There were not only “his” friars and the volunteers who every day in Gaggiola keep the Franciscan charism alive in the land of La Spezia, last Thursday at the sanctuary to greet their superior friar Gianlugi Ameglio on the occasion of the feast of Saint Anthony. Together with the bishop, who celebrated mass as every year, there were in fact the civil and military authorities of the province, numerous priests and many faithful from the city and surrounding areas.
Brother Gianluigi will in fact leave Gaggiola in the next few days to take up a significant role in the province of the Franciscan Friars Minor of Northern Italy: that of responsible for relations with the custody of the Holy Land, a religious presence which for centuries has marked the difficult Christian presence in the land of Jesus.
However, Brother Ameglio has still worked to the hilt in these days, especially in the field of charitable works, and everyone has seen him distribute, together with others, the white envelopes with the “St. Anthony’s bread”, symbol of the many initiatives of solidarity that has characterized the sanctuary and its community in recent years. However, the religious man will not completely cut ties with Spezia. Already next year he will return, for example, to commemorate twenty-five years of Mass: few perhaps know it, but in 2000 it was precisely in Gaggiola that he was ordained a priest.
