THE WORLD DAY OF PRAYER FOR CREATION
1 September 2017
The story of creation presents us with a panoramic view of the world. Scripture reveals that, “in the beginning”, God intended humanity to cooperate in the preservation and protection of the natural environment. At first, as we read in Genesis, “no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up – for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground” (2:5). The earth was entrusted to us as a sublime gift and legacy, for which all of us share responsibility until, “in the end”, all things in heaven and on earth will be restored in Christ (cf. Eph 1:10). Our human dignity and welfare are deeply connected to our care for the whole of creation.
However, “in the meantime”, the history of the world presents a very different context. It reveals a morally decaying scenario where our attitude and behaviour towards creation obscures our calling as God’s co-operators. Our propensity to interrupt the world’s delicate and balanced ecosystems, our insatiable desire to manipulate and control the planet’s limited resources, and our greed for limitless profit in markets – all these have alienated us from the original purpose of creation. We no longer respect nature as a shared gift; instead, we regard it as a private possession. We no longer associate with nature in order to sustain it; instead, we lord over it to support our own constructs.
The consequences of this alternative worldview are tragic and lasting. The human environment and the natural environment are deteriorating together, and this deterioration of the planet weighs upon the most vulnerable of its people. The impact of climate change affects, first and foremost, those who live in poverty in every corner of the globe. Our obligation to use the earth’s goods responsibly implies the recognition of and respect for all people and all living creatures. The urgent call and challenge to care for creation are an invitation for all of humanity to work towards sustainable and integral development.
Therefore, united by the same concern for God’s creation and acknowledging the earth as a shared good, we fervently invite all people of goodwill to dedicate a time of prayer for the environment on 1 September. On this occasion, we wish to offer thanks to the loving Creator for the noble gift of creation and to pledge commitment to its care and preservation for the sake of future generations. After all, we know that we labour in vain if the Lord is not by our side (cf. Ps 126-127), if prayer is not at the centre of our reflection and celebration. Indeed, an objective of our prayer is to change the way we perceive the world in order to change the way we relate to the world. The goal of our promise is to be courageous in embracing greater simplicity and solidarity in our lives.
We urgently appeal to those in positions of social and economic, as well as political and cultural, responsibility to hear the cry of the earth and to attend to the needs of the marginalized, but above all to respond to the plea of millions and support the consensus of the world for the healing of our wounded creation. We are convinced that there can be no sincere and enduring resolution to the challenge of the ecological crisis and climate change unless the response is concerted and collective, unless the responsibility is shared and accountable, unless we give priority to solidarity and service.
From the Vatican and from the Phanar, 1 September 2017
Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
THE PROVINCE OF BURKINA FASO
Friday 8 September will be a day of celebration for the Camillian Province of Burkina Faso. Starting at 9.00 at the St. Camillus Parish of Ouagadougou, the following will be celebrated:
The perpetual professions of Nestor Badolo and Martinien Sidnoomwend Tapsoba.
The temporary professions of Michel Coulibaly, Kiswendsida Emmanuel Ouedrago, Bidossèssi Dieu-Donne Eyiey, Songbamba Géoffroy Sawadogo and Sylvestre Kazienga.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the religious consecrations of Fr. Jean Dieudonné Bei and Paul Ouedraogo.
THE PROVINCE OF BRAZIL
We here share some photographs of the week of ongoing formation organised by the Province of Brazil: there were eighty-eight participants, amongst whom three Camillian men religious, Daughters of St. Camillus and women Ministers of the Sick of St. Camillus. The subject of this year was on the Marian year that has been celebrated this year to mark the eight hundredth anniversary of the apparition of Nostra Senhora Aparecida. The speaker was the Benedictine Fr. Rafael Monge.
Photographs of celebrations of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the priestly ordination of Fr. José Patrício Souza.
THE DELEGATION OF TAIWAN
JULY: On 22 July there was a great celebration of the priestly ordination of two Vietnamese Camillian religious who have lived and studied in Taiwan for over ten years: Paolo Chen and Giuseppe Van. Fr. Rocco Pairat Sriprasert, the new Provincial Superior of Thailand, and Fr. Joseph Tran Van Phat, the Delegate of Vietnam and the chargé d’affaires of the apostolic nunciature of Taipei, together with relatives and friends of the two new priests, also took part in the celebrations. The Archbishop of Taipei, Msgr. John Hung Shan-Chuan, presided over the celebration.
AUGUST: On 15 August, the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, the Archbishop of Taipei appointed the new parish priests of the churches entrusted to the ministerial care of the Camillians, after they had been designated by their respective parish pastoral councils. Their mandates will be for three years.
Fr. Felice Chech will be replaced by Fr. Giovanni Rizzi who from 1 September will also become the Superior of the community of the Sacred Heart (Lotung); Fr. Matteo Kao will take over the ministry of Fr. Didonè Giuseppe.
THE PROVINCE OF THE PHILIPPINES
We here share the pictures of the celebration of the perpetual profession of our confrere Anthony Abrin Ongcal.
THE DELEGATION IN MADAGASCAR
To celebrate the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, the pilgrims from the city of Fianarantsoa – the capital of the country – and the surrounding villages of Ilena agreed to meet in the morning of the square of the church of Ilena to begin the Via crucis which went on to the Tower of Our Lady Salus Infirmorum. When they got to the top of the hill, after about two hour’s walk, the three priests who were present made clear that they were ready to celebrate the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation at the celebration of the Eucharist at midday.
Here are some photographs of this event.
CADIS (Rome) 2017
THE ‘HELP BIHAR – INDIA’ APPEAL
A campaign against water-borne diseases in the communities afflicted by flooding in four districts of Bihar in India (West Chamaparan, Sitamarhi, Muzafaurpur and Darbhanga) of the CAMILLIAN TASK FORCE (CTF) and CARITAS India
Health-care camps– flooding in the State of Bihar (India).
Dear friends, some States of India have been struck by flooding which has led to grave loss of human life and left entire populations in a state of great need.
The States most afflicted are Bihar, Assam and Uttar Pradesh. The situation of flooding in West Bengal and Assam is gradually getting better. The main rivers have broken their banks, new areas have been flooded, and this created thousands of displaced persons last weekend, washing away hundreds of huts, poor buildings, roads and bridges, generating at the same time incalculable damage.
At the present time all the main rivers are gradually returning to normal. The water level in all of the main rivers is going down and the floods are gradually getting better in Bihar. The local populations have been forced to flee their homes, finding shelter on high ground and school buildings and embankments. The number of deaths caused by the flooding in Bihar has risen to 514; the emergency has affected 1.7 million people in 21 districts of the State according to the initial estimates of the Department for Disaster Management.
Aware of the situation and the terrible living conditions of the poor people of Bihar, the Camillian Task Force (CTF), together with Caritas India, is immediately ready to respond to this disaster through the organization of medical aid camps in those areas of Bihar that have been most afflicted. We are planning to send our CTF medical aid team to Bihar on 4 September 2017.
CADIS – ANNUAL FORMATION MEETING (Bangkok, 5-15 November 2017)
The fourth annual conference on leadership of the Camillian Disaster International Service (CADIS) Foundation will be held on 5-15 November 2017 at the Camillian Pastoral Care Centre of Bangkok, Thailand. The subject of the meeting of this year for the coordinators and project managers of CAADIS will be ‘Reaffirming our Vision and Strengthening our Strategies for the Reconstruction of Resilient Communities’. During this conference the following topics will be addressed: 1) the management of the project cycle; 2) the drawing up of a proposal for a project; 3) the leadership of servants; and 4) the intermediate assessment of the CADIS strategic plan. The conference will be in English.
SCARICA QUI L’INVITO E IL PROGRAMMA
THE PROVINCE OF INDIA
Starting on 1 September 2017, three Indian Camillian religious, Fr. Joshy Kanjirathamkunnel, Fr. Doise Mullankuzhiyil John, and Fr. Binoy Thakidipurathu, will begin an ongoing new Camillian and pastoral presence with the church of the diocese of Passau in Germany.
On 18 August 2017, the Sneha Charitable Trust – a charitable foundation of the Camillian Province of India – began a new project called SHINE ON. The primary aim of this programme is to offer formation to adults and children affected by AIDS/HIV as regards the process of producing candles as a livelihood. This project will also act as a source of financing for the centre itself.
The SHINE ON Vocational Centre was inaugurated on 18 August 2017 by Fr. Biju Sebastian and blessed by Fr. Baby Ellickal, the Provincial Superior of India.
THE CAMILLIANUM (Rome) 2017
Download here the Study Programme of the Camillianum for the year 2017-2018
Look here at the broadcast of Telepace on ‘The Civilisation of Care’ of 10 August 2017.
CADIS – THE CAMILLIANUM (Rome) 2017
Course of High Formation in Pastoral Care for Humanitarian Workers
This course seeks to offer formation to humanitarian workers in the light of the words of Pope Francis on human suffering and his Motu proprio Humanam progressionem (the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Service) which asks for greater support for immigrants, the needy, the sick and the outcast, the marginalised and the victims of armed conflicts and natural disasters, people in prison, the unemployed and the victims of every kind of slavery and torture and people whose dignity is jeopardised.
The course will have 860 hours which will be divided into two parts: from 18 November to 9 December 2017 and from 26 February to 24 March 2018.
THE PROVINCE OF SICILY AND NAPLES
With joy the Province is drawing near to experiencing the priestly ordination of our young confrere Salvatore Giuseppe Camillo Pontillo which will take place in the Church of the Carmine – his home parish – on Saturday 30 September 2017 at 18.00, with the laying on of hands by His Excellency Msgr. Giovanni Intini, the Bishop of Tricarico. Before this priestly ordination the Province will launch the Urban Camillian Mission whose task is to reinvigorate the dimension of charity in Christian communities, families and personal lives.
They will visit sick and suffering brothers and sisters in their homes, reflecting and praying, and sharing moments of catechesis and liturgical celebrations.
DOWNLOAD HERE THE COMPLETE PROGRAMME
THE PROVINCE OF THAILAND
On 9 September 2017 our confrere Fr. Èeter Bhurin Sara Wapeeso was consecrated a priest by the bishop of the diocese of Nakhon Rachasima (Korat): in this diocese a new Camillian community and a new home for the elderly and the sick were inaugurated.
THE ‘EVERYTHING IS LIFE’ MASTER’S DEGREE: SPIRITUAL ACCOMPANYING IN SICKNESS AND DYING
This is a pathway of formation to prepare a person for death and life. It is about knowing how to accompany. This master’s degree envisages sixteen modules which will be followed over eight weekends on a monthly basis. Each day will be organised with frontal lessons in the morning and practical pathways in the afternoon. One separate module will be made up of a Lectio magistralis lasting half a day with a distinguished speaker and an extraordinary seminar whose subject will change each year. Below is the first programme with the title of the modules and the subject seminars which are currently being organised. This degree will be taught in Rome and has the patronage of the Federation for Palliative Care.
THE DELEGATION IN CHILE
On Saturday 19 August, young people of the St. Camillus Parish (the parish and chapel of Sagrado Corazón de Jesús) took part in the twenty-fifth march for youth and solidarity which passes by way of various streets of the centre of Santiago from the Los Reyes Park to the Sanctuary of San Alberto Hurtado and on to the central station. This event attracted 80,000 people. The ‘Camillian’ young people, accompanied by our religious Gaete Basil, walked along the streets of Santiago singing and praying. This was an extraordinary expression of joy of young Christian faith which had a dual aim: to meditate on the motto of this year, ‘He who Gives himself, Grows’, and to prepare hearts for the meeting with Pope Francis on 17 January 2018 in the context of his apostolic visit in Chile.
HISTORICAL SUGGESTION
‘Religiosi Camilliani straordinari testimoni della carità verso gli infermi’ (‘Camillian Religious: Extraodinary Witnesses to Charity to the Sick’)
Edited Fr. Giacinto Reale
This work was produced by Fr. Reale in response to an invitation of the General Consulta as a preliminary instrument of reflection on the motion of the last General Chapter ‘The General Consulta should study ways of commemorating our martyrs of charity, if possible establishing a shared day for the whole of the Order’ (cf. Camilliani n.27 (1989) p. 440).
‘As regards this work on Camillians who died as witnesses to charity, I have engaged above all else in preliminary research on the documents that are available at the general archives at the St. Mary Magdalene house. Given the timetable and the recommendations of the General Consulta, an authentic critical study was excluded and an attempt was made, instead, to engage in a survey of the material which was most informed and reliable’.
DOWNLOAD HERE THE COMPLETE TEXT
PUBLISHING SUGGESTION
Il testo completo del saggio di Leo Pessini, A bioética hoje e o risco dos fondamentalismos: identificando e comentando alguns receio, anseios e devaneios! apparso in Fundamentalismo desafios à ética teológica a cura di Maria Inës de Castro Millen e Ronaldo Zacharias.
End of life pathways
‘Each person has a different way of addressing death: there are those who need to become aware of it and those instead who want to ignore it; those who feel a need to talk about it and those who do not even want to speak its name. And then different stages alternate in each patient: some allow themselves to decline, others despair; there are those who become depressed and those instead who resign themselves; those who react with anger and those who want to live fully and intensely their lives until the end’, writes Carla Messano, the President of Avo Lazio.
‘In every case, whatever the stage or feeling felt, if at his side there is a friendly presence that is able to help him, respecting his needs and giving him the support that he needs, for this human being everything will be less negative’. A volunteer who chooses to accompany a patient during his end of life pathway is required to have special talents of sensitivity, moral strength and balance. This is because, as one can read in the book, for a patient at the terminal stage what matters more than other aspect is the relational side of things. A volunteer, therefore, during this stage become an authentic ‘travelling companion’ who in keeping attention centred on the person and not the illness offers ‘the gift of a delicate and discreet presence’ to make as human as possible the condition of those who have to live in a ‘boundary space’’.
DOWNLOAD THE PDF HERE
THE CAMILLIAN CENTRE FOR FORMATION – Verona
Cf. the brochure of the Camillian Centre for Formation for the year 2017-2018
INTERNATIONAL MEETING OF CAMILLIAN PROVIDERS OF FORMATION AND ANIMATORS OF VOCATIONS
The Camillian promotion of vocations and formation in harmony with the signs of the times and new needs in order to build a future of Hope.
RomE 13–19 OCtobER 201
PRINCIPAL OBJECTIVE
In communion, we will seek an updating and a revitalisation of our visions, activities and instruments in the field of the Camillian promotion of vocations and formation.
SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES
The updating of the Rules on Formation of the Order of the year 2000.
Diagnosing and learning about certain characteristic of young people today in a globalised world.
Taking interculturality into account in the process of vocational discernment and formation.
Facilitating exchange and reflection as regards the experiences of the promotion of vocations and formation (signs of hope, opportunities and challenges).
Fostering knowing each other and fraternal interaction amongst the participants.
Villa Primavera
Suore Ancelle dell’Incarnazione
Via della Stazione di Ottavia, 86
00135 Roma
Tel. (+39) 06 30810900
06 30812391
RULE OF FORMATIONGENERAL GUIDE-LINES
DECISIONS OF THE GENERAL CONSULTA
The Superior General, with the agreement of the members of the General Consulta, in response to a request made by the respective Provincial Superiors has suppressed the community of Imperia (Italy) (the Province of North Italy) and the ‘Santa Maria Maddalena’ community of Pirambù in Fortaleza (the Province of Brazil).
THE CENTRAL ECONOMIC COMMISSION OF THE ORDER
The members of this commission– Fr. Mario Kozik, Fr. Justino Scatolin, Fr. Lorenzo Testa, Fr. Giovanni Contarin, and Dr. Emilio Villar – held a meeting, as is done every six months, with the coordination of the General Financial Administrator of the Order, Br. José Ignacio Santaolalla, in Bangkok, on 11-13 September 2017.
ADMISSION TO THE PERPETUAL PROFESSION OF RELIGIOUS VOWS
The temporary professed religious of the Province of Germany, the Delegation of Tanzania: Paschal Mapendo Kakule
DECEASED RELIGIOUS
‘See, now they vanish, the faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them. To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern’ (T.S. Eliot).
Father Giangirolamo Martini was born in Cagliari on 17/06/1944, to his father Bruno and his mother Angela Maria Floris. He entered the seminary in Imperia on 06/10/1955. He began his year of the novitiate on 28/09/1960 at Borghetto S. Spirito (SV) and this came to an end on 29/09/1961 with his temporary profession of vows. He celebrated his perpetual profession in Forte dei Marmi (LU) on 01/10/1966. He was ordained a deacon in Turin and became a presbyter in Martassina (TO) on 17/08/69, with the laying on of hands by Msgr Bettino, the Auxiliary of Turin.
Download here the complete obituary
Father Pierre Grayer was born on 17 December 1919 in Witternheim, Alsace, in the diocese of Strasburg, the son of Aloys Grayer and Anna Sturn. On 8 December 1980, at the age of eleven, he entered the minor seminary of Exaerde in Belgium which was then moved to Tournai in September 1935. He began his novitiate on 28 September 1936 in Haucourt, France, and made his temporary profession on 29 September 1987. He continued at the seminary of Tournai from September 1987 to November 1989, and then in Angers (France) from December 1989 to April 1940, and lastly in Lyons from 1 January to April 1943.
Download here the complete obituary
SISTER FERDINANDA D’AMARIO (a woman religious of the Daughters of St. Camillus) was 95 years old when she died, and 64 of these years had been spent as a professed religious, at the service of God and our sick brethren. In the certainty of the promise of the Lord to welcome in his eternal peace his faithful servants, we entrust her with full confidence to the merciful arms of the Father, and may she intercede from heaven for the Institute and for each one of us the graces that we need.
‘Now they live in Christ whom they met in the Church, followed in our vocation, and served in the sick and the suffering. Trusting that the Lord, the Holy Virgin our Queen, St. Camillus, the Blessed Luigi Tezza, the Blessed Giuseppina Vannini, and our deceased religious brothers and sisters, will welcome them in their midst, we commend them in our prayers, remembering them with affection, esteem and gratitude’.
