One of the finest moments of the novitiate that always leaves me a sweet and welcome taste is coffee after lunch with the whole community. It is a simple gesture full of meanings, which brings true joy to the heart.
It’s still exiting to remember the first coffee we had one year ago, October the second. it was wonderful. I was so astonished, I’ll never forget it. I realized that a cup of coffee is the result of a long process of work full of personal and community patience. This first year of novitiate just ended seems to me like an afternoon coffee that leave me so many deep experiences and help to me grow along my path more happily, in the pilgrimage of life.

By observing and learning with practice, I realized that a coffee should have three qualities to be very good: “boiling”, “sitting” and “for free”.
So also for me, this year has been a boiling time. It let me focus on the deeper experiences from Spiritual Exercises to the Ignatian pilgrimage and the challenge of everyday life.It is very important that the coffee maker is set low on fire, the process has to be slow in accordance to the best practice, so that it can come out rich in beauty, perfume and flavor. Finally these experiences lived in me without hesitation, calm and ready for do my best as a Italian boiling coffee maker.

The second quality is “sitting”. This year I slowly stopped my habits, my personal programs, my previous activities and I start to enjoy the gifts that God gives me every day, the sharing of my work to the community, the joy that comes from one trusting look at a warming embrace.

Last but not list the third quality: “for free”. The best coffee has to be free, prepared by a heart full of love and gratuity. Yes, it is a love that show itself as a coffee maker that never burn the grinded coffee. The gratuity of Jesus this year was invaluable, because I realized that it was not a cheap gratuity, but a gratuity that has a price, the price of the cross.

The second year of novitiate is already going on and the working process for the best coffee of my life – which is the magis of my life – is continuing this year.