Third Carlesso Family reunion: integration and friendship
About 170 people took part in the third family reunion, in Chapecó, Santa Catarina.
The reunion began on the Saturday with the "Filó Familiar". It continued on the Sunday, when most of the participants arrived. Our family was strongly represented by relatives from the state of Santa Catarina, followed by Rio Grande do Sul.
The reunion took place in two venues: the CTG Coxilha do Quero-Quero and the Comunidade Nossa Senhora da Saúde, in the Vista Alegre neighborhood.
Breakfast was served at 8 am. At 10.30 the Holy Mass began, in gratitude for the lives of Luigi and Bernardina and of all the ancestors of the family who have gone before us, and as a moment to ask for what the countless descendants and families scattered across Brazil need.
Shortly after the Mass, back at the CTG, there was lunch, music and time for everyone to mix.
It was a well organized and joyful reunion that strengthened our family ties. Luigi and Bernardina would certainly be proud of the family.
Sincere gratitude to everyone in Chapecó who organized this reunion with such care.
See below photos of this Third Reunion
130 years later, Luigi and Bernardina return home
There is no doubt that the image of Italy, their beloved homeland, never left the memory of the Italian immigrants. Even in Brazil they sought to recreate and keep much of the Italian way of life, its food and its faith, from the Italy they missed. Many Brazilian places were given the names of places known in Italy, in the hope that the memory of that beloved land would never be erased. It is true that the immigrant's trunk held more than fond memories: it also held a country that had treated them harshly, with poverty, hunger and a lack of work and land. Even so, the motherland remains the home of those who are far from it.
In this mixture of longing and of wishing to return one day to their country of origin, the Italians rebuilt their lives in Brazil. Luigi and Bernardina surely held the same wish to go back to Italy one day. Sadly, it was not possible while they lived.
But 130 years after their departure from Bessica di Loria, in northern Italy, alive in the hearts and in the veins of their descendants, Luigi and Bernardina return home. They return through Father Marcelo Carlesso, a descendant of Luigi and Bernardina, on his recent visit to the Carlesso relatives who stayed in Italy. Father Marcelo arrived on 29 June and stayed for six days with Orlando Carlesso and his wife Matilde, alongside their sons Basilio and Paolo and their wives.
They were days of close company with other relatives, who came to Orlando's home each day. Days that showed more of the reality of life in the Veneto, where people still emigrate to other countries in search of better conditions.
There was the chance to see the places and homes that matter to the family: the house where Luigi was born, the well, and the bell tower of the church in Bessica that he helped to build.
Thanks to all of Orlando and Matilde's family for the generosity of their welcome. There were moments of deep family life, as if we were indeed one family, separated only by time and distance.
Fr. Marcelo Carlesso
