How to love? What to love? Who to love? I found the answers in society, with the people, and for that, I give thanks to God. This was the way.

Martha Pelloni is an Argentinean nun who has dedicated her life to sowing tiny seeds. She leaves them in the souls of the people she fights for and of the people she has taught to fight. She knows that from these seeds, trees will grow and that these trees will bear fruit. She has many times moved enormous mountains with her faith–for example, when she suffered from cancer or when she challenged the impunity with which a little girl was raped and murdered in the province of Catamarca. Her fight, daily and untiring, has not stopped for two decades.

Very early in the mornings, before she puts on her habit, nun Martha Pelloni opens the window in her room. When she was a child, her father told her: “You have to open the window and see the light of the day.” And that is what she does: she sees the first rays of daylight striking the city. “I think that every morning is a resurrection,” Martha often says. She practices what she preaches: she is herself the resurrection of the message of the love of Jesus. Day after day, Martha Pelloni lights a candle in the shadow. She became well-known in her native Argentina because of the case of a young girl raped and murdered in the Argentinean province of Catamarca, in 1990. The murderers were related to the governor of the province. The authorities, therefore, failed to prosecute. Martha did not accept this impunity. She wanted justice. She organized people, going on the first demonstration with the victim's friends and classmates; they went on, marching along the streets of the province. Then, the fathers and mothers of the children joined them. Later on, they won the support of the people of different communities until the entire population took to the streets with Martha Pelloni. “Up to 30,000 participated in the marches that took place, week after week, for months.” And justice prevailed. Since then, Martha Pelloni has not stopped marching. The light of her candle is still burning.

The Santa Teresa Foundation