Our Story

On July 16, 1983, the day the Church remembers Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Sister Elvira Petrozzi, known today as Mother Elvira, started the Community. 

It was an abandoned house given by the Municipality on a hill in Saluzzo, a town in the province of Cuneo (Piedmont). It was a response of God’s tenderness to the cry of desperation of so many young people who were lost, deceived and disappointed. They were seeking the true meaning of life in the false light of the world. 

A place was born that welcomes life in loving service. Over the years this loving service has become a source of hope and resurrection for many people lost in the world of darkness, who are sad, marginalized, desperate, drugged. 

Mother Elvira started off thinking she would open one house, but like always the plans of God’s heart are reveal themselves to be bigger than human plans: young people come from everywhere asking to be welcomed so they can rise to new life. This is how the houses, fraternities, in Community Cenacolo have multiplied over the years. First in Italy, then in Europe and other countries. 

Currently there are 72 houses present in 20 countries of the world.
(Italy: 25 fraternities; Austria: 1; Bosnia & Herzegovina: 2; Croatia: 7; France: 5; England: 1; Ireland: 1; Poland: 4; Portugal: 1; Slovakia: 1; Spain: 2; United States: 4; Argentina: 5; Costa Rica: 1; Brazil: 5; Mexico: 1; Peru: 3; Paraguay: 1; Liberia: 1; Philippines: 1).

Thousands have been welcomed into fraternities throughout Europe and North America. Many young people discover true life thought their journey in Community.
In Latin America’s Community, in addition to some underprivileged young people, several missions were created to welcome the orphans and abandoned street children. Our first African mission for orphaned children was born a few years ago.

No matter where the hand of Divine Providence guides us, we wish to be a small but significant light in the world of darkness, a hope that is reborn, a living testimony that death does not have the final word.

Walking Together “From the Darkness to the Light”

Over the years, the community lifestyle of faith, sharing, and service drew many young volunteers, lay people, families, brothers (including some priests) and consecrated sisters.These individuals live and dedicate themselves full-time, in total gratuitousness, to the service of Mother Elvira’s work and vision. They share their lives with the people they welcome, embarking on a fraternal journey “from darkness to light” that leads to the rediscovery of the joy of faith, the beauty of life and of true freedom. 
The Cenacolo Community has been recognized by the Church, at the Pontifical Council for the Laity, as the International Private Association of the Faithful.
Mother Elvira often says that …”we are the first witnesses of God’s miracle that was never thought of or planned at a table. It surpasses us and surprises us for which we are partakers by grace.”

A School of Life

The ways young people and those who struggle come to Community are often different, but all are united by suffering. They’re united by this cross, and it is not just drug addiction, but more so the inability to love and live one’s life.

From the beginning Mother Elvira loved to define the Community journey as a “School of Life”, explaining what Community wants to offer to people. Those who ask for help is learn to live life in all of its different aspects. Joy, pain, fatigue, friendship, celebration, simplicity, struggle, fear, courage, fragility…

The Community journey formed over time and collective experiences. We developed it by listening and learning from the young people themselves and their families. Through the experience and service of those who’ve put in the hard work, we can welcome and God can heal more hearts than ever.

Over the years, this journey has become a source of hope and salvation not only for many who’ve been dependent on drugs and distractions, but also for those who crave to encounter a true answer to the suffering they have experienced. They search for a solution to the deep search for meaning in their life.

We propose the journey of rebirth for those in Community based on a simple, family oriented, orderly life. They are freely welcomed and are offered true friendship, discipline, and fraternal sharing. “Ora et Labora” – prayer and work. These are the pillars through which people rediscover respect, order, hope, dignity, peace and the joy of being alive.