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After the retreat animated by Fr. B. Secondin – the aim of which was to understand the role of prophetic guidance by the members of the General Chapter of the Order – the first day of work witnessed the involvement of members of the General Chapter and some of the representatives of the Great Family of St. Camillus. With the by now imminent beginning of the year that will commemorate the four-hundred years since the death of St. Camillus, the morning was dedicated to this subject. This involved not only an account of the activities that have been engaged in (reports of the Central Committee, the ad hoc Communications Office of the Curia, the representative of the civil community of Bucchianico and the Province of Sicily and Naples followed one another) but also an analysis of the challenges and the proposals entrusted to the Order as opportunities to be explored and decisions to be taken. Indeed, while one observes – and the work groups bore witness to this – a great effervescence of initiatives at the level of local realities, it appears that there still remain on the table the challenges of the strengthening of the Camillian presence in Bucchianico, the cradle of the Order; greater attention being paid to spiritual preparation so that the Jubilee event is not only choreographic in character; and connections inside the Camillian world in the field of communication in order to highlight the great deal of good that has already been done.

Communication was the link that united the subject of the morning with that of the afternoon, namely ‘promoting the name of the Order’. The analysis was entrusted to the Office for Communications and Education of the Piarists, a model for investment in the sector of the promotion of the name of the Order with the creation, within the Curia, of an office for this area. The members of this office, guided by the religious entrusted with the task, addressed in a practical way the institutional, operational and technical aspects that make this office this junction point for all the ad intra and ad extra communication of the Order. The group work that followed took up the challenge to make communication an instrument for the sowing of hope (‘to give a voice to the many people without a voice that we encounter in our ministry’) and to uphold the meaning of our existence which is much more profound than the albeit much that we do (‘the communication of what we are generates a wish to imitate’).

On 3 May the formal General Chapter will begin and Camillian religious will take part in this, whereas the lay people and the representatives of the Great Family of St. Camillus will take their leave. This will take place in the House of St. Mary Magdalene, the spiritual location of the pilgrimage that has brought Camillus de Lellis and his first companions to our days. In this context, while we say goodbye, we will reaffirm our union under the banner of the spirit of St. Camillus, our shared Founder and the man who inspires us.