Beginning of the novitiate at our General Curia

On Saturday, 10 October, the General Curia experienced a day of particular spiritual intensity: the community officially welcomed four novices of the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, together with their masters, who will reside here and begin their journey of formation, prayer and discernment. Taking part in the ceremony was Fra John Dunlap, Grand Master of the Sovereign Order, accompanied by Cardinal Gianfranco Ghirlanda, Cardinal Patron of the Sovereign Order, and Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi, Special Delegate to the Sovereign Order. Also present were the entire religious Community of the Nocetta and the Community of the Vatican Pharmacy, gathered to share a moment that marks a new page in the life of both Orders.

The welcome of the novices and their masters was experienced as a simple and profound gesture of fraternity. For the coming months the Nocetta becomes the home where the young religious can live in silence, community life and listening to the Word, far from the noise and close to what truly matters. It is not a new encounter: a bond rooted in history is thus renewed, going back to 1879, when the Knights of Malta entrusted their house at Tantur, in the Holy Land, to the Brothers of Saint John of God, united by the same hospitaller vocation.

At the end of the ceremony, the Superior General, Brother Pascal Ahodegnon, accompanied Grand Master Fra John Dunlap on a visit to the spaces set aside for the new community and to the rooms that will host the novices throughout their formation here at the Nocetta.

On behalf of our entire Hospitaller Order, we wish the novices and masters of the Order of Malta, heirs of a tradition that for almost a thousand years has united consecrated life with the care of the sick and the poor, a profound experience of the Lord, in discernment of their vocation through a deep spiritual renewal.