Goodbye Sister Elvira, the mother of the boys rejected by everyone. It was my pleasure to meet you personally years ago in Kansas. The contagious smile of Mother Elvira is the first thing that comes to mind in these hours of emotion and mourning on the hill of Saluzzo and half the world, where ‘her’ Cenacolo community, born in July 1983 in a ruined villa, it took root by welcoming the least of the earth. To the boys whom she loved more than anything else, she always smiled and repeated to get up, to rise again, not to let themselves be crushed by drugs, addictions, desperation. Even in recent years, when illness had prevented her from running left and right and dancing, ‘because life is joy’’ because even ‘when they say Elvira is dead!’ you have to sing, dance, party=she repeated –because I’m alive! Woe to you if you say: ‘’poor thing’’.. No, No “poor thing”! I’m going quietly and happy, and I’m singing! Something great will open up in front of me… life does not die’

Rita Agnese Petrozzi, this is her baptismal name, met her death early this morning at the age of 86, assisted by the nuns of the Cenacolo Community, in the small house in Baramafarina, just between Saluzzo and Pagno, in Cuneo area, where she had lived for some years, following her worsening health conditions. Born in Sora, in the province of Frosinone in 1937 ‘’daughter of the poor people’’ as she called herself, emigrated to Alessandria, at 19 she entered a convert in Bargaro Torinese, among the Sisters of charity of Santa Giovanna Antida Thouret, where she became Sister Elvira. The turning point came in July of 1983 when she received the keys to a ruined villa on the hill of Saluzzo and went to live there with four or five boys collected destroyed by the streets of the town.  It is there with the work, the welcome, the hope that overcomes every obstacle that the Cenacolo Community was born, a place that welcomes the last in the world, in 70 communities: drug addicts, disadvantaged, children in difficulty.

She, mother Elvira, never backed down. She met Popes, Cardinals, impressing them with her humanity and the fire she had in her eyes :prayer is a gift from God, but to see his concrete paternity’’ Already during the days of the Festa della Vita held on the hill of Saluzzo from 13 to 16 July thousands of people including young people, parents and friends belonging to the ‘’big family’’ of the community, who came from all over the world to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the upper Room, gathered around her in intense prayer and with deep affection to thank her and accompany her on her passage to eternal life. After the feast, a flood of people- young people from fraternities and missions around the world, ‘’children’ of the community, friends, parents- came to the formation House to say their last goodbyes, for a caress, a prayer, a kiss, a thank you. “The expectations, filled with prayer and affection, giving emotion and gratitude to the hearts of all those who have been able to greet and thank her, first of all the boys and girls welcomed in the different fraternities’ recalls the note issued by the same community.

The funeral home will be set up at the formation house of the missionary Sisters of the Resurrection in via Pagno 115 in Saluzzo, the place where Mother Elvira lived the last years of her earthly life. It will be possible to visit the body from tomorrow Friday august 4^th from 9 to 12 and from 14to 18.30, until the date of her funeral, which will be communicated as soon as possible. Every evening starting tomorrow, Friday 4 August, at 20.30, a holy rosary will be recited, open to all, on the hill of San Lorenzo in Saluzzo in the place where the Cenaolo community was born.

MOTHER ELVIRA, REST FOREVER IN THE ARMS OF JESUS AND HIS LOVING MOTHER MARY.

BY FR. GIORDANO BELANICH