Text of the Eucharistic adoration of March 12, 2017

Feast of Priesthood

Introduction

Dear Jesus the Eucharist,

this feast is one of the most felt and beloved by our community because when we meditate on the sacrament of priesthood, we immediately think of the Bishop of the Eucharist, the bishop ordained by God, our spiritual father, Monsignor Claudio Gatti. For us, he incarnates everything that a beloved son has to have. You chose him, You gave him the episcopate and You acknowledged him with the palm of martyrdom. For you all in Heaven he is already a saint because he always loved and defended the Eucharist and the Eucharistic miracles that took place in the thaumaturgic place. He always preferred to obey God, rather than to the men of the Church, who blackmailed and condemned him, even though it cost him suffering, loneliness, offenses and abandonment. Nevertheless, he never left, not even for a moment, his mission, supported by the love, prayers, and sufferings of our sister Marisa. Today, we want to comment on three passages of the Gospel that more remind us of our bishop and his pastoral action. We, of course, do not allow ourselves to enter the doctrinal aspects of the Word of God, which belongs to priests, but we just want to remember the great love of our spiritual father, re-emerged in our hearts through these three passages of the Gospel. He very much loved to celebrate the recurrence of his priestly ordination, extending it to all priests and involving, in a great ideal embrace, all the confreres united with Jesus the Eucharist. And it is with this spirit that we, Jesus, remember him today.

First moment

The Prodigal Son (From the Gospel according to Luke 15:11-32)

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.

‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

This passage of the Gospel is touching us every time we read it because, through the Sacred Scripture, we see our Lord's great love for his children and reminds us the time when our Bishop came to look for us when we were getting away from You. He was not content to have the 99 sheep safely sheltered in the pen, but he was concerned with the one who was still missing at the call, for he was afraid he would no longer find his way home and lose himself permanently. He was not at peace until all his sheep were safe. Many times our Bishop came to look for us, struggled, prayed, and suffered for us, so that we would realize that we had gone the wrong way. On those occasions when we sincerely got aware of our mistakes, when we came back home asking to be forgiven, he always greeted us with love, widening his arms as the father did with his prodigal son, feeling an immense joy. In his eyes we would read this happiness, the joy of a father who sees his son return to true life, to a life of grace. For him, the days away from home or the suffering experienced were not important, the important thing was to have asked forgiveness to the Lord and return to close contact with Jesus. In Don Claudio’s deep and penetrating eyes we often saw the great mercy of God stretching His hand to those who had fallen, helping them to get up.

Second moment

The Good Shepherd (From the Gospel according to John 10:11-18)

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life, only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

Our Bishop, in all his priestly life, fully embodied the figure of the good shepherd, he has always given himself for the souls to the point of pining away for them. Every member of the community can feel privileged because it had from the Lord the grace to have met an authentic shepherd who, unlike the mercenary who at the slightest danger abandons the sheep and shows not to love them, he always led his flock with strength, love, humility and never abandoned it despite the many difficulties and sufferings. The Bishop of love, the Bishop of the Eucharist, always defended, with all his strength, every soul that the Lord placed in his path, all the more so if they had difficulties, both material and, above all, spiritual, to the point of immolation in order to save this soul.

His greatest desire was always to bring us to Jesus through the Mother of the Eucharist, urging us to grow always in the love for the Eucharist, for the brothers and for the Word of God. Today we can claim to have had a holy shepherd, and if every priest would genuinely get inspiration from our Bishop, we would all the sooner arrive at the complete revival of the Church as desired by our Lord. Unfortunately, the Church is still sick and as never before needs authentic shepherds to bring it to the purity and splendor of the early days. Our shepherd, the Bishop ordained by God, is now, unfortunately, no longer with us physically and sometimes we miss him and we feel sad and forsaken, but we are sure he is in Heaven together with our sister Marisa and that from there he is watching us, always close and protecting us.

Third moment

You are Peter (From the Gospel according to Matthew 16:13-20)

When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

Jesus - Dear Don Claudio, you will be the apostle, the prophet, the Bishop, the leader of the new church. (From the letter of God, July 26, 1998)

Our Lady - My dear little Marisa, this morning you did not understand the message of God. My All gave Don Claudio the fullness of priesthood, so he has all the power. He can do the celebration of Baptism and Confirmation, absolve sins in the Holy Confession, celebrate the Holy Mass, bless and unite bride and groom in marriage, administer the unction of the sick, confer the Sacred Order, that is to ordain priests and consecrate Bishops ; this is all a Bishop can do. (From the letter of God, June 20, 1999).

Two thousand years ago Jesus called Peter, Paul, and the other apostles to establish his Church. After two thousand years, on June 20, 1999, He called and directly ordained another Bishop, Claudio, to rebuild his Church and bring it back to its origin, centered on a life of grace, on the observance of commandments and on the love for Jesus the Eucharist and the Mother of the Eucharist. Monsignor Claudio Gatti, like Peter, Paul and the Apostles, was ordained directly by God without any human mediation. Jesus never abdicated His role when ascended to Heaven, but remained as the head of His Church. Our Lord can do what He wants, without the need of men, and after Peter, He called Claudio because he had some plans for him. The men of the Church have not learned the lesson of the past and even pretend to replace God by pursuing human and non-divine plans. Instead of accepting this great intervention, which went in favor of the whole Church, they opposed him. But the pastoral action of the Bishop ordained by God, fueled by the prayers and sufferings of the victim of love, has allowed the conversion of many souls and the triumph of the Eucharist. What for men is a defeat, for God is victory, what for men is weakness, for the Lord is strength, "in your weakness manifests my strength" (2 Cor 12:9), "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise" (1 Cor 27), "God has chosen the base things of the world and things which are despised. Yes, and He chose things which did not exist to bring to nothing things that do" (1 Cor 1:28). God chose what for men is death, the cross, for the Lord is life, a sign of resurrection and victory. "The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone" (Mk 12:10). This stone, as the Bishop explained to us, is the Eucharist and the Eucharistic miracles that produced and continue to produce their spiritual effects because, as they are God's interventions, they have no limits of time and space.

The triumph of the Eucharist, a great and wonderful spiritual victory, was possible thanks to a humble Bishop, but great in the eyes of God, who accepted and lovingly embraced his mission and who was accompanied by prayers and especially by the suffering of a rose among thorns: Marisa, the victim of love.