An outgoing and energetic personality
Blessed Leonella’s cheerful, jovial, and spontaneous temperament emerged from her earliest years, foreshadowing the natural leadership she would demonstrate in the years to come. Extroverted and communicative, Sr Leonella loved being among people and attracting attention with her lively and warm presence; she was not naturally inclined to silence; she was well aware of her own outgoing nature.
Some witnesses recall how unusual it was to see her silent. When, during breaks, she remained particularly silent, some even wondered if she was okay, precisely because her behavior was out of character.
“She usually talked and laughed” : a few words that immediately convey the image of a woman with a sunny, communicative personality, capable of bringing an atmosphere of joy and familiarity to everyday relationships.
Far from denying her way of being, Leonella knew herself deeply and was well aware that, for her extroverted spirit, finding peace was a true daily achievement. This desire emerged with particular clarity in 1973, during a course of Spiritual Exercises, when Leonella enriched her life plan with a simple yet demanding resolution:
“ Today during the Spiritual Exercises I see that I must become silent:
- With nurses who don’t have, or at least I seem to deduce from the facts that they don’t have a sense of duty, a sense of responsibility, I won’t call them out, I’ll keep quiet – always.
- I will preferably be collected and will carefully avoid any sarcastic words or remarks of any kind. I must, at all costs, pray to become: a) Calm b) Quiet c) Reserved d) Silent e) Smiling.”
This intention already reveals a significant awareness: Sr. Leonella understands that silence does not consist only in speaking less but in learning a respectful silence, capable of leaving others the space and freedom necessary to grow and assume their own responsibilities.
A heart that had no need to remain silent before God
A particularly profound aspect emerges in Blessed Leonella’s spiritual life: while she struggled to learn the discipline of silence in front of others, before God she was never afraid to speak out. In prayer, she presented herself without filters or masks, free to vent, cry, and express every struggle, fear, or question.
In her dialogue with the Lord, Sr Leonella did not remain silent. Only after having placed all the complexity of her feelings in God’s heart was she able to return peacefully and silently to the challenges of the cultural context in which she found herself, to the demands of the mission, and to her precious work as a trainer in the nursing school.
The mission in Somalia: the silence of the seed.
The great and decisive silence Sr Leonella faced was the one imposed by her mission in Somalia. In a context marked by intense tensions and dangers, the choice to remain in that land was not the result of naive obstinacy, but rather a conscious choice, freely reaffirmed every time the situation took a turn for the worse. In Somalia, the mission required being lived in silence, service, and seclusion, moved by firm prayer and a profound relationship with the Lord of life.
Her presence in Somalia was eminently charismatic, embedded in an entirely non-Christian environment marked by fundamentalism. Her witness was lived according to the dynamic of the Gospel: that of the seed fallen to the earth that dies to bear fruit, a full adherence to Jesus’ Easter, fulfilled on the cross in the total gift of self.
In this regard, the words of Pope Leo XIV resonate emblematically:
“Christian hope is not born in noise, but in the silence of an expectation filled with love. It is not the product of euphoria, but of trusting abandonment. The Virgin Mary teaches us this: she embodies this expectation, this trust, this hope. When it seems that everything is at a standstill, that life is a broken path, let us remember Holy Saturday.”
Just one word is enough…
Sr Leonella was not killed because she openly evangelized with proclamations or high-sounding words, but because precisely in the silence of daily service, in fruitful and respectful interpersonal relationships with the Somali people, she made visible the face of Jesus Christ, God of life and Lord of all peoples.
Trust and surrender woven through his entire existence; in the most difficult moments of his personal history, particularly during his mission, he knew how to remain silent when necessary, but he spoke with the supreme eloquence of his life. At the dramatic moment of his assassination, with his blood spilled across the Somali land, his heart expressed a single, fundamental word, repeated three times:
“I Forgive, I forgive, I forgive . “
Not many words were needed; they were enough to embody the teaching of St. Joseph Allamano, which Leonella had reminded her fellow sisters of in 1995: “Good must be done well, with love, in silence, with humility, for God alone . “
Blessed Leonella thus offers us a powerful testimony for our human and spiritual growth:
- An outgoing woman learns silence.
- A woman with a strong personality learns not to invade.
- A missionary immersed in a context that prevents her from openly proclaiming the Gospel, she evangelizes through prayer, service, and relationships.
- A woman who deeply loves life courageously chooses to stay close to her people even when the situation becomes dangerous.
- A consecrated woman who speaks to God about her difficulties, her fears, and her sufferings, matures the complete gift of herself until the last moment.
Blessed Leonella thus continues to speak not through noise, but through that fruitful silence in which the grain of wheat dies to generate life. Her life reminds the Church that the Gospel can be proclaimed even without many words: in daily faithfulness, in skilled service, in respect for others, in concrete love, and, when the hour of trial comes, through the ability to surrender everything to God.
This total gift emerges with moving clarity from the words of Sr Marzia, her companion on the mission and the final witness of her last hours:
“Silently, without a moan, so sweetly she went out like a candle that has run out of wax, by now she had given everything.”
By the Postulation
