To the loyal listeners of Radio Mater, a cordial greeting and welcome to pray in this hour of spirituality in the company of Saint Joseph, in a climate of regaining freedom which makes us citizens free to walk and to be able to greet the friends of person.
The Holy Spirit is the breath of the soul, which is why we want to begin our immersion in prayer by invoking the Holy Spirit with this prayer:
Lord Jesus!
Here we are ready to immerse ourselves in prayer to breathe your gospel and to let ourselves be permeated by your Providence to fully live the life that you give us.
Lord Jesus, our mediator and advocate, pray - as you promised - to the Father, so that through you he may send us the Holy Spirit: the spirit of truth and fortitude, a spirit of consolation that makes our testimony open, good, smiling and effective .
Be with us, Lord, life partner, to enter into total communion with you and be able by your own strength to transmit your peace, your salvation and consolation to the world.
We need it especially today after a long Lent, which lasted almost three months and we still haven't reached the finish line, but we have completed a long but very important stage, reaching the day of Pentecost.
We know that Pentecost was a festival of the Jewish people that celebrated the harvest: it was the beginning of the harvest of the fruits dreamed of in spring.
This year, the day after Pentecost, for the first time, Pope Francis wanted the liturgical memory of Mary, mother of the Church, to be celebrated. Our Lady has been - and still is - in the hands of the Holy Spirit as a perennial womb of the fruitfulness of the Church itself.
In Nazareth the Holy Spirit asks for hospitality in Mary's womb to clothe his divinity, present in Jesus, with human flesh.
In the maturity of his human life, Jesus from the top of the cross expands Mary's motherhood to all believers in him.
Jesus handed over his Mother to John, so that she would become the mother of all the baptized and welcome all human creatures with maternal feelings of tenderness and meekness.
Pope Francis said last Sunday: "A Church, which is a mother, walks on the path of tenderness and compassion. For this reason, those who are children of the Church are gentle, tender, smiling people, full of love. - he also recalled - that the Holy Spirit, protagonist in the cenacle with the first Community of the wonderful experience of Pentecost, and we pray to you to obtain the ardent missionary spirit for the Church”. These are the words pronounced by the Pope last Sunday at the prayer of Queen Coeli, with the faithful back in St. Peter's Square, to underline the profound bond between the Spirit and Mary, between the solemnity of Pentecost, therefore, and the memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church. The Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church and Mary is his Bride. The Church is the mystical body of Christ, Mary is the Mother of Jesus whom he himself entrusts to John on the cross, and at the same time, entrusts Mary to the evangelist apostle.
“All the words of Our Lady are the words of a mother”, from the moment “of the Annunciation in Nazareth until the end, she is a mother” said the Pope in the chapel of Santa Marta, he said it already on 21 May 2018, during the first Mass celebrated in memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church.
On that occasion he explained how the Fathers of the Church had understood that Mary's motherhood was the motherhood of the Church.
The Pope highlighted the feminine dimension of the Church and also the importance of the feminine genius of women and underlined that: «Without women the Church does not move forward, because she is a woman, and this attitude of a woman comes from Mary, because Jesus wanted it this way."
On that occasion Francis indicated tenderness as that maternal attitude that must distinguish the Church and added, "even a soul, a person who lives this belonging to the Church, knowing that she is also a mother must go on the same path".
The Decree indicating the celebration of the liturgical memory which established the anniversary was celebrated on the Monday after Pentecost with the aim of «fostering the growth of the maternal sense of the Church in the Pastors, religious and faithful, as well as genuine Marian piety ». «This celebration will help us to remember that Christian life, in order to grow, must be anchored in the mystery of the Cross, in the oblation of Christ in the Eucharistic banquet, in the offering Virgin, Mother of the Redeemer and of the redeemed». Whoever puts themselves at the feet of this tender mother will notice that this association will transform everything into love, even the material or obscure. I would say that the Holy Spirit is the great artist who makes the stone of our granite rigidity alive and throbbing. We say of a person full of life that he is an inspired person, because even in difficult situations he retains brilliance, optimism and the lightness of a person in love.
Even in us the mirror of our beauty, albeit in fragments, shows us the source of light, a light that we cannot capture, take with our hands, but only receive as a gift.
In the present dramatic situation, full of suffering and anguish that grips the entire world, we turn to You, Mother of God and our Mother, and seek refuge under your protection, Holy Mother of God
« O Virgin Mary, turn your merciful eyes to us in this coronavirus pandemic, and comfort those who are lost and crying for their dead loved ones, sometimes buried in a way that wounds the soul. Support those who are worried about sick people who, to prevent contagion, they cannot be close to. Instill confidence in those who are anxious about the uncertain future and the consequences on the economy and work.
Mother of God and our Mother, implore for us from God, Father of mercy, that this hard trial ends and that a horizon of hope and peace returns. As in Cana, intervene with your Divine Son, asking him to comfort the families of the sick and the victims and to open their hearts to trust.
Protect the doctors, nurses, health workers, volunteers who are at the forefront of this emergency and put their lives at risk to save other lives. It accompanies their heroic effort and gives them strength, goodness and health.
Be close to those who assist the sick night and day and to the priests who, with pastoral concern and evangelical commitment, try to help and support everyone.
Holy Virgin, illuminate the minds of men and women of science, so that they find the right solutions to overcome this virus.
Assist the leaders of the nations, so that they work with wisdom, concern and generosity, helping those who lack the necessary to live, planning social and economic solutions with foresight and with a spirit of solidarity.
Holy Mary, touches the consciences because the large sums used to increase and perfect the armaments are instead intended to promote adequate studies to prevent similar disasters in the future.
Beloved mother, make the sense of belonging to a single large family grow in the world, in the awareness of the bond that unites us all, because with a fraternal and supportive spirit we come to the aid of many poverty and situations of misery. Encourage firmness in faith, perseverance in serving, constancy in praying.
O Mary, Comforter of the afflicted, embrace all your troubled children and get God to intervene with his almighty hand to free us from this terrible epidemic, so that life can serenely resume its normal course.
We entrust ourselves to You, who shine on our path as a sign of salvation and hope, or merciful, or pious, or sweet Virgin Mary. Amen.
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2nd moment
We prayed to our heavenly Mother with the words and sentiments of Pope Francis in this time of solitude, of apprehension, of fear, in fact, in the interminable weeks of "seclusion" how many times will the question have emerged from our lips: «Until when, O Lord, will you continue to forget me?”.
We were all like castaways tossed in a sea of fears, paralyzed by the numbers of infected people, those hospitalized in intensive care and the number of deaths.
«How long, Lord, will my soul feel troubles and will sadness continue to be the severe queen of my heart?».
These questions are contained in the prayer of Psalm 12. The psalmist prays to God in a situation of great affliction.
«Until when, Lord?»: it is the constant supplication of life in the time of "God's silence" and in dark times.
In this leaden sky of the coronavirus I was struck by this expression: "Darkness is the elder brother of light". To reflect, darkness, in fact, is the primordial of the poignant desire for light. God also looked and admired creation at the end of the night and then, at the edge of dawn, he made the light explode.
In the Jewish world the day begins in the evening, precisely, with darkness. The first verse of the Bible begins like this: "The earth was without form and void, and darkness covered the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters." Dawn comes as an unexpected gift. In this pandemic, we too see the horizon brightening and this invites us to look at the future with eyes full of memory and illuminated by hope. Likewise the darkness of the question: "Until when?" possesses the seed of hope.
In recent weeks, like a distressing hiss, the "why" of the scourge of the pandemic, which has shattered existences and securities, has sown mourning and has also unmasked many presumptions of omnipotence that has made us slip into the illusion of being able to live even without God This creeping discomfort next to scientists' laboratories suggests that we add an additional spectrum to grasp a spiritual vibration in the complex mechanism of life, to grasp in human metabolism that divine particle that allows us to look at life as God sees it and, only then, we will be able to see that nothing is profane in the world and that faith is not just raising our eyes towards God, but looking at the earth with the very eyes of Jesus who tasted the bitterness of our tears.
In these times it has rightly been written that «There is a life to start over, with enthusiasm and judgment. There is history to be made. It will be hard, and it cannot be reduced to an adventure."
Like the echo of "How long, O Lord", on Jesus' part there is an appeal to faith: "Do not be afraid". “This not being afraid” is not so much a belief that God exists, but it is trusting him, it is having the awareness that our life belongs to him and that he shares his discomfort and difficulty.
I would like to make known two significant testimonies of two bishops who were able to fill the time of discomfort as an opportunity for a time of choice to evaluate what goes on in the soul and establish what is necessary and what in life is inconsistent like a cloud that disperses in the sky. This is a time for recognition to reset life towards God, as a force of attraction for great values and towards others as a bridge, a necessary overpass to reach God.
How many people in silence and anonymity have crossed the dark valley of fear, raising their eyes towards the sky and stimulated by prayer, have drawn courage and felt confidence and strength arise in their soul to confess: «With the help of God I we'll make it".
Loving, Creator of heaven, of earth
and everything they contain.
Open our minds and touch our hearts,
So that we can be part of creation, your gift.
Be present to those in need in these difficult times, especially the poorest and most vulnerable.
Help us show creative solidarity in coping
the consequences of this global pandemic.
Make us courageous in embracing the changes addressed
in search of the common good.
Now more than ever, that we can feel like we are all
interconnected and interdependent.
Make sure we can listen and respond
to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.
May the current sufferings be the pains of childbirth
of a more fraternal and sustainable world.
Under the loving gaze of Mary Help of Christians, we pray to you through Christ Our Lord.
Amen.