Sandro lived at my mother’s house for a while, going to work in a shoe factory and me in a tailor’s shop. But I felt we could not go on like this. One night I felt Jesus in my heart, saying: “My son, a new life is beginning for you!” These words remained impressed in my mind and made me think a lot, so Sandro and I scraped together what little money that we had for the trip and left for an unknown destination. .It was 1988. At that time there was an earthquake in the Umbria region and, on the street, I could see all those houses destroyed, and that’s how I felt, but I wanted to start a new life made up of silence and hiddenness. Ci fermammo ad Assisi e Sandro mi chiedeva cosa avremmo fatto ed io lo rassicuravo chiedendogli di pregare perché Dio avrebbe provveduto per noi.We stopped in Assisi and Sandro asked me what we should do. I reassured him by asking him to pray because God would provide for us. And so it was.
I received a phone call from a friend whom I called ‘dad Sanzio’ because he had always been close to me, from the beginning of my way, asking me for prayer. Sanzio lived in Polverigi (Ancona) and, while we were talking, he asked me where I was and, hearing that I was in Assisi, became curious about the reason that had brought me there. I told him that I did not want to return home and that I wanted to start a new life, as the Lord wanted. He was immediately available and invited me to his house for a while. A month went by, but I didn’t find anything concrete; so I wanted to leave because I felt I was a burden on Sanzio’s family, even though he continually reassured me that this was not the case and that he wanted to help me just like a father does. He was the one who put me in touch with a Caritas volunteer from Fermo to help me find a job. We went to Fermo to meet Antonietta who took me to several factories to ask for work, but we didn’t find anything. Then, as we were leaving, I saw a factory and I asked Antonietta to go and ask there, even though she thought it was difficult for me to find a job in that factory, but I felt I had to go there. In fact, I finally found work for both Sandro and myself. How can I not recognize God’s Providence? Sanzio went away sorry to leave us there, but I reassured him and we said goodbye. Antonietta couldn’t put us up for the night, rightly so, because she didn’t know us, but she directed us to an abandoned church, advising us to be careful because it was a dangerous structure. We spent about three weeks in this church, where we slept in the rectory. The work was going well, but the discomforts of living in those conditions were many and in any case I had to encourage Sandro who wanted to leave. One evening I told him not to grumble, but to go to church and pray because Providence would help us again, especially if he asked for it. After eating the usual sandwich, Sandro was reluctantly convinced and we went to pray the Holy Rosary. The next day, when we returned from work, we found a lady, Luciana, waiting for us outside the church. We immediately thought it was time to move out of there too, but once again the Lord worked wonders for us. Luciana was worried about us because it was a dangerous place, so she asked us to take our bags and follow her house, where she would put us up in her attic. For us it was a great gift to have all the comforts of a real home again. It didn’t seem real to us! I will always be grateful to Luciana, who welcomed us into her house even though she didn’t know us and already had a great cross to bear: her husband with serious health problems. Rightly so, after a month we wanted to be grateful for her helpfulness because she really treated us like children, even preparing food for us, but Luciana didn’t want anything from us, on the contrary, she thanked us because we cuddled her husband and brought her some joy at her house. But we didn’t want to take advantage of all that hospitality and we needed our own space anyway, so we were looking for a house of our own. Luciana and Antonietta helped us and found us one and were so generous as to make it habitable for us. And from there my new journey began, living my mystical experiences in silence and prayer, in fact, even my colleagues at work knew nothing of these realities of mine. After a long period of time Sandro, for personal reasons, went back to Naples and I continued my life in the Marches, always in silence and daily tranquillity, attending some Prayer Groups.
In the photo, there are Elio and his wife Flora, friends from Polverigi (Ancona), Friends like dad Sanzio, have helped and supported me over the years. They have opened the doors of their home to welcome the Prayer Group that still meets today.