Mar 30, 2021 | NEWS
Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but later you will follow.” Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can’t I follow You now? I will give my life for You. Jesus replied, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will not crow until you have denied me three times. [Jn 13: 36-38]
Long-suffering and fragility shine in Peter. He is ready to give his life for Jesus, but also to deny Him in order to save himself. It is a contrast that is also inherent in each of us. We are ready to do what is good and what is right, but we are also blocked by fear of the price to be paid. Only humble awareness of our handicaps helps us not to be surprised by fear in the moment of trial. Peter, only after acknowledging and crying over his denial, will he be ready to give his life for the Master.
How we are like Peter,
Lord Jesus.
We are your fearful students
who don’t know how to stay by your side
at the time of trial.
How easy it is to deny you
how dangerous it is to claim to be a friend!
How easy it is to cheat on you
when something is offered to us
which seems worth more than you.
Don’t leave us in temptation.
Forgive us and trust us again if we’ve done wrong.
Florenzo Salvi
Giampietro Polini
Mar 30, 2021 | POSITIVE IMPULSES
Your relationship with God is vital. Because that is the only way you can realize your self fully. All your other relationships are conditioned and dictated by lots of limitations. But your relationship with your creator is without conditions or restrictions. Creator is the fullness of creation. So, in God you can find your fullness. The more open we are to this infinite reality the more we have the opportunity to grow into the realization of our self. In Him you can find your perfect design of your self.
Don Giorgio
Mar 29, 2021 | NEWS
Six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. Here a dinner was given in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with him. Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
[John 12, 1-3]
Jesus also had friends. The family of Martha, Maria and Lazarus was certainly a point of reference, and he loved being in this house where he felt welcomed and loved. During the last supper with them, Maria makes a surprising gesture. Her love for him is so profound that she finds no other way to express it than with this very expensive perfume, poured out with exaggerated abundance, applied with gestures of extreme tenderness. It is the last real consolation for Jesus, before His Passion.
I would like to learn from Martha how to serve you,
from Lazarus to be with you,
from Maria, to show you my generous love
poured out like precious oil with exaggerated abundance.
I would like your presence to smell in my home, in my family, in my community …
Jesus, let me live each day in deep friendship with You.
Fiorenzo Salvi
Giampietro Polini
Mar 28, 2021 | SPIRITUALITY
Behold, your King is coming to you, just and victorious. Humble – riding a donkey. (Zak 9, 9)
Today we contemplate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Jesus, like a great victor in glory, enters the city. And this is understandable to us, because we know that he is the King of the universe who came to save us. It can be strange, however, that he rides on a donkey. Yes, it was a popular means of transport in those days, but if Jesus wanted to show people that he was a great King, he should use a horse that, for example, was ridden by important Romans who occupied Jerusalem at that time. So what did he want to show us by riding a donkey? Once again he wanted to say that yes, he is a King, but not as we imagine him to be. His kingdom is a reality alongside this world, or against human mentality. The donkey of the Lord Jesus is a clear message for us that we will find the Kingdom of God where there is simplicity and humility, where, humanly thinking, there is nothing attractive, spectacular, where there is ordinary everyday life and ordinary people. This is the taste of God and His kingdom, and so He saved us. The donkey is one of the many signs of “God’s style”. We are beginning the Holy Week, let us also look for such signs in the following days.
Sr.M. Sybilla Kołtan
Mar 24, 2021 | FORUM, NEWS
I was born in Berlin on September 12, 1937, at nine o’clock, on a Sunday.
I am the only child.
After the First World War, my parents emigrated from Poland, near Berlin, to the town of Burgwall. There we had a large shop that had everything: food, toys, bedding. I have always been happy to be there. I remember that the store was visited not only by Poles, but also by Jews, Russians and Germans.
When I was 4, my father was shot. After this situation, my uncle took my mother and me to Poland, near Chojnice. We moved to Lipka (Złotów poviat), where I spent my later childhood and adolescence.
When I was 8 my mother got married for the second time.
As my parents did not want a flat in Lipka, we moved to Słupsk. I graduated from primary school there. As a teenager, I started working with my mother, cleaning catechetical rooms at the parish. I also earned extra money by cleaning the dentist’s office and the rooms at the Canonesses.
I went to Chojnice for a year, to a boarding house for girls, which was run by the Franciscan Sisters of the Passion. There were seventy girls there. There we gained knowledge in the field of good manners. The sisters taught us to behave properly at the table and in different places, we did various manual work, we learned to cook. Later I returned to my family home.
From childhood, I wanted to become a nun. There were sisters in Słupsk, where I lived with my parents, but I did not want to go to any congregation that was close to my family home, but to go somewhere further.
When I was about twenty, I found an address for our sisters in the “Catholic Guide” newspaper. Then I told my mother that I wanted to go to the monastery. My mother took this information very calmly, she even said: “When my cousin went to the convent, you can also go, she was an only child and you are an only child.”
It was evident that it was good news to my mother, so I decided to write a letter to the address I found. Mom read it, agreed to send it, and then saw an envelope with the address to which the letter was to be sent. After a moment of reflection, she said: “You are going to those sisters with whom I gave birth to you.”
I was surprised by what my mother said, I did not understand it and seeing my surprise, she told me what it was like when I was born: “There were Elizabethan Sisters not far from our house in Burgwall, and when I had labor pains, I went to see them because they had a delivery room. Unfortunately, due to the fact that there were no more places in the hospital, they refused to admit me, so I drove 50 kilometers further, all the way to Berlin. There I found a delivery room at the Sisters of Mary Immaculate. And that’s where you came into the world with them. ”
And so I found out that I was born in Berlin to our sisters, whom I wanted to join as an adult girl. God guides us in amazing ways.
* * * *
My mother taught me to forgive, thank, apologize and pray, and not resent the other person. She repeated that she should always be reconciled, despite the fact that each of us is different. I have to always pray and forgive.
This is what my mother taught me and I tried to practice this in my religious life, and I wish this for each of us in this Year of Unity in our Congregation.
S.M. Kryspina
