Easter in Albania

Easter in Albania

by Biagio Falco, C.M.

The two missionary outposts in Albania already form reference points for the Provinces of the confreres and the Daughters of Charity. Relationships of collaboration and support can do nothing but develop from this.

In Rreshen the work of evangelization forges ahead. At its centre is the work of the two confreres and the Daughters of Charity from the Slovene Province and some other Italian Sisters. The Christian community is growing and providing itself with suitable structures. The other three confreres are exploring the peripheral areas of mountainous Mirdite, often difficult to reach. All told there are already a few dozen villages where they are known, and where they work at building Christian communities, and also building churches.

A theology student from Naples was with them for Holy Week and Easter and was fascinated by the experience, and decided to go back in the summer. He was fired by the real Vincentian atmosphere breathed there, and the evangelization plan developing there.

At the same time Fr. B. Falco and another theology student went to Mollas in the traditionally Moslem south. Daughters of Charity have been there for three years now and their presence is beginning to show results, not only in tackling serious problems of a human and social kind, but also in terms of evangelization. On Easter Sun day, in fact, the 23 catechumens who decided last summer to set out on the road of Christian catechesis were baptised. This group included young adults and a whole family of seven persons. In that way the first Christian community came into being, the first promising seed of the Church in an area where hope is learned gradually, but where these few neophytes are anxious to bear witness to the joy of having met Jesus of Nazareth on their streets, of having answered his invitation, and of belonging to him by choosing him as their ideal and the meaning of their lives.

(Thomas Davitt, C.M., translator)

Copyright 2009 Congregation of the Mission