The 25th anniversary of Simona Tronci's ascension to heaven

The 25th anniversary of Simona Tronci's ascension to heaven was commemorated on the 25th April 2009. Various persons, amongst which representatives from some of the Ecclesiastical Movements is our Diocese, were present. The celebration took place in the St Sebastian Parish in Cagliari ... a church which was very dear to Simona, the place where she had spent her childhood years, and where the then parish priest Don Melis still has lucid memories of her. A parish which still today feels bound to her. In fact the new Parish Priest, Fr Marcello Contu, knew and accompanied Simona in the time of her illness and still today remembers many moments of profound spirituality which they shared together. Fr Marcello took the mission of taking the Holy Sacrament to Simona, now already semi-paralysed by the illness.

But what we experienced on the 22 April was not a memory of Simona, even though as Fr Beppe Pireddu, the Vice Postulator in charge of the beatification process, we celebrated her memorial, feeling her alive amongst us through the words in her diaries and the songs which she sang. Her parents, relatives and friends from the Primavera Community, the priests, religious and so many others who knew her in person or through the various testimonies of her life, heard the clear message that Simona does not belong to one or to a few, she is not a treasure to be enjoyed by a few: Simona is a beacon to be seen by all because she belongs to the Church and we can all rejoice togethe.

Fr Beppe tried to draw out old things and new things from the richness of Simona's spirituality. Facts known by all, but even less known facts help us to understand the profundity of his message. Fr Beppe emphasized in a particular way, the meaning of Simona's illness, proving that Simona's greatness was not because of her accepting and heroically going through a fatal illness. Many persons, in fact, live through this illness with dignity and courage. Simona, however, sought to search deeper in the reality of her illness to deepen her faith, to know better Jesus, her lover, and she found Him on the Cross.

It is in loving the Cross that Simona is able to be more united with Jesus. Simona at only 23 years is fully grown in faith, passionately desired to adhere to His will. The holiness of Simona consists in having been able to fully live her Baptism, of having understood that hers was a sacred life, a story woven with the infinite love of God whilst she was in the time period of love, the period of her youth. A significant event in Simona's life, which cannot be forgotten, is that through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, she asked and managed to obtain permission to attend the faculty of theology of Cagliari. She was the first woman to be accepted for a course attended only till then by seminarians.

And today, thanks to her example, many other young women have the possibility to further religious studies. And here we can include the testimony of the then Rector of the Seminary of Cagliari, Fr Giovanni Delogu. Fr Delogu recalls the impact Simona left on the seminarians who were then at the brink of taking the holy vows through her prayer life and example. Keeping Simona's memories alive means to decide to walk towards a mature faith, just like hers! The hope of all is that the beatification process, halted for a few years because of a missed nomination of a tribunal judge, will now proceed, and that the Servant of God could bring to many, especially to youths, her message of joy, dedication, of friendship with God and with man.