Despite two bereavements, a serious illness, and an accident that left him in a wheelchair, Friar Tullio PASTORELLI looks the world straight in the eye. There is no victimhood for this missionary, who explains why life should not be wasted.
Father Tullio was born three times. He carries in his body, and especially in his mind, the marks of the darkest nights in his life and the dawns that have followed, leaving nothing to rhetoric or victimhood. He wears a camel-colored Chilean poncho that drapes over his wheelchair, a sign that he has been and always will be a missionary. He is sixty years old and comes from Coredo, in [the Italian Region of] Trentino, a land that shaped his character and faith, and sparked his desire to leave the Non Valley for the world: “There were some missionaries in my village, and I was fascinated by their stories,” he said. Friar Tullio PASTORELLI did not have a typical straightforward calling; his life as a friar was built stone by stone. He is a rational and resolute mountaineer, a lover of strong characters such as St. Anthony of Padua and enjoys the difficult challenges that come with helping the weakest. It was not easy for him to leap into the unknown. His first leap into darkness came after the death of Stefano, a friend of his, who died at twenty-three. “It was a shock that made me realize that life should be lived, not just passed through.” His religious vocation also started uphill. Just as he was about to become a priest, Tullio’s father began to suffer from cancer. Tullio stayed at his side until he died. “The first funeral I officiated was his.”
The greatest trial came about twenty years later when, as a missionary in Chile, he was diagnosed with lymphoma of the central nervous system: “The first dose of chemotherapy triggered severe epileptic seizures, and I fell unconscious.” He remained in a coma for fifteen days. When he awoke, the doctor told him that his life had been teetering right on the edge. “The world collapsed on me,” he remembers, “I had often dealt with others’ stories of pain; I said all the things you say in those circumstances, ‘Let’s pray, things will get better,’ but now it was my turn, and everything seemed off. Yet, I was given another chance. I couldn’t waste it.” Five cycles of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant were enough for Tullio to be reborn a second time. His blood, originating from the Region of Trentino, now flows together with the blood of a Mapuche Indian who donated it to him. The mission receives, the mission saves. The signs are not coincidences.
They asked him to think of a name for the newborn Tullio and he chose “Gaspar, the Magi who seeks God,” But even Gaspar sometimes felt desolation: his family and friars were far away. He needed a voice to guide him, he who had so often been that voice for others. Working with a psychologist was important but not enough, so he sought a spiritual director, and found one in a Trappist sister, Mariela. There is always an open room for him in the harbor of peace and nature that is the monastery. “It was there that I discovered that I had always been running a hundred miles per hour, until I crashed into the Cross. Only in pain did I find my pace, my awareness, my slowness.”
Months of recovery followed with healthy food, walks and bike rides. He made it. Then, on April 19, 2023, while returning from a bike training session, he was hit by a bus. “I remember it like it was yesterday, one leg under the wheels, the other hanging from the bike. A man approached, took off his belt, and cinched it around my leg to stop the bleeding. His voice was positive, trying to console me. I remained conscious. I never knew who he was.” Once again, Tullio survived. The hospital was only 500 meters [1640 feet] away, but the darkness seemed endless: “One minute I was a missionary, the next minute I was a child in need of everything.” The doctor delivered the bad news: one leg was lost, the other hopefully could be saved down to the knee. “What do you want from me, God? Wasn’t it enough that you took Stefano and my father, Wasn’t my consecration to you enough? My mission, my crash into the Cross?”
God does not make phone calls, He responds little by little. Tullio knew that by now. He is back in Padua, living in the shadow of the basilica where he carried out youth ministry back in the early 2000’s. The young people he formed back then are now the doctors and nurses taking great care of him: “The seeds you sow are not lost, I can testify to that.” From his wheelchair, he looks the world straight in the eye and has no intention of letting it slack off: “I can’t stand injustice, architectural barriers, and the loneliness of fragile people. I can’t stand superficiality and hiding behind bureaucracy. I have no patience left, if necessary, I’ll shout it from the rooftops.” His world has become slow. “It takes me an hour and a half to get ready in the morning. Before, it took me fifteen minutes. But today, I manage my time; in my former life, time managed me.” His gaze is like a radar: “I have sensed immense loneliness in hospitals. I have seen fathers staring at their cell phones so as not to face the eyes of their terminal child. Illness is an alien world that affects both patients and families. We are not prepared, we don’t know how to face it, we don’t know how to be there for others. Yet, it would be a relief for everyone to know that we still are part of the normal flow of life, even in the most difficult moments.”
Tullio Gaspar is still looking for answers in the folds of his story, but he certainly knows that he still has a life ahead of him: “I do not intend to waste it, I do not intend to waste the pain. I want to be there for those who seek light, waiting together for the dawn.”
Friar Tullio belongs to the Italian Province of St. Anthony of Padua (Northern Italy). He made his simple profession on September 8, 1993, his solemn profession on October 4, 1997, and was ordained to the priesthood on September 4, 1999.
This article is part of a series dedicated to illness. You can read the full version in the February 2025 issue of Messaggero di Sant’Antonio as well as the digital version of the magazine. Try it now!
Giulia Cananzi
From https://messaggerosantantonio.it/content/nato-tre-volte-0
