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 In
religious Institutes we live sometimes very strong and very engaging
moments or periods. This happens even when the process of the
beatification-canonization of one of its members is started. The
Institute of the Sorelle di Maria Consolatrice (Sisters of Mary the
Consoler) lives since 1998 this particular time. The current General
Superior M. Silvianita Galimberti has lived and is involved with true
passion for the various ministries that she has been called to do within
the same Institute: Provincial Superior from 1985 to 1994, General Vicar
from 1994 to 2006. Elected General Superior in 2006 was re-elected for
the same service recently, August 28th of this year. We have asked a few
questions to her.
In your Institute, founded in the late nineteenth century, you are
living the iter of beatification –canonization’s process of your
Founder, fr. Arsenio Trigolo.
Can you summarize the history and the finalities that fr. Giuseppe
Migliavacca had set in initiating an Institute that, over the decades,
was particularly efficient and effective in the field of education and
pastoral care?
Our Founder, fr.Giuseppe Migliavacca, who later became p. Arsenio Maria
da Trigolo, Capuchin frair, began his journey with us in 1892, after
dictating a course of Spiritual Exercises to the group of young nuns
gathered in Turin, at Martinetto, by a former nun, Giuseppina Fumagalli
(Cassano d'Adda, 18/09/1848), expelled by a French Congregation and
landed in Italy in religious habit, with Nino and Albertina, two orphans
to maintain. She had thought that the best way to live was to engage the
young people, to dress as nuns and send them to the collection with the
excuse of orphans. Her strategy worked since 1885, with initial tacit
approval of Church authority, but in 1890 there was the first separation
of young people recruited that, under the protection and guidance of Don
Francesco Bono, established the Institute of the Suore del SS. Natale
(Sisters of SS. Christmas). Two years after the Fumagalli had
reconstituted a new group of "her sisters." This time the Archbishop of
Turin, Bishop David of Counts Riccardi, wanting to shed light on her
work, ordered to Fumagalli and sisters a retreat. For this she called in
Turin fr. Giuseppe Migliavacca, who had known as diocesan priest in
Cassano d'Adda and was contacted as Jesuit in Venice. He had gone to
Turin in 25 April 1892, he dictated the Exercises to the nuns and had
given respect to the Archbishop, suggesting to assign the group to the
guidance of a priest. The Archbishop, knowing that no one in the diocese
would accept this appointment, invited him to stay and take care of
them, otherwise, the next day, he dissolved the group.
Fr. Giuseppe Migliavacca, a Jesuit for 18 years and resigned in March,
against his will, by the Company, was used to read the events as the
Will of God be upon him, he decided in his heart that this "new way" was
what was supposed to take in obedience to the Church and he remained
with the nuns among which three were his spiritual daughters in Venice.
In humility and truth he poses himself near to the sisters by listening
to what the Spirit had already referred to as the "gift"
specifically entrusted to them: not just wait for their own
sanctification by divine grace, but with the same, to be employed by
each study to the good, the salvation and perfection of the neighbour,
waiting in obedience and love to the works of mercy, both spiritual and
corporal especially the neediest.
Deeply imbued with the spirit of St. Ignatius, fr. Giuseppe Migliavacca
transfused in the Constitutions and Rules of the nascent Institute,
which between December '82 and January '83 was able to break away from
Fumagalli, the Ignatian spirit as it was presented in the Rules of the
Company’s Summary. He educated them to accept any apostolic in the
obedience and to engage in it with "operating love” giving the best of
themselves, but taking as an aim to be, to live and work anywhere,
anytime "to the Greater Glory of God", in humility, charity and
simplicity.
At the Constitutions, the Founder added, accompanying the sisters in
their growth, the Rules of each sector, outlining the spiritual
thickness and style of the life of Sister of Mary of Consolation.
Expressions such as "women of upright heart and well done", "women
master of themselves, not wrathful or impetuous, but resting on great
sacrifice" that precede "by example," who "know correct, teach,
and do not be silent ... with firmness and gentleness", a spiritual
motherhood which requires "love, care, sacrifice, security, safety,
prevention" entered deeply into the heart of the Sisters of Maria
the Consoler, as an inheritance lived from him in the ten years in which
he has guided us with infinite patience, with paternal and maternal
heart together, knowing that only "with small continued steps you
have the great journey".
But the spiritual testament that today encourages us in the journey of
faith is contained in his last letters (4 as Founder, 4 as Capuchin
friar).
In the yellowed pages we read expressions dripping wisdom: "You try
to get courage, and pull straight; you win your character ounces to
ounces, but still you win, then courage: humility, charity, prayer, here
is a way to overcome you, and courage, never despondency”; "He knows
what is most convenient to our spiritual progress. He guides someone
through many lights, some with a few more: this let Him do it”; “ let us
work for Him. Let us offer to Him often between day and pray that he
make about us what is his greater glory. Let us trust in Him with all
peace and tranquility, pleasing that degree of perfection to which He
guides us. He does our best"; " ... think that without Jesus we can’t
anything and with Jesus we can all, all, for He is always ready to help
invoking Him was also the greatest sinner".
This precious heritage, together with the "Sum or purpose" that invites
us to become “People crucified to the world ... New people ...
stripped himself to be covered with the spirit of Jesus Christ ... "
have supported and support today even more, our "become transparent
of the merciful love which God lavishes upon us because we overflow on
the brothers".
What does this special moment mean for you?
Since 1982, the year in which we have had in our hands the renewed
Constitutions, soaked with his Teachings, fr. Arsenio, as now all call
him, went penetrate into our hearts with a light and a growing force.
Today we can draw more easily to his writings: sermons, statements,
speeches, but also notes drawn up for himself in his Spiritual
Exercises. Everything about him seems to us fresh, current, and is a
constant reminder to holiness in the wake of his steps toward an ever
more true assimilation to Christ.
The expectation that we are "forced" for over ten years from the closing
of the diocesan Investigation puts us in humility to recognize that, for
too long time, our Founder has been left in the shadows: a kind of
historic limbo when he was not well outlined and clarified, for the lack
of documentation on the various phases of his life. But at the same
time, and much more strongly, this expectation heightens in us the
desire to know more and more, to make us familiar with his earthly life
and the example he has left us, to walk in the life of faith and in the
ministry according to his Teachings.
What steps are involving individuals and communities?
The means of dissemination of our Founder’s knowledge is the monthly "Informativo
sul Servo di Dio p. Arsenio da Trigolo (Informative about the Servant of
God Fr. Arsenio da Trigolo)", started in 1995 and still in print in
about 9,000 copies. In recent years its circulation has been rapid in
Italy and abroad. The Capuchin Fathers of the Province of Lombardy, in
turn, have added in Internet a site dedicated to Father Arsenio, of
which today we can confirm that he has become a "saint" by the powerful
intercession especially for maternity risk resolved in beauty, family,
work, illness, spiritual problems. The first "special grace" notified in
our history, as well as the older ones certified by the nuns, was in
1928, and was witnessed in the diocesan Investigation by the same person
who received it. The Information is the medium that supports the prayers
of all, devout and religious communities: every night the sisters of all
communities gather in prayer for those who made the request, and invite
the devotees to join us.
We celebrated the centenary of the death of Fr. Arsenio, who
providentially fell in conjunction with the Pauline Year, reflecting,
through the Circular Letters on the "Spiritual Path with St. Paul and
Father Arsenio: Catechesis on Love" and pilgrimage to the places of his
life in the most salient anniversaries.
What were the most serious difficulties of the route?
The research documents to clarify many obscure points of his earthly
life. In this we were encouraged by the valuable contribution of a
Jesuit priest who, for some years followed the Congregation with
Spiritual Exercises and training courses. He, having easier access to
the archives of the Society, has finally bridged a gap long 18 years,
about the life of our Founder.
The search was long and detailed, because, as a former causes, and
lacking evidence visually, de visu, it was necessary to provide
indirect evidence but certain, sifting by Minutes, Journals of the
Houses, Catalogs ...
The Founder's life was defined by the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini,
in his opening speech of the diocesan Investigation in Milan (1998), as
"... an almost romantic life, a life that you imagine, where there
are always new pages, new events, new dramatic, traumatic turns ...",
where " there were humiliations, accusations of negligence, loss
of respect from his superiors, the output from the Society of Jesus, the
measure of Blessed Cardinal Ferrari, and then, in the end, the choice of
a life of obscurity and maceration, of prayer and harsh penance" the
Capuchins.
The holiness of Father Arsenio is defined “by his ability to be with
God in secret ... the silence maintained throughout the life of what had
happened to him"
How lay persons who, in your institution, in fidelity to the Church's
path, are very valued, are they encouraged to effective and affective
participation?
It is well established custom to celebrate the memory of father Arsenio
December 10, with a solemn celebration in the church of the Mother House
in Milan, Via Melchiorre Gioia, where his mortal remains are, as well as
in all our apostolic reality. All, parents, pupils, teachers,
parishioners, friends and guests, all are participating.
On other occasions pilgrimages to the tomb are organized, but it is
common to see individuals praying and writing, on the book made
available, a request, a thanks, a praise.
Today we can say that the laity our employees know the life of Father
Arsenio too. In Côte d'Ivoire, at the Novitiate and the Sanctuary of
Mary the Consoler, it consists of a group of people who have asked and
decided to live our spirituality, giving itself the name "Levain
d'Afrique" (Yeast of Africa).
Your presence abroad is particularly significant in countries in Africa
and in Brazil. What does this presence for your Institution?
The mission ad gentes in our Institute has experienced many
hardships: it was opened in 1936 in China, in the region of Honan in
Kaifeng, but ended with the red revolution, the same fate has had the
mission in Libya, opened in 1939 and closed in 1970 under the coup
d’état of that year. It is taken again in 1977 with a first group of
missionaries sent in Côte d'Ivoire, in Guiglo in the Diocese of Man.
From the Ivory Coast it has also passed to the Burkina Faso and is now
well established the Province of Africa with its novitiate. Since 1993,
we have a community in Brazil, Foz do Iguaçu, which works closely with
the Sons of the Inmaculated, of Father Monti, there was established the
Civil Society "Nossa Senhora Aparecida" for a project of integral human
formation in favor of children and adolescents in the favelas and a
health center that provides various services.
In our institute, which in Italy is suffering from a lack of new
vocations, he knows that the expansion of the charism in other lands is
a gift of the Spirit and rejoices, enriched with new aspects of
unexpected "operating love".
 October
11th will be publicly and officially started the year of faith
proclaimed by Benedict XVI with the motu proprio THE DOOR OF FAITH. "Go
through that door – the pope wrote - involves entering in a journey
that lasts a lifetime." Pease, tell us a 'word' that serves not only
to your institution, but to the whole religious life in Italy and
beyond?
"Lord, I believe, but increase my faith!" is the prayer that comes
spontaneously at the beginning of the Year of Faith. I believe, we
believe because we have put in our being, heart, mind, emotions, the
seal of the Father, which makes us "sons" in his Son, Jesus Christ.
Faith is a dip in the immensity of the Trinity, circulating whirling in
Love, that makes of the Father and the Son a unity.
In this vortex of love there is room only for the joy and fullness of
life. Free faith has been given to us, free we were met by the
Crucified and Risen Christ. We lived and redeemed by His precious blood,
made new by his death and resurrection.
Now we are caretakers and lovers, responsible to let the faith sprouting
in us and grows to its fullness so as to become in us a source that
fills all proportion "basin" who we are and it overflows in loving
service to others.
We have before us a year in which, with the patience of the farmer of
the gospel, we can dig all around our hearts and our lives, to make room
for grace, so it will be made more fruitful and more lush the tree from
which the Lord Jesus can seize "fruits of faith."
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