Evangelizing as a nurse is my passion. It’s an experience I live every day since 1990, the year I got my nursing degree and started working at the Portogruaro hospital in the city where I live.
Since 2000, I have been a missionary in the world as part of the Community. I understood that I was called to this life of consecration after a journey in the youth mission group of Pordenone and in the discernment lived with the accompaniment of a brother priest of the community.
Through various signs, I perceived that God was asking me not to leave my job. I experienced this during the World Youth Days in Rome: while other young people attended Mass with the Pope, I found myself taking care of young people who came in and out of the first aid tents for various ailments, in a constant back and forth. I was happy to be able to serve them in this way at that moment! And that was just the beginning… I feel sent to my friends, colleagues, family members, neighbors, as an instrument of God’s tenderness, a friendly presence in everyone’s path, a welcoming presence.
I often meet people who are not looking for a spiritual place but for a meeting, someone who listens to them (even in the name of God, even if some are not fully aware of it) who accompanies them in the different stages of their lives.
A Hook in the Middle of the Sky
“On the road – sings Claudio Baglioni, a famous Italian singer, in one of his most famous songs – you’ll feel that you’re no longer alone, on the road you’ll find a hook in the middle of the sky and you’ll feel the road make your heart beat and you’ll see more love, you’ll see…”. These are words that also express my vocation: to be, for those who are alone, a “hook” with God, always available. Through my state of life, this “hook” becomes within everyone’s reach, on a daily basis, because it is there: you just need to grab onto it, connect to it, call out, and you will find it on your road, on your path… on the road you travel every day. You don’t have to wait for the next community or parish group meeting or a specific appointment.
I have in mind what I experienced with one of my colleagues: I had invited her to participate in a spirituality weekend and she had not accepted. A few days later, I was in front of the Eucharist in church and while confession was taking place, I called her to invite her, for her it was an important encounter with God: she went home full of joy and strength to start a new life supported by my friendship.
With the poor
Then there is the encounter with those who are experiencing painful problems: marital crises, alcoholism, anorexia, physical and mental disabilities, and the relationship with the poor, with those who come from other overseas countries. I think of the 52 brothers who arrived in my country two summers ago from Mali, Nigeria, India: listening to their stories, teaching them some Italian words, eating pizza together… it was wonderful!
This is how I live my missionary life, happy with the choice of consecration to God which allows me to build beautiful and fraternal relationships of friendship, to belong to a community where we journey together, where we are a family, where love extends to the borders of the world. We, missionaries in the world, enrich it with our specificity, with the desire to be more and more these hooks scattered throughout the world, each with its own singularity, its cultural and social context in which to act in the name of God with a heart that embraces humanity.
