“As you bend over the other, God bends over you.” The Archdiocese of Ravenna-Cervia interviewed sister Lorena P., who for the past few months has been the Servant Sister of the Sisters’ community living within the Mons. Morelli Family Community, of which sister Lorena is the coordinator: a home for troubled youth.
“The other is an opportunity, always.” She learned this in the field, and carries it in her heart as a teaching that illuminates life.
From the oratory in Brianza…
“My vocation was born in the parish oratory” she says, “where there were the Sisters of Charity. Seeing one of them, in particular, I understood that I was on a quest”.
But sister Lorena did not immediately identify the congregation founded by St. Jeanne Antide as the destination of her vocation: “I was a -focolarina-, then I thought of going on mission. Finally I asked that nun: I saw the light and charity in her eyes. And she told me: I could see that you were searching but until you asked me I let you be. Starting from this freedom, a world opened up for me“.
That of charity, indeed. A seed that for sister Lorena was born in her family: “A phrase my mother used to say was, -Think of you, when everyone else is well-. And then a series of gestures, not said but lived.”
…to the Sisters of Charity…
Since she entered the congregation, charity has been the center of vocation and daily life for sister Lorena: “The Sisters of Charity allowed me to live charity by getting my hands dirty. And charity is very current, it gives an open gaze and heart, it sees the need and tries to give an answer”. As the famous Hymn of St. Paul says.
…with a mission in the existential peripheries.
Sister Lorena’s mission over the years has been inspired by the text of the Epistles of St Paul. “I have been a nun for 45 years and, thank God, I have been working in social work for 40. Family homes for minors, for the disabled and for women who are victims of violence, a period at the Don Gnocchi Foundation in Milan and another alongside the inmates of the San Vittore prison. “Each of these experiences” explains sister Lorena, “has made me grow as a person, as a woman and as a religious. It is the most beautiful thing in this world. As you bend over the other, God bends over you. Their poverty helps you to read your own because you hand it over to God and so you walk together. It is a gift that comes back multiplied: this is charity“.
In Ravenna, Sister. Lorena coordinates the Monsignor Morelli Family Community for young people in difficulty, which currently houses three adolescents and pre-adolescents: “The difficulties are those I have seen elsewhere in Italy, of relationship and communication with adults. Covid has added other burdens. Compared to Terracina, where I was until September, the social system is different. And there is a way of working as a team”. For the sake of the boys.
Sister Lorena arrived in October but has already had the opportunity to visit the famous mosaics of Ravenna and eat piadina, a typical dish: “Ravenna seems to me a welcoming city. Then there are sister Genny, sister Bianca and sister Francesca with me. The strength is to go forward together”. Even beyond the community.
Sister Lorena is a member of the Synod Team, has been appointed diocesan head of the Union of Major Superiors Italy and participates in the Family Pastoral’s Wounded Families Team. Hard to get bored, in short.
6 February 2024 – With thanks to the Diocesan Weekly Il Risveglio Duemila of the archdiocese of Ravenna-Cervia: https://risveglioduemila.it/2024/02/suor-lorena-nuova-superiora-delle-suore-della-carita-laltro-e-unopportunita-sempre/
