MArgherita Piccardo, who has chosen the Christian name for himself, is about to turn a hundred years. He lives in Venezuela in a Cistercian monastery eight hours of bus from Caracasin a lost location, with about fifteen nuns who unfortunately live today of what they receive from Italy for the terrible conditions of their country. They can no longer cultivate the earth because they are no longer helped by anyone.
Margherita is a Genoese girl, who was very young who is very young from father and mother. It is pulled by an aunt. In 1948 he was called to Rome at the National Center of Catholic Action Under the wing of Monsignor Montini, the future Paolo VI, and by Armida Barelli, who had founded the Catholic University of Milan with Father Gemelli. These are the years of the great political and civil struggles between Christian Democrats and Communists.
Ten years later, nEl 1958, Margherita enters a cloistered monastery in Vitorchiano, near Viterbo, where he will be elected superior after only six yearswith the Pope’s permit. He will cover that assignment for 24 years. These are the years of the post council, of the great renewal of the Church and also of monastic life.
Aldo Cazzullo (photo by Carlo Vangi Gilbert).
Cristiana becomes a silent protagonist of a secular change which leads the community to found one’s life no longer on formal rules, but on the common search for God in the fraternal affection. The change is such that it will become the heart of 15 foundations all over the world, in China, Indonesia, Syria, as well as in Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Colombia.
The change of the Church
“Simply Cristiana” by Massimo Camisasca (Ares Edizioni).
Now Monsignor Massimo Camisasca dedicates a book to her Simply ChristianAres Edizioni – which is also a history of the renewal of the Church after the Second Vatican Council. But it is above all the testimony of what a woman, although living in silence, can do in a passionate love.
«I met Cristiana in 1967 – the author tells me, the bishop emeritus of Reggio Emilia – and I wanted to dedicate two and a half years of my life as an elderly to study thousands of documents because Fascinated by the simplicity and depth of this woman, by her spiritual motherhood And by the enthralling strength of her. I listened to one of the most summary expressions of his personality from a nun who lived with her: Mother Christian has been able to bring everything ».
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All articles by Aldo Cazzullo.
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