God’s Mercy on a Journey – Part 1
A 7,241-kilometer bridge from Madagascar to Adrano
Our journey began between the months of March and April of the year 2023, when our Mother General, Sister Ester Mazzarra, during a visit to our community in Madagascar, realized the difficulties we were unfortunately experiencing in carrying out our works.
At the same time, the need grew strong to strengthen the spread of the corporal and spiritual Works of Mercy that are the founding charism of our Institute.
Mother immediately made every effort to seek all possible help from friends and acquaintances in Italy, and after a short time, having returned from Madagascar, she told our Delegate, Sister Esther Ravaosolo, to telephone a certain Luigi Spadoni.
From that phone call, on June 28, 2023, the collaboration between our Congregation and the spazio + spadoni Movement was born. Main goal? To build a bridge between Madagascar and Italy.
Stage of preparation and departure for a new beginning
What started with a simple phone call became the “HIC SUM” project. We did not know where, we did not know when, we only knew that a new beginning awaited us in Italy, a six-month journey during which we would undertake some kind of training, which would help us in our mission.
It is easy to imagine our concerns. Who would pay for the trip? What would we do, during, these six months? Who would be waiting for us in Italy? So, Mother General immediately reassured us.
We would never be alone, spazio + spadoni would accompany us all the way, including financially. They would have taken care of everything, from preparing our documents to board and lodging in Italy.
In June 2023, strengthened by the comfort and reassurance of our Mother General, we began our spiritual preparation, decided it would be a great opportunity for our congregation.
We were still a little worried, but we were really so excited to live in this new big family of spazio + spadoni and Mercy.
We decided to send Sister Yolande, but accompanying her would also be the Delegate, Sister Esther, who was curious to know what this formation project actually consisted of. Even if only for two months, she could not in fact leave one of her sisters alone in Madagascar.
Up to that we had only exchanged a few phone calls with Luigi Spadoni, but on December 18, 2023, we met our new family for the first time: we had been invited to participate in a worldwide video call to exchange Christmas and New Year greetings among all the inhabitants of space + spadoni.
Little did we know, however, that among them would be those who would welcome and accompany us on this project.
The meeting with the Misericordia of Adrano
We arrive, thus, at February 21, 2024 when we finally meet by video call the Fraternity of Misericordia of Adrano. Due to some problems with the connection, it was not a very long meeting, but, nevertheless, we got to meet the governor of the Fraternity, Pietro Branchina.
Hence began our correspondence with the Adrano Misericordia. Communications were brief and sometimes disrupted because of the connection, but one thing was certain: we were eagerly expecting and looking forward to meeting.
The departure
After a long preparation, we left Madagascar on March 4, 2023 at 2:50 pm. Our departure was unforgettable because our sisters from the delegation accompanied us.
We all felt great joy and had high hopes, because we knew that this trip would serve for a better future of our mission in Madagascar.
Despite the joy, our departure was unfortunately also accompanied by sorrow. Our hearts wept, because we would have to leave Sister Lydia, from Sister Yolande’s community, in the last phase of her existence, battered by the wounds inflicted by a tumor, which would take her from us the day after our arrival in Italy.
Our trip went well, all as planned. On March 5 at 4:50 a.m. we arrived at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. We stayed six days in the Generalate House.
There we met again with our Mother General, who had returned from a trip to India for the canonical visitation, and on March 11, 2024, after securing Mother General’s presence as well, we finally had our first presence meeting with Luigi Spadoni, founder of the spazio + spadoni movement, and Selene, his general secretary.
This meeting really instilled in us a lot of courage to pursue our mission, to perform the Works of Mercy. In fact, we discovered that our Charism, as Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Ragusa devoted to the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy (Constitution Art.4-a), was also the founding heart of the spirit of the Misericordia movement in Italy.
We shared a mission. Their service would be a valuable opportunity because it offered us to live even more closely our vocation as Sisters of Mother Maria Schininà: “to have a living experience with Christ the Merciful.”
Sister Esther and Sister Yolande
Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Ragusa