University students in Italy for study reasons, they learned about the Christian faith accompanied on their trip by the monastic community of the Small Family of the Assumption of Montetauro. The Card. Zuppi: “Sign of a community of believers of all nations.”
Bologna () – On the day of the solemnity of the Epiphany, five Chinese university students received the sacraments of Christian initiation yesterday afternoon in the Cathedral of Bologna, during the People’s Mass presided over by the archbishop, Card. Matteo Zuppi. The celebration, in eight languages, was attended not only by the Catholics of Bologna, but also by a dozen international Catholic communities present in the Italian city.
Significantly, in the festival that faces the East, from where the three Wise Men came to honor Jesus, it was precisely five young Chinese university students, in Bologna for studies, who received baptism, communion and confirmation and thus entered the community of the Catholic Church. Gregorio, Maria, Chiara, Teresa and Lucia, these are their first names, have prepared themselves in the last two years in contact with the Small Family of the Assumption of Montetauro (Rimini), the monastic community spread throughout the region of Romagna with family houses that welcome disabled people and have activated virtuous contact with the Chinese communities in the area. A large group of monks and nuns from Montetauro were present at the celebration, accompanied by its founder, Father Lanfranco Bellavista, and by the Chinese priest Savio Yan, who has lived in their community for many years and specifically accompanies the young catechumens in catechesis.
The Card. Zuppi stressed in his homily that the people present in the cathedral are the Church as it should be, that is, a community of believers called from different nations. The cardinal also recalled the fact that the five young people came from the great and noble nation of China.
The Bologna event is ideally part of the continuity of the initiative promoted on December 3 by and the PIME Center with the Chinese Catholic community of Milan, where some young Chinese also participated, giving testimony of their faith.
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