In the common vocation
Many of you, friends and guests, know how fundamental for our young community, which was then taking its first steps in the furrow of the great monastic tradition, was the encounter with other forms of monasticism and dialogue with well-established communities. From the time when br. Enzo, still living alone in Bose, wanted to spend longer periods of time at Tamié, at Taizé, and on Mount Athos, such exchanges and fraternal visits have never ceased
Many of you, friends and guests, know how fundamental for our young community, which was then taking its first steps in the furrow of the great monastic tradition, was the encounter with other forms of monasticism and dialogue with well-established communities. From the time when br. Enzo, still living alone in Bose, wanted to spend longer periods of time at Tamié, at Taizé, and on Mount Athos, such exchanges and fraternal visits have never ceased. Pilgrimages to Mount Athos and to the monasteries in Egypt, stays by novices in Benedictine and Trappist monasteries, the welcoming of monks and nuns to Bose for periods of retreat ? all these have been occasions to see for oneself how “in every place the same Lord is served” and to be confirmed in one’s own vocation, with its own peculiarities as well as traits common to all monasticism.
Faithful to this orientation of openness and of enrichment through diversity, we were gladdened by the rare opportunity conceded to br. Luigi in these last months: to stay for forty days on the Holy Mountain as a brother guest of the community of Simonos Petras on Athos and of its igumen, fr. Elisseos. In sharing daily prayer and work it is easier to penetrate into what the other has at heart, beyond confessional differences and divisions, and to discover the profound unity that animates monasticism.
This is what br. Vincenzo also experienced during a series of visits to monasteries and hermitages in the Ardèche region of France: old friendships, such as those with br. François, la Demeure Notre Père, the Orthodox community of Solen, could thus be revived, while new contacts have been forged with the abbeys of Aiguebelle and Le Barroux. The ties that for thrity years have bound us with the Benedictine monastery of Clerlande have also been reinforced thanks to some initiatives in memory of fr. Jacques Dupont on the tenth anniversary of his passing away.