© Copyright, don Divo Barsotti, C.F.D.; don Serafino Tognetti, C.F.D., Settignano; Julia Bolton Holloway (juliana@tin.it), Fiesole, Italy

COMUNITÀ DEI FIGLI DI DIO/COMMUNITY OF

GOD'S SONS AND DAUGHTERS

NOTIZIARIO/NEWSLETTER

DECEMBER, 1998

Don Divo Barsotti, C.F.D. Pensieri extravaganti/ Further Thoughts, p. 34.

FROM THE FATHER

TO YOU, MY SONS, MY DAUGHTERS

We cannot delude ourselves. Even if I seem well, death cannot be distant. It is right that now I feel the need to turn to my brothers and sisters who have had for me such love, such sweet kindness, such a generosity that one could never have hoped for.

I don't know how many more of these letters for the Notiziario I shall be able to write, so I ought to speak to you here as if this is my Will and Testament. It is right that I give you my thoughts and my most humble and fervent thanks.

The first recommendation that I ought to give to you is that you seek continually to overcome lack of faith. We cannot and should not doubt in God. His love is always greater than we can ever think or hope. Do not be troubled by difficulties, whether from external enemies or from the incomprehension of even our brothers and sisters; as Christians we should never abandon ourselves to despair. The love of God ought in each one of us to be the source of a generous optimism. We cannot speak of ourselves as the Sons and Daughters of God, as God's Children, if we do not believe that He, as Father, communicates Himself totally to us. The faith which we ought to have in His love ought to be of our right sort of spirituality and to give a quality of pure joy to our life.

But I want especially now to insist on fraternal, neighbourly love amongst us; we ought to love our neighbour as ourself and if our neighbour is truly the one that we would love to the measure of our love, as is taught in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, to love one's neighbour one would say is for us to feel one in Jesus Christ; one Body, one Life. The distinctions of persons ought never in the least differentiate the love that we ought to have for our brothers and sisters. It is not their goodness, it is not their youthfulness, that can give any measure to our love for them, but the simplest fact that they are one with us. Thus, to be more truly, one body, one spirit, one Jesus Christ.

Love each other always. Do not ever wish to accept even slightly any sentiment of dis-esteem, of bitterness or even simply of resentment. We do not exist for this, we who are loved, but for what Christ has drawn us altogether as one to Him, making us all participate in the same divine family, to be all one even more than to be brothers and sisters. You must truly desire this, never tiring of loving, overcoming all motives that could render you less living and less true in love. This could be for all of us, for each brother, each sister, the true sacrament of Christ. The fraternal communion which the religious life requires makes of each one of us the truest sacrament of Jesus' presence. Do not ever let unbelief or resentment penetrate your heart: make the monastic, common life anticipate the life of Paradise. Remember that our neighbour is certainly amongst those who live with us in this world, but if this neighbouring is given to the measure with which we love them, the truest and greatest neighbours are for us the saints themselves, because they certainly love and love with a perfect love.

Venerate with intense love the Mother of God and our Mother. Love our saints: live in communion with them and do not forget our dead. It would not be a true love if there were not the sense of eternity. Death cannot break or divide those who are in Christ, God in fact has only one body. But now we must understand that after the belief in the love of God and after Christ, we place our love in the Church, His mystical body.

For today these few things are enough that I have said and that I would have remain always present in your spirit so that the union between us shall always become more true.

I bless you, and embrace you with a sincere love.

Il padre/The father.

FROM THE ASSISTANT GENERAL

WHAT CAN EDITH STEIN SAY TO THE COMUNITA?

What can Edith Stein say to us of the Community? Can she speak to us as does St Justin, philosopher and martyr? She was canonized 11 October by Pope John Paul II. She was born at Breslau 12 October 1891 to a Jewish family. She studied first in her home town, completing her degree with fullest honours at Gottingen under Professor E. Husserl, founder of Phenomenology. Edith was brought up in the faith of her ancestors, but at the age of sixteen became atheist. Her life was a passionate search for truth, 'Research became my prayer'. At Gottingen she worked beside Husserl as his assistant, known by the most famous scholars of Germany. Once, going to visit the widow of a colleague killed during the war, finding her so serene in her lived Christianity, she herself had her first experience of faith, 'it was a moment in which unbelief crashed, Judaism became pale, and Christ was raised up gloriously before my eyes: Christ in the mystery of His Cross'. During a visit to her Conrad relatives and friends, she found by chance and read the Autobiography of St Teresa of Avila. Having met the truth, Edith decided to become Catholic and Carmelite. Before entering the Carmel she dedicated herself to research, to teaching and to lecturing for the rights of women. With Hitler's rise to power she had to abandon teaching at the university because she was a Jew. One day, while praying, she understood that God was calling her to a life of continuous prayer and an oblation of herself for her People and for the Church. She entered Cologne's Carmel, 15 October 1932. She left Cologne and took refuge in the Carmel at Echi in Holland, 31 December. She was arrested by the SS, 2 August, and deported, together with Rosa, her sister, to a concentration camp. She died in the gas chamber at Auschwitz, 9 August.

For forty years Edith Stein, as a layperson, sought the truth with intelligence and love and witnessed it in each aspect of her life; for nine years she lived in the Carmel seeking and witnessing to God through continuous prayer and through participating in the suffering of Christ for the salvation of the Jewish People. As a lay Catholic Edith Stein sought God solely through philosophical research and history and through the humanity of Christ, the New Adam and the New Exodus to the Father. In her works, from Empathy to Science of the Cross the fundamental theme is of the intersubjectivity, the rapport, between the self and the other, the I and Thou. And she speaks of the greatest differences as being those between the sexes, between the generations, between the religions, between the cultures, in converging into unity. In her heart she anticipated the union between the old and new Israel of God. Diversity and the Unity of differences are the image and revelation of the Trinity. Edith wrote: 'God has created humanity as male and female. the one and the other in their rightful image. Only when their respective masculine and feminine characters are fully developed, do they attain to what is the greatest likeness to the divine image, and only then can the earthly communal life become powerfully penetrated by the divine life' (La donna/The Woman, p. 66). As if to say, it is in living in the family, in one's work, in history, one beside the other, that one finds God. Through living this perspective Edith recommends the importance of the theological virtues, prayer, the Eucharist and placing oneself into the liturgical cycle of the year. To be faithful to this task made Edith, still a lay person teaching at the university, strongly recommend to all a Rule of life which establishes the time of prayer and the time of work. The programme of her life can be reassumed in the encyclical Fides et Ratio, Faith and Reason: credo ut intelligam et intelligo ut credam, I believe so that I may understand and I understand so that I may believe. Human maturity and spiritual maturity come together.

In September I began to visit the Comunita's families, on the 13th being in Milan where there is the new Lombardy family. Raul Radice is their Assistant. He will guide the Comunita with diligence and fruitfully. In the course of a few years Milan will become a family with all the structure that guarantees the Consecrated and Aspirants' spiritual and cultural formation.

From 24 to 26 October I was in Syracuse. Guiseppe Italia, the Family Assistant, carries out with discration the mandate to guide that Comunita. At Syracue the gatherings and the monthly retreats are carried out with care, the weekly encounters are assiduously attended. Giuseppe is a member of the Vice-Assistants and of the Little Council. Each two months he meets with those Responsible for the Groups. The rapport is good between the Responsibles for Formation. I remind all those who work for the edification of the Comunita that 'The Lord loves a cheerful giver'. To the Milanese and Syracusans thanks for their welcome. A special thanks goes to Alessandra Italia, Filippo Merenda in Milena and Salvo Mazzarella for the beautiful cake iced with 'CFD'.

Mary, the Madonna of Advent, help us to await in hope the Coming Event of the Redeemer.

Pino Guarnieri.

BIBLICAL INSERT

THE BOOKS OF SAMUEL THE PROPHET

As already said in the introduction to the books of Joshua and Judges, the books of Samuel were also part of the Deuteronomical historical writings. We are speaking of a true and proper school that, having ample documentary material, reconstructed the history of Israel, following the criteria of the Deuteronomic books (Deuteronomy 12.26).

The style of the Deuteronomic work is of the genre of sermon/catechism, the two books of Samuel being distinguished by their tone of the great freedom in which the author narrates of the institution of the monarchy and of David's reign, not touching upon, beside the glorious events, the weaknesses, the faults, the sins of the elect of God. The narrated events arise in that period of around 130 years, from 1100 to 950, in which across the work of Samuel an epoch of the Judges ends and gives rise to the monarchy. In this time the great powers (Egypt, Syria, the Hittites, the Phoenicians) cease their great political expansion. In Palestine, in the coastal region, come to be established one of those sea peoples, the Philistines, while the tribes of Israel come to complete their infiltration of the internal region, where other people (the Aramates, the Ammonites), were a threat. Their tribal condition does not seem sufficient to guarantee stability. They feel the need to be a nation, united under a king who could guarantee in a lasting way a political and religious unity to the people. So to Samuel, judge and prophet, near the Silo sanctuary, came the request to 'anoint' a chosen of God and proclaim him king.

The epoch of the book's composition (the division into two books was required by its transcription onto rolls in the Greek version of the Septuagint) is perhaps in the last years of the Babilonian exile and in the years of the return to Palestine, in the priestly context. The tradition which the author uses (who seem to be two authors) arises in the eleventh and tenth centuries, just before the division of the realm. A traditions speaks of the persecution by Saul of David, the other of a dynastic setting. We can thus understand the incongruencies, the repetitions and the diversity of some of the accounts. The first book in particular shows contradictions (the rapport between Saul and Samuel, the first years of David at the court), while the second has a greater unity. There are therefore different traditions, in which the data can be found to conform to archeological excavations, and which are not celebrated because they narrate at the same time the good and the evil of the protagonists. In the second book of Samuel (2 Samuel 1.18), a source is cited having the title 'The Book of Jashar'.

I Samuel, Chapters 1-3: The birth of Samuel and his service with the priest Eli in the Temple at Silo. This narration much influenced the Gospels account of Jesus' childhood. Hannah's Canticle is echoed in Mary's Magnificat.

Chapters 4-7: The Philistine War and the Ark's Capture. The people are abandoned. Samuel becomes protagonist; religious and legal reform of Israel.

Chapters 8-10: The people elect a monarchy. Samuel is not much swayed by this request, stating the one king is God. But God grants the request and Samuel anoints Saul, King of Israel.

Chapters 11-15: Saul disobeys, believing he can do without Samuel's mediation. Joanthan and his warriors say God is close to those who fear him.

Chapters 16-17: Samuel's charism diminishes and is almost lost. Samuel comes to the court of the king and Samuel secretly anoints him. His valour earns the esteem of the people and Saul's envy, now tragicially twisted by the hate and evil that seem to come to possess him.

Chapter 19-27: David flees towards the south of Palestine, coming to take refuge amongst the Philistines.

Cahpter 28-31: Saul dies in battle.

II Samuel, Chapter 1: David mourns the death of Saul.

Chapters 2-4: Civil War.

Chapters 5-10: The Conquest of Jerusalem. The renewal of the Promise of Blessing upon David and his descendants (Chapter 7, Nathan the Prophet). War against the Ammonites and Aramites.

Chapters 11-14. David's Adultery. The sin brings disorder and other violence in the royal family.

Chapters 15-20: The violence becomes civil war with the revolt of Absalom. David finally reenters Jerusalem. His trust in God is the profound motive for the success which he identifies with God's will and blessings.

Chapters 21-24: Appendices: the Song of David, the punishment, the building of an altar on Mount Sion.

THE THEMES

1. THE KINGSHIP. After the Exodus and the Covenant on Sinai, monarchy is the people of Israel's most significant experience on the politico-religious plane. It is enough to note in the first place how Israel intended royal power. It was to be different from civil power as the monarchy of Israel was seen as a simple representation of God. The king is a sacred person, chosen by God from the midst of the people by virtue of election and anointing. This election is in order to realize the divine plan in history and for the people and in the strength of being the anointing, which cannot be done other than through God's design, to be the one true King of Israel. The investiture given to the elect, of a prophet or a priest, was from that moment to be his guide, teaching him, even reproving and condemning him. The kingship carried with it responsibility, in the sense that he is elected and proclaimed king of the people, and must work in perfect harmony with the will of God, without ever forgetting the divine origins and justifications of his task.

Saul and David live their elections and responsibilities in different ways. The first king of Israel, Saul, is a tragic and mysterious personage. The sin which he commits is not so grave as the sin which David commits in his life. Yet Saul remains trapped and a prisoner within his sin, slave to a force greater than himself which is the force of hate and of evil, incapable of recognizing it and at the same time incapable of reconciliation. In David there is never a loss of trust in God. He sins from the weakness of his nature but he never remains slave to sin, as if there were always a thin thread holding him in communion with God. His trust is always ready to praise God in whom he never doubts, whether in his youth, which is arduous and heroic, whether as an adult, in which he overcomes the most grave difficulties, such as evil and violence in his own family.

In virtue of Baptism the Christian is called to exercise royalty. Inasmuch as he is inserted into Christ, the Christian participates in that same regality, and for this he is called, chosen, to the dignity of a son. The responsibility which derives from the election is our religious life. In a human way, but at the same time mysteriously divine, our live needs this cleaving to the will of God, revealed to us in his Son Jesus. And one can perceive how all that which surrounds us, to the measure in which He is central, become the object of the exercise of a religious regality.

2. THE HUMANISM of the books of Samuel. Humanity with its contradicitons, its weaknesses, but also with its faith is the protagonist of these books. God's intervention is always present, but in a hidden way, as if following the actions of men in an atmosphere of great freedom and trust in as much as He himself has caused. Samuel does not understand the need of the people to have a king, so God leads him to anoint Saul and then David. When it seems, in other parts of the book, that all is lost, behold the history of Israel and the presence of God close to his people is reborn. One thinks of the decadence of Eli's family, first, and of Samuel, later; of the fall of Saul, of the dynastic difficulties of the family of David . . . while God does all with immense patience and mercy. All this comes about through people's faith. It is as if God has need of this human reply to his call. And all begins to to be spun again from the unversal story, of the time of Genesis and Exodus, to concentrate now on histories of concrete men. In this sense the humanism of these books is prophetic in the sense that they in some way prepare us from the anointing through excellence of the Christ, Jesus, the Son of God.

Bibliography

Divo Barsotti, Meditations on the Book of Samuel/Meditazione sul libro di Samuele, Queriniana, 1996.

A. Girlanda, Introduction to the Old Testament/ Introduzione Antico Testamento, Paoline.

G. Von Rad, Theology of the Old Testament/Teologia dell'Antico Testamento, Paideia.

Ed. Domenico Ientile.

A PILGRIM'S FABLING

OCTOBER IN PALERMO

STORY OF AN ANGEL

The station in Florence; about to leave for Sicily, a long journey, but with an air of sparkling joy, as with children on a trip. We are about ten, and we ask ourselves if we are not a little rash in presenting ten of ourselves in Sicily. We know that the Comunita in Palermo is delightful, but to everything there is a limit . . . Who then is with me? Let us begin with Sister/ suor Gemma, who is stopping for a few days in Palermo visiting her family; from Milan comes the engineer Gianluca, with his fiancee Stefania, who are Aspirants; from Selva di Val Gardena there is for the first time the duo, Helga and Anneliese, two Ladini sisters for whom Italian is the third language, after Ladino and German!; then there is David Grassi, a true Florentine from Oltrarno; Iulian, a young Romanian Aspirant who lives in Florence (also for him Italian is the third or fourth language, after Romanian, Magyar, German and perhaps some other). There is next Paolo Fiorenzani from Cecina, more an islander than a mainlander (Sardinia and Sicilia). We end the queue with the Australian Peter Xuereb, who has been living at San Sergio for more than a month.

I jump on the train, realizing with a sense of horror, that I no longer have my bag, with the train tickets, money, breviary, addresses (from these I am never separated), not even pajamas and toothbrush. Where they have gone I do not know. The doors of the train are closing . . . there is nothing I can do. The bag is lost. Suddenly I hear a voice from outside the train screaming my name: it is my guardian angel from heaven incorporated in the form of Lucia, Paolo's sister, who has come on bicycle, 'Lucia, go around the station and see if you can find a black and yellow bag!' I say scarcely in time shouting this from the window, the train already moving. And thus I left Florence with so many dear friends, my only 'possession', but all the rest lost and gone forever in the Station. Towards Arezzo the engineer from Milan drew out his telefonino (seriously: who despises them buys them) and got in contact with the bicyclist Lucia. Eureka! She has found the bag, outside the Station. How could I ever have left it there, God only knows: however the fact is that not only is it found but she also says that she will send it immediately by express to Palermo. The incredible efficiency of this guardian angel! Lord, thank you for the gift that you make of these friends . . . ten on the train, and one with wings, alongside. That famous hundred for one that you promise and always keep.

BAIDA SWEET BAIDA

We arrive in Palermo, and it is warm as summer. We divide ourselves: the Senoner sisters are guests to Domenico and Margherita Ientile, the engineer to the Ferro family, Stefania to the Alioto, and the rest, the men, to Baida. For those who do not know this, Baida is the Comunita's house that we have in Palermo: rooms in the basement and on the ground floor a chapel equipped with everything. Here lived for a while Maria Pottino, a marvellous woman who made me love the Comunita more than anything else. Going around the Comunita I did not discover her, because in the Christmas of 1982, as a very young Aspirant, I was invited by padre to go down with him to Palermo. and remember as if it were today, the appearance and smile of Maria Pottino at Baida who greeted me. When padre would go down to Palermo, Baida became a little San Sergio, or a sort of house of the common life where various sisters in Palermo would come together in those days. I marvelled at the veneration these ladies had for padre and the love they showed for the Comunita. But what made me love it so intensely and which makes it always moving to return to Baida now was Maria Pottino who is no longer there.

But is it true that she is no longer there? In the little rooms alongside is an Australian who makes the coffee, a Rumanian who gives a clean to the room. Paolo leaning from the balcony, David who sings joyously. They do not know Maria Pottino, but I believe that she is still there, with her eternally sweet smile and shyness. How she loved padre, and how she loved the Comunita!

It is not possible for us of the Comunita to come to Palermo and not come to the House of Baida. It is not possible to ignore Maria Pottino's teaching, her love for the Comunita.

A WEDDING WITH BABIES

Fabiola and Marcello were married at this time in Palermo, she Aspirant, he . . . almost. They came to all this when they met at New Year's. They have practically nothing, neither house nor work that is truly their own, but only the desire to wed each other, from the strength of their love. And a great faith in God. But these are enough, faith and love. And so they came to be married ,2 October, as if making a fatal leap, but without giving it time to look around. And this was a truly religious marriage, as is given sometimes to see through the grace of God in the Comunita. The photographer was a friend of the family, with a little unpretentious car. A photographer who prayed more than he photographed. Then a church which prayed, which made merry with the couple in song and in prayer. Even the eyes of the ten little Indians were wet.

At last, surprise (but not more than most). The bride and groom asked me to call all the babies present and to bless them.

This I did: I called all the little ones present (a goodly number) and I wanted to put the spouses with them, because they had given the testimony of have abandoned themselves like children: they had believed that the Lord would help them and it was so. With all the babies, hand in hand, the spouses prayed and received the Blessing. It was really lovely.

The spouses then participated in the activities of the Comunita for the next two days. Just married, not knowing what to expect beyond those two days . . . The evening after the wedding, they came to the prayer vigil, and in this setting Marcello became Aspirant. He made his Aspirancy before the Exposed Sacrament. Now there are two.

SURPRISE RAID

I spent one morning of those four days in Palermo in visiting some older people who can no longer come to the meetings or whom we see less often. Maria Pipitone, Giovanna Tuzzolino and Caterina Aiello are three sisters whom I could visit with true joy. Caterina Aiello who is at Bagheria, twenty kilometres from Palermo, at a certain point disappeared from view (she lives in an institution run by Sisters) and returned after ten minutes with a present for me: pajamas! How could she have known I didn't have any from having left my bag in the Station at Florence! Was that the paw mark of the Family's Assistant? No. It was a spontaneous present from Caterina. A symbol, a reminder that I ought to sleep more . . . or rather that I ought to leave fewer bags behind at stations?

Before lunch at Enza Arcoleo's house while looking through the addresses I discovered a name of a Consecrated person whom I had never seen and of whom I knew nothing: Matilde Petta.

Enza told me that she was elderly and whom even she had never seen because when she telephoned as new Assistant, the grandson with whom Matilda lived answered evasively, as if not wanting visits from strangers. Probably she was ill, but I felt that now was the hour to go and find and come to know Matilde, grandson or not.

I asked Maria Laura Ferro if she could take me to Matilde, and without further telephoning I left with that decision.

On the house phone was a voice which gently asked me to come up. And here was Matilde! She's the same age as padre, and a life full of memories of him. And the grandson is also happy. At the end we all prayed together, and it was to revision for some instances the atmosphere of former times of Baida.

For the moment in this Notiziario there are two other happenings in these four days in Palermo which I do not want repeated and will save from the the chronicling. I want only to note that a characteristic of this Family in Palermo, the good mix between young people and old. I would say this is better here than elsewhere. This serves as a warning to those Families where there are several young people who do not succeed in joining up with the older ones as they should. The Comunita has always instead had the quality of not making differences and of arising from the natural groups, amongst young people, amongst older people, amongst people with the same interests - here we counter this in the name of unity in Christ. I admire this particularly here in Palermo, and am very happy because of it.

And it is now time to come home. The engineer is waiting for Monday to be testing at his work bench (the proper beginning after new work), the Ladino sisters on the cash registers (they work in a supermarket), David ought to return to his hospital where he works in its administration, Paolo to his gymn, where he teaches his thing. The most relaxed of all is myself, with returning to my beloved Casa San Serio, and to my beloved cell. After Sunday is Monday. But if we remain united in Christ, our Sunday is prolonged.

Thank you, little Indian friends, fellow pilgrims!

padre Serafino.

NOTICES

BIBLE READING: In the month of December we read the Second Book of Samuel, II Samuel.

ADVENT SEASON: During the month the days of Wednesday 16, Friday 18 and Saturday the 19 December. Prayer is for non-Christian religions. The offering is for missionaries.

MEETING FOR FAMILIES AND BABIES 6 JANUARY: For some years it has been the practice in the Comunita to dedicate the day of Epiphany, one of CFD's own feastdays, to families and to babies. We ask all the Family Assistants who can to organize a time of recall, in which to give particular relief to this aspect. The meeting is for everyone. and where the babies and couples are particularly present. to make a point about their presence. The day, or half a day, should begin with the praying of the Morning of the Resurrection and the Mass, then the rest be left to the free initiative of the Assistants (a brief story, a moment of prayer to Mary, a moment of celebration, as for example was done one year in Central Sicily with a great tombola for all. . . )

In the Comunita in Florence some years this day has been dedicated instead to the elderly and shut-ins, and this went very well. The Family Assistants can also think of a similar thing, through valuing their presence and making them feel always united and close to all.

FROM AUSTRALIA TO BENIN

FROM AUSTRALIA

Greetings to all in the Lord, and continuing prayer for you all. We Australians are becoming a family, with the consciousness (literally, responsibility), of mutual help which we ought to give each other. This is what we seek to do in our little family. Someone has said of us that we are not a group begun for prayer, but people who find each other in prayer wishing to be one through the others in the love of God.

His love seems to us to be at work. There are some of us, for instance Val Dale, his daughter Jane, Teresa Liddell, Anne O'Gorman and others who must travel 25 kilometres in the city to reach the place for the meeting. Now padre Serafino knows that to cross a city like Melbourne takes a lot more than an hour by car, and again more to come home. Amongst us there is for instance Teresa who often goes to visit her daughter who lives in Broome in the extreme north west of our enormous continent, a journey which takes four days by car. We have a photograph of padre Serafino walking through Melbourne and he's tired enough . . . but to go to Broome by foot would take more or less twelve months. Teresa loves the Comunita and often she says, 'Each time I leave, I promise that I will pray for us each day'.

Many things have happened in these last months. The groups have become regular with their weekly meetings, and in following the rules and customs proposed in the Handbook. In our meetings, especially those on Bible study, many interesting things come out. Some profound observations from brothers and sisters are helpful to all. We seek to value these aspects, with the result that all participate willingly. Our meetings begin with at least 40 minutes of prayer, that there is about half an hour of reading in common and reflections exchangeed amongst us, then ending with Vespers. Prayer is vital for the success of what we are doing. The majority of us Aspirants now not only pray the obligatory prayers, but with the Breviary: a good number frequent the daily Mass. We thank the Lord for this.

Here in Melbourne we have three groups, with a fourth about to begin. The first group which meets in the Pascoe Vale area, has as patron Mary McKillop, the one beatified Australian. Her cause for canonization is in progress, and we are only awaiting a miracle. The group is composed of 14 members, and is led by Domenic Mete, ably helped by Matthew Bishop. But Matthew won't be with us long: 22 November he flies to Italy to come to Casa San Sergio for a time to come to know the IV Branch. He's a fine young man, full of vitality. We ask for lots of prayers for him, for the difficulties he will have with language, for at the moment he does not know Italian. But we've been told that at San Sergio many are prepared for him to gather him in seeking to better their English. The members of the group, 'Blessed Mary McKillop' are many faithful, and this is a fine guarantee for what they can do from a firm base. From this group have come the two who are in Italy at Casa San Sergio.

The second group, which is in the Coburg area, is under the patronage of St Pierre Chanel, the first martyred saint of Oceania. It is guided by the married couple Brian and Carmel Miller. This group had the greatest difficulty beginning, but never lost heart, and now is flourishing. It has a strong sense of reciprocal communion amongst its members. Brian and Carmel entered into the Comunita well, and we have need of them also because Carmel is the one who receives the Notiziario in English from the Internet and receives the posts from Italy by e-mail.

The third group, which is in the Hawthorn area, is dedicated to the Blessed Faustina Kowalska. It is led by Caroline Fernandez and I am its assistant leader. Soon is to be nominated vice-assistant to the group Terri Fusillo. From this group come the first two consecrations in Australia: Didi and Terri. If you pass by San Sergio you can see the video which we have sent them: the video is of the Mass, in which is manifested the universality of the Comunita. In the group Blessed Faustina is a great sense of unity. From this group will perhaps come a young woman for the House of the Beatitudes in florence. We are paying for this: others may surely follow?

The evening of the Consecration Mass for Terri Fusillo and for Hidijawati Satijahardaja (it's easier for us to say Didi), the first of Italian origin, the second Indonesian, was marvellous. Many of us have felt and lived this happening as that of the Holy Spirit. The celebrant Father Fitzpatrick, delegated by the Superiors of the Comunita, expressed very well in his sermon what he was about to do, and the acceptance in the Comunita of Terri and Didi took place with much dignity and reverence. Thus we now have in Australia three Consecrated persons. The next shall be Matthew bishop and Vincent Valla. Please keep them in your prayers. You know that if one of you comes from us, it is to give all of us our direction. We would be honoured to have you here. In the meanwhile we greet you with the Love of the Lord and of the Blessed Mother, and we pray that we can grow in His Love and testify to Him.

Adrian Pervan

FROM BENIN

After the visit to Benin in October our Sister Irene (of the House of the Beatitudes) wrote for us:

I would not be able to write of all that the Lord has given us who have lived through these days in Benin. A Journey of Faith, but at the same time and Experience of Love for each one of us. We were three who went but we surely went in the name of the entire Comunita. For me and for Bernardo it was our first experience but for Sister Angela it was instead for the third time. I am always more convinced that Africa is a gift for each one of us and for all the Comunita, from which we can draw great benefits for our journey as monks in the world. More than giving, we ought to be learning to receive. Remaining 'turned upside down' by the gifts of God through the Comunita, this opening up from the confines of Italy, which even made us afraid, but which puts no limits to the surprises of God and of His designs. 'The Lord is bonded to you and has chosen you, not because you are the most numerous amongst the other peoples, but because the Lord loves you' (Deuteronomy 6.7-8). The life of the Comunita in Benin is going very well. At Cotonou we hava had ways of meeting the Aspirants and sharing with them different group meetings, in which padre Bernardo has spoken of the value of Consecration, of personal and of liturgical prayer. In one of these meetings Letizia entered the Aspirancy, nineteen-years-old, now familiar with the Comunita for several months. The gifts of the Spirit are always unending, and in fact during a moment of fraternity Bernarde entered into Aspirancy. The group in Cotonou, thus, is growing, and now there are ten Aspirants. We thank the Lord for these days which grant to us this shared living with our brothers and sisters who are so pure and so faithful to the Comunita.

Irene

PADRE'S POESIE

CASA SAN SERGIO

SIMPLE PROFESSION AND CLOTHING OF DOROTHEO, AMOS AND SILVERIO

Saturday 17 October 1998 was most probably one of the most unforgettable days of our earthly pilgrimage and from our coming into the Comunita will be found forever impressed in our hearts, notwithstanding the inevitable passing of years and our ease in forgetting so much grace received each day from the Lord.

The Church of San Salvatore in Monte, of the Holy Saviour on the Mountain, was reserved for this, on one of the most suggestive of hills surrounding Florence: we being the guests of a little Franciscan community which kindly put at our disposition for the entire day their large church and their cloister for lunch. We arrived soon after 9:00 and while waiting for the Pullman for the eucharistic celebration of the afternoon we began our day of prayer with reciting Lauds: the sound of the organ and the beauty of the church helped us to enter quickly into the right mood and into the necessary interior collectedness. there in the midst of us, other than the brothers and sisters of the Comunita, came together something of all Italy, there being already amidst us Rienzo, Leonardo and Alessandro visibly moved but not distracted by all the people gradually entering the church.

At the end of Lauds padre spoke opening the mystery to the horizons that would shortly be celebrated there: the gift which these three brothers would be making to the Lord in professing their first Vows in our Fourth Branch. Padre's carriage and energy have improved with time: the surgical operations and the problems of this summer are now only a distant memory. Notwithstanding age he is always himself, untiring in testifying of our beginning to make us penetrate into the profundity of the love of God and to reveal to us the hidden marvels of the religious life. In his introductory meditation padre insisted most often on the triple renunciation which comes with the choosing of the Vows: that it is with one's free will, from all forms of possessions and from married love. Among the crowd there were already parents and relatives, perplexed and perhaps a bit upset by padre's raw words: amongst some of them a certain bitterness was evident and a questioning without answers about the choice of these three young men. But padre sweetened the dose, underlining forceably that the event calls to all of us: the call of Christ requires a radical response from each Christian. In our following Him what is required is the abandoning of all ties to our fragile earthly existence to make our souls ready for a full and speedy cleaving to His yoke. There is no alternative.

We concluded the morning of prayer with the recital of the Rosary at the foot of Our Virgin Mother Mary, to whom we entrusted our proposals and the intentions of these three brothers of ours, so that she keep them always in the difficulties they will inevitably meet in their pilgrimage of the religious life. Two unexpected entries into Aspirancy gave us yet another reason to thank the Lord.

Meanwhile the guests continued to arrive and through the lunch we were already prepared: at table we noticed Rienzo's family, Leonardo's grandfather, Alessandro's former colleague at work. One coud see at times with some of them a state of mind that is a mixture of joy on one side and an incapacity to understand on the other. The luncheon served thus as a usefule trampoline to prepare us with the right calmness for the 'mad leap' of the afternoon's celebration.

And thus at 3:00 finally came the long awaited Eucharist. The Pullmans arrived from Rivolta d'Adda and from Bologna and with them other brothers and sisters of the Comunita, all in prayer before the altar where shortly Christ the Lord would be truly seen in our midst to receive the gift of the three lives given to him by our three brothers.

The great church was already filled up, the emotion palpable in all, most visibly in the relatives and the closest friends. But it was still padre after the reading of the Lesson, who woke us up to a certain intial embarrassing and reporting to us again, repeating to us that not one of us could be a passive spectator. Padre's words are, again, a deadly whip to our hearts: our cleaving to the call of Jesus means walking through the streets that he has walked, believing that his death on the cross is our one unique possibility of salvation, to anchore all our hope on the strength and power of our prayer (as he invited us to do at the Liturgy of the word that morning). And to the scandal and incomprehension of the Jews and pagans (1 Corinthians 1.23) padre's vibrant voice reproposed to us, after two thousand years, the broken words of Paul, the preaching of 'Christ Curcified' of One who with his death has trampled down death and has flung open the gates of true life. And it is truly and only He who 'gives us the courage to draw near in full trust in God through our faith in him' (Ephesians 3.12).

And at this point, armed only and always with this faith and with this courage, the three climbed the steps of the altar to say their 'Yes', an infinite leap out of all their human limitations, which ended in the hands of padre Serafino, before the master who had patiently guided and followed them in their Novitiate, padre Agostino. Even if the rite is stretched out enough to permit us to draw in little doses the great mystery of which we were taking part, the impact of these minutes outside of time is still devastating to all: first during the changing of names, then in the profession of the Vows, and finally in the rite of the Clothing. And thus Leonardo, Alessandro and Rienzo opened their lives totally to the presence of Jesus the Lord: the Comunita gathered them in as Dorotheo, Amos and Silverio. In the great assembly (the church was literally packed, many standing) many were expressing perplexity and surprise at the choice of names, being a little lost to speak the truth; but nevertheless it was done and nothing could stop the course of the three. Guided by their 'Yes', we felt now all resolved on the same course, which became even our own, though burdened with the emotional tension accumulating at that moment. For the Comunita of the Fourth Branch it was a moment of great joy, profound and not expressible in words, growing with the renewal of the Vows by Gemma, Efrem and Stefano: a healthy and necessary reassuming of faith and hope for returning to the tasks of daily life, which through our choice of life still requires us to play with all the cards.

From there it seemed to be true that only Jesus dominated the scene, from the height of the splendid Crucifix behind the altar. The voice of padre broke gently into sobs during the prayer of Consecration, the singing not other than a simple background, all deepening the mystery we celebrate, now completely focused upon the Eucharist, the culminating point of the entire day, where we gather into our hearts the true food and the true drink that, once again, gives us new life and makes us mysteriously 'perfect in unity' (John 17.23).

The concluding song to the Virgin accompanying the exit of the priests, after the final Benediction by padre, reminding us that we had spent two hours from the beginning of the celebration, but no one seemed to have noticed this, even those who were standing throughout. We return to the time of the brief but necessary moments of celebration outside of the church, amidst song and the emotions of tossing the three into the air two metres above the earth, letting loose the last emotions and commotions. It was enough to watch the faces of Doroteo, of Amos and of Silverio to understand that what was left now to us was to open our hearts to the joy of the Resurrected Christ, living and more than ever present in the midst of us.

And while we salute you in the little cloister of the brothers, while the Pullmans and so many cars returned home, all felt resounding in their hearts the pressing call given to us by padre during the sermon, the invitation to pray each day through the perserverance of our three brothers, because they could truly make of Jesus the one object of their brief lives here below and because in all freedom they could say with St Teresa of Jesus that 'Only God is Enough'.

Stefano

CHRONICLE OF CASA SAN SERGIO

The Chronicle of San Sergio is rather rich for this period. It began with the unexpected arrival of Daniel Lifchitz, dropping in one evening on the 1st October to greet padre. We speak of someone who is unique, a writer, a painter, a man of a thousand ideas, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and a great admirer of padre. He has won also for several years even the confidence of all of us young people at Casa San Sergio, who are constantly amazed at his stories and of his human and spiritual richness. Wherever he goes there always remains a shadow of Hassidism which remains hanging about our little chapel in the rhythm of the chanted psalms.

When Lifchitz left, behold another artist rang at the gate of San Sergio, the mythic Nicola Sebastio, come here to find padre, and given who he is, to re-see his sculpture of San Sergio, become now the symbol of the Comunita.

Theology School has reopened, and in the mornings Casa San Sergio empties: padre has begun to see again (new glasses) and to walk again (new leg); he has more freedom, although there is always one of us left at his side. One might pretend that with his improved vision he could write better and larger. It is a pious illusion: his writing is still miniature and illegible, practically horiziontal lines. Bless him who understands it (but often, alas, he no sooner writes than calls Serafino or someone else to have them read what it is to him).

One weekday morning he was aroused by the arrival of a group for the Consecration of the young Emanuela Tessa from Pietrasanta. With her was the group Sant'Agostino di Ripa di Lucca, together with their young parish priest. Padre, who had already celebrated Eucharist that morning, repeated doing so in an extraordinary way, and at the Mass of Consecration, turned in touching terms to the newly consecrated one. We lunched altogether joyously, but it was Wednesday, regardless of the Consecration, so we had the one dish of pasta and chickpeas.

Tuesday 13 June someone arrived in a strange waistcoat made of sackcloth. It was Jeff Olson, one of the Australian troop, come to Italy for the Canonization of Edith Stein. In the chapel that midday were almost more Australians than Italians (other than Jeff were Peter and Andrew, a young guest for some months): padre watched in amazement but with smiles. At one time he prophesied that the present Archbishop of Melbourne would become Pope. We shall wait and see.

A few days passed, and here is another Consecration in San Sergio's chapel: the young twenty-two-year-old, Pierluigi Balasso, from Arcisate, in the Province of Varese. He had come here with the flood of people for the Clothing of the three brothers in the common life, and had concluded his own permanancy with saying his solemn 'Yes' to the Lord Consecrating himself. In the chapel was also Raoul Radice, who during the prayer thanked the Lord for how much his Lombardy Family has grown recently with two new brothers in the Fourth Branch, and now Pierluigi. About those brothers, from 17 October we have had two new acquisitions at Casa San Sergio, Doroteo, formerly Rienzo Bravi from Rivolta D'Adda (Cremona) and Silverio, formerly Alessandro Monari from Bologna. Two names we need to learn, along with Amos (Leonardo Giordano), who is at the Madonna del Sasso.

At the end of the following week padre took up train journeying again, and with Elia left for Mestre, which he needed to visit to make up for his absence the previous Spring. The house fell into silence . . . . His return was very festive: coming back at suppertime, padre appeared dressed in a Japanese kimono. Only lacking was the sword. Australian Peter gazed at him marvelling, smiling . . . perhaps at his age padre had wanted to joke with his sons, or make a play after dinner as had St Teresa of Jesus together with her sisters?  But what . . . ? The beauty of it is that padre believes this truly. Nothing extraordinary in covering himself with Japanese letters, coming down, smiling at all, and preparing the salad as if it were nothing. Blessed 'liberty' of the Sons and Daughters of God . . . .

The brothers of Casa San Sergio

CONSECRATED AT LISIEUX

I've just received the Notiziario and reading its account of the pilgrimage in France made by fra Sergio I've felt a profound desire to express my recognition of the Lord in the first place, but also of the brothers and sisters of the Comunita through my Consecration.

I thank you for having granted this to me at Lisieux, in the place where all speak of St Teresa of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face. The Saint who adopted me two years ago in a particularly difficult time, and see where she has not taken me to!

Not only this! I had thought to be Consecrated at the Carmel, in an intimate ceremony, just amongst ourselves, but instead found myself in the basilica in such a grand ceremony, with the Bishop of Fiesole and all the seminarians singing together in choir! The Lord is always full of surprises, it's enough to let Him have His way! It is always different than our own! He has made me understand that a Consecration doesn't belong just to a few intimate friends, but to the whole Church, that our heart doesn't only belong to Him and a few others, but to Him and all others.

Hearing first Elia (arriving by surprise with the whole band from Fiesole), who had sung Psalm 131, making me burst into tears of commotion and tenderness, and then all the other priests and seminarians present, I heard the Lord entrust to me, mother of a priest, all the priests and all the seminarians of the world, for whom I must pray always and often.

Nikopeja, Venice

But also in this with me is Novice Mistress Little Saint Teresa, whom I know helps me, so I must do my part, and here I am!

I send a photograph of this memorable day, in which is also visible a good part of the 'pilgrims of my consecration'. I thank all of you for the affection, the warmth which which you have welcomed me.

Returning in my thoughts to the past, I remember a day in 1992 when my son, don Paolo, then still a seminarian, journeyed to Florence and with don Mario Gretter and some other friend of the seminary went to visit padre at Casa San Sergio. Coming home he gave me one of padre's books, speaking of him and of the Comunita with such enthusiasm as to make me rather jealous. I remember suddenly thinking, 'Ah, how it would please me too to know him!' which I though then absolutely impossible.

It is wonderful and comforting to see how one's secret desires that we throw away are gathered up by the Lord and realized! It seems right to say here, 'You see, what is impossible to men is possible for God'. And so why be in anguish if He is with us!

It is right to end with the words of Psalm 131, which give St Therese of Lisieux's programme of life. which is also for me now my programme, to be as a child in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.


May the Holy Spirit realize this in all of us.


Edda Crescini of Bolzano

LIGHT ON MY PATH

BE AWARE BEFORE WHOM YOU STAND

The fire has gone out of our liturgy. The ceremony is conducted with dignity and care, the execution of the liturgy runs smoothly, without stop: all that is necessary for it is present, the surroundings, the voices, the ritual. But one element is lacking, Life. We already know what will happen. There are no surprises, no adventures for the soul. Nothing surprising should happen to the worshipper; everyday life should not be subjected to any assault from words which the worshipper hears. Liturgy is cold, stiff. Those gathered in the synagogue, in the temple, maintain a respectful distance from the liturgy. They pronounce the words 'Forgive us, for we have sinned', but certainly it is not said within themselves with conviction. They say 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart . . . ' with an arrogant detachment, as if anonymously, as if they are giving an opinion about some irrelevant detail. A relaxed air pervades the surroundings in places of worship. Who could break through such an atmosphere? The functions are formal, the voices somewhat dry, the temple is clean and orderly, and the soul in prayer frozen in agony. You know very well that no one screams, no one sobs, the words die in being born. This has caused our lack of faith, unless it be our own religious timidity. We do not have the courage to allow ourselves to become serious in our prayer.

There is another impoverishment to consider: the loss of grace. Our rituals have so little grace. But what is grace? It is the presence of the soul. A person has grace when in his voice one can hear the beating of a heart: when the most intimate aspirations give life to her face. And how do our people pray? They hide in anonymity as if prayer were an impersonal exercise. In current speech, when one pronounces a phrase, our words have a certain music. And it is that intonation that makes us understand what it is that we wish to say with the words we offer, the ways in which one can understand whether what is shaped is a question, an exclamation or an assertion. And it is the intonation which gives grace to what we say. But when we pray the words float on the lips without expression, without strength, impersonally, as if we were not wishing to say what we are reading or saying. No one dares to sigh. Are there no longer tears in our souls?

Gathered together in our synagogue, each thing is in its place: the body, the books. But the soul is absent.

The act of praying is something that happens between God and ourselves. To read a prayer is not the same as prayer: what signifies its becoming a prayer is the decision to allow the presence of God, and to be confront that Presence. To pray is to lean towards Him, to His judgement. The decisive element is not in that experience that consists of feeling ourselves closer to Him; what is crucial is not the sensation, but the certainty that He is close to us, even if His Presence remains veiled, and from that comes the capacity to be moved. If this is lacking, the presence of God becomes a myth, and prayer a delusion. The true font of prayer then is not the emotion, but the intuition. It is the penetration into the mystery of Reality, the sense of the Ineffable, which allows us to pray. The road of prayer makes us pass through marvellous moments and radical amazement. Indifference in the face of the mystery which is omnipresent, the foolishness which trusts in the last moment only in oneself, are serious obstacles placed upon this path.

The problem of prayer isn't prayer; the knot of this question is God Himself. God is not described by a concept, or even with accepting more or less a definition. We Jews have no concepts, all that we have is faith. We don't have certain facts, but we feel and we believe in His Being near to us. Israel is not a nation of people who express their religion through concepts, but is a People of the Promise of divine caring for humankind.

We oblige ourselves to follow the experience of God, and we are not disposed to want corrections to the text and to begin our prayer saying: 'Blessed be the divine Concept, the God of Spinoza, Dewey and Alexander'. The expression, 'God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob' is different than 'The God of Truth, Goodness and Beauty'. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are not ideas, principles or abstract values. Nor are they thinkers or teachers. The events of the Bible are not principles to comprehend intellectually, but happenings with which to burden ourselves. The life of those who adhere to the covenant of Abraham is the continuation of the same life of the patriarchs. We are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

From A. Herschel, Humanity in Search of God/ L'uomo alla ricerca di Dio, Edizioni Qiqajon.

TO LIVE IN COMMUNITY

A Sister from Modena sends us these reflections after having read Bonhoeffer's book, The Common Life. She places side by side thoughts from the German author, with our Comunita, citing also from padre's writings. The book, The Common Life/ Vita comune (it is a little book, beautiful and easy to read) in fact presents remarkably the spiritual ways of living in community.

'The community does not need a brilliant personality, but faithful servants to God and its brothers and sisters'. Bonhoeffer.

In a community for brotherly, sisterly service what is needed is:

Listening. 'Who does not know first how to listen to his brother or sister, cannot even be capable later of listening to God; and also in respect to God will do nothing but talk'. 'Here the spiritual life begins to die and in the end nothing remains except silly religious chitchat, that condescension which buries all the rest in a cloud of devout words'. 'Who does not know how to listen at length and with patience, cannot ever be capable of truly involving another in his own conversation and in the end having nothing left but his own ego'.

'Who thinks his own time too precious to be spent listening to others will never truly have time for God and for his brothers and sisters, but saves it only for himself, for his own words, for his own projects.'

'There is also an impatient way of listening, without attention, which underates the brother and waits for the moment to cut it short and be free from him . . . . But Christians have forgotten the mystery of listening was entrusted to them by Him who in His own person has achieved the highest rank'.

Concrete help 'In the most modest service no one is despised'.

The preoccupation with wasting time which accompanies each request for help should indicate that a more than excessive importance is being placed on one's own work. We ought to accustom ourselves to be ready if God comes alongside to interrupt us. God is always intruding upon our projects and our path and does so each day, directing to us people who have something to ask of us or obtain from us.

At what point can we go ahead on our journey, continuing to occupy ourselves with that which is most important in our day, like the priest in the parable, who cared nothing for the victim of the robbers, perhaps because he was immersed in reading his Bible! It is odd that often Christians themselves, and theologians, hold their own work to be so important and urgent, that they do not permit themselves to be interrupted for any reason. They think thus to be doing God a service while despising 'that tortuous path that nevertheless goes straight to God'. We need to reenter the school of humility and not to save ourselves.

In the monastery the Vow of Obedience to the Abbot takes from the monk the right to dispose of his own time. In community life beside that Vow is the free service to one's brothers and sisters.

To carry the burdens of others is to fulfil the law of Christ, Galatians 6.2.

To carry is to support. One's neighbour is a burden for the Christian, even particularly for the Christian. For the pagan the other is not given as a burden that one need regard even minimally, but the Christian ought to carry his neighbours' burdens. We ought to support our neighbour and only in so much as he is a burden, is the other truly one's brother, one's sister, and not just an object to dominate. Our burden is thus as heavy as that which God himself who stumbled beneath the cross . . . God burdened himself with humankind and they bowed Him down beneath that weight, but God remained with them and they with Him . . . It is the law of Christ fulfilled in the Cross.

Scripture can designate the entire life of the Christian as a carrying of the Cross . . . To carry the weight of another which signifies supporting the creaturely reality of another.

The thing becomes particularly difficult where strength and weakness in the faith are found to dwell in the same community. The weak must not judge the strong, the strong not despise the weak. The weak must guard against presumption, the strong against indifference. No one should demand his or her own way. If the strong are found defective, the weak must guard against a vindictive joy; if it is the weak who are defective, the strong must rescue them in friendship, the one having such need of patience from the other.

Give us, Lord, a pure heart (Chastity), faithful in service (Obedience), ardent in praise (Poverty).

HOW TO BEHAVE?

VLADIMIR SOLOV'EV

The last judgement of the moral and social person shall be in the fact whether Christ, who lives in us corporally all the fullness of His divinity, be formed in everything and in all ways. Upon each one of us following this vision depends, forming Christ in our personal and social acts.

All are in agreement that the limits of the laws do not define in the least the activity of one who would be perfect. One could never murder, nor steal, nor infringe upon any criminal law and yet be always desparately distant from the Kingdom of God. Laws do not have the direct scope of achieving perfection for humanity. Their competence consists only in conserving more solidly their exterior existence, inasmuch as it is necessary for the higher perspective, to maintain carnal mankind more forcibly in the first and lower levels of common life, of which the real perspective is not yet visible. but without which we cannot co-exist. But they are always insufficient as a positive guide towards perfection, whether through the limits of moral law, even when these are themselves the evangelical precepts, taken as a separate external prescription, according to the letter rather than the spirit.

But the highest commandment that is enclosed in these, that of love, can be understood and accepted in a false way, and not only can be, but has been and is. Some say that evangelical love is above all love for God, and in the name of this love it is considered right that they ought to torture fellow human beings who do not profess their same faith in God. Others affirm that the evangelical love requires a uniform dispassionate charity towards each and every person, admitting no difference between innocent persons and assassins, oppressors and robbers. To unite these in the love of God dishonours the divine name with their fanaticism; the others in the name of love towards their neighbour desire without obstacle to consign many to ruin carried out by their neighbour.

What these people must do to become conscious of their conscience, I hesitate to say; but if these have not come to act according to their conscience, this is clear. But the best and unique proof of conscience is so near . . .

It consists only in this, first of deciding on a particular action that has importance for personal and social life, of evoking in our soul the moral image of Christ, of concentrating on that and asking of it: What would He do to fulfil this action or, in other words, would He approve or not, bless me or not for carrying it out?

I propose this test in everything that is not foolish. In each doubtful case there only remains the possibility of looking again at it, thinking it over again, remembering Christ, imagining Him alive, as He is the one who can take upon Himself the weight of your doubts. Now anticipating that He has consented to assume even this burden, together with the others, not certainly, to leave one's hands free for all evil, but because having turned to Him and leaning upon Him, we can draw ourselves away from evil and become in this doubtful situation the instrument of undoubted truth.

If all of good will, whether a private individual or a public personality or head of a Christian people, were to begin now to use these sure means in all doubtful cases, it would be the beginning of the second coming of Christ and the preparation for the Last Judgement, because the time draws near (Apocalypse 1.3)

Vladimir Solov'ev, The Spiritual Basis of Life/ I fondamenti spirituali della vita, Roma: Lipa, 1998, pp. 131-132.

NEWS FROM RUSSIA

Sister Rosaria Aimo, who together with Gianni Fogu has promoted the translation of padre's book on Dostoevskij in Russian, has been transferred from Moscow to Rome. On her journey home she wrote this letter to padre.

Dear padre,

I am coming home to Italy and at this moment have stopped in Budapest. I asked to make this journey by train to live in silence this distancing from Moscow and where I lived, prayed and loved in this land, profitting from the long stop of the train in Budapest to recommend in prayer this new stage of my aging life as a religious, and also to give greetings to St Seraphim of Sarov, whose holy place I visited in the name of his sons and daughters. As you know, today Sarov is a 'closed city', forbidden visits because of nuclear experiments. Of St Seraphim's monastery only the belltower and walls remain, inside all is destroyed and it is said that in the place where Seraphim's cell once was is a reactor. Even the stone on which Seraphim prayed for three years (the thousand nights) has been blown up, and they have sought to shut down the miraculous spring of water, but the water has gone underground beneath the mountain and there is now a pond, goal of many devout pilgrims. But the spirit of Seraphim is truly living. The nuns' convent of Diveevo, cared for with such love by the saint, has been reopened now for seven years; to it have come so many young people. In the monastery and in the various sketes about it are around 500 young people (only 15 nuns, the rest in formation). Their rule is the simplest: the continuous prayer of St Seraphim and total obedience. Perhaps the formation and thos things accompanying that proper to Seraphim as staretz do not exist. The sisters pray, obey, live austerely, work hard in the fields, but are rigorously enclosed, more even than what you saw in your journey in Russia in 1996. We were guests in the hostel but only one nun (a widow, with a son on Mount Athos) and the priest knew that we were Catholics. I believe that we ought to love much and offer much to this sister Church and all its members who give it life, so that the Spirit open their hearts to unity.

We praised the Lord in seeing the crowds race to St Seraphim. Pullmans which come great distances undertaking the sacrifices of pilgrimage in today's Russia (for example, sleeping on the ground at night), people who come by every means and spend long hours motionless in prayer, participating in the liturgy (for us, interminable, 5-6 hours at a time) and their rituals filled with songs, bows and candles. It is absolutely not tourism but faith! Seraphim continues to draw today as yesterday, so transformed in Jesus, being sweetness, goodness, and communication from God.

I asked for you for all your sons and daughters to be reclothed in Christ as was St Seraphim, in a way to be his radiation, to be as Seraphim of the same branch as Mary, the holy Mother of God so generous with gifts to him, of considering each brother and each sister, as 'my joy', as Seraphim saw all those to be who were about him.

Now I return to Rome where I shall stay. The Dostoevskij book is almost ready, and I hope with all my heart that it shall be printed before Christmas.

When I get to Rome I shall send some little things that I took from St Seraphim, thinking and praying of you and of all your Comunita.

Bless me,

Suor Rosaria Aimo

FOR OUR GROUP ENCOUNTERS

A Family Assistant at a meeting with his group Assistants, has given these guidelines for group meetings to become even more productive. We recommend these guidelines to all group Assistants, because they are worthwhile and formative for everyone.

1. Recall the holiness, the hallowedness, of the encounter.

2. Insist patiently and tactfully on the need to say by telephone when one cannot come.

3. See that the encounter is filled with love: each ought to feel loved with a true, real love.

4. Value the little gestures. Live with joy the taste of neighbourliness, the common life; work that each one of the group feels at the heart of the other through a smile, a good word, a warm shake of the hand.

5. To be optimistic, carry joy.

6. Give to the others examples of UNITY in CHARITY.

7. Be for all an attentive, watchful, responsible guide.

8. Pray each day for the most weak, the most fragile, the wavering, the deluded, the least faithful, not judging them, but seeking to draw near them in all ways, carrying with love their burden and feeling responsible before God for what He entrusts to us.

9. After each encounter take up a concrete task (for example, reading some selection of the book of the month, reading some part of the Notiziario or of the insert).

10. Check weekly, but with delicacy, without imposing it, if the task has been done.

11. Praise and encourage the brother and sister with the spirit of sacrifice with which the encounter is prepared.

12, Do not ever forget to pray to the saint to whom the group is entrusted.

13. Welcome the vice-Assistant, during visits, as one responsible for my health, my well-being.

14. Comunicate very clearly the day and the hour of the group's meetings.

15. Communicate economically to the one responsible for the quota of the group.

16. Compile with care the monthly account and send it punctually each month to the Family Assistant.

17. Periodically, read the Manual on the examen of conscience for the group assistants.

I underlined the importance of the witnessing, citing the phrase which St Therese of the Child Jesus wrote to her sister, Mother Agnes, 'You have done me more good than all the books in the world'.

After having informed them that the verification on the groups's advancement will be based on their growth in charity, I concluded the encounter, giving the group Assistants this mandate: 'Learn to see your brothers and your sisters, with the eyes of God, and to love them with the heart of Christ' (padre).

HYMN TO JOY

'Be always joyful', said the apostle (1 Thessalonians 5.16): and could it be a Stoic who speaks so? Christianity, without wine or drunkenness, is pure joy; an extraordinary lightness of spirit; no one sad, no one heavy. The hermits and martyrs were happy, in the desert, going to their deaths. This strange torrent of interior joy never left them, even in those minutes, driving away every shadow of darkening gloom.

Father Ambrose of Optina and John of Cronstad are the best examples of this type of Christian, both of them extraordinarily luminous, joyous, alive. Father Ambrose in his letters and in his conversations could not but joke and smile; the face of Father John of Cronstad, all know this, is joy in person. We cannot insist enough on the fact that Christianity is joy, and only joy and always joy.

'We are become new in Christ': is this not the selfconsciousness of the Christian? Where is sadness?

Vasilij Rozanov

From Religija i kul'tura/ Religion and Culture, Moscow, 1990, p. 292.

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