On August 23-28, 2021, a formation week for friars who have been solemnly professed for one to five years [called a quinquennium] took place in the Friary of San Francesco d’Assisi in Brescia, Italy. Twenty-four friars from the Jurisdictions of the Federazione Intermediterranea Ministri Provinciali (FIMP) participated.
Friar Antonio BERTAZZO served as the director and coordinator of the event. The theme of the event, “Growing in Order to Grow – Discernment and Spiritual Direction,” was appreciated by all the attending friars because it gave them the opportunity to learn more about the subject and compare it to their own concrete experience and the lives of their confreres. A number of friars took turns giving special lectures during the week, namely, Friar Antonio BERTAZZO, Thomas BOURQUEROD, Giancarlo PARIS, Ugo SARTORIO, and Giovanni VOLTAN.
The family atmosphere during the meeting, the joy of being together again after the pandemic, and the warm welcome of the Guardian, Friar Giancarlo PARIS, and the entire community in Brescia, gave the event the kind of beauty that is created when ongoing formation and fraternity are brought together. To make their time in Brescia even more special, the friars enjoyed a fraternal trip to nearby Lake Iseo. They also made a pilgrimage to the nearby church in Corticelle, where the conversion of the Venerable Friar Giacomo BULGARO (1879-1967) occurred. He is buried in our beautiful Church of San Francesco in Brescia.
At the end of the formation event, the Director, Friar Antonio BERTAZZO, wrote a letter to the FIMP Ministers Provincial and Custodes. I shall highlight a passage from that letter, which emerged from the evaluation made by the young friars: “In the years following initial formation, a more intense formation is required in view of pastoral ministry, but also in relation to the identity of religious life. Questions are increasingly being raised about why religious life exists in the Church and our service as religious. In this regard, it is a priority that we reexamine the theme of consecrated life from its theological and charismatic perspective, while making the effort to discern the complex cultural, social and ecclesial context of today.”
The Assistant General for the FIMP Federation, Friar Giovanni VOLTAN, was present for a few days of the event and would like to thank the hospitable community of Brescia and Friar Antonio BERTAZZO for having hosted this formation event with passion and competence. There will be some follow-up activities, as requested by the participants, consisting of at least one or two online meetings to spend some fraternal time together, before next year’s formation week takes place, with the theme: “Listening and Proclamation.”
Friar Giovanni VOLTAN
