Homily of H.E. Mons. Claudio Gatti of May 14, 2006

1st Reading: Acts 9:26-31; Psalm 21; 2nd Reading: 1 Jn 3:18-24; Gospel: Jn 15:1-8

In God's plans nothing is coincidence and everything is providence. Once again, today's readings, which have been indicated by liturgical experts, fit perfectly and are perfectly in tune with today's celebration, when, as you all know, we raise all our prayers for the consecrated souls to God. The consecration of man to God means, first of all, the choice the Gospel speaks about, when Jesus says that man cannot serve two masters, God and mammon: he either loves the one or loves the other, or hates the one or hates the other. In this sense we can all enter into the concept of consecration because, with Baptism, even if we are small, a choice is made in our name. Those words that we repeat with cadence, "I renounce, I renounce, I believe, I believe", indicate the first choice that man makes towards God, but consecration is a reality on the rise because it is renewed in other moments of our life. In fact, the celebration of the sacrament of marriage is also a consecration, where a choice is made: to celebrate the sacrament of marriage or it is a marriage which is just a simple contract that, according to human law, can even be dissolved. The consecration is the moment when we are confirmed and rise to the dignity of soldiers of Christ whom we choose as leader instead of other leaders. Marriage is a choice, a consecration, where the love of the protagonists must also be oriented longitudinally, as well as vertically, because we have specific actors and objectives: the spouse towards the other and both of them are concerned with the children.

The moment of highest consecration is when man chooses to serve God only because, by serving God, he also serves his brothers and his whole life is lived with this purpose. The day of our consecration is the moment of priestly ordination, but there are also lay people who dedicate their life completely to God through a triple bond with the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Many consider this bond so tight that it prevents them from exercising their freedom, but the most beautiful thing in a relationship of love is donation. Giving oneself and bowing to the will, without undergoing a process of depersonalization, is the true consecration and gives the best of oneself to God: one gives up the security of life with the vow of poverty, one gives up the legitimate joy of marriage with the vow of chastity and one binds completely to God and to men, if they are in harmony with God, with the vow of obedience.

The true consecrated soul is found in the definition that Jesus gives when he speaks of the vine and the branches: "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes" (Jn 15:1-3). Thus, consecration has, in itself, the concept of immolation, which means the total renunciation of oneself, which includes, if God wills, the renunciation of one's life, in the sense of offering it to God, in such a way that the Lord may take it up again when and how he deems fit and, above all, after having passed a long ordeal that always begins with the awful test of Gethsemane, that is, the abandonment, of not feeling loved by God. Even if we do not understand it, God loves us and I confess that I, at times, find it hard to understand that the love of God is present, when I see only great suffering.

John makes us understand, in a clear way, what the love of God is and the fact that it is superior to the love of man: "God is greater than our heart". The heart is the symbol of love, so we love ourselves, but John says that God loves us with a love infinitely superior to what we can give, show and pour on ourselves, because the first object of love is the loving subject. God loves Himself, man must love himself, but God loves man more than man is able to love himself. I took a Pindaric flight, something like this is almost incomprehensible, but this is the word of God that enlightens us and even if there is no full understanding, we are in a position to adhere to it. Praying for the consecrated souls means praying for those who are, every day, like lighted lamps burning before God. This is the moment that by loving and praying today, especially for our sister, who unfortunately is in a situation of total immolation, remembering her with the broadest, most generous and total love, we also remember all consecrated souls, so that all may be worthy of the call and commitment they have undertaken. It is not easy to be a burning lamp before God. The lamps, in order to burn and lighten, need fuel, otherwise the flame is extinguished and dies. If in the consecrated soul there is no love, its every action is empty and meaningless. True love has an incomprehensible fertility, even surpassing human intelligence.

See how the language of coincidences also occurs in the external civil situation: today the figure of the mother is celebrated. Perhaps this is, for many children, the only occasion, even if stimulated by the mass media and economic interests, when some of them remember to say "thank you" to their mother, but the children who love express their “thank you” every day. Today the feast of motherhood brings out even more the character of the consecrated soul: the mother is a person who generates and therefore, in the case of our sister, being a person generating with her own sacrifice and suffering, she can rise to the height of mother. The “thank you” that each of us has a reason to say to Marisa is a manifestation of gratitude for her service so hard and suffered. Each of you has asked her, at least once, to pray for your own intention, for a member of your family, for an illness afflicting you or other people, so today is the time when, as children say “thank you” to their mother, so we, as brothers, say thank you to the one who bears within herself the signs of the passion of Christ and supplementing with her own participation in sickness and suffering, to the rebirth of the Church. In our name, this thank you is an expression that we must say to her through constant prayer, asking our Lord to call her immediately or to allow her to feel a little better. This is what Our Lady said today and this is also part of God's plan, in the language of coincidences. She asked to pray, and we will do it, so that God's will be done, but it is clear that this will has to converge from two sides: either by taking her or leaving her here on Earth, but in a situation where she can at least succeed in managing a minimum of her human and personal life.

Our Lady also said that Marisa would be present in bilocation. Since the consecration has not yet taken place, we do not yet have the presence of Jesus the Eucharist, but we have, because this has been assured to us so many times, the presence of the Mother of the Eucharist who is here next to the Bishop by the altar. Today, as she gave the letter of God to us, she wept and plenty of tears flowed from her immaculate, pure and chaste eyes. She is a mother and so we take advantage of the fact that she is present to say her thank you and to entrust our sister to her maternal heart, so that, when Jesus arrives at the moment of the consecration, she is the one, who collected all our prayers, to show them to the Most Holy Trinity, to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, present in the Eucharist. In this way, if our prayers were to have some negative aspect, Mary’s pure love will be able to take away all that is even the least impure and offer it generously and beautifully to God who will certainly welcome our prayers presented by Our Lady’s hands and heart. Now let's raise our faith by reciting the Creed.