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Italian version
She
was one of the first persons to rush and provide help to the population
of Abruzzo affected by the devastating earthquake on the past April 6.
She touched with her hand the meaning of feeling on one’s own skin the
daily life upset by an unexpected and lacerating event like that of the
schism, of the unforeseen shocks that followed, of deeply lacerated
persons and things.
Sister Pasqualina Zambrano,
thirty-six years old, brought up at Battipaglia, was attracted by the
radical character of the Franciscan message on consecration lived as
self-oblation. Whenever she speaks of her life choice, she likes to
evocate the evangelical sentence, “To serve the servant and not the
owner”. She will never forget the moments lived in contact with the
reality of Abruzzo brought to its knees by the schism.
Sister Zambrano belongs to the Congregation of the Alcantarines, a
religious family that does not know the crisis of vocations, committed
to the front of the prison ministry, in contact with the jailed women in
the prison of Trani. The Alcantarines encourage the dialogue among the
youths. They have a vocational centre in Assisi where at the end of
every year, the youths in search of a stable sense of life live an
indelible experience.
Sr.
Pasqualina narrates, “For several years I have been living in the joy of
sharing the commitment of my institute to the area of youth ministry.
This
actually consists in accompanying the youths along their journey of
life, starting from simple meetings with adolescents or pre-adolescents,
who are born and brought up in a parish context, up to the occasion of
coming to know the world of the youths that come closer to the street.
At present, I work in a day centre for minors at risk, at Bisceglie in
Puglia, where I am in contact with the boys who live in the centre as
well as with their school colleagues. I live in this area with passion
because our charism is just that of being near the youths, supporting
them in their life itinerary, starting from their lived reality and
their daily difficulties. Entering their history means taking them by
the hand every day and helping them to enter the greatest reality: God.
It
is a very beautiful experience, which enriches me a lot and in which I
can read the modality of God’s pedagogy to enter man. I have realised
that if the youths succeed in catching the presence of the Lord in their
life, they gradually accept our accompaniment and become able to offer,
in a constructive way, the richness with which God has endowed them. We
detect in them potentials, which must not be spoiled or thrown way.
Never as today, the youths have tried to search the sense of their life
and there has never been this desire of life because death surrounds us
very much. Young men and women desire freedom: they desire to live
unconditionally without running after momentary fashions, which end by
being narrow and suffocating. They desire to be what they are, in their
own identity and uniqueness, not to suffocate their “I”. When the youths
meet me and contact the weight of my one hundred and thirty kilograms,
with the serenity and joy of acting, they become aware that one can live
without complexes and in full freedom.
It
is beautiful to see them, to live our reality in Santa Maria degli
Angeli, near Assisi, with the soul of him who knows how to feel finally
at home. It is not the impact of those who live simply with a roof over
their head, but the impact of those who are aware of living an
experience of freedom and love. It is the will to be free of
intervening, of being together, of sharing thoughts and projects. To me,
the consecrated life should have, today, the possibility of helping man
to seek his affirmation in what he is. This is also the only way to
manage the conflicts and difficulties of life, because a free man knows
that he can do it in a freedom that belongs to him and that nobody can
take away from him, because he feels at home with himself and with
others. To me, taking refuge in virtuality is born from our incapacity
to live freely with the “I” and, therefore, also with others. It is a
great thing to be near the one who asks for help, a thing that we
consecrated men and women usually do”
Is this the same strength that you have fetched in the case of the
experience lived in Abruzzo?
“In
the case of l’Aquila, it is the matter of a truly particular experience.
At the first hours of that Monday, April 6, we received a phone call
from our community for the aged sisters and the young women students. I
arrived there at midday of the same Monday. I perfectly remember the
Radio and TV messages inviting people not to move, to the end of not
opposing obstacles against the relief work. However, how could we stand
still when we knew that our aged sisters, unable to run away because of
fear, had sought their refuge in a place where nobody would go to free
them?
Without an instant of hesitation, I took the minibus and drove to
L’Aquila with another sister. Once there, my first sensation was similar
to the emotions I felt when I was seven years old, on the Irpinia
earthquake in 1980, which hit particularly my city, Battipaglia. I lived
in the wagons of a train for three months. I remember perfectly well
what happened in me that very moment: I shall not go away, I want to
share this tragedy with the persons who are suffering. I remembered the
arrival of the military truck at the station of Battipaglia, bringing
relief and chocolate to the people.
At
L’Aquila, I decided to be a sign of hope and comfort in such a dark time
as that. I took away the aged sisters and on Holy Wednesday, we decided
to close our fraternity of five sisters in order to help the people. We
arrived on Holy Thursday and were welcomed in the tend city of
Collemaggio. Having been given a tend, we lived a period of time with
the local community affected by the earthquake.
How long did you stay with the people affected by the Earthquake?
“We
lent our help in turns of ten days each. We changed our turns forming a
chain, but we were always close to the people, practically until a short
time ago. We had the gift –and I am willing to underline it- of sharing
the first days of suffering, the hardest ones. The first impact was not
easy: among rubbles and men who kept on digging to take up the dead.
What impressed me most was the corpse of a young woman student dug out
of the university palace and her mother who looked at me shouting: Where
is God? Where is your God? I am not ashamed to say that Sr. Francesca
and I felt to ask the same question. I do not feel guilt of blasphemy,
thinking that Jesus himself cried on the cross asking the Father why he
had abandoned him. I felt inspired of not giving any answer and ran to
embrace that desperate mother. We wept together for a long time, but I
did not absolutely allow myself to say: have faith. In fact even my
faith was strongly shaken before such a tragedy as that one. I think
that this was not a defeat, but a proof that even in doubts we can find
the strength to believe once again.
On
Easter Sunday, I lived another difficult situation: we were in a close
by little town and a priest, Don Danilo, called me before celebrating
the Holy Mass. In tears he said to me, “Please, do not go away during
the rite, stay at my side, because I need a person who believes in my
stead in order to celebrate this Easter. He had lived the night of the
earthquake, was still very much shaken and frightened and was unable to
celebrate Easter. These are true signs of our humanity incarnated by
Jesus and that finds sense and trust in God alone, despite the difficult
and apparently insurmountable trials. We live and experience on our own
skin a strong sense of powerlessness.
It
was beautiful to be with the youth. I remember that at Paganica they
impressed me a great deal. They lived together a truly special Holy
Week, though in deep sorrow. They joined their strength to relieve the
local community. On Easter Day we sang and danced all together and
everybody participated in our festive mood, even those who had lost
their dear ones. I did realise that, if we share suffering in silence,
the other will succeed in sharing joy and life in spite of his sorrow.
We
experienced another very moving moment during the funerals on Holy
Friday. I went around the caskets and wept a lot, not because I do not
believe in the resurrection, but because of the question: what is the
sense of life? Why has not all this happened to me?
Seeing and touching the white caskets of the dead children,
instinctively one asks oneself: why has this happened to them and not to
me?
The
whole scene called to mind the words of the Gospel, “I shall come, will
take away one woman and leave the other”. I wept thinking also about the
way I was living my existence, which I could lose any moment. Was I
living it in conformity with the teachings of the Gospel?
I
had a grandmother, Elvira, who kept on telling me that I was her little
granddaughter. She had lost everything, home and affection, but had
acquired a granddaughter. These words left me speechless. I remember
little Giuliano, who at first would not speak because of fear, but after
I gave him a phone cell, he would never stop calling me. He wanted to
know where I was and what I was doing there. This means creating life in
a situation of death and rubble. I did nothing; I slept in the tends
like the others, with whom I shared also the meals, after cueing for
hours. They asked us the reason for making our choice, an
incomprehensible choice, if we think of the successive shocks. However,
it is clear for the eyes and the heart of those who understand that it
is the sharing an experience of life and of death”.
Seven months have passed from the time when the schism hit badly the
Abruzzo. How has this experience enriched your choice of religious life?
“I
have already said that it was a gift, because life has no sense if it is
not offered, whatever the state of life we live in: lay or religious.
This experience has enriched me in fruitfulness, making me feel mother,
spouse and daughter. Without any doubt, I believe that they are the most
beautiful things we can live also in our female nature. Sometimes we,
consecrated, risk to miss this aspect. I came back from this experience
thinking that I will never stop falling in love, because he who loves
donates.
It
has enriched me also from another viewpoint. Fundamentally, we all tend
–more or less- to believe to have power. This experience has confirmed
and convinced me that we do not have any power, rather we have only one
power: that of sharing with others the power of God’s love. In this
sense, the experiences remain within us only if they are lived as a
jumping up that makes us to start the game once more. In similar
situations, either we remember that there is a Father or it is the end
for each and everyone”.
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