COMUNITÀ DEI FIGLI DI DIO/COMMUNITY OF

GOD'S SONS AND DAUGHTERS

NOTIZIARIO/NEWSLETTER

SEPTEMBER, 1998

'It is enough to let ourselves be guided by You and not to fret where the road leads us. Simply to know that it is You who guide us is to say that the road is not different from the destination.

What makes it otherwise is not yet to have recognised Your presence.'

'Bisogna lasciarci portare da Te e non preoccuparci dove porta la via. Sapere semplicemente che sei Tu che ci porti vuol dire che il cammino non e diverso dalla meta.

Far differenza e ancora non riconoscere la Tua presenza'.

Don Divo Barsotti, C.F.D.,'s Diary, Battesimo di Fuoco/Baptism of Fire, p. 29.

FROM THE FATHER

THE FOUR PRAYERS

It is most important in the spiritual life that the soul concentrates on a few principles. And from these few principles as its foundation the soul should then draw nourishment for its life and the direction of its pilgrimage. For those not belonging to our Community our insistence upon the four prayers we are required to say each day may seem strange. But for those of us consecrated to God in the Community it is these four formulae which tell us what our life ought to be and how we can realize it. These four prayers form a profound bond between us. We ought not to believe that to concentrate the spirit in these four formulae implies of itself a certain poverty; it is the contrary which is true, if we know how to meditate how much these can teach us and guide us!

For us Christians it is evident that the spiritual life depends upon listening to the Word of God (Hear, O Israel). It is God who begins, and the beginning by God is the gift which He made of His Son who is the Divine Word. Before the Incarnation already God was giving Himself to humankind in the Word which is placed upon us as a law of total love. If God is our goal, we ought to accord ourselves to Him in total love. But is it possible for us to achieve this divine will which requires of us a love beyond measure? This present life implies almost necessarily a scattering. Can we, drawn to all human, social duties, accord all relationships with things uniquely to God in love?

From this is the necessity of prayer, the Our Father (The Lord's Prayer): we ought to ask of God that we be able to respond to His will. The spiritual life does not depend only on the Word, but on the grace which ought to make the Divine Word work in every one. The prayer which Jesus has taught us is not a prayer of praise and thanks, but is essentially a prayer of request, an entreaty for pardon and for help. It would be presumptious if we were to pretend to answer God without the help which each day we ought to ask from Him. The love of God awaits you and it is He Himself whom you ought to pray to. But in what way does this love live in us? What will be its fruitfulness?

The third prayer is St Francis of Assisi's Lauds for God in the Highest. These Lauds reveal the final goal of the spiritual life, the supreme fruit of love. The soul that finally is freed from all selfish wants for itself and to unliving things cannot live any longer the contemplation of God; it must joy in His infinite perfections, delight that God is God and in this contemplation it becomes itself blessed.

The Beatitudes say precisely how the soul, freed from all selfish wants for itself and for things, lives an enormous peace, an infinite sweetness, a pure joy in God. The soul becomes pure transparency in its detachment from everything to live united in God, but the union with God is for the soul also to feel united with the Creation of God: the Creation in fact is not opposed to God. The union with God implies rather a new union with humankind and with created things: because all are in God.

The detachment which is needed first is nothing but that condition of this union of love that no longer knows opposition or division.

The soul will become humble and chaste, will radiate peace and in the union with God will love with the same love all people, becoming one body with it, becoming the one Body of Christ.

Do not fear the greatness of your vocation, but let us all pray to the Lord that He sustains our faith. It is He who will fulfil whatever we ask if we are faithful in listening to His Word, if we will be constant in prayer, if we will come to know how to live in His presence. The listening to the Word, the humble but trusting prayer which turns each day to the Lord will focus our attention because we shall be able to live in the presence of the Lord, and it is this life in the Divine Presence that already will make us expect, even through many tribulations and difficulties of life, the life of heaven itself.

The Father

Notices

Book of the Month: During the month of September we read Paul's Epistle to the Romans.

Autumn Season: Takes place Wednesay 23, Friday 25, Saturday 26 September.

Prayer is for priestly vocations and for the sanctification of consecrated souls. The collection is for the Family's account. We recall that those who have made Vows keep the related observances on the seasonal days, and that all are invited to live these days in penance.

In Brief

Our Four Saints: For a revaluation and a deeper knowledge of our four saints, we shall publish articles from time to time which will help us understand their spirit and their contribution that these saints can give the Community. We ask all the brothers and sisters to help us, collaborating with editing and inviting articles with personal reflections on these saints and their function in relation to the Community. This would be excellent, - or even just one thought of one saint that had captured your attention.

The Comunity of the Sons and Daughters of God's Four Saints: These are

St Ignatius of Antioch, of whom there are few illustrations.

St Benedict of Nursia, whose own monks rarely illustrated him, concentrating more upon Biblical figures and upon earlier Church Fathers, about whom he himself taught, following in their footsteps;

St Francis of Assisi;

and St Therese of Lisieux.

Three are Italian, one is French. Three are men, though two are associated with women, St Benedict with St Scholastica, his twin sister, St Francis with St Clare, and one is a woman and Doctor of the Church.

We begin, in this Notiziario, with introducing the Families of the CFD. In each number one Family will be introduced. We intend thus to increase our acquaintance reciprocally, so that the bonds which unite us become even stronger. Love demands this knowledge, and even a brief note in the Notiziario can contribute to this knowledge. We begin with the Lombardy Family, the most recently formed, beginning this September, 1998.

Two recent photographs of Padre, don Divo Barsotti, C.F.D., and Cardinal Giacomo Biffi at San Sergio, 9 June 1998:

Padre greeting the Cardinal at the moment of his arrival.

IN AUSTRALIA

We have asked Pietro Tognetti, who accompanied Padre Serafino in Australia, to give his impressions of the journey, seen from the point of view of a brother of the First Branch, of what is involved in a missionary experience of the Community.

What sense could one give of a visit to Australia? How can one make this unknown and distant land closer? What could I have done or ought to have done, whom should I have met and known? I left with Padre Serafino in such doubt and perplexity and, why not, some trepidation, about what would happen. I am unable to explain the little and great things that happened to me in those days: I was to be left without assumptions, without roots, without reference points, knowing we had to be open to new things, in a new world, a different culture, another faith. To enter the heart of an immense city like Melbourne, stretching for tens of kilometres, with about four million inhabitants, is not easy. The days that followed were filled with dozens of encounters with laity and clergy, driving miles in Adrian's 'Batmobile', with dozens of entrances into aspirancy, and Adrian's concluding Consecration.

I ask myself what it was, this presence permeating this land, leaving an indescribable perfume in the air; what mystery was there about this world; it is Mary, the Mother of Heaven, who makes herself present everywhere; we could breathe her essence, we could sense her presence in every house that we entered; the way to Jesus and to salvation passes through our devotion to her, passes through this maternal love. I truly felt this people's need to pray, in each one I met, in each heart I came to know. How can I forget Adrian's poor, little room, or the radiant face of this brother who chose poverty as fellow traveller? How could one discourage the generosity which he gathered and loved, all the moments of prayer and of celebrations we lived through together, the smiles and the difficulties of the road of faith, the little and great steps of each one, open hearts and houses to gather us in and fill us with joy?

Returning home, I have rediscovered the love of Mary as a safe harbour to the salvation of souls. Returning home, I am tied by bonds of love towards these new brothers and sisters of our Community, a love which breathes of eternity, because it is born of Christ and in Him is nurtured. Through these words I wish to arouse in the Community the desire to pray for these our brothers, to love them, even without knowing them, praying for them, feeling us One in Christ with them, so as to build a bridge of eternal love across the whole word, without boundaries, without barriers, without limitations of time or space.

From the Diary of the Australian Journey:

'With Adrian, the bond is very strong; also with him is the sense that we will not have to wait long before we meet again. Now we are in the air, crossing the Australian desert. I think back on these twenty days and a thousand memories. I think back on what I have written, but I had so little time, and left only empty words on these pages. It is not possible to put on a sheet of paper what one lives, what one feels. I find I have too often written a stiff chronicle, without a heart, at other times not to have given it the minutest part of what I have lived. I come home exhausted and joyous. I bring home a new world, the task to pray for Adrian and for the new Community, I bring home a tangle of sensations and feelings. And this time (and this time with greater force) a piece of my heart has remained in this country. The heart has exploded. I have stooped to gather up the pieces, but one remains below; it cannot come away with me, I cannot carry it away'.

Alan Oldfriend, 'Julian of Norwich's Revelations', St Gabriel's Chapel, All Hallows' Convent, Ditchingham, Suffolk, England. Alan Oldfield in an Australian artist, deeply influenced by the medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich. Reproduced with Permission, Courtesy, Sister Pamela, C.A.H.; Friends of Julian of Norwich.

LIGHT ON MY JOURNEY:

THE HOLY SPIRIT FILLS OUR SOLITUDE

The Holy Spirit is the mystery of the goodness and of the gentleness, of the kindness and of the closeness of God; it is also the mystery of silence. In the West this combination is often expressed by the Biblical verse which in the Latin Vulgate says, 'How good and sweet, O Lord, is your Spirit in all things' (Wisdom 12.1). In a Pentecost sermon Pope Innocent III proclaimed: 'O how sweet is this Spirit, how pleasing, how gentle! Only those know it who have tasted it!'

In the Semitic languages, Spirit is a feminine word and this fact has caused, in certain settings, a rich theology of the Holy Spirit as 'Mother', which brings to the fore this gentle and sweet character. The disgrace of Adam after the Fall, one reads in one of these authors, was 'Not to have seen anymore the true Father of the Heavens, nor the good and benign Mother, the grace of the Spirit, nor the sweet and desirable Brother, the Lord' (Spiritual Sermon, attributed to Macarius).

Given the abuse of this term at the beginnings of Gnosticism, it came to be marginalized in the great Tradition of the Church. One thing though is certain. Of the three Divine Persons, the Holy Spirit is certainly the one who, in revelation and language, is least characterized as masculine (the first person is 'father', the second 'son' and historically a man).

To avoid speculation on the 'Mother' Spirit, Orthodox authors were not afraid to use this title, particularly when speaking of the functions of the Paraclete. When he teaches us to cry 'Abba, Father', the Holy Spirit, says an ancient writer, behaves 'like a mother who teaches her own child to say "Daddy", and repeats that name with him, so that the child gets into the habit of calling to the father through that sound' (Diadocus of Photica).

A glance at the position of women in past times shows an undeniable fact: women have been marginalized in all aspects of life. In all situations, from those outside to those strictly within the privacy of the family, women have been placed on a clearly inferior level to men. There is only one place where they could always be placed with absolute equality with men: the setting, fortunately, which counts the most; that of sanctity . . . . The Holy Spirit has sanctified them whether they are men or are women, respecting the characteristics of each of the two sexes; into one sanctity: in the first case, those which are manly; in the second, those which are womanly. The Holy Spirit is manifested in men as the mystery of power, strength and courage, and in women as the mystery of tenderness, acceptance and gentleness.

We say that 'ruah' (Hebrew for Spirit, breath, wind, Genesis 1.2), inasmuch as it blows and breathes, indicates what is the most intimate and hidden in God and what is most intimate and hidden in humans, our life principle, our soul itself. In this sense it is written that our secrets are known by none except by our spirit, and the secrets of God are known by none, except the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2.11).

Of the divine Spirit, which enters within us to dwell with us, Holy Scripture begins to speak comparatively late. It is in fact a notable conquest, a passing before in the understanding of an action of the Spirit. in respect to its external and charismatic manifestation. Isaiah speaks of the Spirit God had dwell intimately in Moses (Isaiah 63.11), of a Spirit which will be with us (Isaiah 59.21), of a Spirit which is sad with us (Isaiah 63.10). But in the New Testament this aspect is brought out most clearly. Promising the Spirit, Jesus says, 'He will dwell in you and be with you' (John 14.17). Finally it is not only in passing. We become the Temple of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 3.17, 6.19). From this comes the fine definition of the Spirit as 'sweet guest of the soul' that we read in the Pentecost Hymn.

What can we say of this enchanting way of the Spirit's presence? St Basil says it in a simple and splendid phrase: The Holy Spirit is the one which creates 'intimacy, homeliness (oikeiosis) with God'. The image is Biblical. In the Epistle to the Ephesians we read: 'Through Him (Christ) we can be presented, each and every one, to the Father in one Spirit. Thus you are no more strangers nor guests, but you are citizens with the saints and of the household (oikeioi) of God . . . In Him even you together with the others come to be building blocks wherein God can dwell with the Spirit (Ephesians 2.18-22).

The term used has a range of meanings which make the concept even more profound: these include appropriation, attaction, affection, familiarity. In the Holy Spirit God becomes us, we are attracted by this, and this takes from us that fear and that dis-ease in these encounters that we have inherited from Adam after the Fall. Through the Spirit we are in the House of God! John, in his Canticle, wrote, 'Of this we know, that we remain in Him and He in us: this he has done through the gift of His Spirit (1 John 4.13).

This is the homeliness with God, beyond all metaphors and human imagining. God is in us and we in God, and all grace is in the presence of the Holy Spirit. 'Intimo' is the grammatical superlative of 'intus' which means 'within', 'inside'. This is right because Augustine asserts that God 'is nearer to me than I am to myself'.

Intimacy, nearness, neighbourliness, is one of the littlest human words which has only and always a positive meaning: the intimacy of a family, of husband and wife, of the house, of one's own heart. In intimacy with another person comes about the reconciliation between one's identity and otherness, between one's own being, and one's being in relationship, between 'I and Thou'. In each holy intimacy, the Holy Spirit, in whatever way, is always at work. So as from God descends all paternity (Ephesians 3.15), so from Him descends all intimacy. It is not the place which creates intimacy, but Love, and Love comes from the Holy Spirit. In each authentic human experience of intimacy, including those of marriage, the person seeks intimacy with God, absolute intimacy; we seek, perhaps without knowing it, that centre of being, without which there can be nothing so profound nor which can bring such great happiness.

From this we draw, even here, a practical conclusion. The Holy Spirit is the answer and the remedy for our loneliness, that other great and universal cause of suffering, beside fear and weakness. What can truly break through our loneliness? Certainly not to be in the midst of crowds, but rather to have a friend, a questioner, a companion. This can be for us, if we wish, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, St Basil again said, was for Jesus during his earthly life, the 'inseparable companion', and who would be the same for us. John Chrysostom added that Jesus 'was always assisted by the sweetest and to him, consusubstantial, Spirit', as Moses, in all his life, had for companion and counsellor his brother Aaron.

If weakness can be the occasion for having this experience of the Holy Spirit, solitude can be the occasion and the stimulus to make of this experience, that of the 'sweet guest'. Through faith no one is truly alone in this world. When we cannot speak of something with another, we can still learn, and little by little, come to speak with this 'shy' guest who is also the 'perfect consoler' and 'wonderful counsellor'.

As the mystery of silence, the Holy Spirit is also the answer to our anxiety. Our heart is restless, as if unsatisfied, in its search, and only the Holy Spirit is the place of its rest in which it becomes calm and finds peace. The Paraclete is invoked in the Pentecost Sequence as 'rest for the weary' (in labore requies). Amongst the most common signs observed in the charismatic Pentecostal setting is this 'rest of the Spirit', a sign which requires much discernment, but to which none can deny, in most cases, that authentic spiritual quality. The individual, 'touched by the Spirit', falls to the earth, but gently, as if someone let him down gradually to the ground; he ceases all activity of the mind, and when, after this, he would describe to others what he experienced in those moments, he could find only one word to say it: peace, peace, such peace.

From Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Il canto dello Spirito [The Song of the Spirit] (Ancora), pp. 21-25.

SINDONE - THE SHROUD OF TURIN

The Shroud of Turin, a Sign of the Love of God.

The Shroud. Finally we can see it. Since entering the Novitiate, I have had on the table in the cell a reproduction of the Face of the Man of the Shroud of Turin. In the cell there is only this one 'Icon'. When I was living in Bologna, immersed in my lay existence, I knew nothing whatsoever about the Shroud. In my parish it was spoken of seldom or never, and least of all amongst my friends. Yet it is the relic that is the most studied of all. For decades, there have been many and different scientific disciplines, anatomy, microbiology, numismatics (the study of old coinage), pouring over it. With all these signs that Christ has left us could there not have been reason for reflection, to sustain our interest? It could not pass unnoticed.

Taking advantage of some days' journey from the Novitiate to Biella, at the Casa San Gregorio, the House of St Gregory, I went to see the Shroud in Turin. The perfect organization (even the free ticket to the Duomo/Cathedral on public transportation being provided!), I was scheduled for the visit at 3:00, 4 June 1998. I showed up at the entrance of the royal gardens, the entrance of the showing, in great eagerness about forty minutes before we were scheduled to enter. I got into the large queue, a human snake, which moved slowly along the prescribed course towards the Cathedral. I fingered the Rosary. Not saying it because of the noise of the crowd but because this familiar touch reassured me and allowed me to isolate and collect myself. The people about me showed, with their numbers and theirdifferences, the great interest the Shroud caused. A baby girl in her pram screamed and cried, her mother, who seemed from her accent to be from Rome, failing to console her from their tiredness and nervousness with the journey. Two elderly ladies behind me were telling each other about the preceding two weeks of their simple and serene lives. They were from Milan. At my side was a family from the Baby Boom generation of the 70s, father, mother and four children. All tired and most of all from the journey (they seemed to be from Calabria). All, to cover up their tiredness, were talking and laughing (at times the man was indeed strange: the more tired he was the more he sought to overcome the tiredness by being agitated. If only they knew how restful silence is!) A timid signal to maintain proper behaviour was given by one of those in charge, but the crowd interpreted it as a stimulus for more dialogue and confusion. Before me were the reassuring shoulders of a silent Rienzo. The serpent, inexorably, advanced.

Here were the doors behind which was a great room in which a short film was projected to prepare us for the true and proper showing. It was arranged so that a hundred people could enter at a time. All four of us were able to enter at the same time; with us were also the crying baby girl, the baby-boomer family, and the two elderly ladies. We were in the room. It was at least ten metres in height. Before us was an enormous screen. We hadn't come to see a film! We had come to see the Shroud! I want . . . Suddenly we were plunged in darkness. And with the darkness descended also a profound silence. The first shots were quick; fortunately they were not like a short documentary film's. There were no words to disturb us. Only fixed images, live, violent, essential, vivid, precise. They were accompanied with a musical background that accorded well with what we were seeing; which did not disturb or distract. Each photograph had with it, in seven different languages, a brief explanation. The succession of images is captivating and so well put together that it is not possible to be distracted and chatter. From the photograph of the Shroud in its real dimension (the accompanying comment saying 'This is what you will see'), the show then makes evident in succession through using techniques of contrast that, reducing the lighting of the initial image while maintaining the variations of the original, places it at the centre of our attention. That part then is enlarged until it occupies the entire screen. You can thus see the stains of the blood at the head, those of the neck, the wound at the side, the gathering of blood at the nailing of the hands, of the feet, the wounds that came from the flagellation. . . Immediately returns in memory all the passages in the Gospel in which are described the tortures to which Christ was subjected; each word being confirmed in the photographs. One could not think it otherwise, nothing being hidden. All this on this sheet, all, after two thousand years, this shroud speaking in silence. And all is present in the drama of the living Christ, each day, in my slaughtered, tortured, impoverished, hungry brothers. There is great tension: how could such a great, such an unequivocal, sign of my faith have been so hidden. See, it is the moment for the Face. From a distance, the little part is shown by contrast back to the original shroud, slowly but continuously enlarged as if we watch it through a zoom lens, it comes towards me. This effect of movement (though caused by the variations in dimensions and not actual physical movement), yet seems projected from the photograph itself, to remain reduced. Your face is always shown better. The eyes closed, the nose a little deformed, the lips half hidden by the mustache, the bloodstains . . . Your Face! Here it is! O Lord, is this truly you? You are the Christ. How can one say it? How can one speak it? Nothing and no one could have convinced me. Not even the Church which scientifically does not have the specific competence. I don't know myself, but the tears of joy bathe my cheeks. Perhaps because you have become so familiar to me in my cell at Sasso. I, Alessandro/Alexander, contemplate Your Face! The desire of millions of Israelites, all the force of Israel in the Hebrew Scriptures is for me realized in the infinite mercy of God who had wished to leave me this sign! My heart has spoken of you: Seek His Face. Your Face, Lord, I seek. You have your eyes closed, but you see me. You are so great that I have the sensation of being the only one in this room. You and I: I am your only purpose, your unique reference point. And the darkness, at first so dense and heavy, is suddenly illumined by your presense. A few moments but so intense as to seem outside of time. One thought only crosses my mind: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me! And is repeated endelessly as if it were a sudden opening in a dike. But it is not an anguished, tormented cry. It is as if it were a joyous invocation, a profound desire, the yearning of a wounded but happy heart! What a contrast between the words and the sensation of serenity this is. The image, slowly, as it had come, now is withdrawn. The face was the last photograph. The lights come one. The Rosary, still between the fingers of my hand, is ready to defend me from the comments which, inevitably, someone will feel compelled to say out loud. And I expect to hear the crying of the baby, the impressions of the ladies, the feelings of the father of the family. . . No! It is as if I am alone, not even truly being there. One hears only a few brief instructions, half whispered, which invite the group to move on and in a silence laden with meaning, to come to the entrance to the Cathedral. How strange, for even the people are those that were here before. The two elderly ladies still lean on each other's arms but no longer speak. Their eyes are shining with tears, their heads bowed, communicating in silence. The family is a unit, holding each other by the hand, without communicating other than that presence. The baby, even she, rises to the occasion, perhaps through play (or perhaps because she wishes to hold in her memory the face of a well-known friend).

After a few metres we enter into the Duomo and are directed along the left of the nave. The centre one is filled with people who, after having seen the Shroud nearby, are returning there, to stand in silence and pray. Immediately on entering the Cathedral I make the sign of the Cross but it seems to me that I have been in prayer, as if we have been in church since when we began to stand in line. We pass the chapel dedicated to Pier Giorgio Frassati: a quick glance at the portrait of this young man who smiles: who is now truly happy! Truly we are made only for God!

The Shroud, protected by glass, is shown horizontally lengthwise and vertically according to its width with the heart section to the left. At the moment, during a very short period of time, we are allowed to stand close by, ten persons at a time. The distance is such that one can only receive a generic and fragmentary impression. One can recite a short prayer and then one must leave the place for the next group who are following.

We leave the Duomo. Light, confusion, words, impressions, stories, colours, images . . . We find each other, we four. Still we do not speak: it is enough to look into each others' eyes to understand we share the same sensations, the same thoughts. We don't waste time: we all want to reenter the Cathedral. On the stairs, while going towards the entrance, we meet a group of young people from Rivolta d'Adda, friends of Rienzo and Leonardo. What joy! And this too is a great gift from the Lord. I speak with Robert; the enthusiasm and the happiness of having seen the Shroud shines through all our conversations. We leave each other with a fraternal embrace and the mutual resolution to remember each other in prayer: how easy it is to feel united when Jesus is in one's heart! Inside the Cathedral it is impossible to stand because it is so crowded with people. And so, following the flow which, quickly passing in front of the Shroud, but still too far to be able to truly see it, we are carried towards the exit. We pass in front of the Sacrament. I stop: 'Thank you, Lord'. And then go, and we are again outside, in the streets of Turin. We go quickly towards the church of Maria Ausiliatrice, Mary the Helper, for a visit to St John Bosco. How many saints there are in this great, huge Turin! Towards 6:00 in the evening we leave for Biella. The brothers are waiting for us.

Our emotions continue to be vivid and lucid, the sense of a special day, of a special encounter. It lingers, alive, this sign. Yes, even the Shroud is a sign. And like all that is left to us of the merciful love of the Father, it also is immersed in mystery. How could such an image have been transferred to this linen so perfectly? It is so clear, seeming as if painted, the contours of blood stains do not permit any alteration but what would have been on the sheet if it were wound about the body for some days. How could what is before and behind be other than through simple contact, having exactly the same intensity, while, logically, what was behind should have been more deeply marked? Why has there been no scientific reason discovered for the presence of such an image which, in substance, could not have resulted in a similar one? And all this is a mystery only for science. For the believer, the first thing is underlined, the question as to how the Shroud could have been done otherwise and kept, is much more disturbing. Why did the Lord never want to have us have a sign of this importance? Just as why, even amongst believers, is this spoken of so little and as if its existence were unknown? Why even is its authenticity still doubted? These and also others, confirm the greatness of God, who has left and continues to leave signs that work in silence, in humility, in forgetfulness. And the Shroud, perhaps because of the evidence of its own witnessing, becomes even a sign of such great seeming . . . unbelievable! Also for science it becomes more and more difficult to say that the Shroud is not that which covered the Sacred Body of Jesus Christ, Son of God. Or better, one cannot but affirm that it once covered the body of a dead man, who lived at the time of Christ, named Jesus, flogged, wounded around the head with small but spread out wounds, crucified and finally wounded in the side! It seems as if one of the strongest points of our faith, that is the belief in the existence of Jesus as man, could not be sustained only by the New Testament but also by a sure, unequivocal proof, indisbutable and therefore disturbing. The Shroud in fact is as a mirror which, to the smallest details, reflects all that is written in the Gosels, relative to Christ's Passion. And science, in its own work, finds historical and scientific checks that validate the date and origin, rendering the mirror always more clear, in a way that reflects an image that is always more precise and evident. If therefore it is a sign of Christ, the Shroud ought to make us think, ought to open our awareness and out life to the drama of millions of brothers and disters, who still, in the world, suffer innocently.

To the mystery of the sorrow which, sanctified in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, brings salvation to all. The Shroud is thus an expression of the time of sin of man and of the greatness and mercy of God. It is God in fact who 'so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son', consenting that he undergo the insult of the fury of man so that salvation could be extended to all Creation. Truly before a sign of such great and total devotion, a sincere heart cannot but cry to the Father: you could not love us more! Jesus Christ wished to live above all himself the disturbing experience of the powerlessness of man before death, when life ends. He wanted, and the Shroud is evidence of this, to drink to the last drop of that bitter chalice of which he thought, a few hours earlier, to reject in anguish ('my soul is sick unto death'). The Shroud thus uses the language common to so many signs of God: silence. Its story is rich in silence (we have no records of its existence before around 1250!). It is not necessary to add anything; its presence because it itself gives witness to believers who see it with the eyes of faith.

We returned to Sasso, to our monastery. In the cell was the reproduction of the Face, waiting for me. I seemed to know it better. I asked what it had communicated to me, in the silence, this Face which now had a body. Perhaps the strongest impression was a feeling of peace, of serenity, of calm. It did not seem to me an image of a desperate man, stricken with sorrow from a horrendous dying, disfigured with suffering. There was, in this Face, the tranquillity of One who had fought the good fight, who had accepted, without refuting it, but instead living it, the Will of the Father. This was already expressed in the hope with which He had closed His eyes and which acknowledged, with certainty, the fruit of true faith, which put behind Himself all suffering, the total impotence of humankind at the point of death, remaining in the infinite mercy of God who desired all for Him! I could only thank God for His immense generosity and for the opportunity He had given to me of this sign that I was still ignoring. I ask that He give to the Church, to each one of us, the grace to see His Face in each one of the brothers and sisters that, each day, we meet, so that we may love and serve Him.

Alessandro

QUELLO CHE LO SPIRITO STA MUOVENDO

THOSE WHOM THE SPIRIT MOVES

We cannot neglect in silence the events of these recent weeks in the Community. The Archbishop of Parakou, Monsignore Assogba, has visited us and we are prepared to return in a few weeks to Benin where there is already work being done on a little house where we will go to be in the midst of our brothers in Africa. At the same time there has been this fertile meeting of Adrian with Serafino, Serafino's journey to Australia where three groups have formed which are beginning the life of the Community with weekly gatherings, having the responsibility for the Community, having just started their life on that distant continent, Adrian Pervan, for now, the only one who has been consecrated in the Community. When you receive this Notiziario another piece of news showing the Lord's recognition: three young people from Sri Lanka not only belong to the Community, but a Third Branch is beginning through them an experimental common life, for now in Argenta.

Speaking with simplicity and as if only with hints of all these things one cannot be silent but only marvel at what they portend and do not portend. It seems that God is joking: we are so few in numbers and so unknown in Italy, yet God is opening an enormous field in all the continents, in Africa, in Asia, in Australia. Are we ready? To the generosity of God, to the faith which he places in us we cannot but follow with greater generosity on the part of all, a faith that is greater in our calling, a love that should be more concretely the gift of all ourselves to God's will.

In what follows you will find the letter which I believed I wrote to our three sisters from Sri Lanka who this very day make their annual Vows in the Community, and the letter which I have sent to the aspirants in Australia, and I will say something more in the following Notiziario about the next journey that some of us will make to Benin.

LETTER FROM THE FATHER TO THE THREE SISTERS FROM SRI-LANKA

Dearest daughters and sisters,

With great trepidation you will receive in a few days the gift of your life through offering yourselves, together with the Son of God to the Father, as a sacrifice of praise. It is truly a great happening for you who consecrate yourselves to God, taking upon yourselves a life of sacrifice, of humility, of service to your brothers and sisters; and it is a great event for the Community that with you begins an experiment in the Third Branch with the religious life in community. We feel profoundly as do many in these last days that what is happening is a sign of unconceivable trust on the part of God and a sign of his immense goodness. In the humility of our poor life God bends down to us with infinite benevolence, He has called us to a work so grand that we would never have thought of it for us to do. It is always God who is ready to do everything out of nothing and to reduce to nothing the tools with which we would work.

What could come about if for a few years we were to remain faithful? What grave responsibility would be upon us. . . To abort the work of God through our own carelessness, our own lack of faith, lack of generosity on our part, would be the gravest fault. We should always feel we can do nothing without His help. There isn't for us any scale or proportion between what we are and what is asked of us.

We have gathered you into our family and feel we have received some sacred gift from God. We promise to follow you in prayer: we are united always in one sole task of love. We feel that all our service to our brothers and sisters has no sense of ending: the end of all remains our participation in the sacrifice of Christ through the praise to the Father. Also the Third Branch remains always for the Community the witness of the firstness of God and the task of united, humble, constant prayer, a delicate attention in listening to divine inspiration, a fearing joy in which one feels loved by God in a most singular love.

The Lord bless you and accept your gift, transforming you always more into the image of his Son. All the Community greets you joyously, all the Community gathers you with love.

The Father

LETTER FROM THE FATHER TO THE AUSTRALIAN ASPIRANTS

Dearest Friends,

Always we witness God's works with astonishment.

From distant Australia, God has brought Adrian to Italy and has willed that he meet with the Community. Now the distance seems to disappear: a bond of love is tied between some Catholics in Italy to other brothers and sisters on the Australian Continent. So much is unexpected in God's actions. He but chooses obedience, even abandonment to his Will, to complete his works.

In fact, the meeting has made us understand a mission. In the Community we have always excluded a particular scope or work. This has always seemed more necessary today, to give witness to the firstness of God in prayer.

The meeting between us has made us understand our responsibility: in today's world God is always being increasingly forgotten. In the best of cases, the religious obligations are used only for the good of the present life. We feel that first of all things is to be placed the gift of God's love and the gift of our love for Him. God will not return to being present in human life if we will that God serve only our present life.

It does not seem to us that the first place of God is damaged by human and social tasks; it is rather that only in God we would feel ourselves truly brothers and sisters, one thing only amongst us. In God: through this we feel we ought to firmly keep to the intention of a life of prayer, humble but living, in faith and in love. It is this intention which now binds us together, and which lays on one another through faithfulness the listening to the Word of God so that we can respond to Him in that which he has called us. In fact, we feel profoundly that the meeting and the communion amongst us does not depend upon our choice, but upon Him who has chosen us, from His vocation. We understand this, and we ourselves feel poor and unable. But we feel also that we ought to be respond in a trust at least as large as is that Love which has called us.

The union with God will unite us closely amongst ourselves. All distances will disappear: He Himself shall be our Oneness.

So we pray one for the other, that we will participate now - as Jesus taught - in works still more astounding, and that our hearts will be enlarged to embrace the universe.

I greet each one of you, and give to each of you my blessings of peace and of affection in our Lord Jesus.

The Father.

OUR FOUR SAINTS (IGNATIUS, BENEDICT, FRANCIS, THERESE)

SAINT BENEDICT AND THE 'LECTIO DIVINA'

After Adam's sin . . . God ought to have created a new creation into which to have introduced us, because we ought to be able to listen to His Word, because we should see His light. The new Creation of God, the new world in which God introduced us that he desired to save, is Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture is the new world, the new Paradise in which we ought to be introduced in order to enter into communion with God, after the land became cursed. This is precisely through the Holy Scriptures, the 'Lectio Divina'. What is important for the contemplative life and most of all for monks and nuns is meditation, the careful reading of the Word of God.

When we speak about men's affairs, it is difficult for us, through words, to enter into communion with God: or we become impatient because things are spoken of which are not pleasing, colliding against them, responding at least not as we should have replied to Our Lord if we had truly listened, or to certain words that pleased too much but where there is the danger of not doing otherwise, but instead remaining glued to the world of things.

First of all we ought to love Holy Scripture. The Word became flesh after being first made Word, even a human word, and it is through this divine teaching that the soul can be joined to the incarnate Word, can be joined in the Eucharist. We need first to learn and to know who is God, to know Him we have to approach Him in the Eucharist. In the Eucharistic mystery Jesus speaks, Jesus is seen: a bottomless humility of God in Christ! We need first to have listened, to know who He is: we need first to have seen Him to know how to recognise Him again. The meditation of the Divine Word is required of us as a fundamental task. No one can be a true monk if he does not recognise in himself particularly with all the religious of the Church of God, through the love of Holy Scripture. This distinguishes, this saves and guarantees the contemplative life of monasticism. The guarantee above all from the danger of religious psychologism. The same mystic experience of St John of the Cross hangs upon the Lectio Divina.

. . . What importance does Holy Scripture have for an as-if new creation of the world. How to come from the world for us is to die; so is it to die for a Christian not living in this world, which is ours. In this world we open our eyes to another reality, our ears are opened to hearing a new word. Scarcely do we enter this world in which all appears strange. The first experience of a reading is deluding. The book does not say anything, the Biblical world is as if strange and unknown. In fact it is a strange world to us who are sinners.

We ought to become its inhabitants, not entering there as tourists who enter and then go away. We ought to enter this world to become a part of it, we ought to enter this world and live in it. We ought not to tire of it, we ought to persevere in reading and thinking of it and having it illumine us. It is a fact that all souls experience: the more one reads, the more this Word illumines one. At the beginning it says nothing to us; then at the end it is only this Word that says anything.

Taken from the chapter 'La lectio divina', written by don Divo Barsotti, C.D.F., in the book, Ascolta o figlio/Listen, My Son, first published by LEF, shortly to be reprinted.

PAOLO AND MIMMA'S WEDDING

Without boasting, we still ought to speak of lovely events. It is not correct to fix our attention on human things but, if possible, to give glory to God. Paul and Mimma's wedding was indeed a beautiful happening, and we write about it.

Paolo Sighinolfi from Modena and Mimma (Mimma Caterina) Mina, from Livorno, came to know each other during a prayer meeting of the Community in our hermitage at Fornace, six to seven years ago. In time they became engaged and the 19 July (the same day as the anniversary of Father's ordination as priest) of this year they married at the Madonna del Sasso.

They were prepared for marriage by Padre Agostino. This seems to us right that our two Consecrated persons should chose for their spiritual director one of our priests of the common life rather than going to a preparatory course in the parish or diocese and, not without a certain amount of discussion, our response was affirmative: it seemed to take nothing from the parish or from the diocesan priests if the preparation of a couple consecrated in the Community was done by a priest of the Community. The goal - that of preparation for marriage - was realized, and even the programme these young people followed with the priests of the Community was as weighty and responsible as that which is usually done in the parish. All of this was done in accord with the parishes of the two future spouses, who in this case had placed full trust in the Community's preparation.

The wedding took place in one of 'our' places, at the Madonna del Sasso, which greatly assisted its liturgical and spiritual aspect. The spouses exchanged their vows before the altar and before each other, and at the end made their act of homage to the Madonna. The brothers and sisters of the common life took care of the singing, and after the Communion, with the touching notes of the Canticle of St Sergius, paid homage to Father, who at that moment was in hospital with a broken leg.

All this took place in a climate of great recollection and prayer, and even the photographs seemed taken in this climate, being photographed without additional light, discretely, as if asking permission, recording the salient moments of the ceremony. My desire returns ever more strongly - but I have never had it happen - to find a marriage couple willing to accept as a prophetic gesture for their wedding: that there be no photographers inside the church. I would make this proposal, were I not sure that no one would then ask me to celebrate their marriage. The motive for this extravagant request came to me when I began to realize the ragtaggle of scenic apparati that have become today's wedding ceremony: for some the photographic service seems even more important than the sacrament itself . . . Once I almost interrupted the wedding because the groom (not the bride, but the groom) seemed decidedly more interested in placing himself in front of the photographic machines (more than one) and videocams (more than one) in such a Hollywood manner buzzing about the couple in a blaze of lighting, that it seemed that the moment of sanctifying the marriage itself with grace was but an insignificant detail.

After the Mass, lasting almost two hours, but seeming in a twinkling of an eye, filled always with the genuine joy that only the Spirit can give (the famous sober drunkenness, Acts 2.13), and after the luncheon, the newlyweds left the world behind them, and went to spend two days in the place where they had met each other: Fornace. There were waiting for them the brothers and sisters of the common life. The married couple were placed in a climate of silence and of prayer, and like Sarah and Tobias, passed their first days of their married life in prayer before the Lord, in thankfulness and to request grace upon their new family.

Without much clamour or publicity, thus has been given to us of the Community a prophetic sign (so much better mine than those of the photographers' cameras!) of how to marry and what is meant by marriage celebrated in Christ. I say this also to console those who work with the spiritual formation of young people and of couples: such marriages still can happen, thank God, and we write of this to give glory to God, to say to carry on the work with becoming discouraged, that we can believe and help each other with these examples of faith and life truly lived.

Padre Serafino

Madonna del Sasso: A Sanctuary to the Madonna built in the mountains beyond Fiesole, which the Community uses. An Irish hermit lived here a thousand years ago, named Saint Andrew. His sister, Saint Bridget, founded the town of Santa Brigida further into the mountains. Their brother, Saint Martin, was made Deacon of Fiesole by Saint Donatus, its Bishop and in turn another Irish hermit, all of whom who came here to Christianize Tuscany. Five hundred years later the Madonna, the Virgin, appeared to two shepherd girls on the rock above Saint Andrew's hermitage, telling them to tell Florence to study the Bible. The little girls were not believed. So the Madonna next appeared to the adults, telling them to believe the children!

The Maddona del Sasso above the Altar.

The church is very beautiful, with the altar above the Rock (Sasso). Outside of it is an arcaded Renaissance cloister (you can glimpse it in the photograph above, and its mixture of Florentine white and grey, the grey being the local pietra serena stone) opening out onto a most beautiful view of the mountains surrounding the sanctuary, stretching from Santa Brigida on one's left to Fiesole on one's right. Beside the church on either side are two monastic buildings, the CFD monks using one for their Novitiate, the other sometimes used by the Sisters, sometimes for guests.

FORMAZIONE E VADEMECUM/

FORMATION AND GUIDEBOOK

[Wisdom: I will go with thee, to be thy guide,
In thy most need, to be at thy side.
Everyman]

You know that I am always concerned about aspirants' formation; great steps are made because during the period of formation both aspirants and those in charge of them themselves live it intensely. Above all we ought to recognise that the formation of those who live in the Families and have the tasks of their professions and their homes will never find the great spirit of sacrifice and the great love for the Community easy. Recently I have thought often of what we could do that would be more effective in following the best formation of those preparing themselves for Consecration and even for Vows. The one thing which seems to me to have been suggested by the Lord is that each aspirant should possess the Vademecum, the Guidebook; thus this book can become a guide also for those in charge, whose work will thus acquire a more clear direction and a more secure map of the pilgrimage. We ought, too, to require that those who enter as aspirants obtain the Vademecum: only in case of need should the Vademecum be given by the Families, but what seems best for the formation is that the aspirants themselves acquire this small book which should be for them the base for their formation in the Community.

Il padre/ The Father

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This site last updated 18 August 1998.