Rome (Italy). On 15 May 2022 the Community of the International Novitiate Sr. Teresa Valsé Pantellini of Rome presented, in the theater hall of the Generalate of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians (RCG), a theatrical presentation on Sr. Felicita Supertino, FMA missionary in Venezuela among the indigenous people of the Yanomami, who passed away in 1999 at the age of 71.
Present at the performance entitled “All for a lifetime” were the Superior General of the FMA Institute, Mother Chiara Cazzuola, the Councilors onsite , Sr. Yvonne Reungoat, Mother Emeritus, the FMA of Mary Help of Christians Community of the Generalate, and some family members of Sr. Felicita: the FMA Sisters, Sr. Adelaide, a missionary in Thailand, and Sr. Angela, of the Piedmont Province Mary Help of Christians (IPI), her sister Franca, and nephews Beppe and Fr. Gianni Moriondo, a Salesian of Don Bosco.
The Novitiate Community recounts the experience of studying the life of Sr. Felicita, lived during the formative journey this year, which led them to write a theatrical presentation and a song:
“It is now the tradition of our Novitiate to study the life of one of our sisters each year, to experience more closely how the Charism is incarnated over time. Since 2018, our companions have approached the figures of di Sr. Maria Romero, Sr. Teresa Valsé Pantellini, Sr. Nancy Pereira e Sr. Antonieta Böhm. This year the protagonist of our research is Sr. Felicita Supertino, a missionary Daughter of Mary Help of Christians in Amazonian Venezuela.
Getting to know her was a real challenge for us. We only had her biography in our hands (Boccaletti Massimo, ‘The adventure of Sr Felicità’, Lives Given series 5, Leumann (Turin), Elle Di Ci 1995). Nothing more. Some of us had met Sr. Felicita’s sister, Sr. Angela Supertino, in the community of the Postulancy “House of the Young” in Turin, and heard some anecdotes about her from her stories. Sr. Angela has provided us with a lot of material about her sister: handwritten letters, stories of the mission, videos, recordings. Suddenly, the situation turned around and we began to get to know Sr. Felicita through her writings, the images of her mission among the Yanomami, her stories.
From this home-made research begins the experience that lasted many months, which led us to become acquainted with one of the many Daughters of Mary Help of Christians who “understood the message of Christ’s love and tries to make it known bringing more love,” in any land.
On this 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Institute, Sr. Felicita helped us to dig deeper and deeper into our Charism, which has its roots in the first community of Mornese. “The missionary dimension an essential element of the identity of the Institute and expression of its universality, has been present in our history from the very beginning” (C 75), as the first six missionaries who left Mornese in 1877 testify. Sr. Felicita fits into this same dream and challenges each of us to follow her example and to give “Everything for a lifetime.” This is the title we chose to represent her life in a simple theatrical way. Further enriching this experience was the presence of the family of Sr. Felicita.
Sr. Felicita is for us a witness of a missionary impulse that knows no limits, of a fidelity to one’s vocation, despite and through everything, of a strong and caring motherhood.”
Photo: Flickr IFMA
