The Fraternity of Santa Maria di Gesù – Ispica (RG), Italy
“A Samaritan traveler saw him and was moved with compassion” (Lk 10:33).
In this parable, the wounded man who is rescued is brought to a pandokeion, a house for all peoples, a place where wounded humanity finds care and dignity. It is the same Gospel logic renewed in the house of Bethany, where Jesus himself becomes the “one in need” and is welcomed by Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. There, the Lord not only receives hospitality, but also reveals the face of a God who allows himself to be welcomed.
With these two icons—the Good Samaritan and Bethany—the fraternity of the convent of Santa Maria di Gesù in Ispica recognizes itself as a fraternity of evangelization and welcome, a house open to those traveling across the Mediterranean and one of the living signs of the Franciscan Mediterranean Network.
Born as a House for Missions and Evangelization, the fraternity has learned over the years to shape itself according to the concreteness of the Gospel, allowing itself to be molded by the faces and the stories of those who knock at the door. Every person welcomed becomes for the friars a living Gospel, a presence that questions, teaches, and reveals the tender face of God. In each guest, the wounded and redeemed humanity of the Samaritan appears, and the fraternal friendship of Bethany, where Jesus finds a home among Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.
The convent offers spaces for prayer, work, and fraternity, especially through the care of the garden and the production of local goods—fruits of the shared labor of friars, guests, and townspeople. This simple and concrete style generates inclusion, dignity, and beauty, transforming daily work into an act of communion and Gospel witness.
The experience of Ispica shows how welcome and evangelization are the two hands of the same charity: on one hand, the Gospel is received from the least, and on the other, it is given through the witness of life. Evangelization thus takes place “among the friars and among the people,” in a continuous weaving together of listening, service, and fraternity.
On this journey, from October 18 to 21, the fraternity had the joy of welcoming Friar Fabio and Friar Fausto, delegates of the Order for coordinating the Franciscan Mediterranean Network in the field of migration. The days spent together were a time of grace and fraternity, lived in the simple sharing of daily life, prayer, and service. The visiting brothers were able to see up close the reality of Ispica, with its experiences of welcome, shared work, and dialogue with the local territory, recognizing in it a concrete sign of Gospel presence along the Mediterranean routes.
The concluding moment of the visit was a fraternal meeting for dialogue and discernment, during which several perspectives for the future were proposed, born from mutual listening and lived experience. The fraternity of Santa Maria di Gesù, drawing from what has been experienced, will continue to collaborate actively with the Network, offering its contribution of hospitality and witness for a Mediterranean that may truly be a space of fraternity, justice, and peace.
In connection with other Franciscan communities working along the sea routes, the fraternity of Ispica wishes to be a tent of hope and encounter, a Gospel pandokeion where those arriving from afar find welcome, and where the local community discovers that the Gospel continues to take flesh in the faces of men and women on the move.
May the Virgin Mary, Star of Evangelization, accompany the steps of this fraternity that, like Francis of Assisi, desires to proclaim the Gospel as the poor, with the poor, and for the poor.
