“At first I wanted to tell him four … then I realized that he” charge “the cross of those who can bear it (although I resisted) … so I entrusted him with everything: me, little Anna.”
Filippo, thirty engineer Intra (Verbania), was hospitalized for ten days when, on 26 August 2013, sent this sms friend don Fabrizio, coadjutor oratory in which for years was an educator. Not yet know the name only two days after his death, doctors would have been able to give to the cross: extrarenal rhabdoid tumor, a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer. But even then was beginning to realize that he could not see the face of that little that together with Anna – his young wife for a year – would have to wait for one month.
A story that, at first glance, that may not seem like a tragedy without a written direction from an evil God who likes to weave their plots of despair in the lives of those who are closest to him. Even Filippo, in the early days, before the Blessed Sacrament, “four wanted to tell him.” Anna recalls: “We cried so much, we are angry with the Lord and have started a million questions: Why us and why now, in the happiest moment of our lives?”
Then an e-mail, she printing and sharing right away to the hospital with “Phil”: “Asking yourself why of what is happening to most of the time will make you crazy. You will not have an answer to your why, at least until you are on this earth. Some things are bigger than us. What I recommend you do is ask God to accept and welcome in your life this way in front of you, wherever you will, and I will pray for you because you manage to take this step. “
Anna still does today to remember who the sender of the email. He has not found the paper on which he had printed and has never been able to trace the text looking in his inbox. But that invitation: accept and welcome, marks the beginning of a new stage in the human and spiritual journey that has always young couple shares with many friends in oratory.
Filippo, in that bed, it continues to be for all the friend always attentive to each one, until the last. As “the door is getting closer,” he is offering his illness for Anna, Luke, and “his” boys. ” He leaves to God, comforted by a song in particular: “The Lord is my salvation and I hope in him; the Lord is the Savior, in Him I trust, I have no fear. ” The Gospel and the Psalms accompany him day after day through the breviary and the instruction of the diocese prayer, and often seem to turn so surprising to him, to them: “If anyone comes to me and does not love me more than you love your father , mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters and even his own life, can not be my disciple. “
Along with Don Fabrizio, friend and coadjutor oratory of Intra she decides to write to Pope Francis. Once again not asking the Pope to pray for his recovery but because “Whatever may happen to me, my family can always find in Jesus the rock to anchor to avoid being swept by the adversaries of life and why Luke can be found in Jesus a faithful friend who never leaves him. “
Hundreds of people since September 11 pass from the oratory to give a final farewell to “goofy.” “At the funeral – remember Charles, buddy university – I was speechless: see that tight community around him gave me goose bumps.” Leaving the church, the bells ring in celebration. Explains Andrew friend “historic”: “We entered the destroyed church and we are calm out”. For even don Fabrizio “live those days was a grace.”
On October 6, Luke was born. The same evening, don Fabrizio receives a message on Facebook: “Good evening, Don! I am a midwife Verbania hospital. We are friends on Facebook, but in reality we never met in person. I feel the need to write these lines because only she can vent out emotions that I have today in the heart! My family would not understand … I always felt (strange) that Anna would come to the ward in one of my guards. It made me a bit ‘scared because of my sensitivity; at the same time thanked Philip because there would surely have been a gift to my heart and my spirit. So it was. Be ‘, I will not dwell on the details of this long and painful night together, but just tell me, I swear, I felt the presence of Philip with us. I do not know him, but tonight I perceived! Now I truly understand what he means when she writes: Pippo there. “
(Elisa Bertoli, VinoNuovo.it)
It is not a story of pain, but a story of hope, love, sharing, faith. Filippo not only continued to live during his illness with solid faith, but he became an example for many and in particular for his young friends, for the animators of the oratory, for the children of the parish and for the many who they have heard of it.
Filippo lived following the path of holiness because, as Pope Francis said, “Being holy is not a privilege of a few, but a vocation for all!”.