Mass in Memory of Modesta & Steven

For more than forty years, the Community of Sant’Egidio has been remembering the victims of those who live on the streets, starting with the death of Modesta Valenti, a 71-year-old homeless woman who lived near Termini Station.

We began celebrating this memory in the United States in New York following the death of our dear friend Steven. With them, we remember all those who die, abandoned by the cold of our cities.

Modesta’s Story

On January 31, 1983, Modesta, who lived at Termini Station, felt ill. Passersby called an ambulance, whose crew refused to take her aboard because, due to the conditions in which she lived, she was dirty and had lice.

After hours of agony, waiting for someone to decide to help her, Modesta died.

Modesta’s death deeply marked the friendship of the Community of Sant’Egidio with the homeless. For this reason, each year on the anniversary of her death, Sant’Egido holds a liturgy that commemorates all the “friends on the street” with whom the Community has been close and who have lost their lives, remembering each one by name. With them, the Community – through the service of the dining centers, food distributions, and hospitality centers – has woven relationships of proximity and familiarity, attempting to improve the difficult conditions of their lives and build more human cities.

The memory of Modesta and her friends on the street has spread from Rome to many places where the Community is close to those who live and die homeless.

Steven was a friend of Sant’Egidio in New York for many years before he died on January 12, 2016, alone in a bathroom. Like Modesta, Steven was a victim of a throw-away culture that has spread through our society.

We continue to remember Steven, Modesta, and all those who have died, confident that a new way of living is possible.