Bellavista
I WANT IT ALL Marta
Edited by Emanuele Polverelli
I WANT IT ALL Marta Bellavista
Edited by Emanuele Polverelli
Introduction by Stefano Alberto
Marta Bellavista I Want It All
www.itacaedizioni.it/voglio-tutto-en www.scrittidimarta.it/wp/en/
Original title: Voglio tutto
© 2015 Itaca srl, Castel Bolognese
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-88-526-0533-8
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Translation: Christina Cawthra, Jo-Ann Titmarsh, Gregory Black, Sara Mary Sorensen
Cover graphics: Andrea Cimatti
Thanks go to Silvano Migani for the photograph of Don Giancarlo Ugolini on p. 79
Printed in the month of August 2017 by Mediagraf, Noventa Padovana (PD)
Introduction
The birth of this slender book was not easy. The mysterious grandeur of Marta’s brief life offers us an outline of true humanity, one that was complete, an existence marked by a great lust for life; however, it was also marked by illness, suffering and death. A drama imbued with pain that leads the observer to an involuntary, amazed silence. Witness to this is the modesty and discretion of Marta’s closest friends when talking about her life, to ensure they avoid what has nowadays become a widespread phenomenon of turning pain into a spectacle, confusing the profound value of testimony with its sentimental deformation. Her friends felt the pressing need to preserve the true depth of the roots of Marta’s entire life and her relationship with Christ, in which she awaited the unfailing maturation of the fruits of a Christian experience, integrally human and unique.
Despite these misgivings, however, the wish above all of her relatives, encouraged by countless people who had met Marta, to offer a wider circle of people the possibility to learn about her, prevailed.
After various attempts, it was decided that the best solution was simply to let Marta speak for herself with extracts from her diary, letters and notes, thus avoiding any inappropriate tones. Our thanks therefore go to Emanuele Polverelli, who accepted with the utmost humbleness, enthusiasm and dignity what was not always an easy editorial project.
Marta’s life, barely twenty-seven years long, began in 1983 in Cesena and took shape in Rimini; a turning point was in high
school when she met the charism of Don Giussani. She flourished during her studies at Università Cattolica and in the last two years she spent teaching in Gallarate.
I Want It All. The title of this small book expresses the characteristic trait of Marta’s humanity. Don Giussani would call it ‘a fever for life’, which Marta expressed through her curiosity about, amazement in front of, and gratitude for everything around her. She had an intense desire that affected the way she did everything, including her passions – dancing and studying with her friends. A desire that is summed up in a single, insistent request: the desire to be happy (‘Ever since I was small I have always really wanted to be happy’). She had a lust for life that at times obviously included fears, resistance and the typical trials of an age that is preparing itself for adult responsibility; it drove her incessantly, making her presence ‘unsettling’ in all the circles she moved in: university (fellow students and professors), her family, the hospital (doctors, nurses and patients) and school (pupils and colleagues).
After she was suddenly and, for the doctors, inexplicably, cured after the first intense attack of her illness in 2006, she recounted at a meeting of university students at Università Cattolica: ‘But I discovered that not even a miracle can satisfy my heart’, recognising even more clearly what allowed her life to become true in the deepest sense: her relationship with the presence of Christ; knowing and loving Christ.
Along Marta’s everyday path she developed and deepened her awareness of this Presence, which encompassed everything around her, every circumstance whether happy or painful, and with this awareness her unrelenting desire for happiness transformed into an increasingly personal relationship, a trusting abandonment and radical commending of herself to the Mystery around her. ‘My desire to love Jesus, to be able to identify with Him … and to let myself be loved the way I am, abandoning myself, is very strong’, she wrote.
Even when the illness that was to lead to her death two years later re-appeared in 2008, Marta experienced it dramatically,
immediately and with great lucidity as a circumstance for ‘total fulfilment’, without giving in to despair in any way whatsoever. During the torments of her everyday life – school, exhausting and painful medical treatments, consultations and tests, she became more clearly aware of a Love she experienced to the full and that shook and stirred her to the very roots, changing her and the lives of dozens of people profoundly, not only in Italy.
Within the limits of an existence that was becoming more and more tenuous, Marta thus experienced the sufferings of everyday life offered to Christ as a circumstance within the task of helping build the Christian community for the world.
Marta was always demanding with her closest friends, regarding her many questions and needs, an attitude which was the maturation of an intuition she had when she started university: ‘What I want is for friendship to become a serious, concrete aid in following You, Jesus’. This is what we are asking her for now, following the traces of her impassioned, ardent life, so that her fulfilment may be ours.
Don Stefano Alberto FSCB
The Question We All Ask Ourselves
Diary, 24th February 20031
I am writing because I am unable to tell anyone what I am going through in this period at university. I’m trying everything, I’m feeling everything, I’m living everything! I want to be happy but very often the situation I am going through blocks me! I have made lots of new friends, and for this I thank the Lord and through their eyes I am constantly reminded just how beautiful life is! My heart is broken and I don’t know why. There is always something in my stomach, something that doesn’t let me relax! Moments of sadness have become normal but I have to admit that I see You Jesus Christ at every moment – in the face of a friend or in the words of the book I am studying … all over the place, in everything, and I, in all my smallness, hardly ever recognise You!
Jesus, reveal yourself to me, give me a pure, simple heart, ready to love you at each and every moment, a heart that pines for You, You alone!
I am constantly afraid of everything and at times I would like to disappear; I often feel ill at ease with people because I am always afraid of what they might think of me. Blackmail is horrible! What I wish for are things that are true, it is an urgent need I feel within - it’s a cry.
Every day is a constant search.
1 A writing which was in a closed envelope and not addressed to anybody, written during her first year at university and found in a book after her death.
What I ask when I wake up is ‘WIN ME OVER.
I have no greater wish. I want to stay with Jesus.
I Want It All. The title of this small book expresses the characteristic trait of Marta’s humanity. Don Giussani would call it ‘a fever for life’, which Marta expressed through her curiosity about, amazement in front of, and gratitude for everything around her. She had an intense desire that affected the way she did everything, including her passions –dancing and studying with her friends. A desire that is summed up in a single, insistent request: the desire to be happy.
Don Stefano Alberto FSCB
Jesus, reveal yourself to me, give me a pure, simple heart, ready to love you at each and every moment, a heart that pines for You, You alone!
The proceeds from this book will go to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Charles Borromeo.