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JANUARY 2008 YEAR IX • N° 95 SPECIAL NUMBER Dziekuje! 1 Magdalene’s dream… … called by the CavanIs’ brothers to Venice in 1811 1808…the first girls arrive at the St. Joseph’s Retreat - Verona She will return in 1812 for the foundation “…finally my dear Carolina, I write from VENICE, where i have been…for nearly one and a half months and I do not know for how much longer”. (Ep. I, p.364) “…on my part and that of the transactions that I have at hand, if it pleases the Lord, I will be able to leave for MILAN in ten or twelve days. (Ep.I p.451) - 1816 “…I am just writing few lines, Mr. Zaverio, to tell you more when I will meet you… I think to come to BERGAMO, within next week or in two weeks time, the first days of the week .” (Ep. II/I p.401-402) - 1820 “…You are abaut to set off and so am I; on Monday, if it pleases the Lord, I will leave for TRENT together with the good Rosmini … Be informed that His Majesty, our august Sovereign, has deigned to grant me the al- ready said structure”. (Ep. I, p.535) -1824 2 3 “I must confess to you that my patience is at risk, but the idea of having to aban- don my San Zeno makes me stand firm, because if we lose these pre mises, there will no longer be any hope of settling in this poor district where there are no appropriate houses, A Story and it is a question of abandoning five or six hundred wretched little girls. You have seen a sample spanning Two of them and I would like to take them all in, over time….. May Our Lord bless you Hundred Years with a happy, holy Christmas season, make you holy, and make you ever more His own in the new year, I heartily wish this for you”. (Magdalene of Canossa to Caroline Right from the start, she was surprisingly clear about Durini, Verona, December 1807) the objectives to be pursued but she continuously had to seek ways of achieving them. Thus wrote St. Magdalene of Canossa Between 1799 and 1831, she drew up and two hundred years ago, while the negotiations to re-worked her Plan for the Institute. It was a con- buy the monastery of Sts Joseph and Fidentius tinuous encounter both with reality and with the were under way. routes that were viable and one that enriched her She wanted to transfer the few orphans project with each redrafting, particularly in relation she had gathered off the street right from the be- to the ministries of charity and their implementation. ginning of the nineteenth century to that open and But let us not forget that, in those days, a airy atmosphere: there she wanted to bring to- female Congregation that was not enclosed was gether many other little day-girls in order to educate still to be invented: hers was the first to be formed them and prepare them for life. in Italy, during a period in which the Church rec- Her uncertainty about how the situation was ognised only the life in monasteries and convents developing and her intense desire for a long- as an authentically religious life. Sisters living an wanted landing place filter through the words active or mixed life would have to wait until Leo th quoted. This was the way in which the Canossian XIII’s Constitution Conditae a Cristo of 8 De- Institute’s official beginning on 8th May 1808 and cember 1900 (i.e. nearly one hundred years) in or- its passage from the preparatory phase to the der to be fully recognised as religious. real story was heralded. Furthermore, Magdalene had to set up an institution that was socially useful and totally new We now prepare to celebrate the bicen- whilst nevertheless presenting it as the restoration of tenary of that day with feelings of great grati- an pre-existing one that had been suppressed; tude towards God, from Whom all good things otherwise, neither the Napoleonic regime nor the come, the Blessed Virgin, Foundress and Mother Austrian one would have granted her the authorisa- of the Institute and St. Magdalene of Canossa, tion to proceed. She therefore set herself to look whose courage in getting it started was heroic. for the Rules of St. Vincent’s Daughters of Charity But, in the meantime, we ask ourselves, “Was it a i.e. those very few French nuns who had managed birth or rather the beginning of a long gestation that to remain outside the cloister in order to serve the would gradually give the female Congregation a poor; in this way she would be able to show that precise identity and physiognomy?” any innovations she introduced were only due to If we are to understand the importance of Magda- necessary adaptations to environment. lene of Canossa’s innovation, we should sometimes And here we must gratefully recognise the put ourselves in her shoes and take ourselves back beneficial complicity of the Bishop of Verona, the to her times. Patriarch of Venice and the Archbishop of Milan who, during the procedures relating to canonical Through intense prayer and the enlightened foundation, supported this fictio juris (i.e. the presen- guidance of Don Libera she had, by this stage, tation of Canossa’s institute as the re-composition of understood her personal vocation but she still St Vincent’s work) when dealing with the government had to realise that of Foundress. authorities. 4 There were other paradoxical aspects of that diffi- several months in Venice between 1810 and cult beginning, however. 1812, offering and receiving help in a truly profit- Canon Pacetti watched over both Magda- able interactive dialogue in an environment that lene of Canossa and was better suited to composing her symphony and Leopol-dina Naudet where, amongst other things, she tested out her sys- with real solicitude tem for training teachers. And so the first Canos- and had sent both sian community with perpetual and constantly Foundresses, with exercised ministries was born in Venice, the fruit of their respective Magdalene’s mystical experiences as harmonised groups, to the “St. Jo- with those of Elizabeth Mezzaroli. seph Retreat” to- We will stop here, as far as details are concerned. gether. It is not an Otherwise, we could go on forever and always have established fact, but the impression of being at a new beginning. In- we cannot exclude stead, let us now examine the possibility that he was hypothesising their merger how the History of the Insti- in the future. The two institutions’ communal life tute has been structured lasted a good eight years (from 1808 to 1816) and what stage its writing and this fact certainly led to not inconsiderable has reached. advantages. The work’s general title is We cannot ignore Leopoldina Naudet’s well- “I duecento anni della established experience of religious life. She was not Famiglia religiosa canos- in the early stages but, rather, the final phase of her siana. Figlie della Carità, peregrinations and, in a peaceful and harmonious Serve dei Poveri, a servi- environment, was finally able to prepare for estab- zio della Chiesa e del lishing her own order definitively. mondo intero” (“Two Hun- Magdalene of Canossa showed humility dred Years of the Canos- but also wisdom when she assigned the duty of sian Religious Family). House Superior to her and appointed her to lead Daughters of Charity and Servants of the Poor the spiritual encounters, retreats and the forma- serving the Church and the Whole World”. tion of the aspirants. Not only was Naudet a great The material to be covered was very wide- help but so were her companions, well-educated ranging and complex. In an effort to reconcile a and well-prepared as they were. Sofia Gagnère, for chronological order with the need for a logical con- example, had a particular charism for preparing tinuity of treatment, I decided to tackle these two children for First Holy Communion; furthermore, she centuries of Canossian history in three “takes”, corre- made use of her knowledge of medicine to help sponding to the work’s three parts. the poor and needy. The first volume (or tome, if you like) exam- Although it was not a specific characteris- ines The Institute’s Basic Components as They tic of their vocation, Naudet and her companions have Evolved embraced the cause of those who are last during *Above all, the Institute of the Daughters of their stay at St. Joseph’s, adopting the criteria of Charity has a charism and this is, of itself, a vital and putting the most wretched first in every choice dynamic reality. But part the Holy Spirit’s dynamism they made. Thus they contributed considerably to is to be aware of itself. The Rule of Life has a gene- the organisation of community and apostolic life. sis and development both as a whole and as e-r Furthermore, they helped Canossa with a first, albeit gards individual parts of its contents: prayer life, incomplete, draft of the Holy Rule. consecration and fraternal life in the community. It was in this area, however, that the differ- It also evolves in its forms of first and permanent for- ences came to the surface because Leopoldina mation. was decidedly in favour of the enclosed life and *Consecration exists in order to carry out was supported in this by St. Ga-spare Bertoni. On the mission. Thus opens the wide-ranging chapter the other hand, the official thinking of the Church on the charitable ministries.