HOMILY OF 2ND MAY 1981

SATURDAY AT 16.30 TO A PILGRIMAGE BY THE REVEREND FATHER BONAVENTURA MARIA RASCHI

This is a short passage from the great page of the Gospel about the solemn moments when Our Lord dealt with the greatest subject of Christian life for His support and, then, for His victories.
Evidently Our Lord likes this, why does Our Lord like this? Because He wants His subject and His redemption to be effective. Why does He want them to be effective? But because He wants to save us. From whom does He want to save us? Have you ever thought of it?
Why was Christ crucified? To save us from whom? Mind you, He didn’t want to save us from our parents! He didn’t want to save us from governments, and so on. He didn’t even want to save us from thieves, He had other means in this case. It was not the case to be crucified and bear that terrible torture after a long sorrowful preparation for such a silly thing. And then from what did He want to save us? Why was Christ crucified? And why didn’t His Mother, the Virgin, interfere? She was at the foot of the cross. Could she stand such a madness by Her son for a silly thing or for a crime of average importance and this way watch Him go to the terrible block of death on the cross?
Then, there is a different reason, it’s very clear. It’s very clear, but it’s denied. Today, in the very nice times of our progressive activity, it’s unsettled and denied. The Lord accepted His Celestial Father’s will, the death on the cross, to save us from Evil with capital “E”, that is from Satan. And it is high time that people stopped denying it, even among several priests, let’s say things as they are, that they stopped denying or smiling with a laughing tone with a conceited air at the great and terrible and true character of Satan considered as a person.
A few might talk about it with the same competence as this poor friar. But it’s so. Then He saved us from Satan. And who helps us in this way to salvation? He is enough. Yes, He’s enough, it’s true, He’s God, He is enough. But the Lord doesn’t do anything useless. But men, having a fair amount of stupidity or of incapacity, do a lot of useless things, when they don’t do harmful things, and then everything is clear. But He doesn’t, He doesn’t do anything useless. And so the great and powerful fight against satan, God gave it to the Blessed Virgin.
In fact, when we consider the very sad and serious episode of the original sin in Adam and Eve, the Lord tells the snake that it will be cursed forever and that it will creep eating the earth’s dust and a Woman will crush its head. It will lay a trap for Her heels and the woman’s breed and the snake’s breed will fight, the woman’s breed will certainly win.
Now the woman is the Virgin. The woman’s breed is Christ the God made flesh. Evidently, God made flesh is more powerful than the Virgin, but He gives this mission to His beloved Mother to crush this snake. Here is the great usefulness of our Lady’s sanctuaries.
It’s true, the Virgin can be prayed in any church, in any parish you like, the Virgin can even be prayed in the street, even in the middle of a field, in the mountains, this is very clear. We are not authorized to send any hearing aid to Her ear to have Her hear us, we can’t even lend Her the aid of the eye specialist to give Her some glasses to make Her see. She can see awfully well and she can hear deeply well.
Then? In any place we can pray our Lady and from this Altar I willingly give you advice, but, but, it’s clear that the Virgin has some will.
Today in the clerical world people often say unpleasant things. Unpleasant things? What do they say, what are these unpleasant things? The fact is that this Virgin always appears to some young girls, to some young boys, to some people, but there is some exaggeration, but is this thing possible? Is this thing possible?
Street walkers are allowed to speak, thieves are allowed to speak, murderers are allowed to speak, rascals are allowed to speak, all the dust and the mud of life is allowed to speak; God and the Virgin are not allowed to speak any more! Do the Governments perhaps forbid them to speak? Who is allowed to speak ? God, sure. In fact He has a particular name: the Word made Flesh. A word, all quiet, is a solemn teasing for everybody. God is allowed to speak. He has repeatedly spoken. The Old Testament is full of His Voice and of His force. The Virgin is allowed to speak.
It’s the christian tradition tested to the nth power of the truth, She has spoken. And when did she speak? Well, you know how many times more or less, she spoke.
Now one of the most effective, most solemn expressions is always under that name which has almost become a fashion: Fatima, Fatima. Yes, Fatima is right. Did She speak at Fatima? But sure. And when ? In 1917. Yes, yes. Only? No, not only. In 1917 She appeared and spoke, she appeared for six months on the famous 13th of each month, but, but… The Virgin of Fatima also spoke in other moments, I mean the Virgin as She appeared in the same clothing, in the same aspect that we call of Fatima because so She appeared there. And what did She say? Well, I don’t want to make you sad, but I want to pour the truth into your mind and into your heart.
The Virgin spoke in 1929, precisely on 13th May 1929 repeating and giving strength to the great, the great truth she was announcing. And what is this truth? The Virgin addressed the famous Lucia, now she is still a Carmelite Nun in a cloister in Coimbra. She spoke and said: “God wants it, our Lord wants it”. Now it’s not just anyone who wants it, but it’s God who wants it.
I don’t know…when we pray we say, I think everyday: Our Father who are in Heaven, Your kingdom come, Your will be done. God wants it: your will be done. Which will? Your will, my Lord, not mine.
There is a fashion even in clerical life and it’s quite a wrong fashion. We pray our Lord to help us to do what good we wish for us. It’s not this. God’s will is a different one. We should pray God to do His will with our help, that is may His will be done, not ours because we think a lot of things are good, but we don’t know if they really are so. They seem appropriate, but we don’t know if they really are appropriate. They seem up-to-date, but we don’t know if they really are up-to-date. God knows everything: may Your will be done. How? On Earth as it is in Heaven. This is the prayer taught by Jesus. So it’s a very great will, isn’t it? Exactly.
So, the Virgin said to Lucia:” The Lord wants The Pope together with all the Bishops to consecrate Russia to My Pure Heart. For this – mind you – for this Russia will be saved. And as a consequence the world.”
A short time afterwards the Lord appears, He speaks to Lucia and says: “They didn’t want to do it. It will happen to them what happened to the King of France.” What happened to the famous French King ? The guillotine, also because of the thoughtlessness of his wife, the queen, who hadn’t finished to make up yet. You women, think twice about it when you lose a lot of time in front of the mirror, don’t lose too much time when it’s necessary for something else. The queen of France lost time in making up while the Duke of Vandée was waiting for her at the border of the region and while he was waiting the revolutionaries arrived. They took the queen, the King, everything and the King was guillotined. This happened for the queen’s sweet devotion to the mirror and powder and cosmetics. Incidentally, it has nothing to do with the Gospel.
So? “What happened to the French King.” And then? Ah! “ Then they will understand – the Lord continues – and they’ll do it: it’ll be too late. Russia will already have spread its mistakes and its revolutionary spirit all over the world. The intercontinental war which is already in progress, it’s in progress and it won’t stop.. Here it is. The war. The Church will be terribly persecuted, the Pope will have a lot to suffer from”.
Not to blame the Pope for it, the Virgin intervenes and says:” Pray for the Pope so that his heart may not surrender itself to such a great grief.” The Pope Pious XII, Pope Pacelli, consecrated Russia 13 years later and precisely on 13th May 1942. It was a great thing.
Then it was done, wasn’t it? No, it wasn’t done. The Virgin and the Lord appreciated the Pope’s quick intervention and praised him. But the order was for the Pope and all the catholic Bishops. Not even one Bishop did it. I was in Rome, I remember, the Pope might have had five or six Bishops around him, they had retired for old age or for sickness and so…they were still Bishops, but they were not all the Bishops of the Church.
So it happened that the episcopacy didn’t obey the Virgin and didn’t obey the pope. This is why the spirit of disobedience has pervaded our clerical world and the world itself, the worldly one. Everyone wants to do what he wants. Of course, at that moment, God thought of restoring the situation as the governments do: increasing the taxes. God increased the taxes and added VAT too, so that we might pay more, but it’s not about money. We have to pay morally, physically, sorrowfully, with a classic name that is never lost: with the cross. We have to pay for those who didn’t pay and who don’t want to pay. Here is the great issue. Here is what the world is paying today. We say: but what is this criminality, this revolution, this disorder, this evil: it’s because of this. It’s because of the increase of the taxes. We pay for those who didn’t want to pay, probably we also pay for the moments when we didn’t want to pay.
At this payment and at this system of remuneration and reorder, our wonderful and I should say adorable Mother, the Blessed Virgin, acts as a Chairman.
I talk about it because the Virgin has come here several times. The last time was on the last 20th February at ten o’clock in the morning.
When this sanctuary was opened, the Virgin said:” I will never desert those who come to this sanctuary of mine.” Don’t forget these words, you would make our Lady’s promise empty. You have been lucky enough to come here, the Virgin will never desert you, unless you have a kind of revolution in the mind and say: “but I don’t believe it” and everyone is free to believe it or not but then he must bear the consequences.
So this is the issue. In conclusion we are in a place which is blessed by the Virgin. Besides, I remember that digging the foundations of this temple, digging, one day and only that time wearing black, She was sowing.
The Virgin was sowing and said these precise words: “I’m sowing the graces one day you will pick up in this sanctuary of mine.” Why She called it great I don’t know, but these were the very words.
Then ? Then, everything supports the same thesis, because the time will come and probably it won’t be very far, in which we will see the hour of the world become more and more serious than it is now, but we will also see our Blessed Virgin’s precise, wonderful, powerful and sure action.
May we know if, by any chance, the Virgin has given us a weapon to protect ourselves in any time? Sure, we can, and you know it : the beads. I don’t mean the Rosary as a prayer, we already know that the Virgin asked for the prayer of the Rosary. But I tell you the beads, the object with which you say the Rosary. The Virgin said:” wear it, have it in a pocket, but bring it always with you: it’s the only powerful salvation.”
Everyone is free to believe it or not. But it’s clear that the time of the Virgin is more and more powerful and I, I praise you because you have chosen a place of prayer of Mary, for Mary. I should say you have been lucky because you have chosen a place which has been specifically chosen by the Virgin for these times, so you have come into the Virgin’s will or at least in the Virgin’s Providence. And doing this, you have signed the decree for your protection and for the beauty of your times, but above all what is more important for eternity.
Now in a different way, so from this Gospel, what do we learn? What has the Gospel to do with what I have told you? This Gospel reminds us that Jesus multiplied the loaves and gave them to 5 thousand men and as many children and women. Considering the importance of the episode, the people were so enthusiastic that they looked for him because they wanted Him to be their king. Well, with such a king we will never suffer from starvation! Considering the good intent of the people, they were quite material but they admired the miracle, he retired to the mountains and said to the disciples: “ Go out to sea and towards Capernaum, I will reach you there.”
But they find Him at night, why at night? Because, because the disciples, considering the importance of such a great episode, had spent time talking among them and with the enthusiastic people; in this enthusiasm the night had come and they went out to sea; the wind, the agitated waters and at a certain moment the danger. They see the ghost, it’s a ghost. But John says to Peter:” It’s the Lord!” Ah, it’s the Lord!
So Peter puts himself in the position to go towards Him, then he says: “If you are the Lord order me to walk on the waters.” The Lord says : ”Come.” And Peter walks on the waters as if they were a hard floor to walk well on it, but he gets scared to see the waters. He starts to doubt as we poor christians do in the moments of strife, and that is enough to make him sink.
Mind that since I was a boy, I have been used to water, to the sea, it’s not possible to start sinking. When you are there, you go down, then the force of the waters will take you up again, but you go down. That slowly starting to sink is already a miracle in itself established by Christ’s power so that the disciple might scream and say:” Save me, my Lord! Save me”. The Lord catches him, He pulls him up, He takes him arm in arm, Peter walks on the waters again and goes towards the boat and they reach the shore.
The miracle of the loaves was as great as this miracle of the waters of the sea, or of the big lake, because they called it lake. The great miracle which promises, the speech at Capernaum which says: ”Whoever eats of My flesh and drinks of My blood, he will have life in himself”.
Here is the victory we must have. Here is the Person against whom satan fought and is fighting. The doubt, the distance from the very holy Eucharist, that is the Communion.
I don’t want to expatiate even if I have something very important to tell you, but I don’t want to expatiate because time has value for you too. So, remember that all Christ’s work was meant to save us with the grace of his blessing, to feed us in his salvation for the Eucharist, to bring us, as a consequence, to that sentence He uttered: “It’s me, don’t be afraid.” It’s Him.
But where is He now? Where is He? Don’t you know where He is? He is here behind me in the tabernacle: the Christ Jesus will descend even more on the Altar during the mass.
Then, remember these words: ”It’s me, don’t be afraid.”
The Virgin will help us to fight against the enemy of this truth, She will combine together the greatness of faith, the joy of the protection of the Great Queen and the very sweet power of the eucharistic feeding which will for ever give us life.

I believe in one only God…

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