«Humble home testimony to the greatest event in history: the incarnation», the Loreto Sanctuary kept in the church of Sant’Abbondio, in Cremona, celebrates 400 years since its foundation. For this Thursday evening the traditional city procession at the beginning of May from the Cathedral to the parish of Sant’Abbondio it took on a particular meaning which took shape in a pastoral letter addressed to the city of Cremona, of which the Virgin of Loreto is co-pratron. She remembered him Bishop Antonio Napolioniduring the celebration, making his own the words that Saint John Paul II addressed to the archbishop of Loreto on the occasion of the 7th centenary of the sanctuary of the Marche: «The centenary is not a chronological event, but it is a moment of grace, in which it makes grateful memories of the past and we reach out with renewed dynamism towards the future”.
And it is with this spirit that the city’s faithful met on Thursday evening in the Cathedral to meditate on the figure of Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth “a sign of consolation and sure hope for all of us pilgrims on earth”. At the mother church, the bishop with the canons of the Chapter, the parish priests of the city, the seminarians, men and women religious, with the mayor Gianluca Galimberti (image of the civil community) and the lay faithful lit, from the Paschal candle, the candles that accompanied the procession. Then followed a walk through the streets of the center towards what Napolioni defined as the “heart of our city”, the faithful reconstruction of Mary’s house in Nazareth, desired in 1624 from Gian Pietro Ala. The nobleman foreseeing that he will no longer be able to travel due to age-related difficulties, he built a structure identical to that of Loreto next to the church of Sant’Abbondio and worked to ensure that the Black Madonna became the patron saint of the city. She has been the protector of Cremona, therefore, for 400 years, in which she «taught the Cremonese the virtue of hospitality and the style of solidarity which «positively affected» Bishop Napolioni «called to be Cremonese by adoption».
The walk from the Cathedral was an evocative image of the journey of every life marked by the recitation of the Rosary according to the first of the 4 Loreto tracks prepared by the diocesan liturgical office, in a booklet that will be used by the city’s parishes to pray (we are in the year that Pope Francis dedicated to prayer) united spiritually during the month of May. The mysteries centered on «houses of Jesus»: from that of Bethlehem to that of Nazareth, from Capernaum to arrive, through the house of “someone” to the one where Christ celebrated Easter. The prayer was interspersed with songs by the Sicardo choirled by master Fulvio Rampi, which then accompanied the rest of the celebration in Sant’Abbondio. In fact, once the procession arrived in the parish church, the faithful occupied the spaces of the church in a composed manner, allowing the loudspeakers to reach even those who had remained in the small square, unable to enter the packed church.
After the proclamation of the litanies, thehomily of the bishop who made public his intention to give Cremona, with the pastoral letter At the heart of our city, a strong message of hope, but also of religious and civil commitment. In a time in which, exactly like in 1624, “it is difficult to reach the Holy Land”. But precisely because these journeys are difficult today it is important to “wander through the concrete lives of those around us – said Napolioni –. In fact, if going to the holy places allowed us to be where Jesus had walked, we are where Jesus is today”, among the people. And from here the bishop’s reflection developed following, even if in hints, the trace of the reflection written in the pastoral letter, symbolically delivered at the end of the homily into the hands of the mayor and then distributed to the faithful present.
And if “entering the Holy House is entering the ultimate truth”, that is, the Incarnation, this sacred space is also the place of the family, that of Nazareth but also of “all families”. The community must rediscover itself as a “domestic church”, born among the houses and grown over time. There are “very special” homes – said Napolioni – in which sharing stands out because it is prompted by pain. Our thoughts went to the hospitals, the prison, the Caritas reception center and all the homes where the need is welcomed. “Mary is at home in the city,” the bishop recalled. And so “believers know how to entrust to the intercession of Our Lady those who have delicate institutional responsibilities, on which social progress for the freedom and dignity of each one depends in various ways”. Monsignor Napolioni thus addressed the citizens called to the “double exercise of democracy not to be deserted”: the administrative and European elections. The objective: the common good and «a commitment so that everyone feels at home in the city, valorising diversity, integration paths with growing co-responsibility» promoting the «culture of encounter». In fact, if “the holy house is the smallest in the city, it is the one in which everyone feels embraced” and walks together (there will be many appointments to highlight the celebrations) towards the Jubilee of 2025.
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