Beyond that window

La Spezia (Italy) On the occasion of the Feast of Gratitude of the Emilia Liguria Tuscany Province Our Lady of the Cenacle (ILS), on 19 April 19 2020, at the invitation of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, the young people made the video with the song to Mother Mazzarello ‘Beyond that window’.

The genesis of the song and the making of the video are told directly by them:

“Why don’t you write a song about the life of Mother Mazzarello? ”  Looking back on the question that Sister Ivana Milesi, Principal of the Mornese School, asked us two years ago makes us smile. We knew each other a little and we were at the end of the Spiritual Exercises which, on the occasion of the Easter Triduum of the Youth Search Group, had brought us to Mornese and made us know the life of Mother Mazzarello with simplicity.

That provocation was immediately transformed into a challenge: give life to a song written by young people for young people with the aim of speaking of Main and of the aspects of her history  that had most impressed us, witnessing to how she can be current for today as well.

For this great goal, everyone put their skills and talents into service: some for music, some for text. We discovered how everything can become truly possible if you entrust yourself and trust others and God.

We remember with nostalgia and enthusiasm the beginning of the drafting of the text in the courtyard of Nave (Brescia), between a slice of salami, some chords, and words that knew little about the song. Yet we didn’t leave the courtyard without the refrain that we didn’t stop humming every time we met.

In the following months, especially during the experience of the pilgrimage to Rome for the Synod of young people, we started writing the verses: the first concerns Main’s childhood as the principle place for God’s action in her life.  The second and the bridge talk about how her vocation was incarnated and grew, weaving between the plots of the lives of many young people, and how we too, in our small way, can be a testimony of this.

There was no doubt about the title. ‘Beyond that window’ represents for us the message of Mother Mazzarello: try to ‘look a little further’, aim high, have Holiness as your goal, which is concretized in the authentic encounter with God in our daily lives.

There was only one thing left: to record our song. April 19, 2020 was the deadline: the Feast of Gratitude of Our Lady of the Cenacle Province, the perfect opportunity to present it officially. We certainly couldn’t be stopped by a virus!

This is why we started with the idea of recording it remotely. Everyone from their home produced their own part, and all of them were then masterfully put together on an audio track and in a video.

The strength of this song certainly lies in the spontaneity and simplicity with which it took shape, and in the beauty of spending yourself together for a really big dream. It has been natural to involve many people in these months: starting from the FMA who have always supported and appreciated our work; passing through all the young people, the Salesians who got involved; up to all those who made available their professionalism to bring to completion this project born almost for fun. And the beauty was just that: alone we would not have been able to do anything, but putting together our little talents something wonderful came out.   Above all, we never stopped dreaming, believing that all this could really be possible not thanks to us, but through us. And it is true that “alone you go faster, but together you go further”.

Special thanks go to the young people who made this little big dream possible:

Daniele Aragosti (guitar); Mihai Chitac (violin); Francesca Gualtieri (piano); Giovanni Mazzanti (electric bass); Maria Laura Lipparini FMA (cajon); Giulia Mantovani (female voice); Emanuele Serra (male voice); Margherita Gabba (second voice); Francesco Ferrante (sound engineer); Margherita Gabba (music); Margherita Gabba, Valentina Sanna, Martina Aragosti, Valentina Grillini, Valeria Manfredini, Francesca Gualtieri, Federica Balboni, Giovanni Frigerio SDB (text).

(Valentina Sanna, Martina Aragosti, Valentina Grillini, Margherita Gabba)