The lamp of kindness
• Burn the lamp of kindness with the wick of care in the oil of love. Spread the light of happiness in this world.
In the church of Mary, Ara Caeli, in Rome, there is a silver lamp kept burning day and night. It is called the lamp of kindness. On the silver base of the lamp is engraved the message that there should be no bad boy or girl. Everyone should be kind just as Christ was kind. This is the message of a small Italian boy called Livio Tempesta, who wrote it in his diary just a short time before he died in the Christmas of 1951. There was nothing special about this boy. He did nothing to make himself a newspaper hero. But one great ambition Burned in his heart - to be kind.
Every year since then, on November 20, an award is given to the best school boy or girl in Italy. It is called the Livio Tempesta prize, in honor of that little boy who wanted to b kind. The prize includes a trip to Rome to take part in a deeply moving ceremony in the church where the lamp is burning. During the service, the Cardinal personally presents the winner with a gold medal and diploma plus an award of hundred liras. Then the boy or girl who has been chosen as the best out of life million pupils in Italy relights the lamp of kindness which has been put out the day before. The town where the child lives offers the olive oil that keeps the flame burning through out the year.
The prize in 1961 went to Carmel Fichera, a little girl with black hair and soft brown eyes. Her home was in Naples, the singing city. She went, a little girl with black hair soft brown eyes. Her home was in Naples, the singing City. She went to school and found many occasions for acts of kindness. She was thus chosen out of 230 entries that were submitted to the judges.
Carmel’s mother was sick and there were four brothers and sisters to take care of. The family was poor yet she shared her savings, her lunch and her clothes with the other companions who were poorer than she was. On many occasions she did shopping even before she went to school. She did all the housework and washed the greasy overall of her father who worked as a mechanic. She often helped her neighbor’s little children with their lessons and visited any one who was sick.
But if she did all this, when did she find the time to complete her home work? Said, that by paying very close attention in school, she knew the lessons as soon as they were over. She did her home-work at night when everybody was in bed. With such a desire to study and help others, it is not surprising that she wanted to become a teacher.
It was one of the biggest surprises in Carmel’s life when she was told that he had won Livio Tempesta Prize for being kind. All she was trying to do was to let her little Lamp of kindness shine in this world.
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