PBMNYC

The Number 1 Question

When are you coming home?
Well, I have been waiting to hear what my next assignment will be. And the other day I received a phone call from one of the sisters who is on our provincial council. "I have good news for you!" she said, and I immediately knew that she would be telling me about my new assignment.
I leave Italy on June 11 and will arrive in Boston, where our headquarters is for the United States and where I have been stationed from August 1997 until coming here to Italy last May. I will be leaving for our book center community in Charleston, South Carolina on June 13. From the airport, I will go right away to Atlanta, Georgia, where we will be exhibiting at a convention which has over 20,000 people registered. So, I will be diving head first into my new assignment. I will be assisting another sister in the community with our outreach activities such as going to parishes and schools with book displays and helping out in our book center. This is the aspect of our ministry that I love the most, so I am looking forward to experiencing life in another area of the Lord's vineyard! And who knows, maybe I'll continue my blog there....

Sunday, May 21, 2006:
Today, a few of us joined some Sister Disciples of the Divine Master and their lay collaborators for a tour and Mass at Monte Cassino. It has been one of my dreams to go there, and I was not disappointed. Our guide was wonderful, the weather was perfect, part of the Mass was in English, what more could I ask for? During the Mass, I was really moved at the thought of how many people have lived or passed through Monte Cassino in the 1,500 years of its existence.... To now be part of that number is truly a blessing.

Located near Monte Cassino is a cemetery in which over 1,000 Polish soldiers who died in World War II are buried. After the bombardment of Monte Cassino, these Polish soldiers tried to occupy the mountain on which the remains of what had been Monte Cassino stood. Only 80 German soldiers defended the Mountain. After visiting Monte Cassino, the reality of the heights of holiness which we are capable of and the depths of horror could not have been more pronounced.  

Thursday, May 18, 2006: the fateful day has come. Our timekeeper, Sr. Mildred, doesn't look all that disappointed.... Yes, I can't believe it, but our last day of classes has come. It seems like yesterday that we arrived for our first day of classes. Now, our classes are over and we have a week to finalize our final project and oral presentation. 

We, Daughters of St. Paul, came prepared for the Philippino traditional dance Tinikling. Believe it or not, we have bamboo growing on our property. So, the green poles you see are actually Roman bamboo! As you can see, it took some of us a while to warm up to the possibility of getting our feet caught and...  

See what I mean? 

Sr. Yaneth from Columbia and Br. Luis from Chile provided the finale! And on that note, our last day of classes officially condluded. 

Friday, May 12, 2006:
Today those of us in the Charism Course visited the fifth and final Generalate, that of the Society of St. Paul, the only male branch of the Pauline Family. Here greeting one of the students is Fr. Silvio Sassi, the Superior General. Behind him, to his right is the Vicar General, Fr. Joseph, from India. The building you see in the background, part of the Generalate is covered in scaffolding because it is undergoing renovations.

One of the treats of our visit to the Generalte of the Society of St. Paul is that it is on the same grounds as the office and bedroom that our Founder used while he was in Rome from 1936-1971. Coun't help but get a momento of being in this holy place. 

Here is another shot of our Founder's room with another student from the Charism course, Fr. Antonio Valadez from Mexico. As you can see from the clock on the wall, time has literally stood still in this room from the moment our founder died.

And as always, the finale, our group photo! 

May 2, 2006: We visited the office of Mother Thecla today! Here is a view of her desk. 

I just finished signing my name in the guest register! 

Friday, April 28:
Today we visited the Generalate of the Queen of Apostles Sisters is located in the town of Castel Gondolfo, not far from the Pope's summer residence. On a clear day, you can see the ocean from here. But we were not so fortunate....

This is the very first house that the Queen of Apostles sisters owned. Eventually, they hope to improve its condition, but they are waiting for "Divine Providence" to send them the needed funds.... 

The two sisters in the middle that are pictured here are Queen of Apostles Sisters. Sr. Maddalena, the sister on the left, is one of the first sisters that joined this community; the sister on the right, Sr. Franca, is their present Superior General. This community was the last of the feminine communities that Bl. James Alberione founded (1959). Their apostolate is educating Catholics about every type of vocation within the Church and helping individuals discern the vocation to which they are called. When we asked them what their major challenge is, they said that it is the misunderstanding that many people have in the Church that a "vocation" is reserved to priests and religious, rather than a reality that every Christian participates in.  

This is one of the panels that surrounded us in the room which the sisters use when they go to vocational conventions. It kind of gives you a taste of the type of ministry that the Sisters of the Queen of Apostles perform....

Thursday, April 27:
Today we visited the Generalate of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. This community was the third feminine community founded by Bl. James Alberione in 1938. Their apostolate is communicating the Good News through direct contact with people in parishes, working directly with priests in their ministry. Sr. Martha (seated on the right), the Superior General of the community, shared with us the journey that the Sisters of the Good Shepherd are presently. Sr. Puri, from the Philippines, is a General Councilor. She also gifted us with her talent for music. The sisters sang four songs for us, one each in Italian, Portughese, English and Spanish.

Here, Sr. Mary Luz shared with us an animation program that she has prepared on the book of the Acts of the Apostles for their sisters ongoing formation. Seated next to her is the Vicar General of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, but I did not catch her name.... 

And of course, the group shot. 

Sunday, April 23: time to head back to Rome. But not without one last stop. On the way back we headed through Umbria so as to pay a visit to Orvieto. The cathedral in Orvieto, like many in Italy, is breathtaking. 

Amazing, isn't it? 

The front of the cathedral of Orvieto is an artistic representation of the Old and New Testaments. The bass relief was incredible to look at. 

The Cathedral in Orvieto houses a relic that dates back to the 14th century. A priest from the modern day Czech Republic was traveling in the area and had doubts about the real presence. During a Mass that he was saying in Bolsena, not far from Orvieto, he asked our Lord to give him some sign of His presence. After having consecrated the bread, when the priest broke the Eucharist, it started to blead on the corporal.
Sorry I couldn't get a better picture. But like all cathedrals over here, the lighting is horrible. This is the reliquary that contains the corporal on which the Eucharist bled. I was blessed to have the opportunity of remaining in this chapel for about 30 minutes. It was an incredible experience.

I was able to get a pretty good shot of one of the few remaining frescoes. 

After visiting the Cathedral, I joined two others in the group for a stroll through the midieval town. You can get an idea of how narrow the streets are by this picture. This poor drive had to keep reversing in order to maneuver through the streets. I had to admit it was a bit humerous watching.... 

Saturday, April 22: Susa.
This day is a little out of order. We first traveled to Castagnito, which follows these pictures of Susa. After spending a few hours in Castagnito, we traveled to Susa which is a town nestled at the bottom of the Alps. We were blessed with incredible sites of the still snow-covered Alps as we traveled.
Why Susa? Susa is the town in which the very first group of young women who would eventually become Daughters of St. Paul were sent by our Founder, Blessed James Alberione at the invitation of the diocesan Bishop of Susa, to revive a defunct diocesan newspaper, called the Valsusa. Mother Thecla, who was still Teresa Merlo at that time (1918) and a group of about 5 other young women traveled by train to Susa. Pictured here is the steeple of the cathedral which was built at the turn of the first millennium.... You might be able to make out the sun dial which is just under the middle of the tower.
Susa became a Roman territory about 90 BC and was occupied by a Celtic tribe at the time. Ruins that have been studied by archeologists believe that the territory had already been occupied by about 800 BC. They are still discovering ruins in the area. Just outside of the Cathedral, in preparation for the olympics held in Turin (Susa is not far from Turin), they were repaving the road when they literally "hit" upon some ruins. Everything stopped and now they are excavating the site. It seems that it was an ancient Roman temple. Therefore, the Christians would have built the cathedral very near, if not directly on top of the former Roman temple. Time will tell....

This is one of the three remaining entrances that dates back to Roman times that enters the town of Susa.  

This was our sisters' home while they stayed in Susa from 1918 to 1923. It was in this town that this group of women, who were not sisters yet, started to be called "Daughters of St. Paul" by the townspeople. Obviously the name stuck! So, like the Christians in Antioch who were called Christians by people who needed to refer to them, we received the name of our congregation from the people who observed the young womens' devotion to St. Paul (they had placed a picture of him in window of the little bookshop that they had opened next to the print shop).  

This is the area where our sisters worked on the "Valsusa", the local diocesan newspaper for the Diocese of Susa. Two weeks after they arrived, they had successfully published the first issue, and none of them had every printed or published anything before. What faith! 

Saturday morning found us in Castagnito which is not that far from Alba. Castagnito is special to all of the communities of the Pauline Family because Mother Thecla Merlo, the first Superior General of the Daughters of St. Paul, the first feminine community founded by Blessed James Alberione, was born here in 1894 and lived here until she joined Fr. Alberione and the first group of women that would eventually become the Daughters of St. Paul in 1915. She is special to all the other communities because of her maternal presence to all members of the Pauline Family, not only Daughters of St. Paul. 

For those of you who may have never seen a picture of Mother Thecla or Fr. Alberione, here is a picture of both of them together. 

We celebrated Mass together in one of the rooms of the house where Mother Thecla grew up that we have converted into a chapel. Underneath the altar is a yoke that Mother Thecla's father carved. The verse that inspired Fr. Alberione when he was a 16-year-old seminarian, was Matthew 11:28: Come to me all of you. Included in this passage is the invitation from Jesus that we take his yoke upon our shoulders and learn from him. So, this symbol is not a reminder to be grateful to the parents of Mother Thecla who prepared her for the life that God would call her too, but it is also a powerful charismatic symbol for us Paulines. 

Here is a picture of myself and Mother Thecla's niece who is a Daughter of St. Paul and whose name is Sr. Thecla.... Behind us you can see the fireplace where Mother Thecla probably helped her mother prepare meals as wlel as an iron.... 

This is the actual sewing machine the Mother Thecla used. Before joining Fr. Alberione and the other first young women who eventually became the Daughters of St. Paul, she was a seamstress and taught other young women in her home. 

This is a tablecloth that Mother Thecla had embroidered for her trousseau.