“Chiara Petrillo, Mary’s Motherhood, and Advent” - 1st Sunday Advent - A (11.27.22)

“Chiara Petrillo, Mary’s Motherhood, and Advent”

 By: Fr. David Schmidt

Regina Coeli Parish - Sacred Heart Church- Emsworth, PA

Mass Readings- https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/112722.cfm

Today, is the first Sunday of Advent as we begin our preparation for the coming of the Lord on Christmas day. Advent isn’t just a time to prepare for Christ’s birth, but also for the 2nd Coming of Christ, and our birth into eternal life

Advent ultimately helps prepare us for heaven. In the 1st reading and responsorial psalm it talks about ‘going and rejoicing to the house of the Lord.’ This is the journey that we are on. We are journeying up the mountain to the house of the Lord. And who better to guide us on our journey than our Blessed Mother?

The Lord has been putting on my heart recently Mary’s role in our Advent journey this year, especially Mary’s motherhood.

We live in very dark times. And our Blessed Mother is going to have a huge role to play in bringing light into this darkness. And she will do this through her motherhood, especially since much of these dark times has to do with the rejection of motherhood and the gift of children.

The readings as I mentioned talk about going and rejoicing to the house of the Lord, and they also mention the importance of God’s light on this journey. In the first reading it says, “O House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!” Then, in the 2nd reading it says, “Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

We know that this light is Jesus. It is His light that lights the path towards heaven, towards the house of the Lord, and it is the armor of His light that protects us from the enemy on the way.

This light of Christ, that so beautifully shined through our Blessed Mother, will shine forth into this world in a uniquely powerful way through all those mothers who follow her example.

One example I want to talk about today of someone who allowed this light of Christ to shine so powerfully through her as she made her journey to the House of the Lord was a young woman from Italy by the name of Chiara Corbella Petrillo.

Chiara Corbella was born in 1984, in Rome, Italy, and when she was 18 she met her future husband Enrico Petrillo on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. They dated off and on for a few years and eventually married in September 2008.

Shortly after the wedding Chiara became pregnant. During the pregnancy they discovered a malformation in the baby who was diagnosed with a condition where she didn’t have a skull and wouldn’t survive after birth.

The doctors suggested terminating the pregnancy, but Chiara wanted to carry the pregnancy through because in seeing her daughter, Maria, on the ultrasound she saw that Maria was alive and growing and developing, so Chiara wanted to sustain her as long as she could.

During this whole process she entrusted herself to the Blessed Mother. Chiara saw herself in Mary – as she too had “a special pregnancy, a Son who would die before her eyes, and the weight of telling Joseph, who did not yet know anything.” (Witness to Joy, 30)

She realized during the pregnancy that the Lord wanted to show them His love through this struggle. She was to trust Him and allow herself to be guided by Mary (p.31). Chiara started to see how the Lord was using this child as a beautiful gift to help her know how much she was loved by her husband and how much Christ loved them both.

Enrico the husband said, “Maria Grazia Letizia made us open our hearts. She opened the door and entered, bringing us grace and true love and teaching us the meaning of life and eternity.” (p.32)

Chiara and Enrico were described during this process as having a light shining from their faces. A light that both consoled and enchanted. (p.35)

They surrendered to the Lord and were docile to Him during the whole process. At the time of the birth, there was fear that there were going to be complications, but miraculously no complications occurred, and the baby was born alive. The baby was baptized and then died after being alive for only 40 minutes. It was said that Chiara and Enrico “were prepared for the worst, but not for such beauty” (p.43).

At the funeral, Chiara and her husband were dressed in white signifying the Resurrection, and Chiara played the violin and Enrico played his guitar. The funeral was described as “Those who participated in the celebration lived a moment of eternity, a powerful experience, a proof that Paradise truly exists.” (p. 45).

The priest at the funeral said that we are defined by the way we love and that Chiara’s daughter Maria was already ready as “she already lived everything that was necessary.” (p.45)

On the prayer card at the funeral, there was an image of Mary holding the child Jesus with the phrase, “We are born into eternity, and we shall never die.” (p.45)

Chiara and her husband both felt during this experience with their daughter, Maria, that they both had experienced eternity.

A short time after Maria was born into eternity, Chiara was pregnant again with their 2nd child, David. During the pregnancy, David was also discovered to have a malformation as he didn’t have legs and some of his organs, and he, like his sister, would not survive after birth. Again, Chiara and Enrico entrusted themselves to the Lord and our Blessed Mother and carried the pregnancy to birth, where David was born, and quickly baptized and died after being alive for only 38 minutes. It was a heavy cross for them to bear, as they experienced pain and sorrow, but through it all they were able to maintain their joy.

When Chiara got pregnant a 3rd time, everything with the baby was clear and the baby was healthy. However, Chiara developed a small white ulcer on her tongue that needed to be removed because it was feared that it was cancerous.

The surgery had to be done in two parts. The 1st part they could do right away, but the 2nd surgery had to wait until after the birth, so as not to harm the child. Chiara, delayed the birth of the child as long as possible, so that the child would be born with little to no risks. However, in delaying birth, she was putting herself at risk of the cancer spreading.

The child was born healthy, and Chiara had the 2nd surgery. She suffered much in her treatments but sought to maintain a sense of joy. However, a short while later, the cancer ended up taking her life, and she died in 2012 at the age of 28.

Before dying, her and Enrico organized a trip to Medjugorje, where they first met, and invited many people to join them. During the trip, Chiara said she wanted to reveal her and Enrico’s secret on how they handled their trials. She handed rosaries to everyone there, and when she gave them a rosary, she repeated Jesus’ words from the Cross saying, “Behold your Mother” (John 19:27) (p.132). Chiara and Enrico’s secret was their reliance on the Blessed Mother.

Chiara died a beautiful death and was ready to be with the Lord. Her life is truly inspiring, and I encourage you to read about her life. The book depicting her life is called “Chiara Corbella Petrillo: A Witness to Joy.”

Why do I share this story with you? It is because in Chiara Corbella Petrillo we see the power and greatness of motherhood. In her motherhood we get a glimpse of the motherhood of Mary. Mary too was given a child with a death sentence. Mary knew that she was only to have a short time with her Son. That He was destined for death. But this did not make her love Him any less or see His life as less valuable. We see the great love of our Blessed Mother so powerfully witnessed through Chiara. We see the greatness of a mother’s love for her children. Her willingness to give up her life. Her willingness to endure such great suffering to bring a life into this world. It is nothing short of miraculous. This miraculous love and suffering of a mother brings immense healing. A healing that this world desperately needs. All women have this capability to love in this motherly way whether the Lord gifts you with physical children or not.

The only way to dispel the darkness that engulfs our world is by bringing the light of Christ into it. Each child, each human being, brings a unique light into the world that is meant to dispel the darkness. This light is first carried in the womb of a mother. This light after being carried in the womb of a mother for 9 months is then brought into the world to shine in its own unique and powerful way. The light that shines forth from each person is made most beautiful when purified through love and suffering.

Mary carried the greatest light of all. The light of the world, that gives light to all things, the light of Christ. She carried and protected this light for 9 months before allowing it to pour forth into the world and shine for all eternity.

In the story of Chiara and Enrico, we see how we are meant to see all things through the lens of eternity. In the birth of their first two children, they were also anticipating their births into heaven. They experienced the interplay between our birth into this life, and our birth into eternal life. During Advent, we prepare for the birth of Christ, while also preparing for eternity and our birth into heaven.

In Mary, Chiara, and all those heroic mothers out there, both physical mothers and spiritual mothers, we see a surrender and trust in the Lord that all of us are meant to emulate. We learn how to suffer through their example. We learn how to love. We learn how to anticipate the birth of our Lord, not only at Christmas, but in the depths of our hearts.

May we entrust ourselves to our Blessed Mother this Advent season. May we rely on her motherly love in a unique way as she prepares us for Christmas. May she be our guide up the mountain as we go rejoicing to the house of the Lord. May we follow her on this path that is lit by the light of Christ. May she help Christ’s light shine through each of us so as to dispel the darkness of this world. And may we follow her and her Son to our birth into eternal life.

Resource:

-“Chiara Corbella Petrillo: A Witness to Joy” by Simone Troisi and Cristiana Paccini -https://www.amazon.com/Chiara-Corbella-Petrillo-Simone-Troisi/dp/1622823052/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2C1UL5NOQ9EAM&keywords=a+witness+to+joy&qid=1669591660&sprefix=a+witness+to+joy%2Caps%2C250&sr=8-1