Remained faithful to the commitments made in the fourth international conference dedicated to the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, the Public Association Little Children of the Divine Will strives to enhance an increasingly dense network of links with communities and groups that arose or are arising because of the figure and spirituality of Luisa Piccarreta in order to strengthen the bonds of unity with them, through a more direct knowledge.

The initiative of the Association Little Children of the Divine Will  to visit each of these groups has as its objective not only to share a path of faith in the Divine Will, but also to establish with them the unity that makes visible the great family of the Divine Will.

Among the communities that have chosen to live their own lives with the support and strength of the Divine Will there is the Public Association of the faithful of the Benedictines of the Divine Will in the Diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro. It was born just a few years ago by the will of its founder Father Charles Elijah Cirigliano, a Benedictine monk who blends the charism of St. Benedict with the spirituality of Luisa Piccarreta, both focused on the Divine Will, on the readiness to sacrifice one’s own will, armed with obedience, to battle for Christ the Lord, the true King.

Father Elia Cirigliano sensed the strong compatibility between the Benedictine monastic life and the writings of Luisa Piccarreta, to the study of which, after the first meeting, has been dedicated for ten years. He felt a strong desire to live in a monastery that could combine these two experiences. So, the small family of the Association that he founded in the Pieve di San Giovanni Battista in Carpegna, sets his foundations on them, taking the family of Nazareth as a model.

In his young community of Benedictine monks, Father Cirigliano wants to bring out the sense of family, trying to be For his friars, Brother Raphael, Brother Gabriel and Brother John, a father before being their Superior.

Father Cirigliano has inherited the family values from his own family of origin that influenced his choices and inspired his vocation. An Italian Catholic family, that emigrated to the United States from Basilicata.

But let’s deepen our Knowledge of Elia Cirigliano: he was born in Brooklyn, New York, into an Italian family in which the typical values and teachings of the culture of our Country are very important. He spent a happy childhood and when he grew up, he cultivated various interests including sport and music that later became his greatest passion. The opportunity is offered to him from the vicinity of a jew musician, very talented master who, with his alternative methods, prompted him to the fascinating world of jazz.

Well, he not only loves to play music, but above all to write it. So, he decided to move to North Carolina to enroll at Duke University and then returned to New York to continue his studies at the conservatory in Manhattan.

The music interested him so much that he felt he wanted to create something beautiful for God. He wanted to tell Him something real and make something good for Him, although he didn’t yet fully practice the faith. He firmly believed in Him and wanted to serve Him.

Meanwhile he experienced various philosophies and religions, always searching for the Beautiful, the Good and the True, until he realized that beauty, truth and goodness are not abstract concepts, but a person, a Divine Person, who is Jesus Christ, and also that “the Church exists to communicate precisely this“. Those words taken from the address of the Holy Father Pope Francis, March  16, 2013 helped him to understand that this Person founded the Church, the Catholic Church to which he returns without any second thoughts.

Then, he began his studies at St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and completed his training as a Benedictine monk at St. Vincent Abbey, the largest monastery in the United States.

After the solemn vows as a Benedictine monk, he was sent by his abbot to Italy, where he studied at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, and where he was ordained a priest on November 24, 2012 by Mons. Luigi Negri together with the Bishop of San Marino-Montefeltro, Mons. Andrea Turazzi, who supported him in the fulfillment of his desire to be a Benedictine monk of the Divine Will.

Before starting his studies in Rome, Father Cirigliano followed an Italian course in Urbania, a small town a few minutes from Carpegna, He, immediately, fell in love with that place and, thanks to his talent of musician, wrote a song called Urbania which tells the story of an imaginary encounter between him and Saint Benedict, in the square of that small town in the Marche Region.

So, He understood that, by God’s Will, his heart was preparing for the vocation as a monk and priest in the Diocese of San Marino-Montefeltro.

Music plays an important role in his life, especially in his Christian life, as part of his pastoral work, and through music, he gently penetrates hearts to open them to the Word and Love of God.

To deal with all the difficulties that every age has, we must keep in mind, as St. Benedict, Luisa, and not only, in this case, remind us that we always walk with Jesus and Mary, and together with them we can enlarge the family of the Divine Will.

Fiat!

Source: n. 10/November 2016 of the diocesan newspaper, Montefeltro.

Riccardina Latti