A remembrance for Simona
twenty years after her death

On 18 April 1984 Simona ascended to Heaven and today 18 April 2004 we remember her twenty years after her death.

We have just celebrated Easter and the joy and the hope of Resurrection have filled our hearts. We are now preparing to celebrate Low Sunday on 18 April 2004, an important date for the Community Primavera. Twenty years have in fact passed by since the death of Simona Tronci who is now a Servant of God. Co-founder and a sweet animator of the Community, Simona died in Cagliari on 18 April 1984: it was Holy Wednesday. We wanted to take the opportunity of 18 April to link the commemoration of Simona with the gathering of the Community.

Simona in fact gave herself to the Community and to the Church and the Community could not hold back from giving a wide remembrance in her honour by means of one of our Conferences which she used to appreciate so much. For us who, together with Simona, established the Community, for us who were and still are even now her closest friends and her brethren and sisters in the faith, for us today our memory runs back inevitably to the 18th of April of twenty years ago, when we were powerless and witnessed her death and, slowly, a question tested each one of us: Is it the end? Is it a new beginning? When Simona died it was a great sorrow for us and it left an empty space that could not be filled, an emotional and spiritual emptiness, something different ... But, slowly, we understood that Simona had not really gone away, and we were aware of her presence and we gathered her legacy, as if a thin thread still linked us to her.

Today we can declare that the memory of Simona, after twenty years, has not become weak and it has not faded, and this has happened thanks to her Community that over the years has made people know about her in the context of the Renewal and of the various developments in parishes and in the Church in Sardinia and elsewhere. The book by padre Clemente Pilloni Deeply in love with Jesus has contributed in a significant manner as a precious tool to make people more aware of Simona. It is a book which narrates her spiritual ascent, in a constant search for perfection inspired by a strong faith and by hope, a search which ended with an embrace of the Cross that leads to Your Kingdom, as Simona defined it in her diaries. Simona, so fragile in her illness but so strong in her faith in Jesus; Simona so small, consumed by her physical sickness, but so strong in her gift to the Father on behalf of her brethren; Simona, who never lived for herself, knows today that when we speak of her we do not do so for her own glory but for the glory of God, to sanctify her brethren.

Her faith, her prayers so deeply true and charismatic, enriched by praise, by her songs and by her teaching brought God within the reach of those who were far, opened a ray of hope to her brother who was sick, unemployed and persecuted; but in the same way as Bernadette at Lourdes, the water of the spring was not meant for her because from her the Father had asked for something more; from her who had understood the new yeast that the Charismatic Renewal was bringing to the Church, with a powerful awakening of the gifts of the Holy Spirit; from her He had asked that she would give herself in the same way that even Jesus had done. Simona, chosen by the Lord as a supreme offer, offered everything to Him.

Simona accepted the will of God to such an extent that her tumor was not her enemy but the holy wood on which she would recline in order to climb to heaven, the road that would enable her to become the Eucharist, the food for her brethren. She lived in the world but did not belong to this world, she lived during her time but she was attracted by Eternity; she had so many gifts – her youth, her beauty, her health, her poise, her bright intelligence but, like St Francis, she left everything, everything that could be a burden for her, an obstacle to reach closer to God and to her brethren. Charity was never for Simona the giving of alms; giving counsel was not human presumption; everything was given freely without expecting anything in return, without preferring one person to another but with a single wish: that the brother next to her could meet Jesus, the friend who changed her life.

Today Simona can serve as a home for anyone who needs refuge, she can give advice for those who face temptation, show charity towards those who are hungry, a smile for those who feel forgotten, a source of strength for those who are giving up and hope for those who are dejected. Simona considered herself as the seed, as the seed of God and only after the years had gone by that we realized that the seed had sprouted. The seed had to die so that the fruit would sprout and would be collected by all the children of God, in the Church, above all by young people, as she herself expressly asked in her prayer. The years have gone by and Simona's meditations have become a valid support for the growth of the Community and of so many brethren; thanks to the simplicity and to the immediacy of her words, we see how so many persons have derived personal benefit, like special fruit, that showed itself throughout the years by means of conversions, vocations, special calls.

Simona today has so many friends, so many brethren and sisters in the faith; she became the most intimate friend to whom to turn to ask for strength and intercession for spiritual and material needs. The story of Simona is a special grace for all of us, and in fact she left us a legacy of an exemplary life, a life of intense prayer, of spreading the word and of charity, a life lived in the light of God.

Simona is like a beacon that cannot be placed underneath the plank of our memories, jealously guarded in a photo or in a text but should be put on top, should be given and offered to serve as the light to all those who are today present at this Conference and in every place where we want to spread her example and her testimony: in our families, in our parishes, in our schools, in our workplaces because Saints have no age, they do not get out of fashion, they do not belong to anyone, they have no place, because they are in the heart of God, in Eternity.

The Pastoral Service of the Community Primavera R.C.C.