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"A
house where many Christians discover their Baptism and the fascination
of the Gospel. To be salt and leaven in the Church and in society. Ready
to walk along the streets of the world which, today more than ever,
needs the Word that saves".
It is Monsignor Angelo Comastri,
Archbishop of Loreto, who expressed these thoughts in the meeting of the
Catholic Action. The said meeting involved not only the four hundred
thousand persons enrolled in the oldest and numerically most
representative association of the "Belpaese", but also many simple
pilgrims from Italy as well as from abroad.
The President of the Marches Episcopal
Conference, lived moments of intense emotion on the occasion of the
festive pilgrimage of the Catholic Action. From first to fifth
September, one hundred and five municipalities offered hospitality to
the very many pilgrims arrived in the Marches to celebrate their feast
with the Pope. An appointment of the utmost spiritual value, five
intense days of festive activities, prayer and deepening of themes which
are very dear to the sensitivity of the association, like politics,
speakers and their social function, the family and finally the relation
between ethics and economy.
All this had been preceded by school
camps at the end of August, or by pilgrimages of different groups from
different Italian Dioceses. The groups had made an experience of
associative life rooted in the territory at the emblem of the twinning
and of the reception. A programme rich in exhibitions, animations and
meetings so that everybody present might know and share a reality made
up of dedication to one's own church, of associative commitment and of
presence in the territory.
The feast culminated on Sunday 5, with
the Holy Mass presided by the Pope in the immensely spacious plain of "Montorso",
between Loreto and Porto Recanati. The plain had already seen him nine
years before, in September, as protagonist of a memorable event together
with the youths. The event was centred on Europe and on hope. During it
the Pope beatified three adherents to the Catholic Action who lived in
the first half of '900: two lay persons, Pina Suriano and Albert
Marvelli, and a Spanish priest, Pietro Tarrès Y Claret.
A specially tasteful feast for the
eyes and for the heart. Monsignore Angelo Comastri, Archbishop of
Loreto, is convinced of this. He has just sent a book to the St. Paul
printing press: How shall we go to end? The book has an
emblematic sub-title : a survey of the future of men and of the
world. Pages of intense spirituality imbibed with optimism. They are
marked by the certainty that Jesus will come back. It is a balm for all
those who are lacerated by suffering and heart anxieties. It is a
sincere invitation never to lose courage and never to waver in faith.
This hundred and forty-fifth apostolic
visit of John Paul II, the only Italian station in 2004 and the twelfth
in the Marches, was a unique occasion, the fifth one, which confirms his
devotion to Mary and to the Virgo Lauretana in particular. "I
feel duty-bound to affirm that we can never get used to our encounters
with the Pope-the delegate Archbishop of Loreto states- they may be ten,
fifteen or more, yet they remain always a unique and extraordinary
event. The present fifth encounter has had a wholly particular character
because it is the only pilgrimage which the Pope has made in Italy
during this 2004. It tastes of predilection, of an extraordinary
affection which cannot leave us indifferent. I am certain that it has
impressed and touched deeply the whole city of Loreto, the Christian
community and the Bishop, who has the task of safeguarding the "yes" of
Mary and the Holy House in Loreto. It has been a precious pearl to which
we have prepared ourselves by opening our heart as Mary did".
Can we say that
the relation which unites the Pope to Loreto is a privileged one?
"Without the least intention of
arousing jealousies in any one, I would like to say that we do feel it
to be a privilege, only because Loreto and Nazareth are well united
like two hands, as I said on the occasion of the twinning. These two
sanctuaries guard the "yes" of Mary. In his Letter for the seventh
centenary, the Pope said that "they safeguard salvation in its
original, embryonic state". The moment it entered history: with the
"yes" of Mary. Evidently the Pope loves in a particular way the places
linked with Mary. All of us are bound to the "yes" of Mary. Who can say
not to be bound to her "Here I am"?
Besides being bound to the "yes" of
Mary, we have also a lot to learn from it, since we have a huge baggage
of "no" in our life. By looking at Mary we learn to say "yes". We learn
to live our life like a "Here I am"! We learn also not to understand our
freedom as the possibility of doing whatever we like. In fact this is
not freedom, but a self-destructive caprice. We learn to feel freedom as
an occasion to say "yes" to God. This is how freedom is germinated,
otherwise it is aborted".
What about your
expectations from this meeting of the Catholic Action?
I have found it as a great occasion, a
great chance for the Catholic Action. The greatest lay organisation of
the Church in Italy is living its renewal season. It is a re-thinking of
all its formation itinerary and its apostolic commitment. Once we lived
in a Christian society where the Gospel was, somehow, breathed. Today we
live in a community in which one must choose to be Christian. One has to
decide whether to be a Christian or not. We are expected to say our
"yes" once again. This meeting has been an occasion to catch the de-christianising
of society. Not as a motive for crying, but as a spur to commitment, to
motivate ourselves afresh for the mission and the proclamation. Today,
we are all supposed to be missionaries in our society. All the baptised
lay Christians must feel the duty of being missionaries. Wherever there
is a believer, there is a missionary horizon, there is a frontier of the
Church. Now, all of us must roll up our sleeves. In this sense, the
Catholic Action confirms itself as a school of holiness to the point of
experiencing the fire of love and of joy to be shared with others. Just
Like Mary who, after saying her yes in the little house of Nazareth, set
on her journey to share with Elizabeth the joy of the "yes" she had
pronounced for the love of God. The gifts of God cannot be kept in a
suitcase. We need to share them, if we want to keep them. It cannot be a
private affair. Faith commits us to the missionary proclamation.
Nine years ago
the Pope had a meeting with the youths at Montorso in the sign of hope.
Today, he has seen them again in a changed context: Europe has embraced
twenty-five new states, but the references to the Christian roots of the
old Continent are missing, and this has been the object of a long
polemic. …
"The very fact that the words
"Christian Roots" are missing from the European Constitutional Treatise,
must urge us to action. We believers, in fact, are the Christian roots.
In this situation of emptiness and confusion, we are called to spread
the light and the fragrance of the Gospel everywhere. It is with the
Gospel that Europe will recuperate the good taste of life. A
philosopher, Martin Heidegger, says, "No other age has known so little
about what man is". This means that we are in the utmost total
confusion. We truly do not know what life is, what family is. But we
have the light of the Gospel. Let us raise it up, not with the intention
of imposing it on others, but to share with others the joy of seeing
what we see".
As an exemplar,
deeply believing lay person you remembered George La Pira
on the centenary of
his birth …
"After the death of La Pira his work
was almost ignored. He was remembered only by his intimate friends.
Today we start speaking of La Pira once again, just as we do with Alcide
De Gasperi. This means that in politics we feel the need of looking for
models. Unluckily the political climate is quite colourless. We need to
find again a stimulus that may allow us to feel politics not as a
running after arm-chairs, nor as a competition, but as a commitment and
a vocation. La Pira supported the concept that the politician, after the
contemplative, has the highest
vocation, because he orients the peoples, the life of nations. He has
enormous responsibilities for the present and the future of the persons.
He requires a very high moral and spiritual stature, which today we
perceive with nostalgia
as rarefied in the political
scenario. He has been a master waiting for disciples. We need new
politicians. We need courage. We need more encouraging examples.
According to
you, how are we going to end, seen that this is also the title
of your latest literary work?
"Every time I give this book to
anyone, he invariably reads the title and answers: Badly. Then I say
that actually I have written the book to prove that we can finish well.
History is a crooked and difficult journey, full of dangers, but with a
joyful end. This is the news which I want to transmit to all with this
book".
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