1.55pm – Wednesday 26 June 2024
(The following text is taken entirely from the press note sent to the Opinion Agency) –
///
San Vigilio, solemn pontifical mass for the patron saint with five bishops from Trentino
A particularly solemn anniversary of the patron saint San Vigilio this morning in Trento with the well-attended procession from the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and the Mass in the cathedral concelebrated by five bishops of Trentino origin.
Greetings from Bishop Lauro
Archbishop Lauro Tisi wanted Archbishop Emeritus Luigi Bressan to preside over the Eucharistic liturgy on the occasion of his 60th anniversary of priestly ordination and 35th anniversary of episcopate: “Thank you – Don Lauro addressed him in the introductory greeting, after having also thanked the authorities present – for the discretion, enthusiasm, vitality, and availability with which you continue to accompany and serve our Church”. In the presbytery, next to about fifty priests (and among them Don Alberto Bolognani, fresh from ordination last Saturday), two missionary bishops: the auxiliary bishop emeritus of Lima (Peru), Monsignor Adriano Tomasi, a native of Meano, also at 60 ° of presbyteral ordination (“reminds us – underlines Tisi – of the beauty of Franciscan spirituality”), and the Morian Monsignor Mariano Manzana, bishop emeritus of Mossorò (Brazil), in his 20th anniversary of episcopate, whose commitment Monsignor Tisi recalls for education and training. “As bishop – notes Don Lauro – he ordained as many as fifty priests: I will have to copy from him”. The Archbishop of Perugia-Città della Pieve, Monsignor Ivan Maffeis, was also present in the Cathedral: “Thanks to you Don Ivan, with the hope that the relationship between our Dioceses can continue to grow”. The Archbishop then remembered three other Trentino bishops who are celebrating important anniversaries despite not being able to be present in the Cathedral: Monsignor Giancarlo Bregantini, bishop emeritus of Campobasso-Bojano who this year reaches 30 years of episcopate; Monsignor Giuseppe Filippi, Comboni bishop for 15 years, emeritus of the Diocese of Kotido (Uganda) and Monsignor Guido Zendron, bishop of Paulo Afonso (Brazil), recently seventy years old.
Monsignor Bressan’s homily
In his detailed homily the bishop emeritus recalled the essential traits of the episcopate of the patron Saint Vigilio, third bishop of Trento: “he was not – underlines Bressan – a spiritualist who neglected the social dimension of the Christian faith; he founded an asylum, a place of reception and care; indeed he stated that the aim of the Christian mission was to bring peace to a dimension superior to simple coexistence”. “In Vigil’s Letters we feel the admiration for Christ. Today – Bressan argues – in our Western world too many think that it is not necessary to resort to him. But Christ remains the Savior and there are no others, Saint Vigil teaches us.” Following the example of the patron, Bressan recalls the importance of the missionary dimension of every baptized person: “Vigilio did not go to win over other clients for the Church, but to allow everyone to realize the highest aspirations of the human being. He knew that evangelization required listening, dialogue, proposal, prayer. But he wanted everyone to have the lifeblood that transforms us from producers of limited results into builders of peace and fullness of life.”
The gift of oil
At the offertory, the usual gift from the mayor Franco Ianeselli of the oil for the lamp that burns in front of the urn with the relics of San Vigilio, “recall – recalls Archbishop Lauro – to collaborate to ensure that our territory be marked by inclusion and dialogue: herein lies the beauty of which oil is a symbol and sign”.
The new Letter to the community of Tisi
At the end of the liturgy, Archbishop Tisi, as has happened since the beginning of his episcopate on the occasion of the patron saint, gave his new Letter to the community, this year entitled “The Bet” (see also separate press release). “I start – he underlined – from a clearly provocative question: on whom or what do we bet in our lives? Do we prefer to draw lots, testing our luck as happens to more and more people, even in our Trentino, struggling with the plague of gambling? The proposal I make to you, to those who believe and to those who do not believe, is: let’s bet on meekness, as Jesus expressed it. Not the virtue of those who renounce responsibility or hide, but the virtue of those who say: I want your thought and your life. If we dare to be gentle – this is Don Lauro’s hope – we could give hope and a future to a world that is overwhelmed by so much violence”. There are two examples of meekness remembered by Don Lauro in “The Bet”: the late Trentino priest Don Renzo Caserotti who recently passed away and a little-known young Trentino man, Alfredo Dall’Oglio, who emigrated from Borgo to France, was active in the Catholic working-class youth and died in a concentration camp in Berlin in 1944, at just 23 years old.
Preceding the final blessing, imparted by the five bishops present, the celebrants were given a gift of a work engraved by Mastro 7 (the symbol of the vine for Bressan, of the oak for Tomasi and Manzana), before the distribution in the square of the Pane di San Viglio, a gift from the Bakers’ Association, blessed in the Cathedral and a symbol of sharing.
“The bet”, new Letter to the community from Archbishop Tisi. An invitation not to live in danger but to trust others and a gentle God
On whom or what do we bet our lives? Do we prefer to draw lots, testing our luck as happens to more and more people struggling with the scourge of gambling (with its 140 billion euros spent in Italy in a year), or do we imagine our present and our future as project and waiting? Who do we really believe?
These are the questions that inspired the new Letter to the community by the Archbishop of Trento, Lauro Tisi, entitled “The Bet,” released on the occasion of the patron saint, San Vigilio. The Letter was personally delivered by Don Lauro to the authorities present in the Cathedral for the solemn pontifical and then distributed to the faithful at the end of the celebration.
Faced with the initial provocation, Don Lauro with “The Bet” encourages us to foster an attitude that is now rare in an era of widespread disillusionment: trust. “My proposal – explains the Archbishop, presenting the text in the Cathedral – is to trust again: in ourselves, in others, in God. Above all to bet on the God of Jesus of Nazareth”. “In the chipped hands of the carpenter of Nazareth – argues Monsignor Tisi – there is truly the stupendous documentation of God’s wager on man and of the concrete possibility for man to trust God”, an “innovative and convincing God, able to also speak to post-modernity”. “It’s not a question – explains Tisi – simply of betting on the existence of God. But of doing so in light of his true DNA: meekness. It is a thesis perhaps little practiced in theology, but of unprecedented power: the Christian God exists as a gentle God”.
Meekness, according to the Archbishop, does not translate into a “submissive attitude” but is rather “the expression of power of those who, far from any violence, do not impose themselves, but open themselves to others and create the conditions so that the other may exist.”
In the agile pages of “The Bet”, Don Lauro gives an example of meekness to the late Don Renzo Caserotti, “a priest – explains the Archbishop – who allowed himself to be shaped by the Word of God and from whom I was the first to receive an extraordinary testimony of faith in the Resurrection”.
Monsignor Tisi then recalls a Trentino figure who is perhaps little-known even though he has the odor of sanctity: Alfredo Dall’Oglio, a native of Borgo Valsugana, who emigrated to France at the age of three, very active in the Catholic Worker Youth, for this deported to Germany and deceased in a concentration camp at just 23 years old. The French Church has started the process of his beatification as a martyr of Nazi persecution in odium fidei. “I would like his figure – this is Don Lauro’s hope – to be studied and made known in Trentino too”.
In the conclusion of the text, Monsignor Tisi takes up the evangelical episode with which Jesus encourages his disciples to have faith, despite navigating stormy waters. “On the boat of humanity,” concludes Don Lauro, “God does not sleep. This is our bet.”
