• Meditations – Chiara Corbella Petrillo

    Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? So do not worry about tomorrow… – Matthew 6:25, 27, 34

    The past to mercy, the present to grace, the future to Providence.  Let us ask for grace… – Enrico Petrillo

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    Here is a powerful video of a young woman who in 2009 had been married for a little over a year.  Chiara Corbella Petrillo can be seen giving the testimony of her decisions concerning her first pregnancy, after it was discovered that her daughter Maria Grazia Letizia would not long survive her birth.  The video is a little over 19 minutes long and is embedded at the bottom of this page.

    As you watch this video please meditate on:

    • Chiara’s youthful mannerisms and demeanor, and their contrast with the wisdom in her eyes and words
    • The strong love between Chiara and Enrico
    • Their willingness to give their faith to God
    • The absolute joy seen in her smiles, despite the real pain that comes to her during the testimony
    • Her understanding that our best glimpses of heaven do not necessarily come from our thoughts about the future, but from our complete submersion in the present moment, our decision to truly live right now as God would ask
    • How all of these graces would continue into the unknowable future over the following three years, when their second child Davide Giovanni would also die minutes after birth, their third child Francesco would be born healthy, and Chiara’s own death from cancer

    People of maturity know that there is no real answer to the mystery of suffering. The story of Enrico and Chiara Corbella Petrillo gives an answer to a different matter, that of faith in a life that is beyond suffering.  Not immune to suffering, not without suffering, but beyond it.  Everything you see in them is a gift, but a gift that can be received only by accepting life in the fullest.  May we all be granted the grace do the same.

    For a review of the biography Chiara Corbella Petrillo: A Witness to Joy please click here.