ROME, Italy.
July 5 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Elisa Giambelluca, today Servant of God. This is a good occasion to remember her life.
"I think the Association itself has what is needed for me to become holy, to make us holy" (1972). Elisa was a young teacher of mathematics and physics, fully convinced that the Teresian Association, a lay association founded by St. Pedro Poveda (1874-1936), to which she belonged, is a path to holiness.
Elisa Giambelluca was born on April 30, 1941 in Isnello, a small town in the province of Palermo (Sicily, Italy), a daughter of Miguel and Vicenta da Quartararo, the last of seven children. On May 10 she was baptized in her parish, where on May 20, 1951 she also received her First Communion. As a child she attended elementary school in Isnello, and her parish, where she began her Christian formation in Catholic Action, and where her great Marian devotion began. Often she visited the nearby shrine of Our Lady of Gibilmanna.
In 1952 she moved to Cefalu (Palermo) to the religious boarding School of Mary, to attend high school and the classical lyceum of state schools in this small town. During the eight years she lived there, she received an excellent human and Christian formation.
Since the academic year 1960-1961 Elisa studied at the University of Palermo, in the department of mathematics and physics, and lived in the dorm of the Teresian Association, where she had her first contact with the charism of Saint Pedro Poveda. Soon her vocation matured into a complete surrender to the Lord in this lay Association, and in May 1964, near the end of their studies, she formally requested to belong to it.
On July 7, 1965 she received her Ph.D. in Mathematics and in September of that year she began a period fully dedicated to her professional life. On that date she was appointed Professor of mathematics and physics at the Istituto Magistrale Parificato "San Pio X" in Rossano Calabro (Cosenza, Italy), of the Teresian Association, which was one of the few educational and cultural schools available to youth in the area who would attend college. Elisa remained in Rossano for three years.
From 1968 to 1971 she lived in Turin, where she worked for three years, playing a variety of roles in her professional life, also dedicated to teaching, and in her last year she obtained an official teaching position.
In 1971 Elisa accepted the proposal to leave Turin to move to Rome to collaborate in the University Residence of the Teresian Association, while teaching at Liceo Científico Estatal n°23 of Via Tuscolana. Her total availability to the will of God and the mission of the Church, through the Teresian Association, led Elisa not only to move from one place to another, but, as noted in her diary in 1972 "to give up the official position freely and with joy because before being a teacher I am Teresian."
Elisa left Rome, her work with university students, and teaching at the State Lyceum and since early October 1971 she lived in Sabina, Poggio Mirteto (Rieti, Italy), at the International House of Formation of the Teresian Association, where she dedicated one year to her theological and spiritual formation and formalized her definitive commitment to said Association.
In October 1973 she returned to Rossano to work at Istituto Magistrale Parificato "San Pio X", where she was a teacher and principal for ten years. "I am completely calm and confident, with a great desire to work for Our Lord and the Teresian Association. What difference does it make to work in a state or private school? The only thing that always counts is Our Lord," she wrote then in her personal notes. These were not easy years; however, with the temperament of a strong woman, sensitive to the signs of the times, since 1974 she encouraged teachers to "risk" one of the most successful experiences of educational renewal in Italy, authorized by the Ministry of Public Instruction. Thus, she offered young people the dual opportunity to train in the socio-psycho-pedagogical area and linguistics, opening up new job prospects in the South of Italy, which was poor and marginalized.
In August 1983 Elisa left Rossano to go to Sabina, Vescovio, a house of the Teresian Association near the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Lode. She taught at Istituto Magistrale of Poggio Mirteto and at the State Institute for Agriculture of Forano (Rieti). But, affected by serious health problems, after just over two years she was forced to move to Rome. She was ill; a malignant tumor had been diagnosed and this made her suffer. She wrote in her notes in March-April 1984: "The communication of my new hospital admission has not reached me by surprise: basically I foresaw all this. I should put everything in his hands ... I feel solidarity with those who suffer, with those who struggle, with those who seek and I offer it ... I would like to drink from his cup to the bottom to live fully."
1985 was a year of much suffering that transformed Elisa into a "living crucifix". Despite her fragility, she persevered, and in her diary she wrote: "It is He who brings down and extols, humiliates and exalts. My contribution to history today: live this certainty. Can this be lack of commitment? I do not think so. All the conflicts I had at work, in the parish, with friends, have disappeared. And yet, I feel a living part of history. Attitude of gratitude and praise. Our Lady covers me with her mantle." In August, during her spiritual exercises in Poggio Mirteto, she wrote: "I asked the Lord to know how to walk with him decisively towards Jesrusalem. Weary way. Abandonment to the Father."
Elisa died in Rome on July 5, 1986 at 45. She offered her life and suffering for priests in difficulty and for vocations.
"Holiness is not a luxury; it is a simple duty," wrote Elisa on 31 December 1973. Her conviction of the need to be holy clearly resonates in her human and Christian experience, in each of her choices, in each task, in every dimension of her life lived in the light of the gospel. Her whole life is an invitation to rediscover and fully realize our daily lives the greatness of our baptismal vocation, of our being children of God, embodied in Christ, temple of the Spirit. In her prayer she prayed for "a holiness without noise, but true and fruitful for the Church" (Diary, Nov. 12, 1972). She lived an infinitely simple and profound holiness which is concrete and real.
Elisa Giambelluca 's life is therefore characterized, in particular, for “giving the reason for the hope that you have" (1 Pt 3:15), a joyful proclamation and testimony of God's work in the lives of those who trust in Him.
From 2008 to 2011, in Cefalu , the Legal Diocesan Research for her cause of beatification and canonization is being conducted, and it continues its course in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome.
María Encarnación González
Translation of a Spanish version of the article "Serva di Dio Giambelluca Elisa, by " Maria Encarnación González, Postulator General of the Teresian Association at Bibliotheca Sanctorum, Terza Appendice, Città Nuova, Milano 2013, columnas 496-499. It is noteworthy that, although not yet beatified, the publisher has asked the author for the photograph and this article about the Servant of God for this important encyclopedia of saints, with several volumes and the most complete and prestigious today.