Seed Sown in the Desert

A Franciscan presence on the streets of Taranto

“If a grain of wheat… dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12,24)

Taranto, Paul VI neighborhood: here the Brothers Minor Conventual from the province of Puglia work in one of four parishes in the district that sprang up in the last 50 years to house industrial working families. The area has almost nothing to offer, the inhabitants are isolated in huge cement apartment buildings that rise amidst acres of abandoned, undeveloped land.

In this vast, difficult, often dangerous neighborhood the church becomes “yeast” of humanity and of hope. Here fear, hatred and anger reside. The inhabitants are deeply wounded, having learned from early childhood the language of violence; one must be strong in order to not be crushed, one must defend oneself against everyone, no one can be trusted.

During the month of July, spent with the friars in Taranto, the challenge of how to create human relationships with the locals provoked me to seek out the correct attitude to have, the right words to say in the midst of this conflict-oriented atmosphere. What to do in this situation? How can the friars, the church, testify to the love of Christ in this mission-field.

I found the answer in a single word, “compassion,” in other words: being present, simply standing alongside the other, feeling that which the other feels.

The most significant experience from my time in Taranto was the “Street Oratory” (street camp) organized with a group of volunteers in the most difficult part of the neighborhood, where children and youth group up sharing the street with wild dogs that populate the area.

Forced to grow up far too quickly, these kids come from dysfunctional families, parents in prison or in drug rehabilitation centers. Many of them have stopped dreaming because early on their life was marred by suffering and injustice, and they have learned to respond with violence and the same injustice.

However when their eyes meet a loving gaze that does not desire to judge or criticize them they once again are free to laugh. The little onese act like adults, but give them a ball, carry them on your back or make them run and they revert back to their true identity: children. It is important to recognize in them the profound need to be loved and to love, to receive a hug or a kind word, to feel important in the eyes of another.

Seeing this situation, the fear that attacks my heart comes from the knowledge that a true change, a radical turn-around, is very difficult; these children’s destinies seem determined from the outset! Their only option is the street and all that it has to offer. Sometimes after being with them I had the impression that all our work had been in vain. There did not seem to be any positive results or changes. So after it was all over many of the volunteers, resigned, said, “It’s a waste of time.” These children relax during the games but then return to their normal lives of fights, provocations and vendettas.

This mission is difficult and yet at the same time stimulating! Here our conventual fraternity can truly live out the Franciscan charism in its “purest” form, serving the marginalized. Though often in discouraging situations and with no gratification, the community moves forward rebuilding where others have destroyed, becoming channels of peace in the logic of unconditional love, in a constant openness to listen to others and in being a welcoming presence. Practically speaking they seek to create alliances with the various agencies present in the area, developing common projects (like the aforementioned “street oratory” as well as soccer camps, dance lessons etc…) Already there has been much fruit, not the least of which is the construction – finally! – of a church building after many years in which the parish has had to make do without one.

There are many possibilities hidden behind the faces of the brothers and sisters that could truly change this little world! Many collaborate with the parish in order to build a better Paul VI neighborhood, offering their personal resources and talents. Drop after drop the stone is worn smooth and takes form: this presence is a seed in the desert that, once grown, will help bring salvation.

Friar Vito Cosimo Manca

Youth and Vocations

A Summer Camp in Search of God's Calling

Last month I participated in a summer camp in Mormanno, a beautiful little village at the foot of mount Pollino. Organized by the Center for Vocations of the diocese of Cassano allo Jonio, the week-long camp was set up to help this lively group of kids reflect on their life-calling. It was a challenge, I would say, getting these young campers to think about their life-calling; a challenge that the organizers accepted and in turn used to provoke the campers to think.

When talking about vocations, it’s easy to think only about religious life and the priesthood. There are two typical reactions when the topic comes up: either you embrace the idea or you distance yourself from it. This is what happened when these young campers listened to talks about their vocation. Many of them affirmed that they weren’t at all interested in becoming a priest, a brother or a nun.

In order to dig into the authentic meaning of the word “vocation” we used the character of Pinocchio as an example. It turned out to be a useful means of self-discovery, and day after day I watched the young campers open up more fully to comprehending their personal calling.

We did not experience an extraordinary intervention of the Holy Spirit coming down upon these young people, but they did slowly begin to accept their true calling to grow. One can only grow if one is happy, and therefore these campers are called to happiness. This is their true vocation, everyone’s true vocation: to be truly happy.

This, in brief, was the message Mons. Nuncio Galantino gave the campers while meeting with them. He encouraged them to always be special and happy, to bring this knowledge to bear on their daily lives, entering each day with courage.

This message is not only true for the campers, but also for each of us, because our calling is a “supreme,” most beautiful, happiness: to be children ceaselessly loved by God. For this reason it is impossible for us to not enjoy the “taste” of each activity, each work that our hands undertake; hands that have the capacity to create something great.

Having observed the difficulty of these young campers in reflecting on their vocation, I stopped to think about their expectations with regards to us camp counselors. I believe they desire something “different,” something better from us, and before this expectation I once again sense that I am a brother of Francis of Assisi, sent directly from Assisi to testify to them about my life with Christ, even through a simple smile, a hug, a chat.

When it was time to depart the camp I felt like a pilgrim, free and light, just as Francis desired us to be. I will no longer be with these kids, I won’t have a further role in observing and guiding their growth, but I take with me the joy of having been for them more than a guide, a brother: a simple friar...

friar Rocco Predoti

friar Rocco's blog (Italian) - Vocazione francescana - sui passi di San Francesco

 

Assisi International Youth Meeting

Friars hosted the 6th annual ASSISI INTERNATIONAL MEETING 5-12 August. Members of our community joined the fun and helped out organizing the liturgy and doing translation for non-Italian speaking participants.

More photos can be found by following the links below.









Young people arrive








Each group presents their country









Hanging out and morning prayer at St. Peter's - Assisi













Saturday night mass and evening festivities


More photos...

Photos courtesy of friar Martin Breski

We are "Reserves of Love"

Serving the Sick in Assisi

I spent the month of July at the Sacro Convento in Assisi living with brothers in need of care. It was an intense experience that helped me to discover the value of caring for the sick. In a recent admonition given to all health workers, Pope Benedict XVI said that, yes, professional competence is necessary, but that this must also be accompanied by much humanity, in other words, love. Our elderly brothers give us the possibility to be “reserves of love.” I feel that this statement sums up well my own experience.

In caring for the sick, I can say that I give very little compared to that which I receive by listening to their experiences of religious life, lived out as a complete offering of themselves to their brothers. For me this is a treasure that I guard jealously, a treasure that enriches my experience of faith.

Our great saint Maximilian Kolbe said: “only love creates.” I can experience this love through my work at the front desk of the friary, receiving people who need the chance to talk, opening their hearts in asking the brothers to pray for a wide range of personal situations. It’s an important service that helps me become more grounded in vocation and at the same time makes me aware that the vocation is not a personal gift only for myself, but a gift to be placed at the service of my brothers. In this spirit and with certain faith in the help of God, I continue my life journey.

Peace and all good.

Friar Nicola Solente

Prayer

Most high and great God, Father

Creator of heaven and earth

In the name of your only begotten son Jesus Christ,

Through the Holy Spirit

And with the intercession of Mary our mother

We ask you to teach us to prepare the good soil of our souls

To receive the seed of your Word which you desire to give us today

Through events, people and Holy Scripture;

That this Word may not fall on the path of our distractions,

Nor on the rocks of our superficiality

Nor among the thorns of our anxieties

But that it may bear abundant fruit for eternal life

And for the good of the Kingdom of Heaven.

friar Alfonso

Servant of the Word

Friar Alfonso recounts receiving the ministry of lector

I received the ministry of lector Sunday May 13 during the 10:30 a.m. mass in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi. Concretely this means that the Church, through the hands of father Giuseppe Piemontese, custos of the Sacro Convento who presided in the liturgy, officially and publically gifted me with the responsibility of proclaiming the Word of God during the liturgy, especially during the Eucharistic celebration, and the missionary mandate of carrying the Gospel of salvation to those who have not yet heard.

For me this ministry is gift that has its source in the love of God the Father. It is a sign of the trust and of the esteem that He has for me, and that requires of me a daily decision to meditate on, pray, and put into practice the Holy Scriptures, such that I can announce and testify to the Christian faith above all through my life, day after day.

This moment of grace and personal commitment is the fruit of a journey that has lasted several years, beginning with my service as a catechist for children preparing for first communion in Silvi Marina (PE) and Brescia, then later in Assisi with young people preparing for confirmation. Most recently in Cannara, Perugia, I have served as the spiritual assistant to OFS, the Third Order Seculars founded by st. Francis. In addition to these pastoral experiences, I have been formed by serving during liturgical celebrations in the Basilica of St. Francis, through my own journey of Franciscan formation, and through the diocesan mission in Assisi and the mission in Pavia, during which I met many who were fragile in the faith or who were not believers. Last but not least, my interaction with Jehovah’s Witnesses, present in my own family, has influenced me.

In conclusion, I can say that the ministry of lector has caused me to grow in enthusiasm to serve and do good for the Kingdom of God. And it has also instilled in me a tiny sliver of pride, because the Church has placed in my hands one of the greatest treasures that Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, has given to the world: his Word! I entrust my service to the intercession of Mary, especially to Our Lady of Fatima, whose memorial was celebrated the same day that I received the ministry, as well as to the prayers of everyone who reads this blog.

May the Lord grant you peace and all good!

With much love,

fra Alfonso Di Francesco

TV Interview with European Friars in Formation

Minister General fr. Marco Tasca and young friars gathered in Assisi for European youth conference discuss franciscan charism in interview on RAI1, TG1 Dialogo (in Italian).

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