The Parish of Santa Francesca Cabrini is one of the four parishes where the experience of the Neocatechumenal Way began over 50 years ago thanks to the generosity and courage of the Marist Fathers who welcomed Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernandez, two still unknown Spaniards.

The generosity (and prophetic audacity) of the then parish priest Father Pietro Necci was repaid by the presence of 32 communities, hundreds of families, young people and children. The fruits are innumerable: families open to life, priestly vocations, religious vocations, itinerant brothers and sisters, numerous families on mission and itinerants scattered around the world, many pastoral workers (deacons, acolytes, catechists for Christian initiation, volunteers for the various services).

Today, in times of crisis and of the flight of the faithful from parishes, Santa Francesca Cabrini is a living parish where the Holy Spirit acts in a palpable way in the lives of the faithful through the experience of the “small Christian community” that offers, to young people and adults, an “ongoing formation in the faith”.

Right here, in 1983, Saint John Paul II said: “I must note here, in the parish of Santa Francesca Cabrini, that your movement (I walk)  here constitutes a leaven, leaven that must permeate the mass and the world of Christians in general: not all are aware, not all do it; you are here a leaven, you must permeate this community, there are about twenty thousand people, permeate it with a new awareness of the human dignity involved in the reality of divine sonship. Do well, very well! Sing, sing! Because singing always demonstrates joy, this discovery of divine and human reality.”

For the pilgrims it will be a gift to admire the fresco of the Chapel and the icon of the Ascension of the Lord to Heaven, placed in the apse of the Church, painted by Kiko Arguello in 1984 and 1992 respectively, and to spend a moment of prayer.

The brothers – some of them from the very beginning – will help the pilgrims during their visit, giving a testimony of faith and anchoring it to the history experienced in this place.