“Dear Jesus, I want to be your lamp, the flame that signifies the love of the heart, and your lily that signifies the purity of the soul.” – Ven. Antonietta Meo (1930-1937)
On July 3, we remember a young life that mirrored the Christ’s light and love. She is Venerable Antonietta “Nennolina” Meo, one of the youngest on the road to sainthood.
At just five years old, she was diagnosed with bone cancer and had to have one of her legs amputated. Nurses said she embraced the pain as if it were not only a badge of courage. Adults were in awe of her will and determination.
She was fitted with a prosthetic leg, but her parents and medical staff knew each step would cause her great pain. She admirably said, “May each step I take be a little word of love.”
Cancer spread throughout her body, but that did not stop her desire to attend her Catholic school and catechism classes in Rome, where she would go “enthusiastically, because I learn so many beautiful things about You and Your saints,” as she wrote in a letter to Jesus. Little Nennolina had written more than 100 letters to Baby Jesus, the Blessed Mother Mary, God the Father, the Holy Spirit, St. Therese of the Child Jesus, and St. Agnes. In the last letter she was writing to Jesus she wrote about herself, “Your little girl sends you lots of kisses.”
In 1937, she died at the age of six. Her relics are in the Basilica Santa Croce, in Rome; the church she attended.
Her letters have been published in a book called Lamp and Lily. The name came from a quote in one of her letter’s where she wrote, “Dear Jesus, I want to be your lamp, the flame that signifies the love of the heart, and your lily that signifies the purity of the soul.”
