On 1st July each year Passionists celebrate the liturgical Feast of the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ.
Pope Benedict XVI said recently: “The blood of Christ is the pledge of God’s faithful love for humanity. Gazing at the wounds of the crucified Christ, every man, even in extreme moral poverty, can say: God has not forsaken me, He loves me, He gave his life for me; and so rediscover hope.” [Angelus, 5th July 2009]
O Jesus, I pray for your faithful and fervent priests; for your unfaithful and tepid priests; for your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for your tempted priests; for your lonely and desolate priests; for your young priests; for your dying priests.
But above all I recommend to you the priests dearest to me: the priest who baptized me; the priest who absolved me from my sins; the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me your Body and Blood in Holy Communion; the priests who taught and instructed me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way.
O Jesus, keep them all close to your heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.
[adapted from the Prayer of St. Therese of Lisieux for Priests]
Iconographer Marek Czarnecki of Seraphic Restorations in Meriden, Connecticut, has graciously given the USCCB the rights to use the icon of Christ the Great High Priest during the Year for Priests. The artist allows anyone to use or reproduce the icon, as long as it is not for any commercial purpose, (i.e., it cannot be reprinted to be sold or resold, or reprinted on something that will be sold). If this is the intent, they need to contact the artist for permission to license the image, under written contract.
This icon is “based on a fifteenth century Greek prototype; here Christ is shown in Latin Rite vestments with a gold pelican over His heart, the ancient symbol of self-sacrifice. The borders contain a windig grapevine and altar prepared for the celebration of the liturgy of the Mass; in the borders are smaller icons of Melchizedek and St. Jean-Baptiste Vianney.”
“Believe me, the pest of religious communities is judging the actions of others and losing sight of one’s own. Interpreting the actions of others in a bad light, whispering about the faults of others, murmuring, reporting what you think about one another, oh, what a pest this is! Oh, what ruin that causes in poor communities! True humility always finds vices in self and had no chance to look at others’ actions. It makes us solicitous to wipe out every vicious thing that is displeasing in the eyes of God. Moreover true humility of heart makes me know and believe that there is no one in the world worse than I, how could it ever allow me to judge another whom I hold to be better and more holy?”
(Letter of St. Paul of the Cross to Passionist Religious, 2nd May 1750)
[Photo - Statue of St. Paul of the Cross in the grounds of the Retreat House, Isola del Gran Sasso, Italy]
ST. MARIA GORETTI – OUT OF LOVE FOR JESUS I FORGIVE
St. Maria Goretti was killed by Alessandro Serenelli on 5th July 1902.
After 27 years of imprisonment, Alessandro Serenelli was released. He was spared 3 years of confinement due to being a model prisoner. After various wanderings as a farm laborer, he was to spend the rest of his life living in a Capuchin monastery at Macerata. There the good Capuchins called him “brother”. In the chapel of the monastery Alessandro was able to attend daily Mass and to find peace and solitude. He was to visit Assunta Goretti, St. Maria Goretti’s mother, whom he had last seen 31 years before at his trial. Begging Assunta’s forgiveness, she placed her hands on his head, caressed his face and gently said, “Alessandro, Maria forgave you, Christ has forgiven you, and why should I not also forgive. I forgive you, of course, my son! Why have I not seen you sooner? Your evil days are past, and to me, you are a long-suffering son.” (DiDonato, p. 142)
“The next morning people in the village of Corinaldo witnessed what could only happen among the poor of Christ. Assunta Goretti, Maria Goretti’s mother, with head held high and tears falling, took Alessandro Serenelli by the hand as a mother takes a son, and led him to Mass. At the altar rail side by side, she and he – he who had killed her daughter- raised their open mouths to partake of the flesh and blood of Jesus.” (DiDonato, pages 142-146) From that time he was welcomed in that profoundly Christian family of the Gorettis as “Uncle Alessandro”.
Alessandro would testify at length at the canonical process for the beatification of Maria Goretti – the only witness who could detail what had actually happened in a brutal murder. He died at the age of 89 after a long life of prayer and penance in expiation of his crime, always invoking the intercession of St. Maria Goretti as his “protector”.
[The Penitent by Pietro DiDonato, Hawthorne Books, NY, 1962]
