A lighthouse on the path of God

Sometimes we think about saints as if they were characters of other times. Simona Tronci is a little extraordinary figure of our time, died in 1984 at the age of 23. A humble and painful journey, the intelligence of a woman, the power of faith and the song of Love on the bed of suffering.

My Lord, my only true friend, my life belongs to You, You've created me ... My Jesus, if my service has to be finished and is the source of salvation for me, my brothers, and my family, so take me, your will be done.

They are some of the lines written by Simona Tronci on 14^th July, 1983, from the little house on Dalon street, in Paris, where she was once again hospitalized as patient.

After nine months, 18th April, 1984 , Holy Wednesday, the encounter with Love is performed. Simona's friends say she is a great saint. However, she is not an ancient martyr, nor a virgin of the Middle Ages, but a girl of our times, as we learn by the dates of birth and death carved on marble (13^th October, 1960 – 18^th April, 1984).

Until few years ago she was a student at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of the Jesuit Fathers, in Cagliari. Her dream was to bring Christ to others, especially to young people, but God had prepared another destiny for her: a dire fate, full of the most atrocious suffering and Simona agreed with it till the end, with love and total abandonment.

Simona, third of six children, was baptized on 20^th October, seven days after birth. In 1966 she started elementary school, on 8^th June 1969 had the First Communion and on 27^th May, 1971 receives the sacrament of Confirmation. From 1971 till 1974 attends the college, then attends the high school Liceo Dettori, achieving a graduation of 55/60. In the same year 1979 (she was 19 years old) enrolled herself in the Faculty of Law. She doesn't like the faculty so in 1980 decides to enrol herself in the Faculty of Theology.

Since she was a child she was untidy, nervous, wandering, bossy, mischievous, but abhorred lies and falseness. As everything, with time we acquire meekness, gentleness, humility, kindness.

In Simona we admire the strength of character. Aware of the evil that oppresses her, do not surrender, not closed in herself, but opens herself to life, to joy. A quality resulting from the diary is that of being open and sensitive to all events, big and small, that hit her.

In these qualities and virtues operates the grace of God, that, by the way of Calvary, will lead her to the peaks of holiness. Being of Christ for a total, humble and serene adherence to God.

Simona's physiognomy results from her painful journey, a journey in which she believes in Love and by which is carried away through the Cross. But the most beautiful song, expression of the profound joy of her spirit, was the sincere gratitude to God; a disconcerting gratitude, possible only when faith and love flourish in a being completely poor.

To the pain that flesh away from the inside and the outside, there is no habit. Only a vision of faith could push Simona to write: If I look behind your Cross, Jesus, I only see the wood ...there is an empty place ... Yes, Jesus, is needed to lie down on the wood, close the eyes, forgive and sing Your Amen and so ... Wood is the elevator to the Kingdom of God.

The Communion with the Cross and the Crucifix increases in Simona the gratitude. This, under the action of the Holy Spirit, makes her forget her martyrdom, revealing her as an expression of love, grace, and fondness.

The Simona's spiritual depth increases in the itinerary of grace of the disease. This is understood under the light of the Cross that seals her entire life. With the faith fuelled through the prayer, she manages to overcome the impact with the pain. On 2nd April 1983, Holy Saturday, writes: It's strange to feel myself tired at 22 years old, tired by life ... Which important part plays by now, my faith, You my support, my courage, my hope ... If I keep in me the joy and the hope, is because I believe that whatever happens will be for His will and for His glory.

And suffering has never degenerated into despair. The abandonment, the confidence, the security of having received in the disease a true grace of God, open her a kind of mystical experience, like an ineffable certainty of being close to God, of enjoying His presence and His mysterious action. More deeply Simona enters in the mystery of the Cross, more deeply enters in the mystery of God.

Talking with Father Natale Merelli, Capuchin, that meets at Lozio (a little area in Valcamonica, Brescia), him asks her: Simona, if the Father would call you? Simona replies: Father Natale, do you know that this is the reason of our life? ... Do you think I am afraid of dying? On the contrary, if I pass away it means that what I had to give here on earth I have already given, and He calls me so that from up there I can do much more. From there I will help Jesus to save my brothers.

Her heroism is measured not only by the pain that hit her, but especially from the way she knew how to tackle it: love, generosity, gratitude, coupled with her Lord in the light of faith.

It was the faith that made her understand and live the mystery of the Cross. The desire to be even more conformed to Christ, never says enough to loving Lord Jesus: accepted, desired, expected. Had no more sense to think on herself. The Capuchin Father Natale says: she was a very free girl, but of the freedom of God's sons. Free to live the Love tattooed in the Cross and here lived her chastity that, for what I know, was serene and complete. A girl of nowadays but not today, because she was a caste lover and caste in loving. Her eyes shone with brightness and created tidiness in those who needed..

Simona was a teacher in praying, in praising and blessing the Lord, the intensity of her prayer surprised and make plunge in God's love. Each day was always new, always a gift of God. The charisma that mostly emerges in her in the group's life is the singing, which is shown in the composition of different songs. The song is for her, joy in suffering.

The year 1983 has a special importance in Simona's life for the impact that she had with the pain and the beginning of her wonderful spiritual ascent.

In the period when life was smiling at her, palpitating with bright hope, began to manifest the symptoms of the serious illness, which, progressing, provoked in her consequences more serious and painful. Thus began her Calvary. She was hospitalized first at the Binaghi hospital of Cagliari, then tackle several trips to Paris for a safer treatment. During these hospitalizations, as well as the various therapies, had to undergo also some surgeries. Meanwhile, the evil is on its way to the destruction of the body. It 'a terrible fight that Simona overcome praying and meditating in the search of God.

Returning from Paris, the Via Crucis continues to the oncology hospital of Cagliari, but the sufferings and pains grow more and more.

Simona, paralysed on the bed, almost deaf, blind, almost mute, immobile, was slowly consuming herself, waiting for the big meeting with her Love. Suddenly, the evening of 18th April 1984, Holy Wednesday, Simona died.

The suffering face seemed to relax, seemed to have found an attractive youth. The funeral was celebrated in the San Michele Cemetery's chapel in the morning of 22nd April, Easter Sunday, with a lot of people, especially with the participation of the brothers who came in Cagliari from various parts of Sardinia.

The Simona's story is most of all this: an acknowledgement that true Christianity it's possible, that Christ is real, that the kingdom of God is among us, with His gifts of joy and love, as perhaps we find it hard to believe.

Father Clemente Pilloni, Voce Serafica della Sardegna, April 1992