L’AQUILA – «Saint Bernardino of Siena was a man – religious, friar, priest and preacher – full of the divine Word, rich in incessant prayer, animated by the Spirit». We draw these expressions from the homily that Brother Luciano De Giusti, Provincial Minister of the Friars Minor of Lazio and Abruzzo, used when presiding – on the afternoon of Monday 20th, in the Basilica of San Bernardino in L’Aquila – the Eucharistic concelebration, on the feast of the Sienese saint. Numerous people of God were present, Minor brothers, Conventuals and Capuchins, nuns, priests of the diocesan clergy; just as local and distant municipalities were involved, all linked to the figure of the preaching friar. The numerous confraternities and local fraternities of the Secular Franciscan Third Order enriched the Eucharistic celebration; animated, this one, by the choir of the Basilica.
Celebrating the feast of San Bernardino means, even for us today, approaching a real fire, the fire of the love of God that lives, burns, shapes the children who open their hearts to him, and sends them as missionaries and witnesses of universal charity of Christ on the streets of the world and fully immersed in history. the Sienese friar, in fact, was fully rooted in his time: that is, all the troubles of history, the search for peace between cities, the plague of usury belonged to him intimately; alongside the preaching and diffusion of the name of Jesus, of the Gospel and of the divine kingdom”.
At the end of the holy mass we experienced – after seven years – the moment of the city procession, with the relic and the bust of the Sienese saint; we moved through the streets near the Basilica, the castle and the main street of the city. The flag-wavers paid homage to San Bernardino at the end of the procession and before the final blessing; imparted, this, in the churchyard of the Basilica, with the relic and by the Provincial Minister.
The liturgy of the feast of the Sienese saint invited us to pray as a community, asking God: «Imprint on our hearts, with the fire of the Spirit, this seal of your charity. It has aroused in us the desire – in the footsteps of San Bernardino – to spread the name of Jesus with the testimony of our lives; embodying the word of our Lord who, in the page of the Gospel proclaimed, invited us to ask God for anything good in his name (cf. John 14,12-17). Making the celebratory expressions our own, we implored the Father for “veneration and love” towards the holy Name of Jesus, in order to “triumph in heaven together with him”.
In the final prayer, the president of the procession, on behalf of the entire assembly, implored the gifts of peace, wisdom, good governance, harmony, strength and hope.
