In 1988 on the pages of Christian family an interview appears with a young girl from Tortona, Elena Francesca Beccariawho is about to become a cloistered nun. A radical life choice that aroused great interest at the time. Today that girl is 65 years old and is abbess of the monastery of Santa Chiara in Rome. Now he gives the world his testimony in the book Joy in silence (ed. Marsilio), which Sister Elena decided to publish after having thought about it for a long time.
«In reality I only responded to a request from the publisher Marsilio», explains the Poor Clare nun, «the director of non-fiction had seen an interview with me and told me: “I am an atheist, but I was impressed by your testimony and I think it could be good for many people, how about publishing a book with us?”. It wasn’t an easy choice, the important thing was to show not myself but rather the work that the Lord has done in my life; I did it because I would like what happened to me to happen to many other people.”
At the beginning of her vocational journey she asked herself a question that few have the courage to ask: are you happy?
«The question was asked to me by a nun during a meeting in the parlor: I immediately answered yes, out of pride or perhaps because I didn’t yet have the courage to tell myself. I couldn’t say: “I’m not happy”, it took a while. After a week I wrote to her: “You’re right, I’m not happy, help me to be happy” and from this openness of honesty towards myself my journey of conversion was born. In my opinion, grace was at work there: when you make truth within yourself it is as if you open the door to grace, but I understand that it is difficult to reach this contact with oneself.”
In the interview with Christian family she was still in 1988 proband and replied that “the idea of entering seclusion gives me a lot of serenity, now I’m going in to try.”
«There was a lot of media talk about this vocation of mine, which in reality was no different from that of other girls. The bishop of Perugia told me: “Just give an interview and choose Christian family because we are sure that he will not misrepresent what you say”. I was convinced, but I said to myself “it may well be that I am wrong”, however I must say that I have never had any vocational crises. The Lord preserved me from this, perhaps because I fought so hard before”.
He also said “I was finally where I wanted and should have been”: decades later, do you feel that this is still the case? Are the desire to live and the duty to respect one’s vocation one and the same thing for you?
«It’s like this, God calls you where you can flourish in your humanity more fully, also for this reason I was convinced to give my testimony to the world, to make it clear that the only way to be happy is to be yourself; the Lord created us in a certain way for a certain mission, discovering it and following it is the way to be fully happy, with a happiness that is not superficial, but profound, which remains even in the toil of life.”
In the book she uses the expression “beyond the grate”: it seems that cloistered life does not actually separate her from the world, on the contrary, it connects her in a more authentic way…
«It’s like this, from the seclusion I was able to read life, the world, others, with a different depth; the grate helps those who are outside to hand themselves over in a more true way, as if they feel more protected by what they entrust to the nuns. We keep the things that are told to us in our hearts, in prayer, there are some more intimate instructions that we keep for ourselves and to the community we only say “pray for this family that is experiencing a problem”, but we do not say the problem. This allowed me – as the subtitle of the book states – to discover the world from the seclusion.”
During the trial phase a friar in Assisi told her: “Now go back to your home and live life as you have lived it until now, only in this way will you understand if you are missing something.”
«There was no need, on the 400 kilometers return from Assisi to home in Tortona, I reflected on that provocation and said: “No, I’ve lived the same life as before for many years, it’s not what I want”, and there, I remember, an immense peace came to me, a joy, the enthusiasm of saying: I’ve found it! From then on I no longer had any doubts.”
