00 16/08/2009 19:35




Posted 6/21/09 in the BENEDICT thread:


MASS AT SAN GIOVANNI ROTONDO



Illustration: Stigmatization of Padre Pio (from the murals by Mark Ruznik, Church of St. Pio)

Other illustrations in the Mass booklet, taken from the mural series. From left: 'Word becomes prayer'; St. Pio offers Mass in solitude (1931-1933); St. Pio embraces the life of Christ; The Annunciation: Our Lady opens herself to the Word of God.










THE HOLY FATHER'S HOMILY


Dear brothers and sisters!

At the heart of my pilgrimage to this place, where everything speaks of the life and holiness of Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, I have the joy of celebrating the Eucharist with you and for you - the mystery which constituted the center of his entire existence, the origin of his vocation, the power of his testimony, the consecration of his sacrifice.

With great affection, I greet you all who have come here in such numbers and all who are with us through radio and television. I greet first of all Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio, who, after years of faithful service to this diocesan community, will soon be taking care of the Archdiocese of Lecce. I thank him sincerely, and also because he conveyed your sentiments in your name.

I address a special greeting to the Capuchin Friars with their Minister General, Fra Mauro Jöhri, the General Director, the Provincial Minister, the Custodian of the Convent, the Rector of the Shrine and the Capuchin Fraternity in San Giovanni Rotondo.

With great acknowledgment I greet all those who contribute their services to the Shrine and its related works. I greet the civilian and military authorities, the priests, deacons, religious and all the faithful.

I address an affectionate thought to all those who are at the Casa di Sollievo di Sofferenza, and to all the solitary persons, and all the inhabitants of this city.

We have just heard the Gospel on the tempest stilled [by Christ] which was associated with a brief but incisive text from the Book of Job, in which God reveals himself as Lord of the sea.

Jesus threatened the wind and ordered the sea to calm itself, addressing this as if it was the power of the devil, In fact, as we are told in the First Reading and in Psalm 106/107, the sea is considered in the Bible as a threatening element, chaotic, potentially destructive, which only God, the Creator, can dominate, rule and quiet down.

But there is another power - a positive one - that moves the world, and is capable of transforming and renewing its creatures: the force of 'Christ's love' (2 Cor 5,14) - as St. Paul calls it in the Second Letter to the Corinthians. Therefore, not a cosmic force but rather a divine one, transcendent.

It acts on the cosmos itself, but in itself, the love of Christ is 'another' power, and it is this transcendent otherness that the Lord manifested in his Resurrection, in the 'holiness' of the lives of those chosen by him to liberate us from the dominion of evil, as it was during the exodus from Egypt, when he let the Jews escape through the waters of the Red Sea.

"Your way, O God, is holy," the Psalmist exclaims. "Through the sea was your path; your way, through the mighty waters" (Ps 77/76,14.20).

In the Paschal mystery, Jesus passed through the abyss of death, because God wished to renew the universe in this way: through the death and resurrection of his Son "who died for all", so that all may live "through him who died and resurrected for them" (2 Cor 5,16).

The solemn act of calming the tempestuous sea is clearly a sign of Christ's mastery over negative powers and leads us to think of his divinity: "Who then is this," the disciples asked each other, "whom even wind and sea obey?" (Mk 4,41).

Theirs was not yet a firm faith - it was still being formed. They felt a mixture of fear and trust, whereas the confident abandon of Jesus to the Father was total and pure. That is why he slept during the storm, completely secure in the arms of God.

But the moment would come when even Jesus would feel anguish and fear: and when his time came, he would feel in himself all the weight of the sins of men, like a cresting wave about to break over him.

And yes, that would be a terrible storm, not cosmic, but spiritual. It would be the last and most extreme assault of evil against the Son of God.

But at that moment, Jesus did not doubt the power of God the Father nor his nearness, even if he had to experience in full the distance of hatred from love, of falsehood from truth, of sin from grace. He experienced this drama in himself in a lacerating way, especially on Gethsemane, before his arrest, and then, during the entire passion up to his death on the Cross.

In that time, Jesus was, on the one hand, completely one with the Father, abandoned fully to him. On the other hand, in common with all sinners, he felt separated and abandoned by him.

Some saints have lived intensely and personally this experience of Jesus. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina was one of them. A simple man, of humble origins, "taken possession of by Christ" (Phil 3,12) - as the Apostle Paul write - to make him a chosen instrument of the perennial power of his Cross: the power of love for all souls, of forgiveness and reconciliation, of spiritual paternity, of concrete solidarity with those who suffer.

The stigmata which marked his body united him intimately to the Crucified and Resurrected Lord. An authentic follower of St. Francis of Assisi, he took upon himself, as did the Poverello, the experience of the Apostle Paul as he describes it in his letters: "I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2, 19-20).

This does not mean alienation nor loss of personality - God never cancels out the human, but transforms it with his Spirit and orients it to serving his plan of salvation. Padre Pio kept his own natural gifts, and even his own temperament, but he offered everything to God so he could serve him freely to extend the work of Christ - to announce the Gospel, to remit sins and heal the sick in spirit and in the body.

As it was for Jesus, the true battle, the radical combat that Padre Pio had to bear was not against earthly enemies but against the spirit of evil (cfr Eph 6.12).

The greatest 'storms' that menaced him were the assaults of he devil, from which he defended himself with the 'weapons of God', with 'the shield of faith' and 'the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God" (Eph 6,11.16.17).

Remaining united to Jesus, he always kept in sight the profundity of the human tragedy, and for this he offered himself and his many sufferings, he spent himself in the care and comfort of the sick: a sign of the mercy of God, of his Kingdom which will come - or, rather, is already in this world - of the victory of love and life over sin and death.

To guide souls and relieve suffering - thus we can summarize the mission of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, as the Servant of God Pope Paul VI said of him, "he was a man of prayer and suffering" (To the Capuchin Chapter Fathers, 20 February 1971).

Dear friends, Capuchin friars minor, members of the prayer groups and the faithful of San Giovanni Rotondo, you are the heirs of Padre Pio, and the legacy he left you is holiness.

In one of his letters, he writes: "It seems Jesus had no other concern but to sanctify your souls" (Epistolary II, p. 155). This was always his first concern, his priestly and paternal anxiety: that the person returns to God, that he might experience God's mercy and, renewed interiorly, rediscover the beauty and the joy of being Christian, of living in communion with Jesus, of belonging to his Church and practising the Gospel.

Padre Pio attracted others to his way of holiness with his own testimony, showing by example the 'binary' track which leads to it: prayer and charity.

First of all, prayer. Like all great men of God, Padre Pio became prayer himself, body and soul. His days were a lived rosary, that is, a continuous meditation and assimilation of the mysteries of Christ in spiritual union with the the Virgin Mary.

That explains the singular simultaneous presence in him of supernatural gifts and human concreteness. Everything culminated in the celebration of Holy Mass - in which he united himself completely to the Lord who had died and resurrected.

From prayer, as from an always living spring, came charity. The love he carried in his heart and transmitted to others was full of tenderness, always attentive to the real situations of persons and families.

He felt the special predilection of the Heart of Christ for the sick and the suffering, and it is from this that his project took origin and shape for a great work dedicated to the 'relief of suffering'. Such an institution cannot be understood nor interpreted adequately apart from its source of inspiration, which is evangelical charity, inspired in turn by prayer.

All this, dearest ones, Padre Pio re-proposes today to our attention. The risks of activism and secularization are always present. That is why my visit also has the purpose of confirming you in faithfulness to the mission you inherited from your beloved Father.

Many of you, religious and laymen, may have been so caught up in the thousands of demands for service to pilgrims or to the patients in the hospital, that you may risk neglecting what is truly necessary: to listen to Christ in order to comply with the will of God.

Whenever you feel that you are running this risk, look to Padre Pio, to his example, his sufferings - and invoke his intercession, so that you may obtain from the Lord the light and the strength that you need to continue with a mission that weaves together love for God and fraternal charity.

From heaven, may he continue to exercise that exquisite spiritual fatherhood that distinguished him during his earthly existence; may he continue to accompany his brothers, his spiritual children, and the entire work that he began.

Together with St. Francis and Our Lady, whom he so loved and made loved in this world, may he always watch over you and protect you. Then, even in the storms that can arise unexpectedly, may you experience the breath of the Holy Spirit which is stronger than any contrary wind and propels the boat of the Church and each of us.

That is why we must always live in serenity and cultivate joy in our hearts, giving thanks to the Lord: "Your love is for always" (Resp. Psalm). Amen.












[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/08/2009 23:01]