Once again, Ecuador has been blessed. On February 22, 2011, Fr. Rafael, Mother Ana, and Sr. Kelly Jo (who was visiting us for the first time) arrived in Playa Prieta. Their schedule was fairly tight and everything was ready.
We ate lunch and that same afternoon, around 5, the whole group of girls and women began to arrive. There were a total of 39 of them, from Chone, Playa Prieta, Pueblo Nuevo, y Portoviejo, who had all come for Spiritual Exercises.
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February 2, 2011. The Servant Brothers serve the Holy Father
On Saturday, February 26, taking advantage of the visit we were paid by Father Rafael, Mother Ana, and Sister Kelly Jo, we had a get-together in Playa Prieta. Members and friends of the Home from Chone, Canuto, and San Vicente began to arrive around 9 am, along with others from Playa Prieta...all together: 150 people.
The get-together began with Mass at 10 am, in which we were blessed to witness the exchange of marriage promises in the Catholic Church, by 2 couples. One of them was from Chone (parents of Sister Jennifer, a novice in the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother), and the other was from Playa Prieta, parents of Erika Tuarez, a youth member of the Home of the Mother. They were beaming with joy and gratitude. After many years, they were able to once again receive the Lord in the Eucharist and the joy could be seen in their faces.
Saturday. A day full of activities for girls in Alcalá de Guadaíra, Seville (Spain). A grey sky with no sign of the sun making a guest appearance. Ominous clouds prey in the distance. For the time being, the rain had resisted. It was understandable that only a few girls would come. They started coming, one by one...until there were 46 of them. How brave!
On Sunday 20th February, the Servant Brothers in Rome got together with boys from St Thomas More College who are spending a semester there as part of their university study program and went on an excursion to visit the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, founded by St Benedict himself in the 6th century.
It was a really spiritually enriching occasion. At the beginning of our visit Br René gave us a very good and comprehensive sketch of the life of St Benedict, which served us as a good orientation for our “pilgrimage”. Later, we had the blessing to witness the beautiful High Mass with Gregorian Chant followed then by a guided tour of the cloisters of the monastery by one of the monks. It was a look into the most intimate and ancient parts of the monastery giving us the chance to see first hand some of the places where St Benedict himself realized some of the miracles recounted to us by Br René.
On Sunday, February 20, the Servant Sisters in Rome led a day pilgrimage for college girls from Rome's various campuses to visit the places assciated with the life, martyrdom, and death of St. Maria Goretti located in the area of Nettuno, a small seaside town about an hour and a half southwest of Rome. We were a group of 19 all together.
When we reached the Shrine to Our Lady of Grace and St. Maria Goretti, we went first to the museum that is attached to the church. The little museum contains relics and photos from the life (and family) of St. Maria Goretti, although there is no existing photo of the Saint herself. Her remains are laid to rest in a statue of her beneath the altar in the Shrine's crypt. A Passionist (the religious order that runs the Shrine) priest came to give us what we thought would be a tour of the museum, but what we ended up receiving was something much greater than a tour: a "pep talk" on chastity and purity, in light of the heroic life and example of St. Maria Goretti. He spoke to us of the importance of inner beauty, verses exterior beauty, and of how when Maria Goretti was being attacked by her murderer she did not seek to defend herself with her hands, but instead struggled to cover herself better with her clothing.
In the very moment in which our beloved Holy Father, Benedict XVI announced in Sydney that the following World Youth Day would take place in Madrid (Spain), a group of 30 young people of the Home of the Mother from Chone and Playa Prieta, Manabí, Ecuador, started dreaming of going. It wasn’t going to be easy, as we did not have the funds to make it happen, but our excitement at the thought of being near the Pope got the better of us and now, nearly 3 years later, we are about to wake up from our dream to find that it has come true! Since April of last year, with the help of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother, we have been working non-stop to try and raise all the money necessary to go to Madrid and participate, along with the other thousands of young people in this encounter of the Holy Father with the Church’s future.