Fr. Gennaro Sorrentino CSsR (the first Provincial Superior of the new Province of Southern Europe), from 2 to 21 March, is conducting a fraternal visit to the Redemptorists who carry out their pastoral ministry in Spain. After meeting with the laity in Madrid and visiting the communities of the Spanish capital from 11 to 14 March, he spent a few days in the community of Seville, to whom we are grateful for their warm, attentive, and fraternal welcome.
There, together with the two Spanish consultors, he had the opportunity to meet with the confreres of the communities of Jerez de la Frontera, Seville, Mérida, Granada and Zaragoza. A total of 15 confreres gathered on Monday, 11 March, which began with the fraternal gather by the table, and then in the afternoon, with the common meeting of all with the Superior General.
At the beginning of this plenary meeting, we were given a global presentation of the entire new Province, in which we were able to get to know the different houses and communities that are located in Italy, France and Portugal, as well as some statistics that allowed us to get an idea of the reality of Southern Europe, as well as the number of confreres ministering in it.
Immediately afterwards, Father Provincial addressed to all of us a few words that, from the updated reading of the Acts of the Apostles (15:1-35), encouraged us and made known the present and future lines in the minds and hearts of the new leadership. Thus, from the example of this first assembly of the Church in Jerusalem, Fr. Gennaro stressed the importance of discernment, of listening to one another, of the value of community and the joint search for God’s will and its acceptance as a common project. Just as the apostles accepted the diversity of traditions that could exist in the nascent community, so we are called to live our rich plurality in a spirit of growing unity, always for the sake of mission. Despite the tensions that may arise in this process, Fr. The Provincial encouraged us to live them from faith, to celebrate and give thanks together for the common gift of the Redemptorist vocation, cultivating mutual respect and orienting ourselves to the mission of each and every one of us as a community: to proclaim the Abundant Redemption to the most abandoned and poor.
At the end of his speech, we were able to have an enriching time to share our impressions and concerns about this process. We then ended the day with the Eucharist, giving thanks to the Lord for all that we had experienced, and looking to Him with hope, trying to collaborate with availability in the creation of those new heavens and that new earth of which the prophet Isaiah spoke in the first reading of that day.
In the days that followed, fr. Provincial was able to meet personally with the different communities separately to learn more about their community reality, life and pastoral work, as well as with each confrere individually.
We will pray to the Redeemer for Fr. Sorrentino in the exercise of this service to the Congregation, entrusting him to the care and intercession of Our Mother Mary of Perpetual Help and St. Alphonsus.
Fr. Carlos A. Diego Gutiérrez, C.Ss.R.
