The Second Vatican Council, in the Constitution on the Church, speaks clearly of the universal call to holiness, stating that no one is excluded: "In the various kinds of life and in the various professions, a single holiness is practiced by all those who are moved by the Spirit of God and […] follow Christ poor, humble and burdened with the cross, to deserve to share in his glory” (LG, 41). The history of the Church is marked by many figures of male and female saints. Each particular Church then guards with particular care the memory of these children of hers, proposed as models and witnesses. They are the dearest treasures of the communities: they are not kept in a museum or in a safe, but they are venerated, prayed for, imitated, loved. They are the brothers and sisters who have preceded us in faith and who, now,
Every saint assures us, in a concrete way, that God's plan of love and salvation is being fulfilled in history, even though the obstacles and closures of men sometimes seem to say otherwise. We have all known saints in our lives who may never be canonized but who have confirmed to us that the faith is credible. " I would like to add - said Benedict XVI in the General Audience of April 13, 2011 - that for me not only some great saints that I love and know well are "road signs", but also the simple saints, that is, the good people I see in my life, which will never be canonized.
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They are ordinary people, so to speak, without visible heroism, but in their everyday goodness I see the truth of faith. This goodness, which they have matured in the faith of the Church, is for me the surest apologia of Christianity and the sign of where the truth is ".
Little Teresa Ruocco was born on March 26, 2004, from mom Laura and dad Andrea and lived her childhood in Frignano (CE).She is beautiful, and since she was a child she has shown great sensitivity and spontaneity in relationships, so much so that the people around her or who will meet her at least once in their life will carry an indelible memory of her in their hearts and memories. Her life proceeds peacefully. She welcomes the birth of her little brother Luca when she is three years old. At five and a half years old she starts first grade and from day one she shows her various qualities about her, excellent achievement, and excellent behavior. She has never had difficulty relating to her companions, respecting everyone and inciting others to do so with the weakest. About her A classmate of hers who had her support then, remembers her as the one who defended and comforted her while others mocked and teased her for her hardships.
On March 28, 2012, two days after her eighth birthday, after a long period of specialist visits, various tests due to persistent pain in her left leg, she was diagnosed with a terrible disease: Ewing's sarcoma stage IV in the left hip metastatic to the lungs. Thus begins a period of suffering and trials that Teresa faces with extraordinary strength and humanity. She says that during her first hospitalization she heard a voice that she said came from heaven: «Always stay close to your mother and you will feel strong». It could be a suggestion or a normal increase in little Teresa's attention and need for protection, but alongside this episode, in reality, a serene and luminous awareness begins within her: "Through this illness I have discovered God's great love. My illness is a gift."
While battling the disease with all her heart, she was also convinced that she should give a witness to others. She often repeated: "Others seeing me will understand that God really exists", and then again "I have a mission". And faced with the moments of discouragement of the people who loved her most, especially her father and mother, she said: "do not be afraid, we are" blessed "because in the Gospel it is written that those who suffer are blessed". Those who met her never found in her a word of rebellion against what she was experiencing.
A strong, strong-willed, creative and sensitive character. She was a very normal child but at the same time extraordinary in the way she approached life. She always believed that the suffering of others was more important than her own, so she asked that we pray more for others than for her, and that we ask for their healing even before hers. On November 18, 2014, she underwent a lobectomy, a lung surgery that was not easy for a 10-year-old girl. Despite everything, after 4 days in the hospital, between drainage and pain, she was discharged; she boldly showed everyone her wound and cheered them up by saying that it was nothing to her and that they had no reason to worry. On June 4, 2015, she was diagnosed with a large brain metastasis which partially paralyzed her. There was no longer any hope of recovery.
He lived another 53 days, during which he continued to show his deep faith and unlimited trust in God. His bedside was the destination of meetings and grace for many lay people and priests. She experienced intense moments of prayer during which she stared at Heaven and smiled, and when asked why she was so happy, she replied "God has answered all my prayers", because she asked to "increase faith", she asked Jesus to give the strength to go forward to those who were beside her, and she prayed for those who did not know this beloved Jesus, because she said: "Where Jesus is not there, there is no strength to go on".
In these last moments she also had the comfort of the visit of the Bishop of Aversa, HE Most Reverend Mons. Angelo Spinillo, who visited her and brought her Jesus in the Eucharist. On July 29, at 16.00, at the end of the recitation of the Holy Rosary, Teresa saintly left this world to return to the Father. She fully conformed to Christ. Even after her death - and I who write, am a witness to it - her grave, like her bedside before her, has become the destination of many people who still wish to meet her and deliver prayer intentions to her.
His experience remains a beacon of grace that becomes ever brighter as time goes by. Teresa's is an extraordinary page of Passion and Calvary - "a total surrender". Death, truly, is never the last word. There are, in fact, other unthinkable ways that the world does not know - that it is hard to understand, ways that widen, invisible ways, ways in which, over the slow course of time, ordinary men, children in this case, have sown word of Christ. A word that has the sign of the cross but the strength of Easter morning.