The spirituality and teaching of Anna Maria Canopi in a new book

mother anna maria canopi (photo sr. m. raphael) – 22 March 2019

Those who have had the privilege of a look, a word or the hand extended by Mother Anna Maria Canopi, will never forget that moment. Fleeting, but intense, of an interiority that digs and leaves traces. The Abbess of the Mater Ecclesiae Abbey on the Island of San Giulio d’Orta, who passed away in 2019, knew how to give these emotions. Usually the “beneficiaries” keep them without disclosing them, out of modesty and acquired wisdom.

But in some circumstances they escaped silence. Luckily. Conversely, no one outside could ever fully perceive the greatness of this woman devoted to love for God and humanity. Roberto Cutaia, journalist and writer, national secretary of the Rosminian Ascritti and Matteo Albergante, teacher of literary disciplines and, in turn, journalist, edited the volume “Anna Canopi, mother forever, abbess, mystic and poet” (for the edition of La Fontana di Siloe), relying on those who – by chance or intention – approached the Abbess. This resulted in a multi-handed testimony, with different profiles but linked by a common thread. The narration of meetings and dialogues stigmatized those moments, exalting the greatness of Mother Anna Maria without ever scratching her humility. “It is to give voice to the desire expressed by numerous witnesses to share the treasures and joys they have borrowed from the spiritual motherhood of the mother that this new publication was born” write the editors. She knew how to amaze and be amazed, the “Mother forever”, like that night of the full moon, when she wrote one of her last poems. She, sick, in front of the window to admire that spectacle on the lake.

“A full moon night” is the title of the introduction, signed by the bishop of Novara Franco Giulio Brambilla: “The text that the Mother wrote that night is crossed by her childhood spirit, long cultivated”. And Monsignor Antonio Staglianò, bishop of Noto: “I was struck by her communicative ability and the brightness of her gaze that was born from a heart in love without measure for the Lord and for her brothers …”.

That look emerges from the story of Laura Travaini, writer of Lake Orta, president of “Scrittori e Sapori” and inventor of the cultural format “Keywords”: “We sat around the table in the San Bernardo room. She asked me to tell her about the busy schedule in which I always found myself entangled. I explained, she listened silently and smiling. After her, when she started talking, I followed her spellbound. She refined and profound investigator of souls, she indicated and confirmed the way to go. She also perceived my unspoken “. Journalists have also approached her. Like Vito Cioce, from Rai who writes: “I was excited. Her simplicity conquered me, her eyes could see far and deep. She listened to my story without judging me, indeed she managed to give me great strength… “. And Bruno Quaranta: “Mother Canopi’s gaze has an eighteenth-century breath, evoking the lowered eyes of Saint Clare in the painting by Giuseppe Antonio Petrini. As if she meant, very strongly, to profess the ‘I don’t know’. While she belongs to her the saving knowledge ”.

The spirituality and teaching of Anna Maria Canopi in a new book – Stampa Diocesana Novarese