A story...
In these days the General Chapter is colored with the nuances brought by the land from which we come, with the sound of the languages of each one, with the richness of the realities in which each of us lives the FMIJ mission. These days began with a story: the sisters coming from the various nations presented to the others their mission, history, works, service to the Church and the poor, the open paths, difficulties, hopes, dreams…Fatigues and worries resonate, but also present is…force of the Spirit that leads to face great challenges…because great are the changes taking place in our contemporary times. How to go through the change without succumbing? Bishop Paolo Martinelli (Capuchin friar, Apostolic Vicar of Southern Arabia), through a zoom connection from the Arab Emirates, offers us keys to “cross” the wave of change as consecrated women without fear: to have critical capacity, to educate ourselves in interculturality, to be experts in humanity and, rediscovering the centrality of Christ in our lives, to recognize ourselves as daughters who live with joy “the risk of encounter.”
With these stimuli and provocations in the heart, we went into personal reading and then into dialogue and discussion in groups on the Chapter’s Strumento di Lavoro.
Greccio
Further enriching these days was the visit to Greccio and L’Aquila on Sunday, April 28.
In Greccio, after a moment of prayer and personal adoration at the Grotto, we had the Eucharistic celebration presided over by Fr. Luciano de Giusti Ofm (Minister Provincial of the Friars Minor of Abruzzo-Lazio). In his homily, starting from the Gospel, he helped us to contemplate the vine and the branches. The Gospel calls us to have a gaze capable of knowing the singularity of each vine: the care given by the farmer to each branch as it grows, as well as pruning which is necessary for the flowering of the person in its uniqueness. The Gospel offers a concrete declension of the verb “to love”: to remain. As Francis did in the face of the mystery of the other, as Sr Mary Joseph did in her own life when she experienced painful rifts with her own sisters.
L' Aquila
After a warm welcome by the sisters of the Emmanuel fraternity, the pilgrimage continued to L’Aquila, Foundation House.
We were welcomed by the sisters with the singing of the Regina coeli in the chapel. After lunch and a time of celebration and exchange of gifts, we visited the most significant places of the house guided by the sisters of the fraternity….making us experience how, within these walls, the encouraging and maternal living voice of Sr. Mary Joseph still resounds.
