Unity in diversity

06 Dec 2019

#community, #friendship

Beginning with the phrase „unity in diversity”, with which I want to intitle this article, I would like to describe our daily life here, at „Villa San Ignazio” in Genova.

It may seem impossible that people from so different cultural backgrounds might have a common horizon. We come from six different cultures: Italians, Hungarians, Danes, Malteez, Romanians and together we have a common purpose: to know Him and to live together with the Savior. He is our common horizon, who is the center that determines the balance in our community, whose coming on earth we will celebrate soon, when it is Christmas.

The novitiate is a time when we can get to know each other, observe the values that each person has received from the good Lord, put them together to form a community and at the same time get to know ourselves, working on our spiritual and cultural growth and listen to the voice of the Creator who invited each of us to that. Our day begins with the community liturgy preceded by a moment of personal prayer, but of course accompanied by others daily community prayers. Studies are not missing in our novitiate life and are one of the tools that will always be helpful in the commitments that we will then take and which are not missing from the life of a Jesuit. All these are accompanied by moments of entertainment, moments spent together as sports, movie evenings, games and one special day called „giovedì di villa” which is dedicated especially to visiting different places of the city and its surroundings, or to mountain walks or even a relaxing day on the beach when time permits. It is also worth mentioning that we are very connected with the life of people around us, especially the young people, so that each of us works in a diverse group such as MEG, SCOUTS, parish groups or others, doing an apostolate activity.

Jesus being the pole that offers the balance and whose greatness encompasses all the diversity generates the unity betwen us. With this confidence that he is in our midst, we continue to move on.

Raul P. Ciocani, novice of the first year

Sullo stesso argomento

Praise as the day decline

by Gianluca Severin

As evening falls, if we are not attending the apostolate, we gather to celebrate Vespers, the evening prayer of the Christian community.

We pray for our families, for our friends, for our confreres, for the people we meet on our journey so that the memory keeps our affection alive. We pray with our community, with our confreres everywhere in the world, with those in joy and with those in difficulty. We pray with those who pray alone, with those who, in the solitude and silence of a crowded and chaotic world, whisper the words of their heart. We pray with those who do not know how to pray, with those who cannot find the words, with those who fear opening their souls, with those who fear that their cry will fall on deaf ears or that it will be received with judgment and condemnation. We pray with those who do not pray, with those who do not feel like it, with those who do not have time, with those who do not find something to thank or to plead for, nor hope that someone will listen to their gratitude or plea.

Our prayer blends with the thousand voices of the human family, with the praises and pleas, joys and sorrows, anger and peace, desires and fears that animate the hearts of men.

In praying we use words that Christ, that prophets and saints, that common people used before us, uniting ours to their voice, their feeling, their living, their meeting the Lord; in praying we perceive the echo of everyone’s voices in ours, and ours resound in those of Christ and those of Christ in us.

The prayer of each one merges and intertwines with the prayer of all; in the psalms, canticles and hymns, I find the words to express the stirrings of heart that I share with that psalmist trusting in God of thousands of years ago. I am not the only to seek, I am not the only to feel, I am not the only to love: the words of others, of the ancient ones, of the distant ones, remind me that I am not alone. That image, that expression, that experience give shape and light to my inner life.

In praying I infuse in ancient words the very current and concrete meaning of my life, that unique beat of my heart. In those words I tell my life, I read my past, I see traces for my future. Just as a thousand sparks spring from the same flint, a thousand lives ignite from the same Word.

The whole life, with its succession of days and nights, of actions and thoughts, of words and silences, with praise for the beauty of life, with respect for the mystery of truth of every creature and person, with loving service to God and to men is prayer, sacred and precious.

As evening falls, in communion with all men and women, we gather to celebrate the prayer of God’s people.