From 1 to 3 December, a meeting took place in the city of Pavia between the Assistant General for Southern Europe, Fr Javier Pérez Barba, and the Provincials of the circumscriptions participating in the common novitiate Stephen Bellessini
Domingo Amigo of the Province of Sahagún, Fr. Leslie Gatt of the Province of Malta, and Fr. Giustino Casciano of the Province of Italy, who, due to temporary health problems, was only able to participate by videoconference.
The meeting took place in the convent of S. Pietro in Ciel D'oro, the seat of the novitiate community, whose basilica houses the relics of Our Father St. Augustine.
After a first meeting with the formation team, composed of Fr. Antonio Baldoni, prior, Fr. Enrique Martín, master of novices, and Fr. Milan Hermanosky, vice-master and bursar, in which the progress of the novitiate during the current academic year was discussed, provincials and assistants met to discuss the future of the novitiate and the possibility of extending the already existing collaboration in the area of initial formation.
As the Communications Office of the General Curia has learned, the talks will continue at the meeting to be held in Spain in March 2023.
A direct encounter with the hospitality and beauty of Pavia
Those attending the meeting had the opportunity to share in the ordinary life and hospitality of the Pavia community, participating with it in prayer, liturgy and fraternity, as well as getting to know better and living with the three novices who are currently in Pavia: Salvador Nhamire from Mozambique, Eduardo Ramirez Olid from Spain and Diego Moreira Thaumaturgo from Portugal.
In addition, the community of Pavia offered the visitors, among whom was also the provincial secretary of the Province of Sahagún, Father Carlos Alonso, the opportunity to visit the beautiful Carthusian monastery which gives its name to Certosa de Pavia, the municipality in which it is located. It is a beautiful Renaissance building commissioned by Gian Galeazzo Visconti, Lord of Milan, at the end of the 1400s. The Benedictine monks who live there today skilfully use the explanation of the art it contains to provide a profound catechesis for the benefit of tourists and visitors. The rainy day at the Charterhouse could not, in any case, overshadow its beauty in the eyes of the brothers who placed them there for the first time.