Monastery of the Visitation in Treviso
She came from Genoa to the monastery of the Visitandine in Treviso four years ago, when she was 42 years old.
On the feast of the holy founder of the Order, last Thursday, within those walls, the “wedding of her with Jesus”, as the cloistered ones define them. The penultimate time of a new nun in the monastery dates back to a couple of years ago. “The one before that, horse camp” – the abbess, mother Maria Gabriella answers us, welcoming us in the guesthouse of the monastery. We meet Sister Chiara. Actually Chiara Tizzani.
How and when did the call come?
It was a long and tiring journey what God made me do. And what he did with me. Only now, looking back, do I understand that it was necessary: to eliminate my defensive barriers and accept the design of love he had for me.
But had he never felt the vocation “before”?
At the age of eight to nine, I confided in a sister superior from the school I was attending. I remember she replied: “You still have to eat a lot of sandwiches. In a few years she will see you ”.
What did you do?
I ate a lot of sandwiches (she laughs). I believed her, very naively. Two years later I went back to the same nun who repeated the same thing to me again
Hadn’t she eaten enough?
I was quite disappointed and threw myself into the study.
Study loved and desperate?
Not only. Up to the age of thirty it was a life of appearance and vanity.
And when did things change?
With the death of Pope John Paul II; it was then that the desire for consecrated life resurfaced. But the cloister was light years away. Do you really want to know? I even refused the idea of setting foot, even by mistake, in a monastery.
But then, as a Venetian saying goes, where you don’t want to go you run. And she entered the cloister. How does it feel to cross that threshold?
It is like entering the Promised Land. It is the experience of Abraham, whom God asked to leave home and family to go where he would have indicated. Everything is left to choose and prefer the Whole. Which means looking for Jesus and his will at all times. And there is peace, joy. In short, a taste of Paradise.
Entering the cloister in the 1920s of the second millennium: a choice certainly against the current but even before – let’s say so – hardly understandable, having to renounce freedom and sociality.
There is no doubt that this is the case. But only if the enclosure is read using the “categories of the world”. When, on the other hand, it is understood that those who enter the monastery do so to respond to a call of love that exceeds us, then it is not difficult to understand that it is a free choice.
A radical choice, increasingly difficult for the young people of our time. What message does the cloister send them?
To those who are looking for the way I say: entrust yourself and have patience. The important thing is to be available for every path, without fear. God will show you where to go. And you will discover wonderful things: seeing is believing.
From Genoa to Treviso: why the Order of the Visitation, Sister Chiara?
Because, as I said, I trusted myself. And He made me re-discover what already dwelt in me; that is to say the charisms of our founders Francesco di Sales (the relic of the saint’s heart is kept in the church of the monastery, editor’s note) and of Giovanna Francesca di Chantal.
He hears but… Doesn’t it have to be easy to live in a community all day and with the same people?
Each is a gift for its own community. I feel loved, even when I struggle or feel pain. Yes, even when misunderstandings arise: I stay and do his will. And I feel joy. And I am happy.
Good life Sister Chiara
Rest assured, from here we pray for each and every one. It doesn’t matter if we don’t know the name or the problem. We carry everyone in the heart of him. God be blessed
