Trip down memory lane (8)
of Mother Anna Maria Cánopi
The journey of life is done in company and the people who, from stage to stage, providentially stand by us have a more or less large impact on our history.
For this reason I should remember a long list of people, but I will limit myself to some of the most significant ones, starting, obviously, with those who introduced me into life.
My parents: Mario and Maria Cleofe. He might be called a man of thought, she a woman of intuition; a combination of rationality and poetry, strength and sweetness. Wisely humble, with only elementary education they were able to express in their lives the most genuine values of Christianity: the strong and large family, the responsibility of education, the sacrifice of work, altruism. I can only think of them in heaven among the ranks of those who have experienced the evangelical beatitudes.
of Mother Anna Maria Cánopi
The Lord has plans unknown to us and always surprising. The tree rooted on the rock of San Giulio Island, which had grown unpredictably, was ready to transplant some shoots elsewhere. And there were many bishops who came to ask us - almost to beg us - to give our presence to their dioceses too. Among the numerous and continuous requests we were able to satisfy some.
In Valle d'Aosta, the «Regina Pacis» Priory was born on 12 October 2002. The monastery is created from the renovation of some rustic medieval "grange" of the canons of the Great San Bernardo. As in a cradle, surrounded by mountains, next to the Hospitaller House of the Canons, the "Regina Pacis" community, initially made up of seven members, also gradually grew. Now there are about fifteen nuns. The activities they carry out are, to a proportionate extent, some of those already learned in the abbey on the island, in particular sacred vestments, icons and various crafts.
of Mother Anna Maria Cánopi
Itinerary towards the monastic vocation
of Mother Anna Maria Cánopi osb
Vocation is a mystery of grace: it is not easy to describe its origin and development. I recognize that my monastic vocation has its roots already in childhood, since I have always felt God's gaze on me and I have always felt a strong attraction towards the Lord, towards prayer and the sacred in general.
The nuns who then ran the orphanage in my town welcomed me to pray in their little chapel and perhaps hoped that one day I would join their religious family. The same applies to the nuns of another Institute who served in the hospitals; but I was a teenager and still busy studying; it wasn't time to think about this yet.
I was about twenty years old when my good former primary school teacher, whom I called "godmother", accompanied me to the visiting room of the diocesan seminary to introduce me to a priest who dedicated himself to the training of seminarians and the youth of Catholic Action.
«Listen, please, this young woman – he said to him – She has something inside…», and he left me alone with him. He, seeing my shyness, began to kindly ask me questions about my family, my living environment and the most intimate desires of my heart. At that time, among the various young people who were around me there was one to whom I had become fond because of his mother, a widow, whom he made suffer a lot by leading a reckless life and neglecting his university studies. I loved him, but my intent was only to make him good. Besides, he himself didn't dare make the proposals he usually made to all the girls. In fact, he kept a notebook in which he wrote the names of those he had "conquered", boasting that he had already listed a hundred! After many years, I learned of a secret he had made to a friend who was then surprised that he didn't try to seduce me: "When I thought of conquering her, a voice shouted to me: Don't touch that!". Strange things, but which certainly happen under divine direction. For this reason we can boast of nothing other than the gratuitousness of the salvation brought about by God.
of Mother Anna Maria Cánopi osb
Nothing in our life happens by chance. For each of us there is a plan of God which he himself brings to completion by arranging the means and favorable circumstances, requiring on our part docility, free adherence - by faith - to his will.
This explains the fact that my parents - despite the economic difficulties - made me continue my studies, while my brothers and sisters, no less intellectually gifted than me, were soon sent to work. Perhaps there was also the reason for my frail physical constitution. For all the family members, however, it was fine and, without a shadow of jealousy, they were pleased with what I learned for them too.
The years of my studies were experienced by me as a continuous and confident exodus.
by Mother Anna Maria Cánopi, osb
On June 10, 1940, while I was next to my mother who was sitting in front of the house under the lime tree, breastfeeding her last little brother, a woman arrived shouting: «The war has broken out! The Duce proclaimed on the radio that Italy too had allied itself with Germany and entered the war! My mother gasped and held her baby close as if to protect him: «Mercy, Lord! What will happen to all of us?".
The first consequence was the call of men - young and old - to the army. I was nine years old; I didn't yet know what a world war was, but I understood its gravity from the dismay I saw on the faces of the two mothers. In fact, our life underwent an abrupt change.
of Mother Maria Cánopi
At that time in the small town where I lived there was neither nursery school nor nursery school. It began with primary school, and this was a great event for both children and families, especially for those who lived in isolated houses.
In fact, it was a matter of getting used to entering into relationships with other unknown children and with a teacher who - no matter how maternal she was - could not replace the mother.
I really liked school as a place to learn to read and write, but my extreme shyness put me in difficulty with some mischievous classmates, who even went so far as to dip the tips of my blonde braids in the inkwell! At that time, in fact, there were no ballpoint pens or fountain pens yet, but wooden straws with nibs inserted into the tip were used, so on every school desk there were inkwells stuck in a hole for dipping, and yes he used paper towels for the inevitable stains.
Canopi/January 2011
Recalling in old age the experiences and impressions had in early childhood can be a way for everyone to recover an apparently lost world and perhaps also to find the key to understanding their own inner world in the current moment. However, it is not easy to recall one's childhood "out loud", that is, to tell it to others. There is an innate reserve, like a veil beyond which not even we can push our gaze. We are fully known only by God, for he is the Love that created us and sustains us in life.