Pastoral Service in the Parish: A Journey of Friendship

In September when my rector told me what pastoral work I would be doing this year, I did not imagine that it would be so difficult and enriching.

I was asked to teach catechism in the St. Rufino Parish, the cathedral of Assisi. However, I did not expect the additional request, made by the parish priest, that I lead the post-confirmation group for adolescents. I was given the responsibility of guiding this group of young boys and girls, with the help of a co-teacher, in a journey of faith, illuminated and strengthened by the sacrament of confirmation that they had recently received.

We involved these adolescents in fixing up the rooms given us by the parish priest for our activities. We wanted to create a space just for them: a large carpet to cover the pavement in order to offer comfort and to make our meetings as informal as possible. We also designated one room to be the “screaming room:” when someone is angry or stressed-out they can enter and let out a deep shout or scream to release some of their tension.

The most difficult part was developing a program to follow throughout the year. Not having ever had an experience of this kind I asked the advice of at least 10 different people, my confreres and lay people; I read around a dozen books about leading small groups as well as various catechetical programs from “Catholic Action” and World Youth Day… I also asked the young people themselves to write out topics that they would like to discuss as well as questions they have that they find difficult to share with others their own age. In this way we could research the answers together.

The goal was to construct relationships, starting with the young people themselves, seeking to reach them where they are at, in their daily life of school and family. We hoped to help draw out their thoughts, their point of view about aspects of life that are important for them and that at times even cause them to suffer. This seemed like a good premise, a good starting point, but I had not calculated a fundamental truth: that you can really only learn to do something like this through experience and often through failure. No matter how good a plan may seem when it is written out or in your mind, reality has its own dynamics that don’t always reflect your project.

I almost always return home after these meetings, aware that I have accomplished only a tiny part of what I had hoped to communicate in the meeting. It seems as if these young people’s minds are completely occupied with other things and that they are not at all interested in the topics we are discussing.

And yet meeting after meeting the group becomes stronger, a more cohesive unit. Some of the adolescents begin to open up and share their experiences and deep reflections. They begin to show more interest. We often talk about friendship and its various dynamics. For this reason we chose together to name the group “Friends.”

I am happy to be able to take part in this journey with these young people, to accompany them for this moment in time. It is an experience that stretches me. I often feel that my work is useless but in other moments I am surprised to discover hidden fruit, unexpected results. I continually need to learn to trust in Him, who is the only one capable of reaching hearts. On this path I am learning to be a teacher (even if this title seems a little exaggerated in my case!), a friend, a big brother…

For as long as we continue this journey together with joy and simplicity, finding support in one another, this group will remain a group of “Friends!”

A brother from the community

LENT: A Time of Grace and Renewal (IV)

Our Lent
(Link to Part I, Part II, Part III)

Aware of the grace that the season of Lent offers but at the same time conscious of the dangers that await those who desire to seriously undertake this path, our community here at the Franciscanum in Assisi each year commits to living out Lent motivated by the same passion for continuous and profound conversion that moved Saint Francis, in order to be transformed into the image Christ.

In our daily lives this desire translates into the consistent meditation on the word of God through the community prayer of the Lectio Divina, guided each week by friars who help us to pray the Word, followed by a moment of sharing together on Wednesday evening; in moments of more assiduous prayer during the week, especially on Friday with the prayer of the “CordaPia,” community prayer in our chapel during dinner time, and in the stations of the cross organized by the diocese; in exterior fasting from food, Friday dinner, and abstaining from alcohol during the week; solidarity with those who have less than us by donating that which we save through fasting to charitable activities. Naturally these community commitments do not dispense us from those personal commitments that each of us seeks to carry out faithfully, moved, however, by a communal desire to experience Christ and his love.

As good friars, we did not begin Lent with serious faces, as if entering a hard and miserable season. Rather we focused on the call we were given with the sign of the ashes at the beginning of Lent: “believe in the Gospel.” And because this is good news, it is not possible to receive the Gospel with dislike or indifference. It is true that we are dust, but we carry inside ourselves a spark of the divine, because we are shaped by the hands of God and therefore made in his image and likeness. Sin can deform us but it cannot take this gift from us. The knowledge that in this season of Lent God wants to reach out to us, especially in the experience of our fragility and sin, gives us “certain hope” that the anguish of our human limitations will soon be transformed into the joy of Easter. 

Therefore take heart, and may the Lord grant each of you a blessed Lenten journey!

fra Giovanni Nappo

LENT: A Time of Grace and Renewal (III)

Sacred Time

(Link to Part I, Part II)

But our good intentions alone are not enough to obtain this salvation. The first to make it happen is God, who comes to our aid. Of us is asked only that we have an attitude of trust and abandonment, that we surrender to his love, that we offer ourselves to his embrace by listening to his Word and by working out our conversion through the Lenten practices of fasting, alms, and prayer.

The first of the three, fasting, regards our relationship with ourselves. It has two dimensions: one, exterior, goes beyond abstaining from food to include avoiding the excessive use of certain means of communication (television, cell phones, internet…) and certain forms of entertainment, ect… A second, interior dimension is that in which our fasting becomes a “sign” of our living out the Word of God, a “sign” of our desire for purification, a “sign” of our abstaining from sin. 

Secondly, the giving of alms, closely tied to fasting, regards our relationship with others in as much as we share with our brothers that which we have. Finally, there is prayer, essentially relationship with God, an intimate and trusting dialogue that is born out of meditating on the Word, especially in community.

These activities can only be carried out on one condition: that we pass beyond the surface to the heart of the actions. Otherwise we will experience Lent as merely an exterior practice of a few extra religious signs, and not as a path of sincere conversion and profound renewal. If we lack the interior dimension, fasting becomes ostentatious hypocrisy, alms become vaunting oneself, and prayer becomes a drunkenness of empty words.

Corda Pia: Passion for Prayer

St. Francis loved to contemplate the Passion of the Lord Jesus.

Each Friday during Lent the friars come together above the tomb of the saint in Assisi 

for the prayer of the Corda Pia (pious hearts),

meditating on the Passion of Christ 

and remembering and venerating the holy stigmata that St. Francis received in his body.

LENT: A Time of Grace and Renewal (II)

The Gift of Time

(Link to Part I)

However, the ‘challenge of time’ finds a solution within the perspective of faith. It loses its negative connotations in within categories that define it in a new way, as a ‘gift.’ Time as a ‘gift’ offers a response to man’s deepest aspirations. His longing for reconciliation, peace, forgiveness, joy, relationships and dialogue are all different sides of the same ‘need for salvation,’ a need that man is unable to fulfill on his own. Time is a gift that comes from the One who is outside of time; a gift that allows the mystery of salvation to become history and penetrate each person’s daily life, transforming that life into the story of salvation.

For Christians this mystery of salvation has its center and foundation in the life of Jesus Christ. The mysteries of his life are shared by the Church throughout the year, the ‘liturgical year.’ The various moments of the liturgical year are marked and measured by these mysteries, indeed taking their very names from them: the seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and ordinary time. In this way the passing of time is no longer marked by the relentless and anonymous flow of days and events, but is filled with the sacred. It becomes a ‘space’ where the mystery is announced, carried out, celebrated and revealed in all of its beauty, a beauty that is the very same face of Christ.

In this perspective Lent is a time of ‘grace:’ a time for authentic change, for deep conversion, a time to catch one’s breath, to bring order to the confusion of life, a time for establishing real relationships and resuming interrupted conversations, a time to relish true rest… in a word: a time to receive salvation! 

[to be continued...]

fra Giovanni Nappo

Lent: A Time of Grace and Renewal (I)

The Challenge of Time

For many of us, the relentless flow of time represents a challenge, or even an unfair fight, because we can do nothing to stop it as it passes. Today “time,” as a subjective feeling, seems to flow by in a hurry. There is never enough of it, nor does one ever arrive ‘on time.’ And even the little time that we are given with which to live, we spend in anxiety. Moreover, a certain conception of time as something fragmentary, as if the uninterrupted and accelerating succession of facts, situations, people and things were completely disjointed, continues to impose itself. There is no time to stop and delve deep. One is always running, shaken and dazed beneath a constant bombardment of information. We cannot possibly take in everything, and often we content ourselves with a superficial knowledge, resigning ourselves to widely-diffused mediocrity. The only reality that unites this way of living out time is ‘change,’ understood as a value in and of itself, as if the only thing that is truly stable and certain is the fact that everything changes.

In this euphoria of change we sense the need for deep renewal, a renewal that goes beyond simple emotions, a renewal that affects our entire person, our way of feeling, thinking and acting. We long for clarity, to put our lives in order. We feel the urgency to have a time that is qualitatively ‘different,’ a moment to ‘breathe.’ The change that our society imposes on us does not satisfy our desires and our deepest needs. Rather, it serves only to fuel our lack of satisfaction and our weariness. A certain phrase often comes up in our conversations, even among us friars: “I’m tired; I can’t take it any more.” Vacations, holidays, and weekends don’t seem to be able to produce in us the desired result. Relationships become complicated, full of conflict, fake and stressful. [to be continued...] 

friar Giovanni Nappo

Missions Display in the News

Video interview with friar Rocco e friar Anton Giulio regarding our community's missionary center on the site San Francesco Patrono d'Italia (in Italian)

http://www.sanfrancescopatronoditalia.it/visualizza_video.php?id_multimedia=1427

For more information on the missions display

Mardi Gras in the Friary

Pre-lenten fun and games 

the evening of Fat Tuesday

 

"Missionary Listening" in Assisi

How a missions display reaches out to pilgrims, seekers.

“Go into all the world… and proclaim the Gospel”

Much time has passed since the day Jesus entrusted this mission to his disciples, yet today it remains as relevant as ever.

Moved by this invitation, frontiers have been crossed and cultures and nations have been reached. Today there is no corner of the earth that has not known the proclamation of the Good News.

Friar Francis felt this necessity to share the Gospel which had transformed his life. Moved by this desire, he left for the lands of the Middle East and invited his friars to do likewise.

For eight centuries the friars have continued to announce the beauty of the Gospel, moved by the same desire as that of Saint Francis. Today they seek to give life to the same passion in their various missions on six continents, enriching the local churches with the Franciscan Conventual charism, enabling interaction between the Order’s new and ancient communities through reciprocal aid, and meeting Christ in the face of every person.

Even in Assisi, among the various initiatives of our community, the Franciscanum, we seminarians seek to live out “the mission.” Our Missionary Center works to promote our Order’s missionary efforts by educating pilgrims and tourists that pass through our doors, located on one of the main streets of Assisi.

Using stands, photos, and objects typical of various cultures we seek to present our missions and collect funds for their operation. But beyond this activity we are involved in another effort, just as important, directly tied to supporting missions. It’s what we call, “missionary listening.” We want to truly meet the needs of those who enter our missionary display and who ask for information about the missions, about the organization of our Order, and about our identity as consecrated religious brothers. We listen to them express their doubts and talk about their daily lives. They ask only to be listened to.

One rainy day this winter when no one was on the streets of Assisi, we received a young woman who, in telling us about her life, expressed a desire to offer her medical training in the mission-field to serve those who do not have adequate medical care. In this way, we allowed the Gospel to continue its work, offering meaning to someone who at the moment was having difficulty making sense of her life.

When we have moments like the one mentioned above (and there are many) we realize that in reality we are not that far away from the activity that our confreres carry out on the mission-field; we find ourselves interacting with strangers who immediately become friends, people from all parts of Italy and the globe who, following a route opposite to that of a traditional missionary, come to us. Many are attracted by the simplicity unique to Saint Francis and his friars, which is enough to make us stand out from everything that surrounds daily life. These are people thirsty for truth, for justice, for peace, but especially for God. They see us as “sign” of his presence in the world and feel the need to find in our lifestyle, in our Franciscan charism, an appeal to a different and better reality than the apathy and indifference common in our modern culture.

Being a missionary just by remaining where we are and waiting for pilgrims, shows that mission is about much more than the physical movement of “going.” The patron saint of missions, Theresa of Lisieux, lived out this reality. The Carmelite nun was obedient to her mission by remaining in the small cloister of her French convent.

This is the account, not so much of what we do, but of what we are (because one does what one is). And we are content to be able to be “missionary listeners,” witnesses for the Gospel, witnesses of Love.

Fr. Rocco Predoti

Fr. Anton Giulio Vacanti