Marian Community - Oasis of Peace
Convent of the Consolation
71026, Deliceto (FG)
ITALY
0881-1991018
Call from 09.00 to 12.00, from 14.00 to 17.00, from 19.30 to 21.00
For requests for hospitality, please indicate your name and surname, e-mail address and telephone number in the message.
Contact the Deliceto house
Contact the Deliceto house
Marian Community - Oasis of Peace
Convent of the Consolation
71026, Deliceto (FG)
ITALY
0881-1991018
Call from 09.00 to 12.00, from 14.00 to 17.00, from 19.30 to 21.00
For requests for hospitality, please indicate your name and surname, e-mail address and telephone number in the message.
Marian Community Oasis of Peace © 2022, All Right Reserved
Our history
Who we are
The Marian Community - Oasis of Peace (CMOP) is, in the Catholic Church, an ecclesial family of consecrated life, to which belong men and women of various states of life (internal consecrated members, including some priests, secular consecrated members and married couples).
Together, they share the same spiritual goal: to intercede for peace and to bring about peace in all places and situations, under the guidance of Mary. She is the maternal womb in whom Christ-Peace (cf. Eph. 2:14) unceasingly takes form. The charism of peace, for each and every person, thus implies deep prayer, self-giving, welcoming and openness to the others, in imitation of Mary of Nazareth.
United by the same charism and mission, CMOP members are distinguished in different living environments according to their specific call: internal consecrated men and women live together in spiritual centres, called "Oases of Peace," spread throughout Italy (Fara in Sabina, Ussana, Deliceto), Bosnia-Herzegovina (Medjugorje), Brazil (Fortaleza, Quixadà), Cameroon (Mbalmayo) and in Austria (St.Martin bei lofer); secular consecrated men and women, on the other hand, reside in their homes, as do the spouses, meeting periodically with other members of the ecclesial family for formation and prayer.
RL 1( Rule of Life)
We are grateful to Mary, the Queen of Peace, because with her motherly love and help she met us in our lives and has led us to meet God, Jesus, the Prince of Peace (cf. Is 9:5; Eph 2:14) alive in His Church.
The very beginning
The origins of the CMOP begin in the events of the well-known Bosnian town of Medjugorje. Here many young people were touched by an encounter with the Queen of Peace who throughout her apparitions calls us to prayer, penance and conversion. These youth felt a desire to translate the messages of simplicity and peace that the “Gospa” was repeating into a lifestyle of consecration. We can say that Mary had "met them" at a turning point in their life and led them to the author of peace, Jesus. The year that this happened was 1987.
The aspirations of the first brothers and sisters were taken up and shared by the Passionist priest Gianni Sgreva. He too, touched by the grace of Medjugorje, wondered how he could respond to the call of these young people and the cry of the world, in need of peace and reconciliation. Thus he had the intuition to create “prayer spaces” that could facilitate man's encounter with God: "specialised clinics for those who suffer in their heart," as he often would say, where many souls could receive healing and peace through reconciliation with God and with their brothers and sisters.
Therefore, on March the 25th, 1987, the Marian Community - Oasis of Peace became a juridical reality. The first house was opened on the 18th of May of the same year in Priabona (Vicenza - Italy). The first ecclesiastical recognition was obtained in the Diocese of Sabina-Poggio Mirteto (Rieti - Italy) (December 25th, 1990), and was definitively sanctioned on February the 5th, 1999 with the erection of the community as a Public Association of the Christian Faithful in view of becoming an Institute of Consecrated Life.
RL 2
Beginning with this Marian encounter, our lives have changed. The Queen of Peace now accompanies us on a progressive journey of conversion to the Lord, and for this she lovingly invites and educates us to unceasingly raise "all manner of prayers and supplications in the Spirit" (Eph. 6:18) and to joyfully live penance, mortification and fasting in order to attain holiness, the fullness of peace, in a life of special Consecration, and to communicate this holiness to our other brothers and sisters.
The founder
Father Gianni Sgreva, founder of the Community, is from the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ (Passionists). Ordained a priest on December 21, 1974, he received his doctorate in Theology and Patristic Sciences from the Pontifical Institute Augustinianum in Rome. With the permission of his Superior General, Fr. Michael Boyle, he accompanied the Community as it took its first steps in the Church, serving as the Superior General and as the charismatic-pastoral leader of the community from 1987 to 2001.
RL 3
Mary, who at the foot of the Cross of Jesus became Mother of the Church and Mother of humanity, asks for our cooperation to save many other brothers and sisters in search of Peace. Abandoning ourselves to Her, we do not want to keep for ourselves the gift received. With joy we declare our total readiness so that the Queen of Peace may use us as her instruments for the fulfilment of the Father's Saving Plan, by the witness and sacrifice of our lives for the salvation of the world.
From 2001 until today
Under the leadership of the succeeding bishops of Sabina-Poggio Mirteto, over the last two decades the Community has consolidated its presence in Italy, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil and Cameroon, with the establishment of spiritual centres, which have turned out to be for many authentic "oases of peace". The Community has also been successfully animating and administrating important diocesan sanctuaries (Quixadà, Mbalmayo and Deliceto), in collaboration with the local Church.
With the passage of time the original proposal of pastoral work and formation has been enriched and deepened, with the development of spiritual itineraries for individuals, couples, young people, as well as the personalised accompaniment of those in search of peace. The juridical structure of the community has also become clearer, so as to guarantee the unity of the members while respecting the distinction of men and women, on the one hand, and of the three constituent groups of the Community (internal consecrated, secular consecrated, spouses) on the other. This juridical structure is termed: Ecclesail Family of Consecrated Life. Such unity is acchieved through diaologue and shared decision making, safeguardingf differences in sex, culture, and states of life, whilst reaching out dynamically towards communion.
Since 2019, our Community has been part of the Forum of the New Forms of Consecrated Life, a reflection group set up on 12 December 2018 to respond to the numerous requests from the CIVCSVA, aimed at deepening from the theological and juridical point of view the identity of the ecclesial realities that participate in it, the new elements and the contribution to the church and to the world.
Since the first meeting (12 December 2018) numerous study and reflection meetings have been held which have led to the production of a series of in-depth documents on some characteristic features of our ecclesial realities.
The following have already joined this "forum for reflection": Institute Id of Christ the Redeemer: Idente Missionaries; Spiritual family the Work; Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity; Society of Christ the Lord; Community of the Beatitudes; Church-World Mission; Franciscan Fraternity of Bethany (until 2021); Marian Community – Oasis of Peace; Missionary Community of Villaregia.