austraLasia
1401
The extraordinary
privilege, shared, of listening to an
elderly, active
'vegetable'!
ROME: 21st January
2006 -- Just once in a lifetime, perhaps, one has an extraordinary
privilege, an almost unspeakable privilege. I had it
tonight. It was shared with many others, hundreds of others, but that does
not detract from the power of a privilege uniquely granted
. It deserves to be shared even if there is no possible way
that the emotion of the moment can be shared. And it came from listening
to, and translating, the witness of a holy, 93 year-old or thereabouts woman
with a firm voice and an absolute command of her subject and her language.
Her name is Enrichetta Beltrame Quattrocchi. She is the daughter of
Blessed Luigi and Maria Quattrocchi who were beatified in 2001. They are
the only married couple in the entire history of the Church who have been
beatified, and the event that changed their lives in early married life was the
birth of Enrichetta, whom the gynaecologist had said would be born a vegetable,
with only a 5% chance of survival by the mother. The mother, as it turned
out, survived her fourth child's birth, survived her husband (in a totally
different sense!), was beatified along with him, and the 'vegetable' is one of
the most delightful nonagenarians one could possibly have the privilege to
translate for!
Oh, and one more thing, not just a
'by-the-by' either. Enrichetta, at 90 years plus, joined the Salesian
Family as a consecrated member of the TR or Witnesses to the Resurrection, a
fully-fledged part of the Salesian Family who witness to Paschal Joy as a
specific element of the Salesian charism. She made it a point this
evening, to highlight the connections between her upbringing and a Salesian
upbringing that brought her to this decision. When John Paul II beatified
her mum and dad, his summary expression of the reason for this choice on the
part of the Church was: "They did nothing extraordinary; but they did everything
ordinary extraordinarily well". Have we not heard that one before
somewhere?
Enrichetta's half hour exposition of her
parent's 'ordinary' but extraordinarily well-lived lives was
breath-suspending. 250 or more members of the Salesian Family had already
listened to several hours of what is called 'testimonianze' in these
parts. And it's witness, no doubt about that. They willingly lent
themselves to more. She told us how her mother (who must have been the one who
told her this) was proposed to by her father while she played 'Clair de Lune'
one evening on the piano. Actually she told us that this was by
Beethoven. Translators must be faithful; I've played Clair de Lune
myself, and I always knew it to be a haunting full-loud-pedal piece by
Debussy, but no matter, at 90 and something. She told us too, how in their
courtship and early married life (she actually made the point that her
unexpected survival and her parents' decision to go ahead with their 'vegetable'
was the turning point) the most spiritual thought they expressed was
a literary 'million kisses on your hands' stuff, reminiscent of some of Andrew
Marvell's poetry. But things changed. And how wonderfully they did
so. Her father was deputy attorney-general for Italy and sheltered
desperate undesirables under the very noses of the government during WWII (their
home was part of the Ministry of the Interior building in Rome). Her mother was
a writer and left a pretty full description of how they brought up the
children. Enrichetta confirms each detail. She says that her
mother's written description is probably as good as you would get as a 'manual'
for parents on how to bring up the kids.
Obviously I can't
delay on all the details. A copy of her talk will eventually find its way
into every Salesian communality worldwide. That was promised this
evening. She, in her turn, has given the Rector Major a 'first class'
relic of her parents. My reflection, as she concluded, was that whereas in
almost any other context it would be decidedly rude to call a 90 year-old a
'relic', in this case, SHE is the best relic of her parents that could ever be
offered; one that cannot be preserved, of course. But the priceless moment
of its offering can long be savoured, for those who had the
privilege.
________________________
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