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October 2014
A CHURCH AND A CONSECRATED LIFE that ‘GO OUTWARDS’
The needs of man and the logic of the Gospel ask from us the service of PROPHECY, of VIGILANCE and of MEDIATION
Recent days have witnessed the presentation of the second letter drawn up by the Congregation for Religious in preparation for the Year of Consecrated Life. Its title has very much the contents of a programme: ‘Scrutinise’.
But scrutinise what? First of all we are called to scrutinise God, His Word inside history itself.
As consecrated men we are called to walk behind (not inside) the clouds: faithfulness, creativity, passion, the digging of new wells, the reworking of roads that are still vital but ones that are in ruins, keeping ourselves distant from the banal and from stereotypes but adhering to the vital flow of the needs of man and the expectations of man, and far from the apparent obviousness of the journey that has already been made (feeling that we have already arrived!) and from glorious memories that are at times overly sacralised which make our impact slow, heavy, repetitive (for us) and thus boring (for those who frequent us).
A ‘Samaritan’ religious life that is completely of Christ, with Christ and for Christ so as to always be a religious life for man, with man and of man (the Blessed Paul VI). Where does a prophet live? A prophet lives in limine storiae: on the border of history, where the strong and disquieting questions of frail humanity are taken on; he tempers the heart of compassion by bending down before the cries of the needy poor.
Let us train our outlook and our soul to intus legere events and people!
Let us train ourselves to intercede: a prophet intercedes for his people, above all if his people perverts its freedom and its vocation of faith. A prophet prays and exercises the art of prayer in front of human pain and of signs of frailty and failure.
We are also training ourselves in responding to a new fraternal solidarity born around the emergency generated by Ebola, a disease which is devouring the innards of Africa: men and women religious, lay people, volunteers, health professionals, and ‘men and women of good will’ are coming together to offer a space of warm humanity and qualified care to the population of Makeni in Sierra Leone.
This is the time and the space in which to embody our charism as well and to locate it with humble but determined initiatives, ones which are certainly modest in their goals but which are also ones of value because they are an expression of the very precise biographies of men and women who are radically involved in them.
How can we not remember two potent warnings, different in style but convergent in their goals? That is to say stigmatising those who usually – because of fear, because of laziness, or out of a choice…– look at the lives of other people – but at times also at their own! – only from a window?
‘To be a Christian means to be a man. Christ creates in us not a kind of man but a man. I fear that Christians who on the earth on only one foot will only have one foot in heaven’ (D. Bonhoeffer, Resistenza e Resa, p. 441).
Action
Doing, and daring to do, not anything, but what is just.
Not swaying in possibilities but courageously grasping the real.
Not in flight from thoughts but only in action and freedom.
Allow hesitating to be cowardly and enter the storm of events
Supported only by the commandment of God and by your faith
And freedom will joyously welcome your spirit.
Suffering
An extraordinary transformation. Your strong active hands
Are tied. Powerless, alone, you see the end
Of your action.
But you draw breath and what is just you place
In stronger hands, silent and consoled, and you are glad.
Only for an instant do you draw on happiness
And then you consign it to God who gives it a splendid completion.
(D. Bonhoeffer, Stazioni sulla via verso la libertà).
Just as Christ is a man for others, so the Church is ‘a Church only if she exists for others, that is to say if she takes part in the very being of Christ’. ‘Later I learnt, and I continue to learn this now as well, that one learns to believe only in the full being of beyond life. When one has completely forgone something of oneself – a saint, a penitent sinner or a man of the Church, a righteous man or an unrighteous man, a sick man or a healthy man – and this I call being beyond here, that is to say living in the fullness of engagements, of problems, of successes and failures, of experiences and of perplexities – in that case one throws oneself completely into the hands of God, one no longer takes seriously one’s own sufferings: one takes seriously the sufferings of God in the world. In that case one holds vigil with Christ in Gethsemane and, I believe, that is faith, that is metanoia, and thus we become men, we become Christians (D. Bonhoeffer, letter of 21 July 1944).
The alternative is well indicated by Dante Alighieri: ‘those who were never alive’, ‘sad souls who lived without infamy and without praise’ (Inf. III, 64.36), those who when death arrives are already corpses!
Fr. Gianfranco Lunardon
FROM THE CAMILLIAN WORLD
VERONA
P.Angelo Brusco, direttore del CCF di Verona
The new programme of the Camillian Centre for Formation for the year 2014-15 is available online.
The Camillian Centre for Formation (CCF) is a body that was created in 1983 by the Camillian religious of the regions of Lombardy, Veneto, Emilia Romagna and Trentino Alto Adige with the aim of contributing to the formation of those who work in the world of health and suffering.
THE PROVINCE OF SPAIN
X Jornadas de Duelo
The Province of Spain informs us that on 5-6 November there will be the X Jornadas de Duelo. For the occasion the Centro de Humanizaciòn de la Salud has organised a course on dealing with mourning.
For greater information click here
TAIWAN
P.Didonè nella nuova Chiesa di San Camillo
Fr. Didonè from Taiwan has informed us about the numerous initiatives of his community, amongst which one may list: the pilgrimage to the grotto of Lourdes (France); the first anniversary of the death of Br. Petrin Giovanni (from Veneto, one of the first and most long-living missionaries in Taiwan who loved the people of that island with great intensity; and the arrival of new pilgrims at the new church dedicated to St. Camillus.
NAPLES
P. Yves Bonou
In the afternoon of Monday 20 October our religious brother Fr. Yves Bonou of the Vice-Province of Benin-Togo was awarded a degree in pharmacy by the ‘Federico II’ University of Naples. Fr. Yves was born in 1997, he has been a Camillian religious since 2004 and a priest since 2009. In recent years he has lived in Naples in order to complete his studies, also engaging in ministerial work as a hospital chaplain at the university polyclinic where he took his degree. His degree thesis is on the synthesis that is needed in the administration of retroviral medical products in patients with HIV. The discussion of this thesis took place in the presence of a number of his religious brothers and a large number of colleagues and friends. To him the Order of the Ministers of the Sick sends its very best wishes.
ROME
On 4 November at Caritas Internationalis, Piazza San Callisto Rome, a meeting will be held of the international Caritas organisations and religious Congregations, amongst which the Camillians, who are actively involved in the emergency generated by the Ebola virus.
P.Aris Miranda
The Ebola emergency. After the return of Fr. John TOAI, who has just come back from Freetown in Liberia, Fr. Aris MIRANDA, the General Consultor for Ministry, on Saturday 18 October left for Sierra Leone to carry out an inspection and initial planning for the by now imminent sending out of religious, volunteers and professional technicians with a view to a reopening of the Holy Spirit Hospital of Makeni, in close cooperation with the Apostolic Administrator of the diocese, Msgr. Natale PAGANELLI.
ROME (Generalate House)
Tavola Rotonda “Fratelli d’ebola” alla Maddalena
A joint round table on Ebola. On Tuesday 21 October, at the generalate house, we held an involving laboratory of ideas on the emergency produced by Ebola, above all in Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Conakri: countries which have already been afflicted by decades of civil war and endemic poverty).
Various religious institutes and voluntary and international cooperation organisations were present and these had organised the event: the DOKITA Association of Volunteers ONLUS; Italian Caritas; the Camillians; the Fatebenefratelli – the Hospital Order of St. John of God; CUAMM – Doctors with Africa; the FOCSIV – Volunteers in the World; the AVSI Foundation– NGO ONLUS; the Josephites of Murialdo; the Savarian Missionaries; the Salesians of Don Bosco; and the VIS – International Volunteers for Development.
The objective was to call for the greater and effective involvement of national and international civil organisations. See the relevant articles on the web site of the Order.
OUAGADOUGOU (Burkina Faso)
P. Alessandro Toé
In recent days Cardinal Philippe Ouédraogo, the Archbishop Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), agreed to ask the Vicariate of Rome for the transfer of the ‘Competentia forii’ so that in his diocese a diocesan inquiry could be opened into the life, the virtues and the fame of holiness of our religious brother Fr. Alessandro TOE’
ROME – The Congregation of Religious
Copertina della lettera “Scrutate”
The second circular letter of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has been published and launched. It is addressed to consecrated men and women in preparation for the Year of Consecrated Life which will be opened on 20 November of this year with a solemn evening prayer vigil in the Basilica of S. Maria Maggiore (Rome).
The letter ‘SCRUTINISE’ invites us ‘to watch over the human and its spiritual destiny’. This was said on Wednesday 15 October in Rome at the Pontifical Urban University by Msgr. J. Rodriguez Carballo amd Sister Nicola Spezzati, respectively Secretary and Under-Secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, when launching the second circular letter that the Congregation has addressed to consecrated men and women throughout the world
THE LAY CAMILLIAN FAMILY
Consiglio Centrale della Famiglia Camilliana Laica
This week, on 20-25 October, the members of the Central Council of the Lay Camillian Family (LCF), Marie-Christine Brocherieux, the President (France), Anita Ennis, the Vice-President (Ireland), Maria Hajnalka Bakó, the Secretary (Hungary), and Giosuè Sparacino, the Treasurer (Italy), will be in Rome at our community of the generalate house for a planning meeting with Fr. Laurent Zoungrana, the Vicar General of the Order and General Assistant of the LCF.
ROME – Vocational Table
For Saturday 29 November next, on the eve of the opening of the Year of Consecrated Life, at the generalate house (Rome), a vocational table has been organised which will involve representatives of the Great Family of St. Camillus: the three Italian Camillian Provinces of the Ministers of the Sick, the Daughters of St. Camillus, the women Ministers of the Sick, the Handmaidens of the Incarnation, and the Secular Institute ‘Christ the Hope’. This initiative carries on from the experience of cooperation that we engaged in during the centenary year with the Great Family of St. Camillus, an experience of communion and cooperation which will be transferred now to the field of Italian vocations.
MOTTINELLO – the Lay Camillian Family
Da sinistra: Dianalori Palman, tesoriere; P.Angelo Brusco, assistente spirituale; Marisa Sfondrini, Presidente; Piera Tua, Vicepresidente; Rosabianca carpene, Segretaria.
During the course of the ‘two days’ that were held at the House of Spirituality in Mottinello on 17-19 October (cf. the programme published previously ), the members of the Lay Camillian Family of the Province of Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto have elected their new provincial council, which is now made up as follows: Marisa Sfondrini, of the LCF Group of Milan, the president; Piera Tua, of the LCF Group of Piedmont, the vice-president; Rosabianca Carpene, of the LCF Group of Verona, the secretary; and Dianalori Palman, of the LCF Group of Verona, the treasurer.
CAMILLIANUM
Camillianum
On Wednesday 19 November the new academic year will be inaugurated at the Camillianum. At the chapel of the House of the Holy Family Fr. Leocir Pessini, the General Superior Moderator of the Camillianum, will preside over the Holy Mass. This will be followed by the Lectio Magistralis which will be given by the Rector, H.E. Msgr. Enrico Dal Covolo. Its subject will be ‘The First Christians and Medicine. Assistance and Care for the Sick’ For more information click here.
AGENDA OF FR. LEOCIR PESSINI, SUPERIOR GENERAL
P. Leocir Pessini
After the recent fraternal visit to our Camillian religious brothers of the Province of Thailand and the Delegation of Vietnam, Fr. Leocir Pessini, on 16-17 October, with the Consultors Br. José Ignacio Santaolalla and Fr. Gianfranco Lunardon, met the Superior Provincial, Fr. Rosario Mauriello, and the Provincial Council of the Province of Sicily and Naples at the community of San Giorno a Cremano (Naples).
celebrazione eucaristica per la professione religiosa solenne di sr. Nancy Munene
On Saturday 18 October, at the generalate house of the women Ministers of the Sick of St. Camillus in Rome, the Superior General presided over the celebration of the Eucharist for the perpetual profession of Sr. Nancy Munene (from Kenya) and the first religious profession of two women religious from Haiti.
On 27- 28 October the Superior General will take part in the first meeting of the Central Economic Committee which is made up of Giovanni Contarin (the Province of Thailand); Fr. Justino Scatolin (the Province of Brazil); Fr. Lorenzo Testa (the Province of Italy), and Rag. Massimo Iannacchino (collaborator of the Province of Rome). This has been convened at the generalate house (Rome) by the general financial administrator, Br. José Ignacio Santaolalla.
GALLERIA FOTOGRAFICA
From 29 October to 1 November, at the Camillian Centre for Pastoral Care of Bogota, the Superior General will take part in the conference on humanisation of the world of health which has been organised by the Latin American Bishops’ Conference (Celam).
The first ten days of the month of November will be used by the Superior General for a fraternal visit to our religious brothers of the Vice-Province of India.
APPOINTMENTS OF THE GENERAL CONSULTA
Riunione della Consulta
Over the last two weeks, Fr. Leocir PESSINI, the Superior General, with the agreement of the General Consulta, has made the following appointments: Mario Loui KOZIK has been confirmed as the financial administrator of the Camillian Province of Brazil.
Fr. Carlo Mangione e P.Alfredo Tortorella
Carlo MANGIONE and Fr. Alfredo TORTORELLA, after the prescribed consultation in the Province of Sicily and Naples, have been appointed Provincial Councillors, being therefore added to the previous Provincial Council which was made up of only two councillors (Fr. Mario Allegro and Fr. Medard Aboue).
P.Efisio Locci
Luciano SANDRIN and Fr. Efisio LOCCI have been appointed local councillors of the community of St. Mary Magdalene in Rome.
P.Luciano Sandrin
Following article 78 of the General Statutes, Luciano SANDRIN has been chosen as Substitute Consultor.
Neiber CABRERA (of the Delegation of Argentina), after the consultation which took place at the recent meeting of the heads of formation and vocational animation in Bogota, has been appointed coordinator for formation and pastoral care of vocations for the pan-American area.
DECEASED RELIGIOUS
‘See, now they vanish, the faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them, To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern’ (T.S. Eliot)
Our religious brothers of the Province of France have informed us of the death of Fr. Jean Louis WEBER which took place on 30 September 2014.
Fr. Armando Paniello
The death has been announced, on 12 October, in Lucca, of Sr. Sara LIPPI, aged 94, a religious of the women Ministers of the Sick of St. Camillus.
Our religious brothers of the Province of Sicily and Naples have announced the death of the Br. Armando PANIELLO which took place on 22 October at the Hospital of Casoria (Naples) after a long season of suffering.
“La candida rosa dei Santi” di Giusto de’ Menabuoi , Padova
In the month of November, which is traditionally dedicated to thought and prayer about our deceased bothers and sisters, we want to direct our Christian memory to the Lord of the Resurrection for all our deceased relatives, friends, religious brothers and benefactors!
‘Now they live in Christ whom they met in the Church, followed in their vocations, and served in the sick and the suffering. Trusting that the Lord, the Holy Virgin our Queen, St. Camillus and our deceased religious brothers will welcome them in their midst, we commend them in our prayers, remembering them with affection, esteem and gratitude’.
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