Thirty years after the death of Elisa

Giambelluca (1941-1986)

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