I look at you … I draw near … I touch you … I smile … and I reach out my hand. A hand that is always ready to take care of you, just as my heart is always ready to listen when you speak to me in confidence, and my arms are always ready to hold you when you feel afraid or confused and don’t know where you are. I do this because I appreciate and respect you, and because this is my vocation, and I am dedicated to you, and it is with you that I experience the true sense of hospitality.

I feel a simple yet overwhelming joy that flows from small things and that only you, with your free heart, allow me to feel. It is the joy that comes from allowing God to surprise us, even when we do the usual things, walk the same halls, seeing the same faces and performing the same actions … But with you I learn that I can do all this in ever new ways, trying to add quality to your day and allowing God to be with me, so that I may always make the difference in your life.

Being a nurse, taking care of people and helping to ease their pain has always been a vocation. A vocation that is combined with another mission: the hospitaller mission. In it I feel encouraged to transform the life of every sick person, inspired by Jesus and by the life of the founders, thus embracing their charism and spirituality.

I regard my nursing vocation as an integral part of the hospitaller mission so I try to accept and develop my sensitivity for the brother who suffers and is the living image of Jesus.

And I am glad to belong to this community, which searches for Jesus’ face in every encounter and in every gesture.