Imagine if just for a while, before every word we say or everything we do, we look at what is happening now, at the majesty of our need which brings us here, after a long and hard travel.
For this reason, we are happy to welcome Your Eminence Jean-Louis Bruguès, secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, who will celebrate the Mess together with the Macerata Bishop Mgr. Claudio Giuliodori, Mgr. Luigi Conti, President of the Marche Episcopal Conference, and the other bishops who join us today. I also thank all the civil and military authorities, the movements and church associations. I also thank each one of you, together with all those people who wrote letters from all over the world, even from China, Eritrean, Argentine, Columbia, and Paraguay.
In his message, father Julián Carrón writes: “everyone has a particular grace to ask to the mother of Jesus. But this year I invite you to ask one more, according to father Giussani’s intentions: “Do not expect a miracle, but rather a road”. “Only a begging wishful to understand everything can tear us from the nothingness which covers our true wishes and our biggest efforts”. In a world which refuses Christ and his historic presence, the Church, we will not resist if we do not have a clear reason for being Christian. What supports us is the untiring testimony of Pope Benedict XVI, who affirmed: in everyone’s heart there is a strong wish of happiness. But then we realize to have looked for its accomplishment in things which reveal their precariousness. “Jesus is your contemporaneous. It is He who looks for you even before you look for Him!”.
Father Julián Carrón asks us to “offer the sacrifice of every step for the Holy Father… I wish you to experience what happens when a man lets Jesus grab him: a fullness of humanity that people can recognize as an authentic miracle".