Fraternal visits, monastic exchanges and ecumenical presence
In these winter and spring months once again occasions of meetings and exchanges were not lacking. First of all, we note the visit of several bishops: cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical council of culture, who returned again to Bose this year to offer a Biblical talk on the prophet Jeremias for the community and guests; cardinal Claudio Hummes, retired archbishop of Sao Paolo and ex-prefect of the Congregation for the clergy, who came to visit the community and to become familiar with the practice of lectio divina; Agostino Marchetto, ex-secretary of the Pontifical council of pastoral work among migrants and itinerants; Piero Marini, president of the Pontifical council for the international eucharistic congresses; Michael Louis Fitzgerald, apostolic nuncio to Egypt, for a week of rest and retreat; Adrian van Luyn, retired bishop of Rotterdam, who came shortly before the end of his mandate, for his usual spiritual retreat; Tommaso Valentinetti, archbishop of Pescara; Sebastiano Dho, retired bishop of Alba; Giuseppe Merisi, bishop of Lodi; Piergiacomo Grampa, bishop of Lugano, who accompanied eighteen priests of his diocese for a retreat; Christopher Hill, Anglican bishop of Guilford; and John Hind, Anglican bishop of Chichester.
On 23 January, for the close of the week for Christian unity, we welcomed in Bose the representatives of the various Christian Churches present in our Biella diocese, who participated with us at ecumenical vespers. The Romanian Orthodox priest of Ivrea (substituting the one of Biella), father Dumitru Babula, the Valdese deacon Alga Barbacini, and the Catholic bishop of Biella, Gabriele Mana, commented briefly the three readings of the liturgy.
The visits of monks and nuns are always for us precious moments of exchange with the brothers and sisters who share our own way of life. In mid-February three Ethiopian Orthodox nuns, sr Hareghewin, sr Mereth, and sr Gheorghis, arrived in Bose, to be helped in thinking out their monastic life; discreet and hard-working, they are true sisters who share our life in everything. In these months we have welcomed fr Luigi Gioia, ex-abbot of the Olivetan abbey of Seregno; br Oliveto, Olivetan monk of Maylis, a student in Rome; fr Kariton, Benedictine monk of the abbey of St Paul outside the Walls in Rome; br Pino, monk of the Benedictine community of Dumenza; br Michael Davide and br Serafino, Benedictine monks, who spent the Easter vigil with us; br Leopold, Benedictine monk of the ?okovac monastery in Croatia and br Marie-André, monk of the Benedictine abbey of Keur Moussa in Senegal, both in Rome for studies; fr François Cassingena-Trévedy, Benedictine monk of Ligugé, who gave a novitiate course on “The father of the Church and the liturgy”; sr Marie-Paule, sr Nicole, and sr Marie-Elisabeth of the Benedictine monastery of Ermeton; sr Pierrette, prioress of the Protestant monastic community of Grandchamp. Renewed thanks go to m. Anne-Emmanuelle of the Trappist monastery of Blauvac, who, accompanied by sr Raphaël, returned to Bose to meet the sisters, giving them some reflections on co-responsibility in formation and in individual human and spiritual growth.
With particular joy br Enzo went to Chevetogne at the end of December to celebrate with some other close friends the fifty years of monastic profession of fr Michel van Parys; with his discernment and his human and monastic wisdom fr Michel continues to accompany the life of our community. In February the prior held a fraternal collatio with monks of the chartreuse of Farneta, while in March he visited the community of our friends, the Benedictine nuns of Viboldone, where he gave a talk on the prayer of the psalms, with the title “Interceding with the Psalter”. Sr Antonella too visited the sisters of Viboldone in the same month accompanying m. Anne-Emmanuelle and sr Raphaël of Blauvac. In addition, br Vincenzo participated in the prior’s name at the assembly of the Italian monastic conference, held this year at the Benedictine abbey of Farfa.
We are grateful to the Pontifical council for promoting Christian unity and to the department of Unity, faith, and order of the Anglican communion for having chosen our monastic community as a propitious place for taking up again the Anglican-Catholic theological dialogue. The International Anglican-Catholic commission (ARCIC) stayed at our monastery of Bose from 17 to 27 May 2011. The commission, composed of eighteen members (ten Anglican and eight Catholic) has for its co-presidents the Catholic archbishop of Birmingham, Bernard Longley, and the Anglican archbishop of the New Zealand dioceses, David Moxon. On this occasion it discussed two themes: “The Church as communion, local and universal” and “How the local Church arrives at discerning, in communion, a just ethical teaching”.