{"id":5372,"date":"2019-03-04T18:57:32","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T17:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/osb.org\/?p=5372"},"modified":"2020-02-03T15:50:22","modified_gmt":"2020-02-03T14:50:22","slug":"pope-francis-chooses-abbot-bernardo-gianni-osb-to-lead-2019-lenten-spiritual-exercises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/2019\/03\/04\/pope-francis-chooses-abbot-bernardo-gianni-osb-to-lead-2019-lenten-spiritual-exercises\/","title":{"rendered":"Abbot Bernardo Gianni OSB Oliv. Leads 2019 Lenten Spiritual Exercises for Pope Francis and Curia"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register <\/em>(online at NCRegister.com , with slight textual adaptations)<\/p>\n

Known for being a \u2018social monk\u2019 with \u2018deep spirituality,\u2019 Abbot Bernardo Gianni OSB Oliv. played a key role in a 2015 conference attended by Pope Francis, on a new Christian humanism.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pope Francis has chosen a Benedictine monk of \u201cgreat culture\u201d, and one of the chief architects of a 2015 conference in Florence on Christian humanism, to preach at his Lenten retreat in March.<\/p>\n

Olivetan Abbot Bernardo Gianni OSB Oliv., 50, of the famous San Miniato al Monte Abbey overlooking Florence, will be leading the spiritual exercises in Ariccia, outside Rome, from 10-15 March 2019.<\/p>\n

The monastic order of Our Lady of Mount Olivet was founded in 1313. The Olivetan Congregation has been included within the Benedictine Confederation since 1960.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Abbot Bernardo said Pope Francis telephoned him out of the blue and invited him to give the retreat.<\/p>\n

It was a \u201crelaxed conversation,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cWhen I pointed out that I didn’t have any kind of academic, ecclesial, or theological profile to justify such an invitation, the Pope with his disarming style said: \u2018This is very positive.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

His\u00a010 meditations for the retreat have been inspired by the poem\u00a0Siamo Qui Per Questo<\/em> (This Is Why We Are Here) by the Italian poet Mario Luzi (1914-2005), who had a devotion to the Basilica of San Miniato al Monte and dedicated the poem to it.<\/p>\n

The annual papal retreat, which is also attended by senior officials of the Roman Curia, is said to be one of the highlights of the year for the Holy Father, who chooses retreat leaders he sees as having great spiritual depth and a profound sense of culture.<\/p>\n

Andrea Fagioli, writing Feb. 27 in\u00a0Avvenire<\/em>, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, said Abbot Bernardo is \u201ca man of great culture,\u201d \u201cdeep spirituality\u201d and a \u201csocial monk.\u201d Fagioli said he has opened the doors of the abbey to engage with the world, helping it to become \u201ca place of beauty, encounter, communion, and openness to beyond and to the other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbot Bernardo has sought monastic renewal, Fagioli added, by opening up the monastery to the city and welcoming those searching for \u201cmeaning, consolation, faith.\u201d The abbey’s Masses are in the Ordinary Form of the Roman rite and in the vernacular, while the divine office is prayed in Latin.<\/p>\n

Born in Prato near Florence, Francesco Gianni (his pre-monastic name) had lived far from the faith before returning to the Church and discovering his vocation in 1992. After becoming the abbey’s prior in 2009, he was elected abbot in December 2015.<\/p>\n

An enthusiastic advocate of the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on dialogue and encounter with the world, he played a significant role in November 2015 in preparing an ecclesial convention held by the Italian bishops\u2019 conference on a \u201cnew humanism in Jesus Christ,\u201d which coincided with Pope Francis\u2019 visit to Prato and Florence.<\/p>\n

In an\u00a0address<\/a>\u00a0that attracted considerable attention at the time, the Pope told the conference it was \u201cuseless\u201d to seek solutions to ills and problems in the Church through \u201cconservatism and fundamentalism,\u201d or the \u201crestoration of practices and outdated forms that even culturally aren\u2019t able to be meaningful.\u201d He also warned against a faith that is \u201clocked in subjectivism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pope went on to criticize what he saw as two errors prevalent in Church thinking today: Pelagianism, a heresy that denies original sin, and Gnosticism, which denies Christ\u2019s divinity, as temptations that \u201cdefeat\u201d a true Christian humanism. He would later expand on those themes in his 2018 apostolic exhortation on holiness in the modern world, Gaudete et Exsultate<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Rejoice and Be Glad).<\/em><\/p>\n

Christian doctrine, he said during his address, \u201cis not a closed system incapable of generating questions, concerns, interrogatives, but it is alive, unsettles, animates. Its face isn\u2019t rigid, its body moves and develops, it has tender flesh: that of Jesus Christ.\u201d True Christian humanism, he concluded, is \u201cbased on the need for dialogue and encounter, to build together with others a civil society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked<\/a> a month later, after being made abbot, what had remained with him of the Pope\u2019s message, Abbot Bernardo said an \u201cagenda full of tasks especially for our heart, to rediscover the centrality of the Gospel, of its call to love, attention to old and new forms of poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the Pope\u2019s message also reminded him not to fall into an \u201cideology of faith or ecclesial belonging\u201d but to have \u201can agenda of concern\u201d for those who are distant, and never to be satisfied by pastoral results but to be \u201crestless\u201d in helping the Lord by giving \u201cmeaning and hope to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abbot Bernardo said he believed the Pope chose him to lead the papal retreat because of his involvement with that conference, and his work organizing the 1,000-year anniversary of San Miniato al Monte \u2013 a church which, he said, has a \u201cvocation\u201d of \u201ctalking to as many people as possible everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

He shared that the meditations will be drawn from monastic life, the \u201cgaze of the monks and monastic community on the city, oriented toward the Lord, but never insensitive to what is lived in the heart of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div>
NCREGISTER.COM ARTICLE ON ABBOT BERNARDO GIANNI (by Edward Pentin, English)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
L’Osservatore Romano — Il Settimanale (pp. 5-10, Italian, 21 March 2019 )<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
L’Osservatore Romano coverage of Lenten spiritual exercises (pp. 1 & 8, Italian, 16 March 2019)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
L’Osservatore Romano coverage of Lenten spiritual exercises (p. 8, Italian, 15 March 2019)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
L’Osservatore Romano coverage of Lenten spiritual exercises (p. 8, Italian, 14 March 2019)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
L’Osservatore Romano coverage of Lenten spiritual exercises (p. 8, Italian, 13 March 2019)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
L’Osservatore Romano coverage of Lenten spiritual exercises (pp. 1 & 8, Italian, 12 March 2019)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
L’Osservatore Romano Interview with Abbot Bernardo Gianni (p. 8, Italian, 10 March 2019)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
ARTICLE ON ABBOT BERNARDO GIANNI IN VATICAN NEWS (ITALIAN)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
ARTICLE ON ABBOT BERNARDO GIANNI IN AVVENIRE (by Andrea Fagioli, Italian)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
ARTICLE ON ABBOT BERNARDO GIANNI IN CORRIERE DELLA SERA – FIORENTINO (Italian)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
ARTICLE ON ABBOT BERNARDO GIANNI IN TOSCANO OGGI (Italian)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
ABBOT BERNARDO GIANNI DESCRIBES POPE FRANCIS’ PHONE CALL (VIDEO FROM TOSCANO OGGI, ITALIAN)<\/span><\/a><\/div>
<\/div>
ABBEY OF SAN MINIATO AL MONTE IN FLORENCE, ITALY (website in Italian)<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Francis has chosen Olivetan Benedictine Abbot Bernardo Gianni OSB Oliv., of the Abbey of San Miniato al Monte in Florence, to preach his Lenten spiritual exercises in Ariccia, Italy from 10-15 March 2019. See story, articles, video, and photos here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":7851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"Church San Miniato al Monte, Florence, Italy, cropped | \r\n","source_text":"By Goldmund100 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 | link | ","source_url":"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=5661202"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osb.org\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}