Celebrating our gratitude for Father Giuseppe Cinà, MI

July 21, 2020

On Sunday, July 12, 2020, the sisters in the motherhouse in Rome gathered to celebrate a special Holy Mass in gratitude for Father Giuseppe Cinà, MI, who had served the motherhouse community as chaplain since 2001 and is now retiring from this daily service to us.

When the motherhouse and generalate was moved to Via della Camilluccia, Mother Vera, superior general at the time, made an agreement with the Ministers to the Sick (Camillus Fathers), who have their provincial house just a short distance from us up the hill, to celebrate Mass in our motherhouse chapel every day, and they have been fulfilling this task very faithfully since 1948. On Sunday Father Antonio Marzano, MI, provincial superior, mentioned that in the early days a small bus would leave their property every morning to drop off the priests at the religious communities where they celebrated the Eucharist, while now we are the only ones left where the Camillus Fathers daily come.

Father Cinà was the motherhouse chaplain many years ago as a young priest and then was called to other duties, and different priests took this responsibility throughout the years. Then he returned to us 19 years ago and has become a dear brother and friend of our community while daily sharing the Word of God and the Bread of Life with us. Hundreds of sisters, visitors, and friends have come to appreciate his gentle ways, his deep, wise, and witty breaking open the Word of God during his homilies, and his sense of humor that often made us chuckle. Father Cinà has been very attentive to the feasts we celebrated in our community, no matter if they were big congregational events or the birthdays and feastdays of individual sisters.

To express our gratitude to him, we invited Father Cinà to come and concelebrate with Father Antonio Marzano and to join our community for breakfast on Sunday. We had a lively celebration of the Eucharist at which Father Cinà presided and offered one of his inspiring homilies, and there were contributions from different countries (something he always enjoyed). At breakfast Sister Mary Kristin expressed our appreciation for him and he received a beautifully hand-lettered card (by our Sister Mary Marcelle from Covington – 2001) and some gifts.

Father Cinà thanked us, too, sharing some humorous memories, and at the end we greeted each other with “Arrivederci!” – “See you again!”. We will indeed be happy to see him again when he occasionally comes to substitute for one of his confrères.