Prayer formulated by H.E. Mons. Claudio Gatti on 29th June 2008

This is the prayer that H.E. Mons. Claudio Gatti, Bishop ordained by God, formulated spontaneously before the Eucharist that bled on the occasion of the closing of the Social Year 2007-2008.

God, One and Triune, present in the Eucharist, God our Father, God our brother, God our friend, my All God, I turn to You and bow before You. You are our All and I have invoked you as the Mother of the Eucharist always invokes You, she is the one who taught us to turn to You with affection, simplicity and freedom of children. My God, we love You, we have given you many proofs of this love that perhaps might have been better, more generous, but sometimes we have offered it encrusted with our flaws and our limits, but gold, even if encrusted with less noble materials is always gold and in order to shine with light and appreciated, it must first go through the purifying fire and we, my God, have gone through the purifying fire of suffering. Each of us, from the first to the last member of this community, has tasted the salt of suffering and I ask myself, why my God, to follow You, to be faithful, your true children are always persecuted and condemned? You can reply to me that again and again we see the unfortunate story of Cain and Abel and, because of men, it did not stop, but I say to You, my Lord, let the many Cains who are in the Church, in the society and in the world, give way to the righteous Abel; let, my Lord, this one to be the last year of a long wait that has been going on for decades. Let, my Lord, that at least today, even if You do not utter the all-enclosing word and that we are waiting for and which, even if You do not state Your enough, do, my God, my All, pronounce a word that is near to the concept of enough and for us it will be joy after weeping, after pain, after suffering. My God, thank you, for You sustained this community this year, a community that has been attacked, both from inside and from outside, by forces that seemed preponderant but did not win, once again You won and we can Sing "Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat". Yes, God One and Triune, You must triumph, You must reign, You must overcome the evil in men and replace it with Your love and with Your grace. Your victories, my God, are brilliant, beautiful, wonderful, sometimes incomprehensible, but if we look at history we see that You, as absolute protagonist, have always led men toward the good and if there is that mud in the world today, that smelly dirt, it is only and exclusively men’s fault who have departed from You or actually have taken Your place. They have almost deposed You to enthrone themselves, they put You aside to draw attention and applause upon them, they almost put the gag on Your mouth because, as they are as proud as satan, thought fit to spread their words that are just words full of poison. My God, it is not up to me to tell You to rouse because You know when and how to intervene, but give us the strength to reach Your goal, give us the serenity to live this time, very short I wish, in tranquillity and peace, do in such a way that we may always taste the joy of love, which takes two directions: toward You and our brothers. My God, remember your Church and allow me, after bowing and worshipping before Your presence, to address Our Lady who is here at your feet, on her knees, who continues to intercede for us and is signaling us to raise our eyes to You, to see that blood that has been rejected by so many men of the Church, but we want to guard it carefully as the best and most precious gift You have given us. That blood, Jesus, is also the blood of Your Mother because she is Mother, Mother of the Eucharist, Mother of the Church, Mother of each of us. Oh Mother of Heaven, you only, besides God, know and have in your heart the memory of all those sleepless and aching nights, of all those days when the heart was strained in the grip of discouragement up to the point to desire to close everything to get out of this painful situation. God, urged by you, uttered those words: "No, never", but He also said other beautiful things you have always reminded us like here comes the Trinity, not only because there is the Eucharistic sacrifice and the Trinity is present in the Eucharist, but here comes the Theophany, as manifestation of the One God in three equal and distinct persons, here You come, actually, this is one of Your houses where Your presence is more frequent and continuative. In this place, which our Father rendered thaumaturgic, You, Jesus, have called the Bishop, Bishop of the Eucharist and the seer, victim of the Eucharist, and I, at this moment, am not looking at the people but at your works. You, Jesus, have said and added to the word Bishop and to the word seer the adjective most important, the most important Bishop, the most important seer, and I say this because I do not want to diminish the gifts You have given to Your Church; the thought should not go to our modest people, but to the One who wanted, in His infinite closeness to man, to choose two creatures that certainly men would have never chosen, but You did chose and how You then surprised us, You surprise us each time You manifest to us. Oh Mother, Oh Mum, oh sweet friend and sister, put in our heart a little of your love; We want to love your and our God, but our love is too much below and then compensate it with your being, give us your Motherly love, let us hear and persuade each of us how good it is to turn our love to God who, as a loving Father, is ready to stretch out His arms. My God, Mother of Heaven, I cannot finish this prayer without addressing those who we celebrate today: Peter and Paul. At this time, my God, I feel, for You said it, to have in common with them the great gift of episcopal ordination; You ordained bishop Peter, You ordained bishop Paul, You have ordained me, your humble servant, equally bishop like them. Then, dear brothers in the episcopate, give me your faith, your ardor, your anxiety for the Churches, your desire to be at everybody’s service, that I may follow your footsteps and have one of you at one side and the other at the other side, walk together to our Jesus, our Brother, our Savior, our Messiah, the One who called us to be ministers of the Word, ministers of the Eucharist in the Church He founded and keeps on sustaining despite the fact that men have attempted to unsaddle Him as you, Paul, were unsaddled by Jesus. Jesus is powerful and has succeeded with you, but men will not be able to unsaddle Him because before Christ present in Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity we bend our knees, we bow and say: "You are Jesus our God, our Brother, true Man, true Savior". Amen and Alleluia.

+ Claudio Gatti

Bishop ordained by God

Bishop of the Eucharist