Annamaria Ucci

My name is Annamaria Ucci and I live in Lanciano.

Fear! Since I was a child I lived with the fear of death. I was terrified of all those stories grandparents told about ghosts, witches, the dead.

Despite the fear, however, I went in search of these stories and questioned the older people who spoke about this subject because I wanted to know what happened after death.

The more I investigated, the gloomier nights in my room became and I had difficulty sleeping because every noise, every shadow seemed like a spirit that wanted to harm me.

I come from a Catholic family with relatives who are priests and nuns. I remember also asking them questions about death, but without satisfying my thirst for knowledge.

I spent my childhood and adolescence with the constant fear of death and of every spiritual form.

I remember that in these years I had a small Gospel, where in the nights I couldn’t sleep I read it and unknowingly it gave me a sense of peace. I must have read that gospel many times in those years without really understanding its spiritual meaning. But I know it was like a form of sedative for me.

On my first important trip to meet relatives in Argentina, an aunt gave me a Bible in Spanish and I started reading it with the aim of learning the language.

Obviously I didn’t understand anything about what I was reading but the day I finished the book (that is, after a few months) I was called by my employer to work a night shift in another sector.

That night my colleague (whom I didn’t know) spoke about God and the afterlife. And the more she spoke, the more my spirit rejoiced with peace and joy.

When she spoke, images of the pages of that book – the Bible – flashed through my mind. Words I didn’t understand. When she spoke I kept crying, and I didn’t know why.

I came off the night shift crying. I was joyful, happy to have found a precious treasure that I still didn’t understand.

Then I reread the Gospel and understood what Jesus did for me – I truly understood the love of God.

I understood the value of the blood of Christ which erases all my sin. I understood the value of the resurrection of Christ who conquered death.

Jesus conquered death and told me DON’T BE AFRAID… believe in me… live my word because after death I will be there.

Yes, I believed. I entrusted myself to these promises and from that day I NO LONGER AFRAID OF DEATH.

That weight, that constriction that gripped my heart disappeared the moment I knelt before the Savior and said to him: enter my heart.

Jesus freed me from the fear of eternity.