Sister Ottorina Mega, mother superior and nun of the Cante Institute of Montevecchio di Fano for 50 years, would have turned 99 in August. Instead, she passed away yesterday in the Cante shelter, comforted by the warm embrace of that community that she led for a long time. She arrived in Fano at the beginning of the 1950s. Originally from Trevigliano (Bergamo), she arrived first as a simple nun, then as historical superior, she remained at the Cante Institute in Montevecchio until 2001, the year in which all the nuns withdrew from the structure to go and live in Zavarise.
“Our city owes a lot to this woman – underlines Giovanni Di Bari, president of the Cante di Montevecchio association, remembering her -. Not only Fano, but also the province, the entire Region and with it the whole of central Italy which she ‘entrusted’ at Cante the fate of young lives in need of care, that of Mother Ottorina, completely dedicated to the reception and assistance of children and families in health and economic difficulties, in times when the difficulties often bordered on the impossibility of surviving. The Cante of Montevecchio identifies with Sister Ottorina, because for everyone she was ‘the’ Cante of Montevecchio, always available to face any difficulty, regardless of her and the other sisters’ sacrifices, she welcomed, raised, educated and brought hundreds of children back to life.”
It is with “bitterness and great admiration” that the members of the song say farewell “to this exceptional woman, with the serenity of thinking of her alongside her beloved brother and again together with Commendatore Giovanni Di Bari (president of the song from the Second World War to beginning of the 80s, grandfather of the current president, ed.), to Dr. Caselli, to Don Guido Berardi and Don Achille, men with whom he shared a good part of his life and his mission”.
Tiziana Petrelli
