‘You did not choose me, I chose you’ (Jn 15:16)

These words of Jesus are the footprints that have been accompanying us in recent days…We are four disciples of Jesus and we are going through the experience of the novitiate. Each one of us, according to his own aspirations and talents, was planning his life which, indeed, offered various prospects: the Lord, however, decided that we should have a larger plan for our lives. We came from various contexts and various places but all of four of us answered the same call that Christ made to us for a single mission: that of following him through nearness to the least and in a particular way to those in need and the sick in body and spirit.
In accepting, therefore, this invitation of Jesus during this year of novitiate, accompanied by our educators, we are already experiencing a special consecration inside the Camillian Order through an exploration of the dialogue of friendship with Christ, a concrete and daily experience of community life, initiation into the Camillian ministry through the exercise of corporeal and spiritual charity towards the sick and an open and profound knowledge of the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience: that point of departure which is a pivot around which to live in a better way the charism of mercy towards the sick.
There are very many opportunities for us everyday to implement merciful charity towards the sick, a charism received from God and mediated by the spirituality that St. Camillus, through his example of dedication to the sick, bequeathed to us and on which we are called to base ourselves.
We feel wonder to see how the Spirit guides us in implementing the ministry of charity in the various ways that God wants, thereby bearing witness to faith in nursing care, spiritual care and animation of the liturgy.
The experience of ministry helps us to strengthen our relationship with God, a relationship which, although it is marked by sacrifice, is lived with joy. As St. Camillus lived and taught, in the face of the sick person we are learning to see the countenance of Jesus Christ so as to serve him ‘with all diligence and charity, with that affection that a loving mother has for her sick only child’. And we feel that we are instruments of hope and of comfort.
We realise, however, how difficult it would be to interact every day with suffering if this was not characterised and nourished by an intimate and personal relationship with the Lord. This experience is helping us to conform ourselves steadily with the same feelings of trust and self-abandonment that Jesus nurtured towards the Father in giving himself to others to the point of sacrificing himself on the cross. It is this spirituality and radical approach to life that we want to profess before God through religious consecration so as to practise in a better way ‘with all our strength service to the sick, even at the risk to our own lives’.

The novices, Antonio, Salvo, Nicola and Salvatore.