I Capitolari in visita a Bucchianico

What follows is a summary of the last three days of the General Chapter when – after the work in the hall (10 May) – the great majority of the members of the General Chapter had an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of St. Camillus and visit Bucchianico and Valle dell’Inferno.

The first part of the work of 10 May was on formal procedures and the making of amendments to the Camillian Project Document which is by now moving towards final approval.

There was then a vote on the slate of names for the election of the Superior General and this produced the following result: Fr. F. Monks, Fr. R. Salvatore and Fr. V. Paleari. From them will be elected the future Superior General in a day to be established by the Definitory.

In the presence of Fr. L. Nava, a Montfortian religious, the revision was begun of the Constitution and the General Statutes. During this stage of the work, Fr. Peletti presented the amended texts and explained their ratio, after which they were discussed and voted on. This was a long and not always easy work which – at the end of the day – allowed a third of the Constitution to have been already debated.

The day ended with the celebration in honour of the Blessed Rebuschini, whose memorial it was. In the evening the members of the General Chapter went to the Teatro Villa Sora in Frascati to see the musical ‘Camillo, soldato di Dio’ (‘Camillus, Soldier of God’) performed by the theatre company ‘Cambio Scena’.

In the footsteps of their Founder, the members of the General Chapter spent the weekend in Bucchianico and S. Giovanni Rotondo (Valle dell’Inferno). This was an opportunity to relax at the end of the second week of deliberations; to strengthen fraternity; and to immerse themselves in places that marked the formation of the young Camillus de Lellis and saw the epilogue of his process of conversion. One of the most moving moments, in fact, was the reading of the conversion of St. Camillus (Cicatelli, Vita Manoscritta) under the vault of the votive altar built in the place of his radical decision to follow Jesus Christ. The words of Cicatelli restored life to this desert-like place and infused in each religious present a renewed determination to follow the same process of conversion as St. Camillus.