Letter sent on 29th February 2004 by the Bishop Claudio Gatti to his Seminar ex-mates for their 41st anniversary of priestly ordination

Dearest brothers in the priesthood,

I have appreciated very much your invitation to attend the annual meeting to celebrate together "the 41st anniversary of our priestly ordination".

I hope the invitation is not an initiative of few, but a decision of everybody.

I hope our relationships, broken for decades, will restart in the future.

The Lord was so kind as to make me know my future that, for His will, "will be bright and great".

If you want to belong to my future, you must belong to my present time, which is very fought against, full of trials and sorrowful.

Belonging to my present time means:

1 - accepting that the Mother of the Eucharist appears to Marisa Rossi and these marian apparitions are the most important in the History of the Church;

2 - believing that God performed in the thaumaturgical place the greatest eucharistic miracles in the History of the Church, especially the one that took place in my hands during the celebration of the H. Mass, about which I enclose a photographic documentation;

3 - recognizing that God ordained me bishop; this is the first Episcopal ordination God did after the one of the apostles and it will remain the only one in the History of the Church.

I understand that by these requests I offer to my slanderers the pretext to judge me haughty and presumptuous, but I cannot be silent about what God did and communicated to satisfy the men. "The truth will make you free" (John 8,32); Christ taught this.

Moreover, belonging to my present time can mean also to be persecuted "by the great men of the Church", being deprived of the parish or office and being hit by ecclesiastical censures.

To these sufferings can be added, as it happened to me, the about-face, abandoning and betrayal by priests and even the relatives who can get to consider you crazy; also Jesus was considered crazy by his relatives (see Mark 3,21).

I dare to address you the same question Jesus addressed to the children of thunder: "Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?" (Matthew 20,22).

Marisa and I answered YES in 1971 at Lourdes and our sorrowful ascent of the Golgotha started, where we met and embraced Jesus Crucified.

Anyway we firmly think that after death there is the resurrection and we are already glimpsing the Easter light.

Unfortunately, due to tasks that cannot be postponed, I won't be able to be in Rimini to celebrate the H. Mass with you and to thank the Lord for the gift of priesthood.

I promise you that on March 7, I will recommend you in a special way to the Mother of the Eucharist, during the usual apparition that precedes the H. Mass.

I greet you "in osculo sancto" ["with a holy kiss"] (2 Corinthians 13,12).

Rome, 29th February 2004

First Sunday of Lent

† Claudio Gatti

Bishop ordained by God

Bishop of the Eucharist

P.S. If you want to know the history of the apparitions of the Mother of the Eucharist, of the eucharistic miracles and our history, visit our web site whose address is: www.madredelleucaristia.it