Fraternal life, visits and exchanges
Bose, March 2010
News from the Letter to our friends n° 50
This was then followed by the customary period when we are closed to guests, up until Ash Wednesday, a time for silence and solitude, but also for a more intense fraternal sharing
From 2 January, St Basil, to Epiphany, the community lived its traditional annual chapter, in a climate of great peace and listening to one another. This was a spiritual event in which we were able to experience again how beautiful it is for brothers and sisters to be together. In such a spirit of thanksgiving the essential themes of our monastic life were once again looked at in depth and shared. Always we ask ourselves whether the Gospel is truly at the heart of our existence and seek to read the signs of the times through which the Lord asks us to reach forward with hope and confidence towards the future (cf. Phil 3,13).
This was then followed by the customary period when we are closed to guests, up until Ash Wednesday, a time for silence and solitude, but also for a more intense fraternal sharing. In these months, from December on, there was no lack of occasions for encounters and exchanges. We may note the visit of several bishops: Benoît Rivière of Autun; Adrian van Luyn of Rotterdam; Gabriele Mana and Massimo Giustetti, respectively the ordinary and the former bishop of Biella.
A fruitful occasion of exchanges and sharing of our respective monastic experiences was the visit of the abbess of the Trappist monastery of Blauvac, mère Anne-Emmanuelle, together with sr Raphaël, whom we wish to thank for the great patience and willingness to listen that she showed during the few days of her stay with us, as well as for her discernment and her valuable counsels. In this monastery of Blauvac, which already in the past some of our sister have visited, sr Myriam spent one month, sharing the life of the community and perfecting her knowledge of French. A great opportunity of getting to know and sharing experiences as offered to sr Antonella, who was invited by the Benedictine abbesses of French monasteries to take part in their triennial meeting, which took place at the Benedictine monastery of Dourgne (France) at the beginning of February. In this same period sr Francesca attended an intensive course of German in Munich, where she stayed with the community of Benedictine nuns “Venio”. In March it was a joy for us to welcome twelve nuns and two oblates of the Cistercian monastery of Kismaros (Hungary) with the abbess, mother Olgi, who spent a week sharing our life and our work and strengthening ties of friendship with us. Br Emanuele continues his stay in Paris for studies at the Institut Superieur de Liturgie de l’Institut Catholique.
In January sr Sylvie visited the diocese of Linköping in Sweden, on the invitation of bishop Martin Lind to participate at the ordination ceremony of several priests and deacons. A few weeks later br Guido also traveled to Sweden to take part in a conference on monasticism organized by Peter Halldorf and the Community of Bjärka-Säby, with which by now we have close and frequent ties; he then visited the Lutheran Benedictine monastic community Östanbäck Kloster.