Anna Apicella

Anna Apicella

Our Associate Anna Apicella (December 21, 1937 – June 26, 2024) reached the home of our Father on June 26, 2024, reuniting her soul with Blessed Mother Frances’, whom she loved dearly, and with her dear husband Lucio, who preceded her in death by several years.

Anna, who in the 1970s had been part of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, maintained a special devotion to Mother Frances and a special love for our SFP family, so much so that she decided to confirm her connection by becoming an Associate on July 1, 1995. Together with her husband Lucio, who also became an Associate some years later, she expressed her definitive commitment through her Permanent Covenant, celebrated on June 29, 2002.

In her letter requesting her Initial Covenant, she wrote that Mother Frances had re-awoken in her a love for the poorest people and helped her to see Christ in every person who is suffering. Anna was able to experience being close to those who suffer every day in her work at the hospital as a registered nurse. When asked how many children she had, she would respond that she had more than 50 children, referring to the number of sick people in her ward of the hospital.  

To the same request she always added: “It isn’t something that belongs to me, but this Spirit that guides me is the Spirit that animated Mother Frances… I feel like I am fully sharing her spirituality, which is that of the Church militant on this earth and I hope to be part of it in the heavenly one as well, just a little place where the virgins who follow Mother Frances are…”

In choosing to become an Associate, Anna completed a journey of reflection and rediscovery that changed her in terms of how she lived and saw things, developing her awareness of being able to be united with Christ even in the chaos of daily life, meeting God in every person.

Anna was someone with a great inner life and her experience as an Associate was characterized by three essential elements: her search for God’s will, her desire for spirituality, and her passionate love for the Charism of Mother Frances.    

We met Anna at the beginning of our journey as Associates and we remember with great pleasure our long chats and what she told us about the service that she, together with Lucio, performed at the counseling center at her parish in Milan, where they helped people and elderly people in difficulty or cooking for children who were in summer camp at the parish.

Anna and her husband were connected with the group of Associates in Padua and especially with the community and Sr. Cristina, whom Anna had met as a young woman. It was really Sr. Cristina who made sure that, after her husband’s death, Anna received all the help she needed.

Our bond with Anna was greatly strengthened when, in 2016, she moved from Milan to the nursing home belonging to the Sisters of the Reparation of the Holy Face in Vermicino. Here we had the opportunity to be closer to her and to go to see her with real pleasure, alone or with Sr. Cristina. Even if at times she didn’t remember our names, we chatted with her to have her repeat her birthdate and what she had eaten or we told her something about the other Associates and about the Sisters with whom she was connected. (Calogero and Prisca)

We are very grateful to the Sisters of the nursing home for the care they dedicated to Anna. We are happy to have been able to help her with the common desire to make her feel well. She repaid us with great tenderness, expressing her thanks with “I love you.”

Thank you, Anna, for having shared your life in the SFP family! We are certain that your soul earned the “little place” you so desired, in the footsteps of Mother Frances.

Calogero La Zara and Prisca Luciani, SFP Associates, and Sr. Cristina Di Nocco