Rotary Club Morimondo Abbey

[Article by Silvia Lodi Pasini published on “Settegiorni”]  – The nativity as a plastic form of faith, which finds in the birth of Jesus the earthly conclusion of the universal principle of self and the beginning of its own earthly diffusion without space-time boundaries in the world.

Indeed, it is truly curious to discover that the representation of the Nativity of God, through the nativity scene, has created an indissoluble bond between the Municipality of Morimondo and the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, from which the 15 nativity scenes on permanent display in the municipally-owned building in Piazza Rondena come from. And it is no coincidence, in fact, that it is in the small square in front of the headquarters of the Nativity Scene Exhibition of the S.S. Nativity Scene Group. ReMaGi that last Sunday the Itinerant Nativity Scene was set up, created in 1992 from an idea by Father Sebastiano Bernardini, inaugurated and lit for the first time by His Holiness Saint John Paul II and then sent with a caravan of humanitarian aid to the former Yugoslavia, then devastated by war. In 1994 the same thing happened in Albania, among displaced people and refugees. From then on, the Itinerant Nativity Truck never stopped, visiting hundreds of cities, villages, towns and villages, in Italy and Europe, bringing everywhere a smile and that message of Peace and hope that comes from the cradle of Bethlehem. Also blessed by Pope Francis, the Truck of the Itinerant Nativity scene arrived to us last weekend and, at the invitation of the Morimondo Abbazia Rotary Club of president Davide Carnevali, it first made a brief stop in Vermezzo with Zelo and then left for Morimondo, where for the entire Sunday people were able to admire it in all its beauty. The nativity scene is the work of Giuseppe Ricci, created by Ceramica Mirage on a truck donated by Fiat Iveco of Turin and equipped by Vignolcar and F.lli Giuliani with the technical assistance of Franco Fontani and Romano Ghinelli. He is taken on a mission by Rock No War volunteers, with the recorded narrative voice of Mauro Ballotti. In a single day, Piazza Rondena saw over 800 people taking turns to enjoy the vision of the traveling nativity scene, which also served as a starting point for the Nativity Scene Exhibition set up by Mauro Grisotti, who at the end of the 1980s inaugurated, together with his brother Giorgio (former head of Surgery at the Abbiategrasso Hospital), the tradition of the Nativity Scenes of Santa Maria delle Grazie, the basilica in Milan known for housing the Last Supper of Leonardo Da Vinci. The Nativity scenography is renewed every year and exhibited in the Chapel of St. John the Baptist, from Christmas night to the end of January. In the years 2000 and 2002 the S.S. Nativity Scene Group ReMaGi was awarded by the Milanese FOM for the best representation in the Community group, receiving words of appreciation from His Eminence the Cardinal of Milan Dionigi Tettamanzi. "The aim of the group is to transmit and keep the meaning and message of Christmas current - explains Mauro Grisotti - and to collect donations for missionary activities. The various nativity scenes that have been set up in the Basilica of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan from 1990 onwards are now visible here in Morimondo, where the Nativity Scene Museum is open to the public every Sunday of the year."