June 18, 2024, 1.40pm
3 min read
PALERMO – The one who left a few days ago it was the last Unitalsi train to Lourdes from Palermo. The Catholic association that engages its valiant volunteers in assisting the sick will continue to take care of them, to accompany them on their plane trips to the cave where the young Bernadette said she saw “the Lady dressed in white”.
The Unitalsi train from Palermo, like the others colleagues sThe rail is the mirror of a thousand stories of hope who embraced everyone’s pain. One that is remembered is the story of Brother Biagio Conte who got up from the wheelchair, in the heart of an unforgettable journey. It was the diocese of Palermo itself that attributed the healing to a grace.
The news of the cancellation is offered, with sincere regret, by Loredana Picone, historical figure of volunteering, president of the Unitalsi section of western Sicily.
The plane with the train from Messina remains
“Each section – he explains – retains its autonomy. In Sicily we have a Western and an Eastern organization. The problems we are experiencing are many and remain linked to increasingly long travel times, increasingly unsustainable costs compared to the resources we have, and the increasing age of passengers which makes transfers to the tracks more complicated. Furthermore, there are fewer and fewer attendees. That’s why a decision was made, reluctantly.”
“This departure – continues Loredana – was, unfortunately, the last, there will be no others from Palermo. We will continue to stand by the people who choose the plane, the other available option. If there is a need to transfer someone on a stretcher, we will do everything to accommodate them. Those who want to travel by train will be able to continue to do so from Messina”.
At the end of a farewell, pages and written pages come back to mind on the very human desire for the end of all suffering.
“Our section has been there for ninety years – continues Loredana Picone’s story -. I have been involved for about thirty years. The Unitalsi carriages represent an incredible experience that allows the cementing of relationships that will never be broken again. The most recent pilgrimage was wonderful. I repeat: we are truly sorry.”
“Prodigious signs”
“The fact is not easy to digest – says Father Raimondo Abbandoni, vice-assistant of the section -. But it is good to point out that the service to Sicily does not disappear, we will rely on the eastern section, if some brothers on stretchers cannot use the plane. We will meet everyone.”
“I started in 2011, with school, and I saw unmistakable signs of grace – explains Father Raimondo -. A non-believing student told me: ‘father, in Lourdes I discovered the most beautiful face of man’. A professor found faith. Yes, we have witnessed prodigious changes.”
The healing of Brother Biago
It was the spring of 2013. A man in a habit, suffering, in a wheelchair, took the train. Brother Biagio Conte joined that marching crowd. He arrived in Lourdes. And he healed. He later said: “For me it was an unexpected grace that I received from the good God who entrusted Mother Mary with him. I have always had the Virgin at heart, but I had never gone to the sanctuary of Lourdes, a journey that was possible thanks to Unitalsi who invited me together with the sick”.
“We have never forgotten his blue eyes – leads Loredana -. He himself tried to hide the event as long as possible.” Biagio’s recovery, one of the stories that flourished from the tracks of the Unitalsi train, in the blessing of the body or the spirit, ultimately sums them all up. What can fragility ask from heaven, if not liberation from anguish and evil? What is hope, if not already a miracle?
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Published on
June 18, 2024, 1.40pm
