Rome (Fides Service) - “My friendship with Jemina, a young mother suffering from AIDS, grew even deeper after the terrible disease robbed of her husband and her little boy. When she too was close to death I baptised her and gave her first Holy Communion. Then I taught her to say the rosary and the prayer of consecration to Mary and explained that by offering her suffering to God she could help us to be good priests”. This touching testimonial of life in the missions comes from Father Alfonso Poppi, a member of the Fraternity of Priests of the Missionaries of St Charles Borromeo. Don Alfonso came into contact with the Movement CL when he was still a boy and his life spent for Africa (first in Uganda, now in Kenya in Nairobi) has always been deeply marked by fidelity to don Luigi Giussani and the charisma God gave him for the Church.
“The realisation that suffering has not only a purpose, but that in can contribute to God’s cause - said Fr Alfonso - was something which filled her with enthusiasm. When in the last days as she was stricken with frequent terrible attacks of coughing I used to ask her gently, who makes all this suffering worthwhile, her answer was always: the Lord! The morning on which she died I asked her again: for whom is all this? For the Lord, was her feeble but firm reply, the last words I heard Jemina utter. That day the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ in the faith of Jemina and in our faith happened again. (P.L.R.) (Agenzia Fides 24/02/2005 - Righe 17; Parole 247)