TERAMO – On the way to Siena
serve the story!
Caterina’s keen concern for the life of the social community
in which it was inserted, lived in the clear distinction between what is
ecclesial and what is civil, leads our hearts and our minds to
paragraph 31 of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium in which the
Council summarizes the vocation and mission of the christifideles laici.
The double belonging of the baptized, to the Church and to society, is the
manifestation of the historicity of Christianity that accompanies from
always the socio-cultural dynamics of the time in which it is inserted and today, in
particular way, of the change of
era waiting to be
still understood and served.
How can we fail to remember the three verbs recalled by Pope Francis at the beginning of
his pontificate:
“
walk, build, confess
”!
Only by combining together, in one’s existence, the
love for the Church and the
service in society the baptized will be protagonists of a new
diakonia in history.
Caterina, a lay woman, is a prophetic testimony for all of us!
Remembering and celebrating Catherine of Siena is a great gift but also
a great responsibility: in the change of
era the
love for
Church is the way to serve history.
With Caterina we learn to walk with the Risen One, confessing his
presence in history and building the Church and society.
It is an invitation for everyone to overcome the current socio-cultural difficulties,
national and international, who are waiting for a supplement of
soul for
respond to the prophetic urging of Saint Paul VI:
“the world suffers
for lack of thought
”
.
May Saint Catherine of Siena always accompany us and protect us!
announcement to offer the
oil for the lamp that will burn in the Sanctuary-
House of Santa Caterina, co-patron saint of Italy and Europe, in Siena, is a
great ecclesial and civil event for our diocesan Church and in
particular for the city of Teramo.
Teramo knows Caterina’s life and message through her presence
many years of the PP community. Dominicans and the Chair
cateriniana, animated by the lay Dominican Fraternity.
In these days of preparation, marked by moments of meeting and…
prayer, Caterina delicately invited us to welcome the challenges
of our time, as she shared them in hers, also
it not devoid of
uncertainty and problems.
There were two main lines of his life, well summarized by two
statements of Saint Paul VI, who proclaimed Catherine Doctor of
Church:
“She is the Saint who puts in
love for the Church and especially for the papacy,
its dominant note
”
;
“Was our most devoted virgin also political? Yes, undoubtedly, ed
in exceptional form, but in an entirely spiritual sense of the word
”
.
From Catherine to the Second Vatican Council: the
love for the Church and service
in contemporary society. It is the real and historical synthesis
of the conciliar teaching which it took little effort to be
developed, despite the subsequent requests of the Magisterium
pontifical.
In our synodal journey, Catherine’s teaching has been accepted
and relaunched, silently, in the pastoral project: by the Council
Vatican II to Pope Francis.
Our trip to Siena marks a significant stage on the journey to this end
carried out here and begins that prophetic phase that will engage us in the coming years
years and, in particular, in the celebration of the Jubilee 2025.
L’
S
sea the Church!
In the post-conciliar time, the life of faith, both personal and community,
was animated by formative and pastoral proposals that can and must
promote the historical novelty of the Church’s path, indicated by
Council.
It is the life of the Church, in fact, that places the baptized person in history and
makes it a historical subject.
TO
L’
love for the Church is not a simple experience of aggregation or
of religious devotion, but it is the sign of participation in
construction of the ecclesial community which is the fullness of
existence
history of the baptized.
Lorenzo, bishop
