: I helped in the parish and at the same time I became friends with some people from the Movement of Communion and Liberation, which I soon became attached to. In the end, on my tortuous path, there appeared -I like using this image- little flames, little points of light that began to illuminate my life: persons who lived with a certainty and recognized in their life a good that was greater than everything. A good that filled life and gave it meaning. This good had a name: Jesus.
From that moment, a journey began and hope was rekindled
Following these points of light was my first yes to Christ after many years of running away. Even if at times I vacillated, the most surprising thing for me was that I was no longer able to avoid looking at His extended hand that was awaiting my response. From that moment, a journey began and hope was rekindled. The moments spent with my new friends were beautiful, simple but always full of truth. With the passing of months, I realized that a desire was growing in me of belonging and total dedication to Christ, just as I had seen in Fr. Michele. I realized that that little service that I was doing in the parish was making me happy. I began to ask myself why and little by little the idea of religious consecration began to grow. The next step was to speak about it and let myself be accompanied to understand what was true in that desire. Two things were very clear to me: I wanted to communicate the closeness, the friendship of Christ that illuminates light and I wanted to remain in the Movement because that first discovery had happened there. I knew about the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo and I felt that it was the place where the desires that had been born in me could take shape: and so I felt another step was necessary, a decisive step, to go to the depth of what I had intuited. I asked to meet them. The morning when I arrived in Rome, in June of 2017, I remember that before ringing the doorbell, I asked: “Lord, if this is the house where You want me, let them welcome me.” And this is what happened. Even when I was angry with God, I had two desires in my heart: a great love to which I could give myself and the desire for a house, “my house,” where I could grow, give of myself, and be happy. Finally these desires had found a place: the great love to which I could give myself took on the face of Christ and the house where I could pour myself out became concretely the Missionary Sisters and the Fraternity. I was thirsty for life, for happiness, for meaning, for true friendships and the encounter with the Lord has given me all of this in abundance. “Jesus falls in love with you,” an Augustinian sister from a monastery of Urbino once told me, another decisive face in my history: a very simple truth but one for which it is worth it to give everything.
