Community Life

After the usual “break” in receiving guests during the first few weeks of the year, which allows us to give greater attention to our life as a community, especially through our general chapter in January, at the beginning of Lent we resumed our activity of welcoming guests. 

---

To listen with a fresh hearing to the Word in texts commentated on many times, during Lent we decided to return to the community lectio divina given by several persons, a format we had already tried with success during Advent. To a commentary on the Scriptural readings we added passages from the fathers and the collect prayers of the Sunday eucharist, which with their rich spiritual interpretation centered on the mystery of Christ help to transform our listening to and our meditation on the word of God into prayer. On the eve of Palm Sunday one of our sisters ended her period of novitiate; she was received liturgically as a member of our community, making her promise of celibacy and community life before the community. In his homily on this occasion brother Enzo reminded all of us of the demands in following the Lord, “marked by following Jesus in his passion and by praising him in a liturgy that acclaims him as Lord and invokes him as the One who is to come. Is this little? Yes, it is really little, but we have no desire to do great things in following the Lord; at the most, we wish to perceive the marvels that he operates, marvels that we have only to see, because in seeing them we are moved to praise.”
The Easter celebrations were once again an occasion to hear the announcement of Christ’s resurrection. This announcement, brother Enzo reminded us in his homily during the great Easter vigil, can be translated in a very simple but eloquent way for our life: “when love is full, when it is love to the extreme, when it is radically pure, as in the case of Jesus, then it conquers death for all times”, and this is a motive of hope for all men.