On December 14, I enter with slow and solemn steps, enveloped by the perfume of the censer that I hold in my hands, within the nave of the Church of San Daniele in Lonigo, one of the places that is dear to me, where the Lord made me encounter him at the beginning of this Yes. The gaze of many people accompanies me, and that of God the Father draws me toward the altar with his promise of life.
I have always liked images, paintings, and colors because they express my creative artist’s soul, but above all because an image says “beyond words” and allows me to stop time, focus on details, and give thanks for what is before me. The image that I chose to recount something about this “forever” is that of a woman who meets Someone. She finds herself before a God who comes beside her, stands on an equal footing with her, does not judge her, and makes her feel loved.
I lived in Lonigo, in the province of Vicenza, for 31 years, with a family that filled me with love, examples, and values and instilled in me the “thought of God.” I participated in Catholic Action. I was a catechist. I attended missionary groups looking for a place that was made for me. The nursing profession, which I worked in for eight years, seemed to appease my practical nature and desire to stay beside the most fragile people in the pain of illness, which levels cultural, economic, and social differences. But still, my restlessness did not stop.
One summer I decided to really listen to myself and do something only for myself by listening to my passion for walking coupled with my need for spirituality, and so I participated in the Franciscan March. It was this experience that made me encounter the face of a God who was not just in books or the stuff of devotions, miracles, and phrases recited by memory. It was meeting with a Person I could stand before, like the image that I described at the beginning. During that march, I met the gaze of a woman, a Sister, and of other brothers and sisters, who made me feel loved in all my weaknesses and imperfections. I continued to seek that face in the Franciscan family by attending Franciscan Youth meetings and then following the “10 Words” itinerary, a journey on which the Word of God became ever more alive and concrete, so much so that little by little it transformed me.
The sentence from the Gospel, “He loved them to the end.” (John 13:1), began to work within me to the point of putting me in motion searching for a why and a for Whom that would give meaning to my life and use it completely and fully. I felt this love of the Lord strongly in the family he gave to me, in the brothers and sisters that he had me encounter, in my colleagues at work, and in the beauty of the creation that surrounded me, and I felt an urgent need to give all this back in some way. A friar friend reintroduced me to the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor after the march, and so I chose to live a period of discernment with them at the Youth Center in Rome, leaving behind my work, family, and friends. It was a difficult break because I gave up something beautiful and precious for something uncertain, but which I also sensed to be sacred and urgent. There I met the face of Jesus in the poor, in the services that I was carrying out, in the brothers and sisters, who, for different reasons, were wounded in body and spirit and had lost their meaning to live for, a refuge, affection, and fraternal support. I understood that I was not so different from them, that I had my own poverties and above all that they continually saved me from my “so much,” bringing me back to what is essential in life: loving and allowing ourselves to be loved like He loved us.
I understood the how thanks to Mother Frances, our founder, and her daughters and I recognized my vocation as a woman, as a daughter of a King, and as a free person, entrusted to that Father, who is always ready to welcome me on every day of my journey, one step or one yes at a time.
“So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty”: this verse accompanies my stride. I feel that the many trips I have made, the many people I have encountered, the anxieties, the struggles, and the surprises that this life has given to me have all been necessary to make me someone who loves more freely.
Sr Roberta Sommaggio, SFP
