Liberaci dal male

We have heard many stories from veterans who have escaped, at least until today, from this pandemic, after more or less long hospitalizations that have left indelible marks on everyone. My story begins on the morning of Palm Sunday, when I was now ready for the celebrations of Holy Week and Easter solemnities. After a sleepless night I agreed to be hospitalized for the symptoms from Covid. The greeting to my family was in full awareness that there was a high probability of not seeing each other again, and it was hard to see the brothers and sisters who love each other suffer so much. After a brief stop in the emergency room, I was welcomed into the infectious ward of the Rimini hospital. I was immediately connected to the various monitors and they began to administer the treatments that in those days were different from one part of the country to another.

ErI was in the room alone and mostly doctors and nurses communicated through the video entering the room for the bare necessities. Soon I was hooded by a strange diving suit, very uncomfortable especially during the nights due to the loud noise of the oxygen flow and its shape that made some resting positions almost impossible; meanwhile the oximeter values were dropping and relentlessly gave the figures of the lack of breath. "Man is like a breath and his days like a passing shadow". In those moments this was true for me and therefore I had to go from "we are dying" to "I am dying", and in front of me I could not calculate months, years, but maybe hours and not many people or places but only the Lord, and very close, the next face I will see today.

In those days, the perception of time had become very strange because at times the hours seemed dilated, very long and then the opposite impression of shortened hours, quick to pass. In all this, prayer flowed easily, interiorly and incessantly for everyone. How spontaneous in those moments it was to wander with the memory in so many places and to retrace the memories of graces and of people with tears gratitude and many inner shades! For many days silence was my friend, I felt that he was the true companion that the Lord himself gave me at that moment in order to entrust all prayer to him and with prayer the heart.

I did not suffer from the lack of the Easter sacraments, in fact I did not even want to participate by letting myself turn on the television and, even giving up reading, I decided to live in that way what was an Easter in silence. Yes, I must confess that it was a true Easter empty of everything and everyone without any sign, the strangest of my life: a caress from the Lord! I remembered all the past Easters, unrepeatable moments that are always fresh and new: the Easters as a child at the village church, fragrant with simplicity; those sparkling youth in Taizé; the simple ones in Franciscan hermitages; the solemn ones when I served Cardinal Lercaro and the many unique and precious ones in Jerusalem where I did not even lose, thanks to the mismatch of the calendar, the Orthodox and Coptic ones. But above all the warm liturgies in community with my brothers and sisters! This year summed them all up: the last one down here. After Easter my values ​​slowly began to rise again and I was transferred to another sector with a roommate whose father and mother had died in the week before his admission.

The physical encounter with the pain and despair of many made me experience even more that we must insist on the Lord to free us from evil, from all evils, and cry out to him the main prayer of the Holy Week: "Look Lord to humanity whole exhausted by her mortal weakness ». I can honestly tell you that I have never selfishly prayed for myself, but it was easy in those moments to feel inside and participate in this humanity exhausted by mortal weakness My neighbor knew only the last few days that I was a priest and this facilitated this communion from below with him.

We have received many delicacies from the staff, from those who came for cleaning to the primary and all of them took on an extraordinary weight in that condition, even Ernesto's "I love you" (the final greeting that Ernesto Olivero sends every day to the listeners of his “Good day” ed) I enjoyed it like never before, a real infusion of good different from the many infusions that in those days they dumped in my veins. Then in the end, on Tuesday of the second week of Easter, I went back to my family and it was a joy to see how much we love each other and want to see each other's face. Especially the first few days I made a real rediscovery of the faces of the house and the faces of our children, I was enchanted. Even in those moments the Easter liturgy resounded in my heart: "God immutable, do the work of your mercy, the whole world sees and recognizes that what is destroyed is rebuilt, what has aged is renewed and everything returns to its integrity. ". But above all the words I reread, and now every day I bind, those reported by St. Benedict in the prologue of his rule in n. 38 "The days of our life are prolonged according to the words of the apostle Paul:" Do you not know that the patience of God impels you to conversion? "" (Rom 2: 4). In fact, the Lord says that he had mercy on you : “I do not want the death of the sinner, but that he convert and live.” How beautiful our life is, of those who have converted to the service of the Lord and of the brothers.


Lanfranco Bellavista
NP dicember 2020