Homily of H.E. Mons. Claudio Gatti of March 12, 2006

1st reading: Gen 22:1-2, 9, 10-13, 15-18; Psalm 115; 2nd reading: Rom 8:31-34; Gospel: Mk 9:2-10

Today I sit here next to you, because I would really like, through this approaching gesture, which also allows me to rest a little, to strongly highlight that union, that love, that charity that we, as called, are invited to live daily.

Many times Our Lady has combined together the two verbs “to love and to suffer” and my experience confirms to me that this is deeply true. In life it happens that when you love deeply you suffer much more; when two spouses have a strong and profound union and one of them passes away, just because the union and love was so strong, so much more the separation is felt. Suffering is somehow part of love and I see it in my experience and in Marisa’s. I never thought that in order to revive the Church, to convert priests, so much deep suffering was necessary. I would never have thought that, in order to achieve the two goals set by God, some creatures would almost have to come to their own destruction. I had never thought how high and at the same time how close to the mission of Christ, the mission of the Bishop and of the Seer was.

You know the near and the distant past concerning us. March 9 was a clear day, Marisa was feeling reasonably well. I recounted, and I won’t say it again, what happened in that long conversation with God the Father, followed by a talk with the Mother of the Eucharist. I asked Our Lady, with whom I have more confidence: "Why don't you prolong Marisa’s improvement for a few days, so that we too can recover?" Our Lady replied: “I will talk about it to God the Father” and her answer did not come from her mouth, but from the facts. March 10 was a day that saw human pain combined with suffering from the Passion, but yesterday human pain reached such high and dreadful peaks that lasted for hours and during this period Marisa asked God: "Take me, I can't take it anymore” and I joined her prayer and said: “My God, my Father, take her, I give her to you. You asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, I offer you my innocent sister, she is a victim who bears the evil of the world and I offer her because seeing her suffer like this is a suffering that tears the soul and torment the heart". This morning you had the answer, while we had it tonight and it is the same: God always wanted these sufferings for the same reason, highlighted by Jesus’ cry: "I thirst for souls". Priestly souls or simple souls of the faithful are precious souls for God and here is that this thirst for the conversion of souls is repeatedly shown by Jesus to his friends, to whom he asks to join him in order to enlarge the number of those who can return to the Father's House.

Today's readings give us an additional opportunity, a boost, to get to know God's style. The first reading now recounts the well-known episode of the trial that God subjected Abraham to, even if I allow myself, with a low voice, to say: he had just one trial, but there are those who have had many more. I am not so interested in dwelling on the episode but on what God says, who promises all that series of blessings for a particular reason: "Because you have obeyed my voice". I found a relief in this, because I believe I can assert that we have always obeyed the voice of God, even when he asked us things that went against our vision, our way of being, even when we took actions that I knew would turn against us and you know this, even when we took a standing, for which the fury against us has become more ferocious, harsh and evil; we always obeyed His voice and so this night I thought about this and said: "My God, you promised Abraham great things concerning his offspring because he obeyed you; you promised us great things because we obeyed. Please, I beg you, even if you still asked me to wait for some time, at least that these trials may become less painful", because, believe me, they tear the soul apart. There was no need for me to wait for the answer from a direct intervention of Our Lady, or God the Father or Jesus because it is the apostle Paul, in the Letter to the Romans, who gives the answer: "He who did not spare his own Son but he gave him for all of us, how will he not give us everything together with him?” Through the Blood of Christ, through his Passion, his suffering and his death, we have received the grace, the sacraments, the Word of God and the promise of a happy eternity.

There is still another thing to emphasize: "How he will not give us everything together with him" and this "everything" does not only concern the spiritual or supernatural sphere, but it is also concerned with the human sphere. He will give us everything for which life must be transformed into a more peaceful life, into a more joyful life. We have even had the teachings to live in joy and also in pain, in suffering, but it is not certain that everyone's life should always be pain and suffering. This is why for me this is a real, specific hope that in "everything" I see all the promises that God has made to us and that on March 9 he again promised that he would fulfill.

However, now the moment is what it is, I heard Our Lady saying: “Pray a lot”, then she added: “Very much so for your Bishop”, but clearly also for Marisa because it is a very, very hard time for her. The physical energies seem to abandon us, health is increasingly subjected to severe blows, nights are becoming more and more nights of passion and suffering, but our Lord is master of everything and certainly it is also in his interest to ensure that we do not collapse. I have had the occasion to say more than once that the greatest moral suffering that Christ felt was not the cross, but Gethsemane, when he was alone, when his friends, the apostles, were sleeping, they were the chosen ones, the beloved ones he had wanted materially and physically closer. They were sleeping and Jesus suffered with his Mother, the Mother of the Eucharist, who heard Jesus’ lamentations, but I would say Jesus’ cry, because my heart tells me that Jesus cried out in Gethsemane. It is His human nature that comes out, that feels crushed by abandonment, by loneliness and probably at some point this loneliness was so hard because God the Father wanted the vision of the Mother, not the presence, to disappear in the eyes of the Son. Mary was present and her Son did not see her, why am I saying this? Because this happened to Marisa, to us, several times, including yesterday. We invoked her, we called her, we begged her, she was present, but she was not visible. Here it is a participation in Christ's Gethsemane, it is a participation in the mission of Christ, it is a participation in the greatness of Christ which is manifested in the desire to save souls.

The Church cannot fail to be reborn, first of all because God promised it, then because God is able to fulfill the promises on His own and finally because, in His infinite love, with the esteem and respect He has for his children, he asked some of them for a painful and bloody union with His passion and His death. This is why you can read these readings under the banner of hope. Paul says that Abraham believed against every hope, well then, I believe that this expression can also be applied to all of us, because if you are here, it is mostly because you believe and have hope in what the Lord said, in what Our Lady said; because if hope were not present in you, meant as the certainty that God realizes his promises, what’s the use for you to come here, because for you too, not in the same way and intensity, life is not easy. To be here is beautiful, satisfying, we all think the same way, we all accept the same things, we all believe in the same values, but away from here, in the world, even in your families, the situation is different. I know that many of you in the family have found opposition, misunderstanding, even mockery or they made fun of you, but you continue to believe and this will ensure that in the end the Lord will fulfill all the promises He has made thanks to you too, to your faith, hope and love.

In the Roman Minor Seminary Our Lady is invoked as Mother of Perseverance, while in the Roman Major Seminary she is venerated as Mother of Trust, so we place at the feet of the Mother of the Eucharist the virtue of hope, our hope, the virtue of trust, our trust because by closing our eyes we may come back not only to singing, but to living what Jesus said: "Father, I abandon myself to You", even if you know that everything will then go back to being gray, hard, sometimes dark, but know that in the end, when God will decide to intervene, darkness will give way to light, suffering will give way to joy, hope will give way to what we have felt with bitterness and disappointment.

All this to the glory of God, for the rebirth of the Church, for the salvation of souls, including ours. I had this in my heart, I told you and I entrust it to your heart. Praised be Jesus Christ.