A new Province of the Daughters of Charity, “San Vincenzo – Italia” (2.0), was recently established on Wednesday, July 18, 2018  from the unification of two Provinces of north-central Italy and southern Italy. As the Superior General said during the Eucharistic celebration: “Today you have gathered to form a new Province, San Vincenzo – Italia. It is something different from the previous Province of San Vincenzo – Italia, because now you are one with the Sisters of the former Province of Napoli.

This unification is the result of many years of study, reflection and mutual knowledge … To respond to the cry of the poor, it  is necessary to share resources, both material and personal. To make the best use of our resources, we need to do it together and to collaborate.”

The event was preceded by an afternoon of reflection and prayer and was accompanied by the presence of our General Superiors, Father Tomaž Mavrič and Sr. Kathleen Appler. Father Beniamino de Palma CM introduced the afternoon with a rich meditation. He invited us to put Christ at the center of everything, to rediscover “synodality” being aware that “the construction of the ecclesial “we” doesn’t take place because of character affinities, but on letting ourselves be worked by the Holy Spirit, the only one capable to compose a new compact structure from our differences”. Father Beniamino stressed the need to “carry out a real reform that has the character of ablatio, streamlining our personal life and our communities from what over the years has burdened and blurred the beauty of that work of art that the Lord has entrusted to our responsibility. The steps that the Lord invites us to do require us to maintain “A sympathetic look towards humanity, rejecting and conquering the fears that generate closures.” This was a great encouragement, to see the opening of new paths for the history of the Vincentian family and not the closure of a chapter of it.

During a prayerful vigil, the path of the nascent Province was entrusted to Mary, woman who lived the night of faith, precisely on the anniversary of her first apparition to Catherine Labouré. The night accompanied Creation, the faith of Abraham and Easter; the night also might be ours when God asks us to leave our certainties and our established paths in order to undertake new ones. No night is totally empty of light and is always the condition of a new dawn. It is important to get out of our own “frame,” to let us involve in the calls of Charity that challenge us and open us up to newness and to other people. This was the message delivered by some young artists, at the end of the day, to the Daughters of Charity gathered from all over Italy for the event.

“Now we have just to start,” stated the Visitatrix, Sister Beatrice, in the intervention she held on the day of the reunification. “From now on the boat is bigger, it is more solid, it will certainly sail hard seas, it will meet storms, but He will always be there, He will let us keep on struggling, he will let us go back with our little faith in order to tell Him: “don’t you care that we sink, Master, don’t you care…?” Wherever He is, there is calm, wherever He is, there is peace, there is security, wherever He is, there is new life, a real life.” In the certainty that our life is sustained by great belongings, to Christ, to the Church, to the Company, let us face the paths of the reconfiguration with the strength of faith and the boldness of charity, sure that God accompanies the Company to the point where He wants her to be.

Source: Daughters of Charity Website