Our presence among the Churches and among men
The prior, br Enzo, has again in these last few months been occupied in his ministry of preaching in various cities in Italy and abroad, in addition to taking part in meetings, Biblical weeks, and retreats for priests given at Bose. Other brothers and sisters of the community have also carried out a service of preaching at local churches and religious communities in Italy and abroad and have spoken at church or monastic conferences
Bose, December 2010
The prior, br Enzo, has again in these last few months been occupied in his ministry of preaching in various cities in Italy and abroad, in addition to taking part in meetings, Biblical weeks, and retreats for priests given at Bose. In this period he was asked by various bishops to preach to the faithful in general and to priests in the Italian dioceses of Turin, Vercelli, Cuneo, Pavia, Parma, Padua, Pitigliano and Orbetello, Spoleto (where he led the common ten-year retreat of the Umbrian Bishops’ Conference and of Umbrian diocesan priests), Foligno, Pisa, Lucca, Pistoia, Anagni-Alatri, Naples, Bari, Taranto, as well as in the dioceses of Ghent in Belgium and Metz in France. In March, at the invitation of the cardinal prefect Franc Rodé, br Enzo preached the Lenten retreat to the members of the Congregation for religious of the Roman curia, while in November, at the invitation of the cardinal president Gianfranco Ravasi, he gave a talk in “Mystagogical communication” at the plenary assembly of the Pontifical council on culture. Two contributions to religious life were offered by the prior on the occasion of the assembly of the Union of Italian women major superiors (USMI), held in Rome, and of the Italian conference of major superiors (CISM), held in Milan.
One theme on which he spoke several times in different contexts (Gaeta, Santa Margherita Ligure, Genoa, Brad), was receiving foreigners. He also participated in conferences and round tables of a cultural character: at the Book Fair of Turin, the Turin Spirituality Festival, the Biblical Festival of Vicenza, and Philosophy Festival of Modena, at the Gregorian and Urbanian Universities and the University of St Bonaventure in Rome and at the University of Bologna; at the Cittadella of Assisi on the occasion of the 68th Course of inter-Christian studies organized by Pro Civitate Christiana; qt the 38th study week of the Association of professors of liturgy at Paestum; at Rome at the international congress of the Catholic Biblical Federation on the post-synodal exhortation Verbum Domini with a lecture, “The Bible and lectio divina”.
Abroad the prior participated in the conference of the movement Vivre ensemble l’Évangile aujourd’hui, held at Lourdes, with two talks on the topic The specific characteristics of Christianity. In Paris at the Centre Sèvres he gave a talk at the Jesuit Theological Faculty of France on the topic Transmitting the good news today. In Spain he gave a talk in Barcelona, then in Madrid he preached to the abbesses of Spanish monasteries. In Istanbul he was the principal speaker at the international conference Recent studies on the councils in the presence of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I.
Other brothers and sisters of the community have also carried out a service of preaching at local churches and religious communities in Italy and abroad and have spoken at church or monastic conferences. Br Luciano took part first at the conference of Italian abbesses in Rome and then at the Benedictine inter-congregational conference organized in Norcia for about 70 novices, postulants, and professed under three years of Italian men’s and women’s monasteries. At Oria he gave a few talks to the diocesan assembly and at the retreat of the diocesan priests, while in Lisbon he offered a course on the psalms. Br Goffredo, besides continuing to contribute as an expert in the work of revising the Roman missal, participated in various conferences with reflections of a liturgical nature: at the conference of Italian Caritas at San Benedetto del Tronto; at the day on the Word, exegesis and celebration, organized by the Theological studium Antonianum of Bologna; at the liturgical week of the Institute of Orthodox theology Saint Serge of Paris; at the 56th national liturgical week at Fabriano, at the conference organized in Milan jointly by the Italian Bishops’ Conference and the Ambrosian Church in view of a new edition of the evangeliarium. Br Matthias went to Lyons to participate in the work of the ecumenical association Amitié œcuménique internationale, to which he contributed several talks on monasticism and ecumenism. Finally, br Matteo traveled to London, to the Benedictine Ealing abbey for the annual meeting of the coordinators of European commissions on Monastic interreligious dialogue as a representative of the Italian section, which is coordinated by fr Cipriano Carini.