If you begin…

Dina enters the noviciate and the first thing that she reads on a mural is: “If you begin, do so perfectly”. This made a great impression on her and she is ready to put it into practice. 

Community life continues to be a source of great suffering or her, not because she did not care for her companions, she would have given her life for anyone of them, but given her sensitivity even small difficulties offered her an opportunity to constantly put others first.

For nothing in the world would she abandon her vocation, but her homesickness continued for several weeks. She writes “Sometimes, when I was taking a stroll, I got the idea of slipping away without hat or coat, or of escaping from the window during the night”. She struggles with this ceaselessly and it is painful when her natural feelings are evident to others. Because at times tears fall, she decides to undertake the challenge of smiling continuously, because she tells herself “a sad saint is a sorry saint”. Jesus makes her understand that true interior joy must be reflected exteriorly. It’s not always easy. If at any time you have been through it, you will know the cost of not showing your feelings when you are annoyed by things around you.

The days pass. She begins to give some piano lessons. She loves it and tells herself that Jesus will be the real teacher. This is not hard, because she knows that Jesus lives in her. These classes are happy times for her and for her students; she is demanding, but so kind that all remember her with great affection.

Jesus continues to communicate with her interiorly. Dina listens in order to please Him in everything. One day, at Christmas, Jesus invites her to play and tells her that whoever loves the most will win. The competition gets more difficult but in the end they tie because Dina tells Jesus that she loves him with the same love that he gives her. Another day, the game becomes more complicated, because this time it is about the Cross and whoever carries it better will win. She sees that Jesus is winning; Dina’s responses are increasingly wavering, until it occurs to her to turn her eyes to the Virgin Mary, begging her help. In no time Dina sees clearly and tells Jesus that she unites her poor crosses to His and that thus they have an equal value.  Does this seem like a childish game to you? Don’t you believe it; when you truly love you say things that others do not understand – but those who love each other need to express such love in a thousand ways.

The 15^th February 1922 arrives. But what happens on this day? I don’t know if you know that in religious life there is an initial period of testing before beginning the noviciate as such. This period ends with a ceremony in which the young woman, in addition to receiving the religious dress, is given a new name. From now on Dina will be known as Mary Saint Cecilia of Rome. For her this was a great joy. It begins with the same name as the Our Lady and, as a good pianist, they could not have added a better one than that of Cecilia, the patron of music and whom she had always greatly liked and invoked for a long time. Moreover Cecilia fulfilled all Dina’s aspirations, virgin, martyr and apostle.