She became the face of Italy’s earthquake: The photograph of Sister Marjana Lleshi, blood staining her veil as she texted her friends that she was alive, was seen across the world.
The 35-year-old nun recounted how she thought she would die when her convent walls collapsed. She texted her friends asking that they pray for her soul, only to be rescued by a man she has called her “angel”.
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Now safe, Sister Lleshi says she wants nothing more than to go to next week’s Rome canonisation of Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian nun “who gave hope to those who didn’t have any”.
Sister Lleshi was sleeping in the Don Minozzi convent beside the Church of the Most Holy Crucifix in Amatrice when the quake struck early on Wednesday.
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She had been there, with six other sisters, caring for five elderly women. Her order, the Sisters of the Handmaidens of the Lord, runs nurseries and homes for the aged.
She woke up covered in dust and bleeding. Realising what had happened, she immediately tried to summon help outside her room.
No one responded. And she couldn’t get out.
“When I started losing all hope of being saved, I resigned myself to it and started sending messages to friends saying to pray for me and to pray for my soul and I said goodbye to them forever,” she said outside the order’s headquarters in Ascoli Piceno. That moment was immortalized in an image taken by a photographer for the ANSA news agency reprinted worldwide.
She said she eventually was rescued by a young man who cared for one of the elderly women at the home.
She still hopes to travel to Rome for the Sept. 4 canonisation of Mother Teresa. “For me she’s the symbol of Albania, of a strong woman,” she said of Teresa. “I would have liked to go, but after this I don’t think I can.” — AP