Father Alberto Maggi. /Photo in the report: Ignacio Maria Coccia)
“The seeds will eventually bear fruit.” In a WhatsApp message, the excited voice of a young woman thanks Father Alberto, while telling him about her father. Assiduous in the trips to the Holy Land organized by the priest Servita, Bible studies and aid for the children of the Baby Caritas Hospital, the man, at the end of September, found himself faced with the choice of his daughter embarked on the Global Sumud Flotilla: continue towards Gaza, facing the blockade of Israeli ships and in the best case scenario, prison, or go back.
“Don’t stop, keep going,” he told her. Years later that seed, planted in Jerusalem, continued to bear fruit.
Father Alberto Maggi’s mobile phone is like a precious treasure chest. Faces, stories, fragments of life to trace a network of relationships made of shared joys and sorrows, words of the Gospel and small affectionate phrases to remember each other from a distance, hopes of men and women.
At 80 years old – he celebrated them on 6 November – Father Maggi uses social media without fear, in the shadow of the cloister of the Servi di Maria convent in Montefano.
In this small village, between Ancona and Macerata, 30 years ago he created the Biblical Studies Center dedicated to Father Giovanni Vannucci, with his brother Ricardo Pérez Márquez, a biblical scholar, 67 years old, originally from Granada and current provincial of the Servites for Piedmont and Romagna.
Among olive trees, lemon trees and rose bushes, in this space – where about ten cats live, all rigorously called by name, the dog Sissi, and soon also Friar Kristian from Indonesia -, the watchword is “beauty”.
Beauty is the care with which ancient peasant furniture and valuable desks have been restored. Beauty is the love of plants and animals. The walk in the fields, in the morning, where we pray without the psalter in front of a Marian icon along the route.
It is handmade pasta prepared by friends and reheated for guests. It’s sharing moments of life, with bread, cheese and a glass of Santeresia, the red wine from a famous winery aged in the convent caves.
It means not having a fixed time, but varying lunches, dinners and celebrations, to accommodate the guest on duty. It is to remember Franca Rame who recites Mary at the cross from Funny mystery by Dario Fo, at the presentation of Maggi’s first book, Our Lady of Hereticsat the Unità festival in 1991.
It is the prayer for a couple who has lost a child. There are days and days (“even fifteen”) spent to correctly translate a word of the Gospel.
It is the library specialized in biblical texts and the study, where a small pantheon is dedicated to colleagues and friends, from Ortensio da Spinetoli to Giovanni Vannucci, from David Maria Turoldo to Vito Mancuso.
Beauty is knowing that many look at these two “heretical” priests with gratitude, because the door is always open. (…)
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