Father Gian Carlo Sibilia, founder of the community the Little Brothers of Jesus Charitas, died suddenly in the abbey of Sassovivo (Foligno).. A spiritual point of reference for entire generations, Father Giancarlo had grown up in the ranks of the Giac (Italian Catholic Action Youth). Having entered the spiritual family of Charles de Foucald, he became a priest in 1970. Between the 1960s and 1990s he lived in Spello in the fraternity of San Girolamo next to Brother Carlo Carretto. «In addition to my mother», he recalled in an interview with Avvenire, «another person who strongly influenced my love for Jesus and for the Church was brother Carlo Carretto. In love with Jesus at the school of Carlo Carretto, and guided by Brother Charles, I could only follow them in the very footsteps of the desert and in the development of their spiritual message. But there was another love that was developing: that for the Church. The novitiate to learn and grow in this love was the Giac and the various diocesan and national services linked to it. With the Giac I learned to serve the local Church”. The community he founded in the footsteps of Charles de Foucauld is made up of «little brothers» who «seek to live the message of Brother Charles above all with a close fraternal life, nourished by prayer of adoration and daily lectio divina. A service in the diocese according to our availability and the bishop’s request.” He remembered that in the convent of San Girolamo (now a “spiritual lung” managed by Catholic Action) he had arrived «at noon on the Assumption of 1965, with two brothers, one younger and the second suffering from chronic malaria. Spello, with the 15th century Franciscan convent, was to become, together with the 25 hermitages scattered around Subasio, the place of information and training to provide an experience of prayer by privileging silence and Eucharistic adoration. So it happened. For almost twenty-five years he was a notable spiritual and ecclesial reference for hundreds of young people.” After the death of Carlo Carretto, in 1988, and after the 1997 Umbria earthquake, the experience continued in Sassovivo, remaining a spiritual point of reference both for the diocese of Foligno and for the rest of the world.
After Carretto’s death in 1988 and the 1997 earthquake in Umbria, the Jesus Caritas fraternity continued its journey in Sassovivowhile the community places itself at the service of the diocese of Foligno and is a point of reference for new ecclesial and missionary experiences in other countries. And it was his brothers who announced the death of the founder, at 91 years of age, publishing a joyful photo with an explanatory title, “Brother Gian Carlo Sibilia in the light of the Risen One” and a few lines: «This night, March 16, suddenly, our brother and founder Gian Carlo returned to the Father. With this message we wish to make you participate in this Easter moment for our brother and for our community.
The funeral concelebration will be presided over by the bishop of Foligno, Msgr. Domenico Sorrentino and will be held in the Parish Church of Limiti di Spello on Wednesday 18 March at 3.30 pm”.
