Text of the Eucharistic adoration of March 20, 2016

Palm Sunday

Dear Jesus the Eucharist, today we are here to keep you company and to have yours, to talk with you and listen to whatever you want to suggest to our hearts. Just your presence gives strength and life, we do not need anything but you, because only your love can wipe out the evil from the world in which we live and only your love can make us enjoy the good things that you have created. On this Palm Sunday we want to be with you physically and spiritually to participate in your triumphal entry into Jerusalem. You taught us that for you there are no space and time limitations and then, if we close our eyes, perhaps we can imagine ourselves celebrating along the people who recognized you as Lord and Master and welcomed you with joy and rejoiced to your name.

We would also like to accompany you along with your and our Mother and with all the people who love you along the way of the Cross and be with you in the great and immense joy of Resurrection. Accept our prayers, those of the Community and those expressed in the silence of our heart. Lead, at last, your Church to its rebirth and because of your Resurrection may the same occur to her. We look forward to a better world where love and peace, now represented by these olive twigs, may finally reign supreme. Our beloved Bishop, a few years ago, pointing to the children of our community, often would say: "The world where they will live will be a different world, they will be happier than we are, they will enjoy more than we do". Behold, Lord, we are just waiting for it. Thanks for your help you give us every day.

Coming in Jerusalem

Lord, you came in Jerusalem among cheers and songs of joy, among "Hosanna" and olive branches waved as a sign of celebration. People shouted and blessed your name and would lay out carpets on the ground where you walked, making your way through the crowd riding a donkey. To you they reserved a reception meant for a king, but, once again, you showed the world as a king without a crown, just like a king of a world that does not belong to any human logic. You would ride a donkey, not a horse as kings of the past used to, perhaps to keep at a distance from the ephemeral power which at that time was attributed to you. There was fun and joy for everyone, but only for you there was also pain. You did not escape from that painful fate you were going to meet, actually, you fully adhered to the project that would be fulfilled in you and through you, for the salvation of all men. But how sad you must have felt, Jesus, thinking of what would have happened in a few days! You, God, out of love became man, probably you felt alone, sensing the spirit of hatred and discord meander among some of those present and seeing that later it would extend to such a point as to override the demonstration of joy.

Some Pharisees in the crowd said: "Teacher, rebuke your disciples". You answered: "I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out". (Lk 19:39-40). Those who hold important positions, then as now, pretend to try to silence you, my God, to obscure the great works you have done, but no man on earth can ever do it. The stones will speak though; and the stones are those who have no power and count for nothing in the eyes of men, but they are close to your heart. Those stones are the bishop you ordained and our sister Marisa who have given their lives to proclaim to the world your truth, still rejected by the Pharisees of our time. Those stones are the same who accompanied you and sincerely rejoiced at your arrival, those who followed your teachings, those who loved you and would have given their life for you. You, Lord, surely rejoiced and were pleased by them. Finally, we want to be those stones. We too, despite our imperfection, want to be part of those who greet you with joy and who love you. We want to be among those who make you glad. Help us to ensure that this happens in every day of our life.

From suffering to joy

Every time we dive in the reading of Jesus’ passion we are troubled by so much suffering and overwhelmed with emotion thinking that each of us is the recipient of such a huge and incomprehensible design of love from God. "It is fair to say that every man cost Christ all the sufferings he faced during his life and his passion" (from the ninth station of the cross preached by our Bishop Claudio Gatti in Lourdes on October 12, 1981). But especially when faced by so much violence perpetrated against an innocent, we ask: "Why". Why so much pain when only a small part of it would suffice? "Why Christ wanted to test such agonizing pain and unheard suffering when just a single drop of his blood that has infinite value would have been enough to save us? Why Christ did not want to spare any sorrow, if only to push us to conversion? By showing his sufferings he wanted us to understand that his love is so great, inexplicable, infinite that he was ready to drink the cup of suffering to the last drop (From the sixth Station of the Cross preached by our Bishop Claudio Gatti in Lourdes on October 12, 1981). And the same "why" transpires every time we fail to understand the pain caused by human wickedness or when it occurs in the silence of our daily life. Yet, the Mother of the Eucharist would often advise us, in the letters of God, not to ask so many "whys", but rather to surrender to the will of the One who created us, even if, at times, it is unfathomable for us. Our Lord has chosen the way of the Cross, this means that it is the only possible way to follow so we could hope for a new world, a better world. It is the way leading to Resurrection. The moment of passion is a passage, yet tough, aimed at Resurrection, the victory of life over death, the defeat of sin. Jesus is on the side of the poor, of those who sustain injustice, of the sick and all who suffer to bring them together to him for a rebirth. The Lord has risen to defeat, once and for all, evil and pain, and to bring joy, not the world ephemeral joy, but the real and authentic joy coming from his love. God speaks to us about the eternal happiness in Heaven, but he is promising an advance here on Earth as well: "Peter said to him: "We have left all we had to follow you". He answered: "Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life". (Lk 18:28-30). If we are united with Christ we have his help and especially we can see everything that is in our life rather than noticing what is missing. "Therefore I tell you, do not worry for your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear; is not life more than food and the body more than clothes? For the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own". (Mt 6:25, 32-34)