18 Nov A NEW MISSION OPENS ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF ROME
“Cast the net to the right side, and you will find fish.”
The joint search for the will of God can be summed up in these words: a community which vibrates together with the breath of the Holy Spirit. This very experience lived at the same time and in the same place generates a unique consolation.
It all began when the community of the Province of XX Settembre in Rome decided to leave to the General Curia the house where St. Raphaela died. From there, we began a period of searching that took some time, several attempts and plans that fell through. It was not just a matter of finding a place to live, but a mission for the community and for the Body of the Province of Italy.
In spite of each of us being a different instrument, we have experienced from the beginning being orientated toward the same desire: to accompany those who inhabit the Heart of Christ. Therefore, we tried for follow up on different leads and suggestions of where we could incarnate the desire, offering ourselves to Bishop Palmieri of the Eastern area of Rome. Finally, on the afternoon of August 3, the Bishop himself took us to a neighborhood far from the center and the concerns of the City Hall in the Eastern part of the city. At the end of our tour around the area and on the way home, the entire community decided to commit to this unexpected and unexplored area of Rome. The bishop was looking for a religious presence that could bring some life to a small parish chapel and serve the 5,000 persons who live in this territory. The four of us all felt a surge of new energy.
After having accepted this new mission on the part of the Church and of the Institute, we had to resolve some practical matters: finding a place to live, giving a concrete face to the mission, managing the moving process. Our confirmation came also when the entire Province supported the mission and when we succeeded in finding two apartments near one another in the same floor of a building.
On November 7, 2020, we completed our move to the Lunghezzina neighborhood. That day we began to live and to share the life of the little ones of the Lord with a profound certainty: the joy of getting out of our comfort zones.
The community was like the apostles on the Lake of Tiberias. In the middle of the night the invitation came to change the direction of the net and to throw it over the right side. The abundance that came afterwards was the confirmation that the Lord was visiting his friends. There was the voice of the Master inhabiting the fringes of their certainties, there was the Master passing over the limits of their comfort zones, there was the Master encouraging the small seeds of life that accompany a rudderless community. In the example of the Master who goes out of himself in order to go to meet his friends, we recognize the mission to do the same. We will have much to learn about the life of these persons, we will have to get to know the stories behind each face, we will have to invest a lot in daily relationships, but we know that going from a fruitless night to the dawn of renewed faith will be marked by a life of going forth.
Only by incarnating this gesture, first in small daily gestures, can we continue collaborating with Him…
Anna Rita Bozzetti aci
