NOTIZIE INTORNO ALLA VITA QUOTIDIANA DELLA NOSTRA CHIESA

31 Dicembre 2020 Newsflash Antioch: December 2020 Another very difficult month due to Covid-19. We lurch from crisis to crisis! Antioch was seriously affected by the virus with a lot of cases and many deaths and the Christian community was not untouched. The most recent death was the president of the Catholic foundation of our church. There is a sense of loss in people. Our church remained open daily for liturgies and, when that was not possible due to the curfew, we broadcast the liturgy on Facebook on Saturday and Sunday. Our bishop gave permission to shift the religious obligation to Friday and Monday. Christmas had to be celebrated only in the home. Visits to other family members and dinners together were prohibited. During the Christmas Vigil more than 60 participants joined on Facebook. At the end of the year, to the delight of the very pious Muslims, there were 3 days of total curfew. We leave behind a tragic year that will not be easily forgotten. As believers, however, we know that "everything is grace" as US bishop Fulton Sheen wrote. In order to understand these events we need faith but even in professed Christians, faith is very weak ... Yet I believe this year has helped many people come back to themselves and ask themselves the meaning of existence and human frailty. December 2nd. The olive harvest has ended in the production of an excellent quality oil. The weather was exceptionally beautiful and this favoured the work of the farmers ... December 4th. The new father has arrived, Francis Dondu, a capuchin from India. Before handing over the parish of Adana to two Argentine priests on January 12th, he will have to continue the service from Antioch covering 400 km weekly ... December 12th Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There is moment of prayer in all Turkish parishes at 12 noon for the Apostolic Vicar of Istanbul, Monsignor Ruben Tierrablanca Gonzales who is hospitalised with Covid-19. In Antioch we participate with the recitation of the rosary on Facebook. December 18th. This year we only set up the crib with a small Christmas tree in the church and in our living room-kitchen. December 20th. The Municipality comes to disinfect… with the danger of poisoning! They clean everything! December 23rd. The Prefect of Antioch, Rahmi Dogan, send a Christmas greetings to the Christians of the region ... through Media. December 24th. Here is the letter with the Christmas greetings sent to friends, acquaintances, benefactors, brothers and sisters ... MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY NEW YEAR 2021! Dear friends, I begin wishing you a happy Christmas with the word used by Jesus to his apostles. This Christmas will be very different from those we have experienced up to now - in Italy, in Turkey, in the whole world. Covid19 shows us our fragility. Christmas comes to remind us that we are not abandoned. There is one among us who says to us- “Courage ... I am ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life’!” In previous years, I have sent out the Antioch Chronicle. 2019 saw it reach its 23rd edition but I didn’t do one this year. That is because since March as an enforced "recluse" I have devoted myself to writing my Memoirs of being a friar and priest in Turkey. I have been living in this country for 54 years. For me they have been wonderful years and I am happy about it. Now I am augmenting the text with photographs. I hope, one day, to be able to share this with you all because you too have contributed to it in an important way with meetings, friendships, financial aid, but above all with closeness, encouragement and prayer. I stress that these are memoirs. There are many other events I could have shared, but my aim is to make a summary of the life of a friar in mission in Turkey. It is up to you to judge whether I have succeeded! From my part, there was good will and a desire to be useful. I offer you a preview of the Preface. ‘What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.’ Gabriel Garcia Marquez Br Domenico Valentino Bertogli Capuchin friar for 54 years in Turkey. For some time now I have been thinking about how to write down my long experience as a friar and missionary in Turkey but I could never really get down to it. This morning, finally, March 18th 2020 here in Antioch, forced "to the borders", due to the coronavirus, I have written the first lines. I’m really looking forward to sharing my long, and to me beautiful, adventure with my readers. Today I start to retrace with some surprise where I started from and where I have come to ... It seems both impossible and unimaginable. Yet it is all true, my lived experience. This is not meant to be boasting, but simply a testimony to praise God for what he has done in my life - I'm 84 today - and to encourage others to follow this path by trusting Him a little. It wasn't just a good adventure, but a journey in which God had a discreet but decisive role. I start from this phrase: "trust in God". It is not a given. Faith is a journey with many experiences that lead you to unexpected and surprising places. What comes from the Lord is always wonderful. When I was studying theology, I read St Augustine – ‘You made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.’ Who can say that he has not felt this mysterious restlessness? It is the Confession of Saint Augustine who, after an adolescence and a youth tormented by a passion for the truth, finally finds God. Many men, driven by the desire for truth, have encountered God, while others, apparently, are indifferent to this thirst for God in their hearts. I want to start everything from this because only in this way will it be possible to understand the precise dynamic of my decisions and actions. Faith is not a certainty even if you have been baptized, if you have received the sacraments, if you have chosen to become a friar and then a priest-missionary. At least for me it was like that. Faith is a long journey in which you met Him, then you are taught, guided, corrected and ... supported. In writing these memoirs, I have relied mainly on memory. However, I do have some other important sources that I want to mention here at the beginning. From the time of my arrival in Antioch I’ve always kept a very detailed daily diary. Moreover, having a mania for photographs and "historical memory", I started, and have continued to this day, photo albums that have immortalized the most important events. When I have any doubts, I can consult them. In 2007 I had a website of the Catholic Church of Antioch made in which I report the monthly events under the heading "Newsflash Antioch". And these are kept in the archive of the site itself. Since 1997 I have been publishing the ANTIOCH CHRONICLE that I send at Christmas to acquaintances, visitors and benefactors Its 23rd edition was in 2019. These are important documents of the work of the Catholic Church of Antioch. I believe that history is also made by sharing one's activities, leaving traces to those who will come after and that it will help them. In the account of my time in Smyrna (Izmir), I have a collection of all the mimeographed newsletters that I sent to the parishioners and several photo albums of which I left a duplicate in the archive of the Parish of St. Helen in Karsiyaka (Izmir). Today I can appreciate its importance by drawing on it to recall events from far away. Again best wishes and greetings to all! Father Domenico Bertogli - At 9 pm we celebrate the Vigil Mass of Christmas. There are only a few of us in the church but through the internet we are about a hundred ... Before the celebration we have some readings about the Gospels and sing traditional songs, to enliven the event. Christmas of 2020 was very sober, but still impressive! Then we cut the panettone that the San Martino Missionary Center sent us. December 25th. This morning the president of our foundation died of corona virus. He was one of the elderly Catholics of our community. He was taken to a cold room in the Orthodox church to be coffined and tomorrow we will have the funeral with only family members ... - Christmas lunch in Antioch ... December 26th. The Muhtar (the neighbourhood representative) came with members of the Red Crescent (as the Red Cross is called in Muslim countries) to bring Christmas wishes, chocolates, flowers and disinfectant! December 29th . In Istanbul, funeral takes place of the Apostolic Vicar Monsignor Ruben. Tierrabianca who died of corona virus on Christmas Eve. He made a great impression on the Christian community ... - The local newspaper, ANTAKYA, reports the arrival of a new father for the Catholic Church of Antioch. December 31. We have been “imprisoned ” since yesterday. However, after Mass with the Te Deum (In Turkish) we bid farewell the year 2020 without regrets and with a lot of hope! Despite the curfew at the stroke of midnight you can hear a lot of bangs, some even thunderous ... People really want to be done with this disastrous year!