Interview with Umberta Parodi, teacher of ancient Greek

19 Dec 2020

#Jesuits, #journey, studies

Once a week we have a lesson in ancient Greek. For more than 10 years Professor Umberta Parodi has been teaching novices and thus has the opportunity to get to know the new generations of Jesuits. Here is an interview to get to know her better.

It is not only in the novitiate that you have met the Society of Jesus, but you have been influenced by meeting various Jesuits in your life. Can you tell us a little about how they have left an impact on you?
The first Jesuit I met was Fr Giuseppe Carena, who was in charge of the so-called ‘mass of the poor’ at San Marcellino. I was a volunteer there from 1970 onwards and met Alberto Remondini, who later joined the Society. Together we ran an after-school centre for children in the old town, which over time became a social service cooperative, the Cesto.
Fr Maurizio Costa, rector of the Arecco Institute, was my husband’s and my spiritual director, and prepared us for marriage. He also followed us afterwards. Then there is Fr Biagio Spessa, who was a very good friend of my husband, and was very close to our family. He was a teacher at Arecco, very intelligent, but also very humble.

Is there one thing that characterises the novices you have met over the years?
The attitude of searching is common to all those I have met. They have come here in search of the right path, and they have been left free to leave if their path was elsewhere. It is also good to see that space is left for their very different personalities.

In the lessons we not only learn the grammar and etymology of various words, but together we also read the Gospel passage for the following Sunday. What is your relationship with the Gospel and has it changed in any way over the years?
When I was a girl I read the Gospels with a Franciscan friar, so I have been reading the Gospel for many years. But it was only when I started teaching here in the novitiate that I began to delve deeper into the language, which allows me to discover remarkable spiritual horizons. In fact, I could do this for every Sunday, but I only do it when I prepare my lessons, because the journey of faith is a journey of community. That is what I have discovered here. So I hope every year that the novice master will confirm me for the following year.

Can you share with us a desolation you have received recently?
A daughter of a friend recently died of cancer at only 40 years of age, but she had not shared with her family the fact that she was ill, and this was a great sorrow.

Can you share with us a consolation you have received in this recent time?
That there is room for encounter with others and with God when we put ourselves in an attitude of welcome.

2020-12-19

Sullo stesso argomento

“Blessed is he who finds his strength in you and decides on the holy journey in his heart” (Ps 83:6)

by Daniele Angiuli

Every pilgrim who leaves his home, his affections, to embark on a journey, brings with him contrasting emotions: on the one hand the joy of setting out, of encountering places of unprecedented beauty and new gazes to meet; on the other hand, homesickness for what he leaves behind, for the people he is separating from, knowing, however, that love goes far beyond geographical distances. Above all, he is animated by the desire to be ‘enriched’ along the way, not so much by souvenirs as by encounters capable of transforming him, of ‘letting himself be made’ by the journey rather than ‘making’ the journey.

I believe that similar sentiments animated the men and women of whom the Gospel tells us who, leaving occupations, relationships, set out to follow the Rabbi of Nazareth, who taught from an ‘itinerant chair’ and fascinated many with the strength of his gaze and gestures… Among the many names there is Peter, called from the Sea of Galilee to the sea of humanity; Matthew, invited to turn his gaze towards a Love without measure; Mary of Magdala, liberated by Love and called to be an Apostle of the Resurrection.

But among these names are also ours, today: Jacopo, Paolo, Andras, Gabor, Soheil, Paolo, Daniele, young people with dreams in their hearts, characterised by fragility and strengths. From 1 October, we started a journey in the novitiate community in Genoa, to enter into a more intimate relationship with the Lord, to get to know ourselves better and the lifestyle that makes us happy and makes others happy.

Each of us left a part of ourselves, attracted by a Sight and moved by the desire for a full life, in order to be ‘men all the way, or rather all the way to the top’, as Don Tonino Bello used to say. We certainly have some fears about the future that awaits us, but we trust in the One who becomes our travelling Companion who, like with the disciples of Emmaus, listens to our worries, welcomes our defeats, and rekindles hope.

A month ago, on 16 October 2023, we entered our second probation, a favourable time to go deep into the Word of God, into the writings of our Founding Father St. Ignatius, through prayer life, study, fraternal life.

The possibility of having a day punctuated by precise times, places in which we can contemplate the beauty of creation, adult people in the faith to talk with, companions on whom we can rely, is indeed a great gift from God that we hope to cherish and make bear fruit.

But your name too, dear reader, is called with love by the Master: he does not ask us to be perfect in order to leave, but the desire to dare and the will to entrust ourselves to Him, just as we allow ourselves to be moulded by Him. For us and for you, “homo viator”, the wish dear to the Scout world: “Good path!