Tuesday 10th July: after the daily commitments we left for Liverpool where the flight to Milan brought us to Italy for the Festival of Life. Together with our brothers from the Irish House, who we met up with at the airport, we arrived at the Mother House in Saluzzo.

Thursday afternoon the Festival started with the catechism of Fr Stefano about the motto chosen for this year: Seguimi / Follow Me.  He spoke about the capacity to listen to God’s call to each one of us, to trust in His infinite love and to put in practice everything learned during our Community walk and in our relationships.  We celebrated Holy Mass and we listened to some words from our Mother Elvira.  Like every year all these events were full of singing and dancing.

On Friday the day started with the Rosary, Eucharistic Adoration, a catechism from Mother Elvira and some testimonies from some of the guys, including those out on the missions. A large crowd braved the very hot temperature and after dinner the tent was full of people for the new recital “Seguimi”: the story of St Peter and his relationship with Jesus.

The programme of Saturday was quite similar to Friday but in the afternoon we were happy to listen to the testimony of Tiziano, the previous responsible of the house in Kendal who is going soon to help open the new house in the Philippines. During the mass the homily was about the humanitarian disaster in Syria.

On Sunday the most significant event was the ordination of Fr Marco Lattarullo as a priest.  A beautiful moment of song and dance closed the festival with the guys and the families, emotional but happy after these days together.

Again this year we came back to the Fraternity happy for this experience, feeling energised, closer to our families, and richer from all the talks we had listened to.

The perfect motto of this festival, Seguimi, guided us to understand how it is important to listen to the will of God for each one of us, how it is beautiful to be able to serve, and how satisfying it is to give back some of the love we have received in the Community.

Another thing which astonished us was to see in each moment of the festival how many people are in the queues for confession, how important is this moment of reconciliation with God, with others, with ourselves, and the freedom that His mercy gives us.

We want to say thank you to Mother Elvira and to the Community for this gift and also to all the friends of our Fraternity who looked after everything for us while we were away, especially to the D’Arcy family who welcomed seven new piglets during our absence!

Thank you Mary for your good intentions for each one of us.  We want to put into your hands our Mother Elvira and her health. We thank you for her life, for all the miracles that you have worked through her in the 35 years of the Cenacolo Community.