Sant’Agnello, on Sunday 26 June the traditional “Feast of the Altars” is renewed in the Colli di Fontanelle
Sant’Agnello. In the year that Pope Francis strongly wanted to dedicate toFAMILY LOVE and to SYNODALITY, also the community of Parish of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary of the Colli di Fontanelle finally it resumes its traditional paths and religious rites (suspended due to Covid in recent years). And this year the community decided that the characteristic Altars, dedicated to the Feast of Corpus Domini, were an interpretation of this feeling that unites all the Churches of the world.
Indeed, the FAMILY is the most active and fruitful school of “synodality”. It is around the House canteen laid out, that giving thanks for the gift of Bread and Wine, we celebrate and with simple and spontaneous gestures we express the joy of the little things, which are the most beautiful and precious. Around this home canteen we learn to “build” relationships, based on trust and acceptance of the other. In the family we learn to “share” successes and difficulties. Because it is in the support of those close to us that we find the strength to overcome the Storm.
Unfortunately in recent months the small community of the Colli di Fontanelle has been lashed by unexpected and devastating storms. But despite the pain, these moments of difficulty have also given the Hope for solidarity. The families on which Raging Storms have fallen are not left alone. Indeed, they had the support of the whole community that every day shows affection and closeness with generous and concrete gestures.
We found ourselves to be “Family of Families” who join forces, experiencing and concretely translating the love of a Christ who gives himself “Body and Blood” to give us testimony of the Father’s mercy and of His profound and gratuitous love that sustains and consoles us above all in the moment of trial. It is by entrusting ourselves to him that, inAltar of “down”, resurrects Lazarus giving consolation to Martha and Mary, we will have the strength to circulate and make fruitful the “good” that is in each of us. So here is that the family also becomes the Way of HOLINESSas the blessed testify Mr and Mrs Beltrami Quattrocchi, testimony of prayer in the memory of those who have spent so much in recent years for the success of this religious event and who today guide us from Heaven, reliving in the gestures of those who carry on the tradition. In the hands they paint wooden silhouettes, draw and build scaffolding, glue colored sawdust and create flower arrangements. It is a “consortium”, a correspondence of emotions and values which, through the perpetuation of gestures and traditions, becomes a story of our past and hope for our future. A future of smiles and joy like that of the happy faces of the little ones of the community, involved in setting up the Altars.
Guided by the traditional carpet of fragrant petals, we go up the road that leads us from the church to the square, where we find the Altar of “su”, which unite the steps of the community to the rest of the Italian churches by making the words our own: mission, communion and participation. With a new and modern design, embellished with thousands of petals collected and glued by hand one by one, we wanted to represent the community of the Colli di Fontanelle, a family of families, but also all the people of God, gathered around Jesus in which find strength, courage and example by walking with divine stepthat is, with the same step of Jesus, acquiring that synodal style that allows people “to express themselves, to walk in faith even if they have difficult life paths, to contribute to the life of the community”.
Jesus himself is the model of this way of walking. If he spoke to someone, he looked into his eyes with a deep attention full of love: “Jesus fixed his gaze on him, he loved him.” We see him open to encounter when he approaches the blind man along the road or when he eats and drinks with sinners. We see him available when he lets a prostitute anoint his feet or when he receives Nicodemus at night. Indeed, it is his being with everyone that he wanted to represent on the altar, with an image of his own creation: He who makes a “synod”, He is a synod, His model of being together with everyone, the style that has marked his whole existence, style even in this small community that has had to share enormous pains as well as great joys several times, but walking together he was able to discover the ways in which the Holy Spirit adorns the life of the church, drawing each one into a deeper love for Christ and encouraging the desire for ever greater communion, participation and mission.
The appointment with the “Feast of the Altars” in the Colli di Fontanelle is for Sunday 26 June, after the Mass at 6.30 pm, with the traditional Corpus Domini procession.
