Marcin Burchardt
Cenacolo was founded 32 years ago by an Italian nun, Mother Elvira Petrozzi. Seeing young people sad and desperate, addicted to drugs, she felt a call to help them find the real joy of life. While other programmes tried to help people with addictions through medication, Mother Elvira felt the real answer lay in the love of God, so her goal from the very beginning was to show us Jesus, his love and mercy.
The first house she managed to open was on the hill of Saluzzo. Like our lives, it was in ruins, so she had the idea to rebuild and renew it together with the boys. After a couple of years the house filled up. We opened another one later, then a third etc.
An important moment of development for our community was when we opened a house in Medjugorje. Mother Elvira used to go there with the boys for pilgrimages and after a few years a group of friends proposed to give us a piece of land for the use of our community. From there we started to spread all over the world.
We now have houses in Europe, South America, North America and Africa – over 2,000 men and women are currently living in Cenacolo communities around the world, and mission houses in South America and Liberia provide homes for the children from the street.
Many people have discovered their vocations in our community, so now the movement has priests, nuns and consecrated brothers living in community with us.
The house in Ireland was started 16 years ago. Two groups of Irish people who had encountered Cenacolo in Medjugorje desired to have this community in their own country.
They didn’t know about one another but they both kept praying for Cenacolo to come to Ireland. After a while some of them went to Italy to experience life in Cenacolo’s mother house, which helped them to understand the place better.
After a few Irish boys with drug problems joined Cenacolo in Italy, Mother Elvira came to Ireland to look for a house for the community here.
The houses she saw first weren’t suitable, in her opinion, and the community members didn’t know what to do.
They still didn’t have a house when Mother Elvira was going to leave Ireland. Finally they found a suitable but expensive house in Co. Mayo. Mother Elvira said that if God wanted the community to have the house he would help them, and eventually they managed to raise the necessary funds to buy it. Shortly after, in December 1999, the first group from Italy came over to open the house and started to welcome Irish boys there.
The community, which receives no State funding, relies heavily on God’s providence. Through the generosity of many friends of the community, we want for nothing. Essentials like food, clothing and household products all come from donors while much-needed cash donations help to pay utility bills and to buy farming tools and building materials.
Living reliant on God’s providence through the generosity of so many people helps to strengthen our faith and build strong bonds with the friends who help our community. For someone who wouldn’t believe in God, this providential living helps a lot in building faith.
Every day we start at 6 am with the joyful mysteries of the Rosary. Half an hour before, whoever wants goes to the Blessed Sacrament chapel for private Eucharistic adoration – Mother Elvira insists that every Cenacolo house has a Blessed Sacrament chapel.
After some time spent in community, adoration became the most important part of my day. We can offer to Jesus all our difficulties and struggles so he can change our lives and heal them.
We take time to read the Gospel, to reflect on it and to build a strong foundation for our future, and sometimes after the morning Rosary we share the Gospel with the others.
It helps us to find out who we really are, to be honest with each other, and to put the Gospel in practice.
Friendships
Most of the day we work learning new things, discovering our gifts and building friendships with one another. We have a bit of free time after lunch and after supper, and twice a week play football. Between everything, we learn to be organised and to fill our time to the maximum.
Every Sunday, we participate in Holy Mass at the parish church in Shanvaghera, and as our house is only a few kilometres away from Knock Shrine, on the first Saturday of each month we have a Holy Hour in the Apparition Chapel, where we pray for all the lads who are still living on the streets and are struggling with their addictions.
Every first Monday of the month we have a little walking pilgrimage to Knock Shrine. We pray three rosaries on the way there and another three on the way back for our Mother Elvira and for all the intentions of the community. Sometimes the shrine invites us to give testimonies for the groups of young people visiting them.
Living this way in community I have come to understand why I was using drugs. I lacked faith and I missed Jesus in my life. I’ve tried many times to change my life without Jesus and it never worked out, because I wasn’t happy – I was looking for my own way to happiness.
In community I started to pray because everyone prayed, so I followed the crowd like I used to do all my life.
Through personal Eucharistic Adoration I started to understand who I really am. Jesus showed me the truth about me and although it sometimes was hard to accept, my friends let me know that they still accepted me.
It was me who didn’t love myself and Jesus helped me to change that.
I joined Cenacolo weighed down with hate for my father. I was blaming everyone but me.
By daily reading of the Gospel I learned that Jesus doesn’t want me to hate but to forgive. When I started to forgive I started also to understand that my dad always loved me.
Jesus changed not only my life but also the lives of all my family, and I know that without him I cannot be happy.
That’s how prayer has changed my life. Jesus was what I was looking for all the time.