Società San Paolo

Today, September 15  and Feast of  Our Lady of Sorrows  we have met some of the very early members: Odo Nicoletti of the St Gabriel  Institute who met the Founder in September, 1955,  the Annunciationist  Marcella Mazzeo, Rev Furio Fabbri  of the Jesus Priest  Institute and  a married couple, Learco and Angela Monina of the Holy Family Institute,  These have been made perfect in faith  like the One who learned  and  suffered united to the Mother of Sorrows, sharing under the cross in the sufferings of her crucified Son.

We welcomed them in our morning meeting and listened to them as they gave their convincing testimony  to the gift they had received when they met Fr. Alberione, to their experience  of the charism of their respective Institutes, to the early difficulties and the subsequent development.  They showed us the essentials of what consecration in lay life means. Living in union with God as expressed and witnessed to in the profession of the evangelical Counsels through on-going relationships with  the members of one’s family, with professional colleagues, with the parish community always drawing from the unifying  and orienting spirituality of the Society of St. Paul  and  collaborating with it in the work of evangelization.

The meeting continued in the afternoon  where we were divided into three groups.  There was a deeper study of one’s sense of  belonging to the Pauline Family, of the correct  meaning of belonging, of the real  spirituality of secular life, plus the resources and proposals  which nourish it and make it part of the entire  Pauline Family.  Later the conclusion of the study was done in the  reports of the different groups.

Once again we  close our day with prayer in the presence of our Eucharistic Master  -  many different nationalities and languages but a great fraternal unity was present nevertheless and the many projects were  successfully completed because the Source from which we draw and which guarantees our unity is infinite.

Fr Angelo De Simone
Ariccia, 15 September 2009

PHOTOGALLERY: Day 4