MISSIONARY SISTERS / AMAZED TO FEEL AT HOME
A year with college students, their questions, and their discoveries: to share life means to belong to a greater unity.
This year I have had the grace to begin following a group of college students in a new initiative with Sr. Antonella at our parish named for the early Roman martyrs. As they began college, these young people felt significantly challenged in many aspects of their lives, especially in their faith.
From the start what struck us the most was their awareness of their need, one which spurred them on to look for adequate answers. During our first meeting, I noticed that even without knowing who they would find there with them (they’d never met us before!), they still freely introduced themselves to us. At the end of that interaction, moreover, one of them said, “I am super happy that you guys are young.”
Throughout these recent months we have wanted to share our life with them. For example, for Advent we gave them a book to pray Compline (Night Prayer) every day and we proposed reciting it together at the end of our weekly meetings.
After Christmas, one thanked us saying that she started praying again. During the year we read together some writings by Fr. Massimo Camisasca. Then we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to meet him, giving the students the opportunity to ask him their many questions. In the following months we invited them to have dinner with us at our home, join us for the Easter Vigil in the seminary, and join us for the mass and ceremony accompanying my Final Profession of vows. After these occasions one told us, “I’m realizing that you guys take truly everything seriously; if you have to pray, you pray; but if you are looking to have fun, you engage in having fun– and very well I might add!” And they were struck at finding themselves at home in these places which were so new to them.
At the end of the year it struck me when two students said, “For me, coming here and seeing the Sisters has become like getting together with friends– friends who can help me because they are more mature and adult,” and, “This moment with you all has become a real commitment for me; it’s no longer somewhere I go when I have nothing else to do. Now I know that Thursday afternoons I cannot schedule other things because I must come here– like one must go to work.”
When I told the students that I would be leaving on mission definitively for the United States it struck me that, even though they were clearly disheartened, they recognized among us an even deeper unity– that in the Church we live everything truly together, united, as one said, “Starting today the United States is now welcome to join our friendship: it’s opening itself to the whole world!”
(In the photo, a moment during “La festa del Centro” (“The Central Festival, a multi-week summer festival sponsored by the parish St. Mary in Domnica alla Navicella), in Rome – photo courtesy of Stefano Dal Pozzolo).
These young people felt significantly challenged in many aspects of their lives, especially in their faith.
