Inauguration – 25th November 2006
We are glad to inform you that on the 25th November 2006 we managed to inaugurate the first centre of Palliative Care “Hospice of the Divine Mercy”, as a result of a common project of the Caritas Federation of the Timisoara Diocese and the Congregation of the Daughters of St. Francis of Assisi. This project will benefit as well of the help of some physicians specialized in palliative care from the OncoMed Association of Timisoara.
Due to the change of its destination, the old building of the monastery needed some major transformation and improvement to be at the level of the European standards. Thanks to the Divine Grace and thanks to the help of our benefactors we were able to do all the necessary changes and we received the functioning authorization for the hospice activity from the Health Department of Bucharest.
At the inauguration festivity, we had the great pleasure and honour to have among us His Excellence Dr. Claude Perisset, Apostolic Nuncio for Romania and Moldavia, who accepted the invitation of His Excellence Martin Roos, Roman Catholic Bishop of Timisoara to celebrate the Saint Liturgy of dedication of the hospice. At this event also took part His Excellence Joseph Duffy, Bishop of Clogher (Ireland), His Excellence Alexandru Mesian, Greek Catholic Bishop of Lugoj, His Excellence Paisie Lugojanul, Locum tenens Bishop of the Orthodox Archiepiscopate of Timisoara, His Excellence Jan Soth, the Ambassador of Slovekia in Romania, Sister Irenea Hamranova, the General Superior of the Congregation of the Daughters of St. Francis of Assisi and the representatives of different charitable associations and foundations from Romania and from abroad.
While preaching in German and Romanian, His Excellence Jean-Claude Perisset showed the importance of the hospice project and of the hospice type palliative care:
“This hospice expresses more than mercy, more than empathy; it expresses the fact that Jesus approaches our brothers who are suffering by the members of the Church. This is even the mystery of Divine love both for the suffering man and for those called to assist him.”
Our common prayer goes now to God and we ask Him to help our benefactors and us with His Divine Grace to be able to go on with this project, as we are aware of the fact that its functioning will be possible only if we continue to be supported by people with a great heart.
25.11.2006 Congregation of the Daughters of St. Francis of Assisi