Festival of Light
Some new seeds are sprouting in the Province. I want to dwell on a few developments that have brought fresh life to our communities.
In Piedmont, we accompanied the election of new leaders and the birth of a renewed community in Cuneo, born from the merger of two historic communities there. The new community is searching for a name. Its two coordinators are Martina Tilotta and Enrico Massolino, with Claudio Cavallo serving as spiritual assistant.
Martina is a young woman who took part in the gatherings at Alicante and Fano. She answered the call with such generosity, accepting this responsibility.
Great joy, then, in Piedmont.
My heart still echoes with the visit to the Feltre community and our celebration of the Festival of Light with the communities of the Veneto.
A great gift in Feltre: Eucharistic adoration, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Two members of our community—Antonio and Paolo—spend an hour there every week in adoration, and have done so for more than fifteen years. Meeting Jesus is at the heart of what makes this community strong. Now I know to whom I should entrust my prayers.
A special joy at our Festival of Light was the presence of Monsignor Renato Marangoni, Bishop of Belluno and Feltre. Two friends who are the parents of the young woman for whom Stella di San Lorenzo is named celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. A celebration within our celebration.
The final light came to us at Maria Madre della Chiesa in Gratosoglio, Milan. During the week of the Campus della Pace—an international gathering of young people—our Fede e Luce community was asked to lead an evening with the youth and take part in interreligious prayer with Archbishop Mario Delpini, the Imam of Sesto, the Buddhist community, and the Orthodox Church of Milan. That evening, with Mayor Sala present, we prayed for peace across different faith traditions.
From these encounters came the opportunity to organize a Fede e Luce camp for young people. We are planning it for Fano, July 13 to 20. Young people from Maria Madre will join our members and friends in the field. A beautiful light for the Province.
— Liliana Ghiringhelli
Kormakitis
At the international assembly of Fede e Luce in Beirut, new priorities were identified, among them the need to define a vision for the next ten years.
I have always loved the statement about Fede e Luce's vision: "To announce to the nations a source of unity and peace."
Being a source of unity and peace may seem strange in Italy—a unified country which, despite many difficulties, has not seen war on its soil for a long time.
How, then, can we be a source of unity and peace?
Kimata has the fortune of being a unique province together with Cyprus, a beautiful country suffering the pain of being torn in two. Two parts—one Greek and one Turkish—still formally at war, separated by a long wall with very few crossing points and a minefield no-man's-land.
Until now, Fede e Luce communities have developed only in the Greek part. And yet…
…for some years now, a small community has been growing in the Turkish part, in the Maronite village of Kormakitis. If our communities in Italy, Greece, Albania, and Greek Cyprus are small and fragile, this one is even more so: few people, few friends, very few young members, and little chance to meet other communities, since the nearest ones lie across a border.
Yet there that small community stands, with its regular gatherings faithfully following our handbook, with its spiritual assistant, in its quiet village—happy to know it belongs to a larger family. Happy to welcome friends from Fede e Luce, like those from the Kimata Provincial Council who visited during their meeting in Nicosia last January.
All were moved by this small community, by its tenacity, its desire to gather, its longing to pray together. It is truly so: a community as fragile as this is a sign of unity and peace for its country and for the entire province, because it stands there as witness that unity and peace also pass through being small and fragile.
— Pietro Vetro
A Moment of Grace
In our life in Fede e Luce, we have all experienced moments of true grace. For us, this word is almost a perfect synonym for friendship. Well, at the end of January, a moment of grace was given to me, to our international vice-coordinator Angela Grassi, and to all the coordinators of the Sicilian communities. Grace in seeing that the communities were united in choosing Alberto Alagna, a friend from Mazara del Vallo, as vice-coordinator for Sicily alongside Caterina Galletta. Grace in sleeping eight or nine of us in our friend Mariella's apartment in Palermo—certainly spacious, but far smaller than her heart! Grace in discovering that in our stories, Fede e Luce is like a river: not always in flood, as we sing in one of our favorite songs, but rather a hidden stream that may disappear underground for a while and then burst forth again, flowing on. This is what has happened in Sicily, and for this the province gives thanks to the Lord.
— Vito Giannulo