559 - October 2015
September 10th, 2015 - October 12th, 2015

LATIN AMERICA

From August 8 – 27, there was a missionary journey to Uruguay, organized by the Procure of the Mediterranean Province, with the participation of Fr. Adriano TITONE and three lay women from Italy (Milena Bianco, Elvira Petrone and Nietta Albanese), together with Fr. Tino MIGLIACCIO and three lay women from Spain (Mercedes Ossorio, Cristina Centenera, and Teresa Macicior). Here, two of the participants tell of their experience.

Fr. Tino Migliaccio: a threefold joy

For me, this missionary journey was a threefold joy. The first was the joy of having had the opportunity to return to a place where, as a scholastic, I had been for regency in 2003-2004, before perpetual vows and priesthood. For me, it was an immense joy to go back to Uruguay after almost 12 years and to meet persons with whom I had shared a year of my life. I could not stop smiling and being amazed at the same acceptance, affection and friendship they showed me, just as it had been in the past. The second joy was having the opportunity to share this journey with Mercedes, Kity (Cristina) and Teresa from Pozuelo, the place where I have been living as an Oblate for about a year, and with whom we form the group Talitakum Pozuelo, which began, thanks to the Talitakum Education Center in Uruguay which we had the good fortune of getting to know firsthand. The third joy was having the opportunity to share this journey with Fr. Adriano, Milena, Elvira and Nietta, as an important sign of the real communion between Italy and Spain, as a result of the unification (of provinces). I thank God for having given me this opportunity to live this threefold joy which only his great Love and Goodness could have given me.

Mercedes Ossorio: Journey!

Journey! That's the word that came to mind when I was told to summarize the experience in one word. A journey that began long ago, so long ago that I cannot even remember. It materialized in Rome when I met those who would be my traveling companions for a while. I found that we were all on the same path. We were all driftwood carried on the same current and led by God. Later, thousands of kilometers from our "homes,” we discovered many other pieces of driftwood in this river of life. Some flow together like the Oblates and the Oblate Sisters; others did not even know that they were letting themselves be carried by the current but they knew, trusted and loved the water where they were; and you saw many others who were trapped, lost, with neither dignity nor strength or desire to move on through the murky and churning waters. How can we move forward without stopping? How can we not lend a hand? Or were we perhaps the ones who needed that hand, that help, that love? Today I think I can say that love, given and received, will make us always need each other, will unite us more closely so as to continue towards the sea and, in this unity without borders nor kilometers, we will find strength for the storm.

To summarize the experience in one word is impossible: peace, family, trust, love... Journey: journey is the word that stays with me and with which Saint Eugene began it all. (http://nosotrosomi.blogspot.com/)