One of the most beautiful things about my current job as treasurer of the Fraternity is that I get to know our missions around the world.
An important trip that I took in these months, together with Fr. Romano, led me to our mission in Novosibirsk, the capital of Siberia. It is a large city, with around two million inhabitants. In the apartment of a beehive-like condominium, among thousands of other apartments, live two of our priests: Fr. Fecondo and Fr. Francesco.
The morning after our arrival, we hopped in the car with Francesco. For 33 years, every week, Francesco travels more than 400 kilometers in the Siberian steppe to reach the parishes he tends in two tiny villages. He stays there from Thursday to Monday. Then he gets back in the car, crosses the steppe again and returns to Novosibirsk, where Fecondo is waiting for him. Every week, for more than thirty years, the same 400 kilometers, there and back. We arrived at the first village after five and a half hours, having crossed endless expanses of birch trees. The spot where you can find the parish was acquired by one of our priests 33 years ago. It was supposed to become a bar. In that time, week after week, Francesco adapted the structure, literally building the small church, the tiny parish hall, the rectory.
The cold, the fact of being in a place without even a trace of social life, the time change, the long trip and the dark all invite us to go to sleep. I had already taken my shoes off when Francesco knocked on the door of my room: “Do you guys want to come and see the stars? There is an amazing sky.” I put my shoes back on and we hopped in the car, heading to a spot that was completely dark.
We can be free to give our lives beyond any possible outcome
As I exited the car, I could see that the sky was breathtaking. The Milky Way was resplendent. There were so many stars that I was not even able to recognize the constellations. Francesco pointed out Cassiopea and convinced us that it looks like an “M,” the first letter of Mary. And then he invited us to say the Angelus. In the meanwhile, we were all freezing. “Every now and then,” he says, “when I go to dinner at someone’s house, I like to walk back to watch the sky.” “Francesco, let’s go, it’s freezing outside!” “Yes, but the climate here is dry and you don’t feel the cold!” he replied. In a place like this, you can’t survive without a touch of healthy madness.
We spend the next morning baking cookies and making tea for a celebration with the parishioners. Francesco has told them we’ll be there and wants Romano and me to tell them about ourselves after Mass. Only two babushkas, two elderly ladies, show up for Mass. One of them is deaf. After Mass, they leave. I eat a cookie with a touch of bitterness: “Stefano, we play man-to-man here, not zone defense!” Francesco tells me with a smile.
The next day, as we are back in the car on our way back to Novosibirsk, Francesco tells us that during the seminar, a friend, Agostino Molteni, gave him a note that read: “We are harlequins, but we have encountered something.” He comments: “If we look at ourselves, we are laughable, but we have seen something. I see something that makes it worthwhile to be here.” I have never sensed in him, in the few words he says, a hint of complaint or disappointment. When I think of a missionary, I think of thousands of encounters, many baptisms, endless pastoral successes. But it can also happen that the fruit of 33 years of mission are two old ladies. Yet someone is giving their life for this land, for this people. I am certain that this silent and faithful sacrifice contributes more to the building up of the Church than the great successes that so many of our priests have in other parts of the world. One day, the true weight of these lives offered in silence for the salvation of others will be evident. If our gaze is fixed on that moment, we can be free to give our lives beyond any possible outcome. I think this is where Fr. Francesco’s joy lies. A joy that I desire for myself.
