Rome (Italy). There were many activities during the time of the Synod to support the Fathers and Mothers  of the Synod in their journey of discernment, discussion, and decisions regarding the presence of the Church in the Amazon and its significance in the midst of the original populations.

All the programmed activities took place in the Tent ‘Amazon: Common Home’, a symbolic space of encounter, prayer, and reciprocal listening for the people who wanted to know more about the reality and the spirituality of the Amazon, prepared in the Church of St. Mary in Traspontina.

About 250 volunteers alternated in the Tent to insure prayer and continuous invocations to the Holy Spirit to support the Synod work, in addition to welcoming the people who came there to live their faith and to ‘breathe’ Amazon air.  The Tent promoted more than 240 events and about 100 FMA belonging to the various communities in Rome were present as Volunteers, taking care of it each day from noon to 4 PM.

Among the various times of prayer and spirituality, there was the “Prayer of the Martyrs of the Way – Lives for life, Lives for the Kingdom, Lives for the Amazon”, guided by the Brazilian priest Fr. Mirim Borges and his team, which took place during the three weeks of the Synod, from Monday to Friday in the Church of St. Mary in Traspontina.

Each afternoon, prayer took place from 1:30 to 2: 30 in memory of the Martyrs of the Amazon.  This time was chosen for prayer in order to make it coincide with the time of the ‘martyrdom of Jesus’, the first among all those who give Life for life, Life for the Kingdom, Life for humanity.’

The martyrs remembered in these three weeks of the Synod were: Sr. Dorothy Stang, José Cláudio and Maria do Espírito Santo, Msgr. Alejandro Labaka, Sr. Inês Arango, Ernesto Pill Parra, Fr. Alcides J. Restrepo Idárraga, Fr. Rodolfo Lunkenbein and Simão Bororo, Fr. João Bosco Burnier, Friar Vicente Cañas, Edwin Chota, the Martyrs of the Bágua massacre, Fr. Raimundo Hermann, Sabino Romero, the Martyrs of the El Amparo massacre, Alfredo Vracko, Fr. Ezequiel Ramin, Sr Adelaide Molinari, Bernardino Racua, Giulio Rocca, Fr. Maurício Maraglio, Osvaldino Viana, Fr. Josimo Morais Tavares, Lázaro Condo, Chico Mendes, Sr. Cleusa C. Rody Coelho.

On October 23, for the joy of the entire FMA Institute, Blessed Sr. Maria Troncatti, originally from Corteno Golgi (BS), died in a tragic plane crash in Sucúa on 25 August 1969, but also a Martyr in a certain sense, because she knew how to offer her life for peace between the settlers and the Shuar.

Macas, Sevilla Don Bosco, Sucúa are some of the ‘miracles’ still flourishing, fruit of the action of Sr. Maria Troncatti: nurse, surgeon, orthopedist, dentist, and anesthesiologist … But above all catechist and evangelizer, full of wonderful resources of faith, patience, and fraternal love.

The Blessed is among the Witnesses of the Panamazon Synod.  The very simple but deeply felt celebration saw the participation of many FMA, among whom participants at the Synod, who made this extraordinary person known to all present.

Her photograph also stands out among the 19 persons – missionaries, lay people, and indigenous leaders – chosen to represent the unconditional dedication to the people and the Amazon land reported in a section of the Exhibit Mater Amazonia: The deep breath of the world, organized on the occasion of the Bishops Synod for the Amazon and promoted by the Governorate of the Vatican City State in collaboration with the Consolata Missions Institute.

The exhibit was inaugurated at the Vatican Museums on 25 October 2019. The exhibit will be open to the public from 28 October 2019 to 11 January 2020. An exhibit that, as pointed out by Father Stefano Camerlengo, Superior General of the Consolata Missionaries, “is born with the desire to give a voice and a face to the Amazon, to its boundless beauty and its wise cultures, to try to continue the reflections and actions of the Synod, to stay close to the Amazon and its peoples, to also present its problems and its dramas.”

During the visit to the Exhibit, Pope Francis declared: “Thank you also for wanting to inaugurate this new exhibition with a special exhibit on the Amazon, precisely in the days when we are experiencing the Synod dedicated to this region. And for this I also thank the Missionaries of the Consolata, the Salesians, the Capuchins, the Saverians: different charisms that met in the name of Amazon.”

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