The visit of Moderator Don Giuseppe Carrieri to the Community in Naples.
In a very beautiful homily, to explain how we must welcome Jesus into our hearts, our Founding Father offered us a parable: our hearts must be ready and prepared to welcome Jesus, just as our home should be if we were to receive a visit from the Pope.
Well, that is precisely what we experienced on 17 April during the welcome visit from our Moderator, Fr Giuseppe Carrieri, who wished to visit the consecrated sisters and associates of the Naples community. But more than the practical arrangements for his visit, which we certainly did our best to organise, our hearts were open and filled with joy at welcoming Fr Giuseppe for the first time.
Accompanied by the lovely Brother Pierino, each in their own distinct role, they brought us back, in a small way, to the shadow of Vesuvius with a little piece of the Father, who has visited Sant’Antonio Abate on several occasions, beginning with the mission in 1997, in the parish of our dear Don Gianni Schettino.
The Moderator’s opening words during the homily, at the Mass celebrated in the welcoming home of the consecrated sisters, were words of encouragement: “I wish to encourage those who are on the journey… let us commit ourselves, knowing that the Lord is always with us, and His graces are always abundant!”.
After Mass, during the catechesis, citing the appearances of the risen Jesus, he reminded us that, like the two disciples of Emmaus who set off weary and discouraged, we must bear in mind that Jesus is always by our side and that we must put our charism into practice precisely when it is most difficult to do so: in the face of trials and suffering. And it is in these moments that we must also be a source of help and support for one another.
Father often reminded us that the priority is to focus on the life of faith, on bearing witness wherever we live: “we must bear witness with our lives to what we have received”.
As we listened to Fr Giuseppe, each of our hearts, just like those of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, ‘burned within us’. The Father’s presence, through the words of the Moderator, was strongly felt; his faithful sonship and spiritual closeness are certain.
As always, the gathering concluded with a friendly, typically Neapolitan meal, featuring pizzas and sfogliatelle! But beyond the culinary delights, we had proof that graces always pour down in abundance in the days that followed, when, on Saturday, our spiritual assistant Fr Carmine Pellegrino arrived for the monthly retreat, accompanied by Fr Juan Pablo Cerillos. Together they concelebrated Mass in the chapel of St Bartolo Longo at the shrine in Pompei.
And under the watchful eye of our Heavenly Mother, we have entrusted the community in Naples – which tangibly lives in a spirit of fraternal communion between consecrated members and associates, together with all the Servants of Suffering – to the newly elected president, Enrico Carnevalini, to all the priests, and to our co-founding Mother, so that Our Lady may accompany and guide the whole family so that, as Father used to say, one day we may have hearts ready and find ourselves all together in Paradise!