On Saturday morning an email from Argentina informed us of the sudden ‘departure’ of Carmen Amarillo, a true pillar of the EoC in the Cono Sur.
by Antonella Ferrucci
News in the EoC world travel fast, especially when it concerns people who have been building the Economy of Communion, step by step, since 1991. I turned on my phone Saturday morning and was immediately struck by a whatsapp message from John Mundell, from Indianapolis, accompanied by a beautiful photo of Carmen: "An EoC pillar has unexpectedly arrived in heaven. My heart aches at this sudden news of Carmen's death. The unity with my sister in Argentina was one of the dearest gifts I have received in these 25 years. Thank you Carmen for everything!”
Opening my e-mail immediately afterwards, I found a message from Ramon Cervino, from Cordoba, Argentina, which arrived during the night with the subject: Carmen Amarillo - She has left and arrived
"Sometimes the Lord leaves us breathless, bewildered, surprised. He shakes us from the chair on which we may have been sitting. This happened to me today. Without warning, without saying anything, without saying goodbye, this afternoon Carmen Amarillo left us. The cause was three heart attacks which started while she was having coffee in a café with her husband in the mountain village where they had been staying for a few months. I was speechless. This was too much. After so many dreams, so much life shared in more than 40 years. Even before the birth of the EoC. What a mystery! What a vortex of Trinitarian love! I believe that with Carmen we are one step closer to paradise. The testimony of a love that fills us with light, renews us and invites us to immerse ourselves in the path of incarnation. Carmen was born to life in paradise, she anticipated Christmas".
Anouk Grevin writes: "A beautiful person, whom I also met. Very special, full of light and life. It seems impossible...”
Luigino Bruni: comments: "I remember her in all our meetings. If the EoC is still alive we owe it to Carmen, too, and to those who, like her, never stopped believing in it. Chiara Lubich must have welcomed her, along with Leo Andringa, Mario Massa and all those of us who had loved her. Let us continue her journey.”
What strikes us in these messages and in those that followed is the bewilderment and pain, the shock that those who knew Carmen express: only deep and true relationships with special people can give rise to reactions of this kind, which bounce from one end of the world to the other.
Good-bye Carmen, you will celebrate Christmas Eve in the Bethlehem of heaven. From there above, help us to carry on your dream which is also ours.
