Cenacolo UK

“Servi per amore” – Saluzzo 19th-25th March 2019

From Bruno

From 19-25 March in Saluzzo we celebrated the annual meeting of the experienced guys in community.  The motto of the meeting was “ eccomi” (Here I am).  We started the day of the feast of St. Joseph who said “Here I am” to being the guardian of the Holy family in humility,  silence , fidelity and we ended with the feast of the Annunciation when Mary said her unconditional “Yes” to God’s plan.

On the first day the bishop welcomed us to the celebration of Holy Mass during which three brothers were consecrated as acolytes – another step on their journey to priesthood.  Then we started our period of total silence, even during meals and free time:  an important time for us to reflect on our walk and our future vocation.

Every day started with praying the rosary followed by holy Mass then we listened to the catechism of Mother Elvira which was then discussed by the priest;  while we ate lunch we listened to Pope Francis’s words and we prayed the second rosary.  In the afternoon we had an Holy hour,  another catechism,  a time for sharing in small groups,  rosary and dinner.

The themes for different days included :

• Here I am – to life:  understand the importance of the life, to permit love to enter into us: to be able to give of ourselves and to be free from selfishness and falsity.  Father Stefano invited us to recognise that the community life will free us from suffering and fear like a second birth and also to think that we are precious in God’s eyes, to trust in ourselves and in our gifts;
• Here I am – to the truth:  we thought about how to be truthful by examining our past, our sins, our compromises, our lies and to be without fear of judgement and with awareness of the infinite mercy of God.  Father Andrea invited us to think about where, how and when the evil entered our past lives;  he encouraged us to shake up our consciences;
• Here I Am – to prayer: we were encouraged to consider why we prayed, how we prayed and the benefit of our prayer.  Father Massimo asked us to analyse the quality of our prayers so that we could avoid mechanical prayer. He underlined the importance of community prayer but also of personal prayer during Eucharistic adoration;
• Here I am – to friendship and work:  understanding what is true friendship, that it involves sincerity and fairness and a willingness to sacrifice yourself; understanding that with work we regain our dignity;
• Here I am – to give ourselves:  this is the big opportunity to express the goodness within us. Father Marco spoke about different vocations: about missions, marriage and the consecrated life.

On the Sunday we visited the house of formation in Pagno and we listened to many testimonies from the nuns.  In the evening we had a big surprise when we left to travel to Loreto where on Monday we welcomed Pope Francis who was visiting the “Holy House”.  In a very crowded space in front of the basilica we celebrated mass and afterwards the Holy Father spoke to us.  He said the elderly and sick are not to be rejected from today’s society.

Again this year the meeting was a great time of growth.  A time to re-charge our batteries,  to be aware of how good it is to give ourselves to otherswith joy and serenity.

Thank you to the Community for the gift.

Mary and Joseph we ask your intercession for those who are still suffering from addiction. Pray for us.

Mateusz in Loreto

Also this year the Community gave us the possibility to gather in Saluzzo for Mother Elvira’s birthday: a great gift announced the day before by Fr Cassian with a funny word game of which the solution was “tomorrow we are going to Italy”. We arrived in Italy in the afternoon of Friday 18th just in time to admire a beautiful sunset behind the snow covered mountains near Saluzzo.

Saturday: we spent a normal day of work, prayer and sharing with the brothers who we met from other Fraternities.

Sunday: we gathered all together, also with the girls, in Envie for an intense day of prayer, catechism, songs, dancing and in the afternoon a series of videos about missions, the new Fraternities and future projects of our Community. The day ended with a beautiful and moving video about Mother Elvira today: a gift prepared by the sisters who assist her every day to say thank you for everything she has done for each one of us.

The following couple of days we spent just with the other male Fraternities. We talked about the pillars of our Community: prayer, work, friendship and sharing; we listened to many catechisms and testimonies from experienced guys of our Community.

We had also the possibility to do a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Snow, through whose intercession many people have been healed: the testimonies of these healings are shown in pictures around the walls of the church.

The meeting closed with the presentation of the gifts prepared by all the Fraternities and with a deep moment of Eucharistic Adoration in thanksgiving to God for the gift of life, a new life finally free from evil, lived in the truth and with a new hope.

We want to say thank you also to the Community for the opportunity to say hello to Mother Elvira through her window, singing happy birthday for her.

Thank you Lord Jesus for the gift of our Mother Elvira, instrument of the Holy Spirit to touch and to heal our hearts, to teach us how to pray, how to love and how to have joy in our lives.

After the normal duties in the morning we started very early to prepare the dough for the pizzas and each one of us had the possibility to have one hour of Eucharistic adoration to reflect on the past year. In the evening we welcomed our friends and Fr Chris, Fr Hugh and Fr Philip celebrated Holy Mass. In recognition of the feast of Our Lady Mother of God Fr Chris spoke about how we should take Mary as our example in bringing God to others.

We started the meal by pulling our crackers, and then had a nice starter with ham, cheese and chutneys.  This was followed by home made pizzas and some good cakes prepared by our friends.  This year we decided to spend the next time watching the film “The Shack”, a moving story about faith, forgiveness and mercy.

We waited for midnight in front of the Blessed Sacrament, putting into God’s hands our good intentions for the next year. We finished the night with a prayer before burning the papers with our intentions on on a bonfire, and then with some songs and dancing.

We want to say thank you to the Community for everything we received in the past year, thank you to all our friends, our benefactors and our priests for their support and for being close to us through the year, to our families and our loved ones for their prayers.

Thank you Lord Jesus, thank you for your presence in our lives, for your forgiveness and for your mercy. We want to put into your hands our walk and all our good intentions for the New Year.

On Thursday we welcomed Fr Michel and Nicky and we immediately involved them in the last rehearsals of the Nativity Play.

On Friday, after the usual commitments, we received a great gift from the Community: an unexpected afternoon of meeting and prayer with our families at the Monastery of Our Lady of Hyning in Warton: many emotions but also a lot of smiles especially from the lads who met with their parents for the first time since entering / coming to Kendal.

Saturday: the last preparation and we started to welcome our guests, who arrived in large numbers. We prayed the Rosary then we lived a deep moment of Eucharistic Adoration. At the end all the priests close to our community celebrated Holy Mass together. Just time for some dancing and then we ate a lovely Italian and English lunch with pizzas, lasagne and shepherd’s pie.

In the afternoon we listened to the testimonies of Louis, Mateusz and his parents, and we involved also some friends of our fraternity who testified how the Cenacolo Community has affected their lives. This confirmed the word of Mother Elvira who asked the families to walk with their sons and daughters.  In the evening we started the Nativity Play and, notwithstanding some technical problems, we were happy to become like children acting out the story of the child Jesus.

Sunday morning we met just with our families for a day dedicated to conversation, reconciliation and sharing about our time spent in Kendal. After the usual moments of prayer we showed our loved ones some videos of Mother Elvira in order to transmit to them her strength and her charisma. A last cup of tea and we said goodbye to everybody in the hope of seeing them again next year.

We want to really say thank you to the Community for this long weekend of meeting, prayers and great emotions.

Thank you Lord Jesus for your mercy, for the strength you give us to forgive and to feel forgiven, and for the possibility to reconcile with our past and to look at the future with faith and hope.

Last week we lived a full week of appointments in our fraternity; Thursday 18th we spent a lovely day in the Salesian school in Bolton; in front of a lot of students we spoke of the charisma of our community and gave our testimonies.

Saturday 20th we participated at the retreat meeting in Birmingham. After watching a video of  Mother Elvira we divided into small groups to introduce ourselves. Fr Michael celebrated Holy Mass, then we had lunch. After that we came back together for a reading of the Gospel about the road to Emmaus and then shared how we met God in our lives. Thanks to the beautiful weather we prayed the rosary outside and then we listened to some testimonies about how the Cenacolo Community has changed lives. The day ended with some songs and dances.

We want to say thank you to all the friends of our community that we met today, thank you for your support, your prayers, for your testimonies of faith and hope. We returned to our fraternity full of encouragement saying thanks to God for having chosen us in this walk of resurrection.

It was a particular pleasure for the Friends of the House yesterday that, as well as enjoying being present for Mass and sharing a meal with the Lads afterwards, we were also able to join in celebrating where they were up to in their respective “walks” with 3 of the Lads.

An early, but nonetheless significant, milestone has been reached by Damian and Liam who have both completed their first month in Community whilst Bruno, the Responsible of the house, has completed 3 years in Community.

The Lads all spoke warmly of how much the friendship and help they have received here has meant to them and Bruno told how, as well as being grateful for all that his time in Community has done for him, he felt it was an especial gift for him to have come to England – not what he probably felt when he arrived here in early December 2015 to be greeted by Storm Desmond!

As is traditional on these occasions, the Lads concerned all sang a song – with accompaniment by Sam and Mateusz on the guitar.

We congratulate them all and wish them all the very best with continuing their walks.

Those who enter the Cenacolo Community encounter the three foundations of friendship, work and prayer. It is here that they learn again the joys of a simple way of living discovering the rhythms of an ordered life where brotherly love and service are key. This simple rhythm is punctuated with organised community events. And so it was, on the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady the guys of the Kendal fraternity, after they had celebrated a festive Mass at Our Lady & St Joseph’s, Carlisle and had eaten a light lunch, made their way to Talkin Tarn and there to an adventure on the lake with the parish canoes and a very helpful parishioner instructor. They benefited from working together as a community and had great fun in the process.

This was followed by a period of Eucharistic Adoration at the little old church of Our Lady & St Wilfrid, Warwick Bridge giving thanks for the day and for the feast. And the day was rounded off by a celebratory meal in Carlisle.

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.

Tiziano Rossi who has been in the Cenacolo fraternity in Kendal for 4 years, the last 2 as Responsible (Leader), has left to open the first Cenacolo House in Asia, in the Philippines. Tiziano will first spend a little time with his family and then will prepare for the new mission at the Cenacolo House at Pagno near the Mother House in Saluzzo, Italy.

After 4 years many friends of the House had got to know Tiziano very well. His love and dedication to Cenacolo had touched many people; his fatherly care for the guys in the House was much appreciated, and so it was no surprise that many friends came for the farewell Mass and celebration. Some had travelled many miles to be there from places are far afield as Liverpool, Wales & Carlisle. Six priests concelebrated the Mass and Tiziano was prayed over at the end of the Mass in thanksgiving for the blessings he had received and for the blessing that he had been to so many during his time in Kendal.

At the end of the Mass Tiziano spoke of his reliance of the Holy Spirit in all things and his closeness to our Blessed Lady.

Following the Mass there was a general celebration with supper served by the Community. A cake had been baked by one of the friends and was enjoyed by all present.

We pray in thanksgiving for the gift of Tiziano to our fraternity in the UK and seek God’s blessing for his work in the Philippines.  We also pray for Bruno as he takes over the role of Responsible.

Today I can say with certainty that for me two things are really important in life: the first is to love God and to love our neighbour; the second is to understand why God has given me the gift of life. After many years lived in darkness, searching for true freedom through the “wrong things”, the Lord and Our Lady, without me deserving it, called me to be part of the Cenacolo family. During my journey, I realised that true peace, true joy, true love and faith come from holiness. This is not something which I sought but is a journey of faith proposed to me by the Cenacolo Community. When you live in love and you give your own life for others, as Jesus has done for us, your heart fills with love.

It took me a long time to forgive myself for my past, to accept and to love the person I am, to have self esteem and self control; sometimes I still have small worries for my future but I face up to them in a different way. I live a life of faith, sometimes small, but which with the help of prayer slowly, slowly increases. After a few years “from the darkness to the light” I felt in my heart the desire to leave the Community, but the love that the Lord had had for me and that which He had put in my heart for others brought me to choose to stay in Community. After having received so much life I decided to give myself and to stay longer to make the Cenacolo Community known to others and to welcome them. In doing this I received much more than what I received during the previous years of my “walk” and in this way I understood why following the commandment that Jesus left us to love God and to love one another is so important .

These last months I prayed a lot to the Lord that he would show me the right choice. I had no idea what the Lord wanted to tell me or what was the next step to take. I was conflicted between the desire for finding a new job and having a family and continuing to help guys who are lost in the world of addiction. I shared all this with the priests of our Community but also in a special way I prayed: “Lord this is what I am choosing but what do You think?” After just a few days, while I was working in the garden, I received a phone call from Fr Adrian, a priest who helped our Community in Knock, Ireland, in the missions of Peru and Liberia, Africa: he told me about his recent stay in the Philippines searching for a house in which the Community could open a new Fraternity: his enthusiasm for the places he had visited and the people who he had met really struck me: and during the phone call I wondered: “why is he speaking to me about the Philippines?” Then he continued saying that he was in Saluzzo and that the priests of the Community had asked him to look for some guys because Cenacolo was ready to respond to God’s call in that country, in Asia, and that I was one of those guys who the Lord was choosing for this mission. I felt at once a great joy but I said to him that I needed a few days to pray before giving an answer. I sought in the hands of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit the help to make the right decision according to the will of God. In those days I continued to feel joy and peace within me and I said: “Lord I want to follow you.” Today I am free and happy to leave the door of my heart always open to God.

I want to thank first of all the Community for its trust in me; Mother Elvira who with her “yes” to God has permitted me to say my own “yes” to good. Then to all the brothers I have met throughout my journey, and to the friends of the Fraternity in Kendal and to all the priests who have helped me spiritually, in a particular way from the bottom of my heart to Fr Chris.

Tiziano