Italy Tag

ITALY, Trent, by Milena Allera • Last year I got to know the Schoenstatt Pilgrim Mother through one of my colleagues, Gisela Ciola, who is a Pilgrim Mother missionary. Gisela had the same health problems that my dad was going through and she offered me the image of the Blessed Mother to take home and keep for a few days.  I accepted it with great joy and a little trepidation.  Was I worthy of such greatness? This is how Our Lady of Schoenstatt came into my life and the lifeRead More
ITALY, Salvatore Rallo, Claudia Geraci, Antonella Raimondi • Finally also in Vicari, a small town inland from Palermo, on Friday, June 10, 2016, thirteen missionary women have sealed the Covenant of Love with our Mother Thrice Admirable of Schoenstatt. It took a year of preparation, but thanks to the constant and committed participation of the missionaries, our “provocations” – which at times have possibly been or even been seemingly excessive – we have reached this milestone. The promptings have had a positive effect when they were a stimulus and whenRead More
ITALY, Federico Bauml • Everyone has a birthday, the day they were born. A priest, however, has two birthdays: his actual physical birth, and his ordination, which marks the moment of “re-birth.” Yet there is a difference between birthdays and ordinations: for on the former, it is others who give gifts to the one being celebrated, and for the latter, in addition to receiving gifts, the “birthday boy, ” is the gift, as well as being the one who now gives. There is no difference, however, when one chooses theRead More
ITALY, Virginia, 9, of San Matteo Parish Ap. Ev. Marsala, Sicily • My name is Virginia, I’m 9 years old, and I attend 4th grade and the 2nd year of the First Communion Catechism at San Matteo Parish in Marsala [St. Matthew’s]. Today I want to testify about the love that Our Lady has brought into our homes on behalf of the whole of the catechism class. We learned of the Mother Thrice Admirable during our first year of catechism; it was Maria our catechist and a childhood friend ofRead More
ITALY, by Giorgio Romagnoli • Don Moreno gave a group of Roman university students and their families the opportunity to spend the most spiritually intense days of the liturgical year in a valley with breathtaking scenery surrounded by the great outdoors. In addition to fresh air, the kids were able to breathe in the wonderful warm atmosphere with which many of the locals accompanied them during the liturgical celebrations. What do you guys think? We were a group of fifty people, many of them did not know one another, orRead More
ITALY, by Pamela Fabiano • The Roman family participated in the Covenant of Love of three girls from the Girls’ Youth on 18 December, at Cor Ecclesiae Shrine, Via Aurelia Antica, Rome. It had been several years since a Covenant of Love had been celebrated within the Italian Girls’ Youth, and not because the Blessed Mother had not called the girls’ hearts to herself. The desire to entrust their lives to the Blessed Mother, will all that it entails, and to allow themselves to be educated by her, was veryRead More
ITALY, by Gisela Ciola • I wanted to close these Christmas celebrations with a testimony of my experience as a missionary, which began in 2015. For me, “the Blessed Mother’s three graces arrived with the Three Kings.” I began to mission at Trento with the Pilgrim Mother less than a year ago. There are no Schoenstatt Shrines or missionaries in northern Italy, so my preparation for this very important work was very special. I began my task when I received Fr. Juan José Riba’s blessing, in February of last year.Read More
ITALY, Belmonte, Rome, María Fischer • “It is not ‘Belmonte’, it is ‘Bellissimo Monte'”, Fr. João José from Angola said smiling. He learned about Schoenstatt when he studied German at the Kreuzberg Institute in Bonn and when he returned to Rome – where he studied Church history at the request of his bishop – he contacted Belmonte to offer his priestly service and become more attached with Schoenstatt in Rome. On September 6, he participated in the national encounter of the Schoenstatt Movement in Italy at Belmonte. Like every year,Read More
Original Shrine, Sr. M. Ivone • A small group of Italians have made a pilgrimage from Rome to Schoenstatt. The majority of them crossed the threshold of the Original Shrine for the first time to experience the graces of this holy place. There were eight from Tuscany and eight from Rome. These have been three wonderful days filled with the joy of being able to feel and experience the presence of the Mother and Queen and the Father and Founder, and the appreciation of the delightful welcome and hospitality thatRead More
ITALY, Pamela Fabiano • On 25 October many years ago, Divine Providence chose a small place in the shadow of St. Peters’ Basilica in Rome, where Mary Most Blessed elected to dwell, and lives as the Heart of the Church, at the service of the Church, and as a solicitous Mother always ready to welcome her children. This small place is the Shrine Cor Ecclesiae situated on Old Aurelia Road, 112-Rome, and is administered and cared for by the Institute of the Sisters of Mary of Schoenstatt, who are atRead More