Venerable Antonietta Meo.

“Pain is like fabric, the stronger it is, the more value it has.”

Antonietta Meo, affectionately known as Nennolina, was born in Rome on December 15, 1930, and died when she was only six years old, on July 3rd, 1937. It may be hard to imagine that a six year-old child would be declared Venerable by the Church, but Pope Benedict XVI did so in 2007, extolling her heroic virtues. This honor was made possible when the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints declared in 1981 that even young children are capable of heroic virtue. If canonized, she would become the youngest non-martyr Saint of the Church. 

 

She was born to a devout family, and her parish church was “The Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem,” one of the Seven Pilgrim Churches of Rome. It houses pieces of the True Cross and two thorns from Crown of Thorns, among many other sacred relics. It now also contains the tomb of Venerable Antonietta Meo. 

 

Nennolina was a happy and playful child. When she was four, her parents noticed a lump on her knee, and attributed it to a simple fall, but the swelling would not go away. It was eventually diagnosed as an aggressive cancer of the bone, and her left leg was amputated when she was only five years old. She was outfitted with an artificial leg, and was soon back playing with her friends. Although in pain, she remained cheerful. 

 

The power of God’s grace was evident in the way she accepted her suffering. When her father asked her if she was in pain, she reportedly answered: “Daddy, pain is like fabric, the stronger it is, the more value it has.” One day she said to her mother: "When I suffer, I immediately think of Jesus so I don't suffer anymore! It's simple not to suffer: don't think of your pain, but think of Jesus', because He suffered so much for us that you won't feel anything yourself". 

 

Shortly before her death, Professor Aminta Milani, the chief physician of Pope Pius XI, came to examine her at the request of her doctor. The professor spoke with Antonietta and was astonished that she could endure such pain without complaining. Her parents told him about letters she had been writing to God, and at his request they provided him with the most recent one, which her mother had crumpled up and thrown into a drawer because she was so upset at seeing her daughter suffer so much and so close to death. 

 

On the next day an auto from the Vatican stopped at their house, and a personal messenger from the Holy Father greeted the family and imparted the apostolic blessing upon Nennolina. He related that the Pope had been very moved upon reading the child’s letter to the Crucified Jesus. He also gave them a note from Professor Milani, in which he asked the dying girl to remember him in her prayers. 

 

Following is the text of this letter: 

 

May 2, 1937; Letter No. 162 [spelling and format retained].

Dear Crucified Jesus,

I really wish You well and I love You so much.

I want to be on Calvary with You and I suffer with joy because I know how to be on Calvary.

Dear Jesus. Thanks that You have sent me this illness because it’s a way to arrive in Paradise.

Dear Jesus, tell God the Father that I love Him so much, Him too.

Dear Jesus, I want to be Your lamp and Your lilly dear Jesus, dear Jesus give me the strength necessary to stand the pains that I offer for sinners [at this moment she was taken to vomiting].

Dear Jesus, tell the Holy Spirit to illuminate me with love and fill me with His seven gifts.

Dear Jesus, tell the Madonnina that I love her so much and that I want to be with her on Calvary because I want to be Your victim of love dear Jesus.

Dear Jesus, I entrust to you my Spiritual Father, and do for him all the graces necessary.

Dear Jesus, I entrust to you my parents and Margherita [her sister].

Dear Jesus, I send you lots of greetings and kisses.

Antoinetta of Jesus.

In June of 1944 Our Lord spoke to Maria Valtorta about Nennolina. He said that this little child, who had barely reached the age of reason, now, in heaven, “...possesses an intelligence and a knowledge not at all inferior to those of the most-learned and long-lived of the mystical doctors.” St. John the Evangelist, “...who died at the age of one hundred, after having known the highest mysteries of God; Paul, the scholarly Apostle; Thomas the angelic doctor and […] all the giants of true knowledge, cannot add light to that Little One, my saint.”

  

“The Holy Spirit, whose precocious bride she was on earth, taught her in embraces of fire what He does not teach to the proud humanly learned, and in uniting her to Himself in this blessed Country […] He infused into this Little One the perfection of knowledge, just as He infuses it into adults and the learned.” [Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1944, June 14, p. 357.]

 

Less than a month later, in July of that year, Nennolina herself appeared to Maria Valtorta while she was at prayer. As background, it is necessary to know that Italy was in the midst of the Second World War, and Valtorta had been forced to leave her own home in Viareggio due to a mandatory evacuation. She was bedridden with a number of serious ailments, but did not want to take the risk of asking the German Command for an ambulance; consequently she was placed as comfortably as possible on the back seat of an automobile. For eight months, she was obliged to take refuge with some others in the small Hamlet of St. Andrea di Compito, where she had a room in the home of a married couple. Infirm and in pain, she was extremely unhappy there, especially since she was left without her spiritual director. 

 

One evening, at 3 a.m. while crying desolately, she began to pray. “Afterwards I made my usual offerings. And when I came to the one for Nennolina, I said to her ‘Nennolina, give it yourself to Jesus and tell Him to have me go back to my house. If you say so, He will listen to you...and you can understand – you that were so sick – what what the suffering of an infirm woman means.’”

 

Antonietta (Nennolina) then appeared to Maria, dressed in white, with “...her thoughtful, shining eyes, smiling and luminous, with a sash of light at her side, in the place where the big wound was.” 

 

“Is it you?” Maria asked, and Nennolina replied with the smile of a happy girl. Maria asked her if she was happy, and the girl smiled once more.  

 

Maria then asked about her leg. Nennolina now gave a spoken answer: “It’s no longer of use. Here, where I am, nothing is of use any longer. Love is enough.” And then she pirouetted half-way around with the act proper to a girl, laughing all the while. 

 

Maria: “Do you love me, Nennolina?” The reply: a smile of assent. 

 

Maria: “Remember to tell Jesus that poor Maria has only Him and hopes in Him alone.”

 

With a farewell smile, “...the figure dissolved into light.”

 

[Maria Valtorta, The Notebooks 1944, July 6, pp. 421-422.]

A longer version of this blog post appeared online in The Remnant Newspaper, Saturday, September 10, 2022, titled “Nennolina’s Letters”.

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