Cecilia and Maria

Four years of vivacity, Cecilia knows what she wants and what she doesn't want. That evening she did not want pasta and was doing everything to avoid it, but as soon as she heard her mother say that there was a need to pray for a certain situation, the whims suddenly disappeared and she began a prayer "with all my heart" to our dear little Madonna to tell her that we love her very, very much.
He then fell to his brother who did not want to be outdone and ran to the room to look for the prayer to be proclaimed aloud to us adults in the meantime remained speechless. Another day to her quieter brother, Ceci had suggested with conviction: "If you don't know what to say to Jesus, tell him you like football."

She knows well that he is interested in what interests us and does not mind the few words we can say to him, the important thing is that they are said "with all my heart". Children teach us to pray. Like Baiel who gets up from the table even at the best of a game because the time x has come. With his twelve years and his desire to joke, if there is something he does not want to do, he too knows how to escape, but he goes to prayer willingly and then he assures us: "We have prayed for Italy, that end the virus ». Now the airports have reopened, the children who have finished their treatment have returned home but we continue to speak.

We pray for their country now that the virus has also reached Kyrgyzstan and there is a worrying political crisis.
We remember when Assiel saw us walking around the house with the rosary in hand showed us his crown: it is not so different from ours. Christians and Muslims, children and adults, we all try to love God. In the small church of the hermitage, the tabernacle is right in the center so we keep the sense of our being together. Here the wonder of creation helps to immerse oneself in a greater Presence.

The difficulty of walking together, however, is not removed.
Trying to live in the presence of God and to create fraternity is the most beautiful and most difficult job for all of us, whether we are in the Hermitage or anywhere in the world.

Maria Claudia Brunello
Arsenal of Harmony
NP November 2021