So much well sown in simplicity

Sunday 12 September we were invited to Modena_Santa Caterina on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the “Immaculate Heart of Mary” Kindergarten and in memory of the third anniversary of the death of Don Sergio Mantovani, whom many of us have known as “the priest of Ferrari” and on this occasion the parish garden was dedicated to him with the laying of a bust made by a local sculptor. With Mother Donatella, sister Marina, Sofia and sister Rufina, sister Franca Sorini, sister AnnaMaria Scola, sister Giancarla Poppi and sister Giannina Ciceri, we participated in the solemn thanksgiving mass. I have collected the testimony of a long presence of the precious nuns who, invited by Don Sergio, wanted us to be the architects of an educational offer through the construction and management of the nursery school in this suburban context and then, in the 70s with the attention to the elderly and our presence also in this retirement home. Many precious gifts have donated energy and educational passion to children and their families by weaving open relationships, in the style of familiarity and help.

     The meetings of the many, now grandparents, who embraced and caressed our sisters, remembering all the good sown in simplicity, in the smallness of everyday things, in the laborious generosity that placed them in the midst of these people who remember all their names, which he asked of all the sisters, even those who were not present and those who are now paradise together with their beloved Don Sergio.

     I truly rejoiced and thank all these sisters and the Lord for all the good that we have been able to sow in so many years of presence in this community that we left ten years ago but which still reminds us and loves us.

     We tasted the beauty of this testimony, of a service born together with our presence, whose growth we accompanied and then entrusted to the parish community to carry it forward… on a journey of true communion and synodality.

madre Antonella Patti