Notes of the director
I am on the slopes of the Gran Sasso mountain, at Colledoro, a part of the town of Castelli in the province of Teramo, in the public gardens dedicated to Maria Di Gregorio, the founder, along with Leo Amici, of the Little Village outside the World on Lake Monte Colombo (Rimini). They call the Gran Sasso (Big Rock) the sleeping giant. At the foot of this mountain beneath its profile of a man standing out against the sky, there is a myriad of towns, villages, houses, life ….. life of today and yesterday. It was here that Maria was born. That’s why I’m here; I am part of the story of Leo Amici, of Maria and of the Leo Amici Foundation, which promoted “The Silent Sigh of Love”, the show about the life of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. So many lives, struggles, so much greatness at the feet of this majestic giant. Even Gabriel, whose real name was Francesco Possente, walked amongst the peaks and meadows of the Gran Sasso (he lived the last two years of his short life here and died at 24) felt his soul being uplifted and felt joy whilst his eyes examined the beauty of God. Whilst walking, he used to meditate on the mysteries of life, our questions of existence, death, like many, as we all do, especially in our youth, before the idols of the world overwhelm us and turn us away from the natural course of that which our real nature would have chosen. This is what Gabriel feared most of all; the temptations of this world, which he had judged as vanity, all that is vain, useless, temporary, mortal, or what comes to an end and is not eternal, like the eternity to which he felt he belonged. He lost his mother when he was four and the figure of the Virgin Mary comforted him; in her he took refuge in search of the protection of a mother he no longer had.