For the feast of San Ciriaco, patron saint of the archdiocese of Ancona-Osimo and of the city of Ancona, the ‘InCanto sulle vie di Francesco’ event took place in the Marche capital: a special edition of a series of events that has been running for 11 years they take place in Umbria and Central Italy, walking along ancient Franciscan paths while the choirs await the walkers with singing performances.
Saint Francis left for the Middle East from the port of Ancona and the patron saint, Saint Cyriacus, arrived at the port of Ancona, as recalled by Mgr. Angelo Spina, archbishop of Ancona-Osimo: “His body which arrived from Jerusalem to Ancona 1606 years ago, a gift from Galla Placidia, daughter of Emperor Theodosius, is a sign of a living presence and constant protection of the City and the entire Archdiocese of Ancona-Osimo. The gift of the body of the saint who came from Jerusalem unites two worlds: east and west. Ancona is the gateway to the East and the path to peace. Today more than ever we need to look to San Ciriaco because the saints are the champions of faith and love and create union and not division”.
He briefly told the story of the saint: “The story of the saint, as we know, refers us to the events experienced in Jerusalem, in the year 326 AD, when Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, was searching for the true Cross of Christ. A certain Judas, a Jew, knew where he was. At Helen’s pressing invitation, Judas revealed where the Cross was hidden, there was the inventio crucis. Judas converted, was baptized and took the name Kuryakos, Cyriacus, which translated means ‘of the Lord’. He was bishop of Jerusalem and did not hesitate to face martyrdom to bear witness to his faith, under Julian the Apostate, with the firm belief that ‘men can kill the body, but have no power to kill the soul’. The martyrdom of Saint Cyriacus refers to the Cross”.
Taking up the words of Saint Paul, the Archbishop of Ancona underlined that ‘the word of the cross is the power of God’, according to Saint Paul’s definition: “Saint Paul considers the Cross as the Word! It’s a very strong expression. The Cross speaks. Today there is increasingly aggressive language; a superficial, hasty language that does not take into account the listening phase. The synodal path that the Church has undertaken invites everyone to listen and then speak, to build the community and follow paths of unity and communion”.
It is an invitation to listen to the Cross: “We are asked to listen to the Cross. Because the Cross speaks! Unfortunately not everyone listens to it! It is Saint Paul himself who explains it with an irreducible binomial: ‘The word of the Cross is foolishness for those who do not believe, but for us it is the power of God’. On the one hand, this word is ‘foolishness’; we could say without meaning, without logic. And if this word has no flavor, no meaning, no logic, you might as well not hear it. In other passages, he will say that for some the cross is a “scandal” which means an obstacle, a stumbling block.”
Our thoughts turn to those who have been borne by crosses: “The word of these innumerable and terrible crosses, if not listened to, sows conflict and death, and makes our land and our ‘sea’ a ‘cemetery’, as we have repeatedly Pope Francis recalled. Jesus, with his death on the cross, brought a new hope into the world and he did so in the manner of the ‘seed’. He made himself small, like a grain of wheat: he left his celestial glory to come among us, he ‘fell to the ground’. But it still wasn’t enough. To bear fruit, Jesus lived love to the fullest, allowing himself to be broken by death like a seed is broken in the ground.”
But hope was born from the Cross: “Look at the Cross, look at the Crucified Christ and from there you will receive the hope that never disappears, the hope that lasts until eternal life. And this hope germinated precisely through the strength of love: because love hopes everything, endures everything, love, which is the life of God, has renewed everything it has achieved. On the cross Jesus transformed our sin into forgiveness, our hatred into love, our fear into trust, our death into resurrection.”
Equally, peace flows from the cross: “If hope flourishes from the cross, it is from the cross that true peace is given, because the Lord Jesus, in his gesture of infinite love, sacrificing himself, reconciles us with God and with each other. He gives birth to a new humanity which, looking at him, puts individualism, pride, envy, jealousy and aggression outside the door of the heart and of one’s home; to cultivate justice and, together, solidarity, the sharing of joys and hardships, of suffering and hopes; to tend towards self-giving and not selfish possession”.
It is an invitation to the port city to be welcoming: “Ancona, with its port, is by its nature a welcoming city. Over time it has been able to build inclusion and reciprocity, despite the hardship and contradictions. Throughout history the many wounds, some due to natural disasters of distant memory and recent ones, have never stopped the spirit of solidarity and social inclusion, with attention to those most in need”.
It is an invitation to take notice of the ‘poor’: “In this historical moment we cannot take our eyes off what is happening throughout the world, with the greatest humanitarian emergency. Just as we cannot watch inertly at the continuous risk that many people in this city will slip again and silently into poverty that we hoped would be overcome forever: in fact, when someone knocks for the first time at the Listening Centers of our Caritas, a large part of the responses of personal dignity and resourcefulness”.
And he proposed three stages for a new vision of the city: “How desirable it would be if, abandoning the continuous forms of complaint, there was a first stage to remember the history of charity and justice of our city. A second stage that looks at the present, highlighting the skills and talents at the service of different conditions of poverty. A third stage aimed at the future, oriented towards the development of practices to fight poverty to be implemented with the poor themselves”.
It is a proposal to build relationships under the guidance of Saint Cyriacus: “In the city there is a latent desire, almost a necessity, to rebuild strong relationships between individuals, social bodies and institutions. We have a great opportunity: taking those who are least to heart, giving them space and a voice, is in fact the most noble and ennobling thing there is to bring together many different subjects, without controversy and without ulterior motives. It’s possible? The answer is: ‘yes’, if we let ourselves be guided by our patron saint, Saint Cyriacus, to embrace the glorious cross of Cistus the savior, the cross that speaks to our hearts, our only hope and our peace”.
(Photo: archdiocese of Ancona-Osimo)
