father ariel
father ariel
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo
Presbyter and Theologian

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Can a Roman Pontiff legitimately elected and legitimate Successor of the Blessed Apostle Peter to be deprived of the grace of state ?

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CAN A Roman Pontiff LEGALLY ELECTED AND LEGITIMATE SUCCESSOR OF BLESSED APOSTLE PETER BE FREE OF STATE OF GRACE ?

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Dear Readers and numerous: I will never mock you, because "God has entrusted you to me ', and a father can not and should never make fun of the children who demand comfort, help and support in trial, so as not to face the ghosts of the Demons that there circling around, and that scare us a lot in this dark night.

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo

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the statue of St. Peter the Apostle in the homonymous Vatican Archbasilica

Right now we should treasure of the words of Cardinal Charles Journet [1891-1975] than in his work Church of the Incarnate Word explains:

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"The axiom “where the Pope is, there is the Church”, so where the Pope acts as Pope and Head of the Church; if not, or The Church is in him, neither he is in the Church ".

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I'm tired to debate unnecessarily with those who decisively and absolutely deny taking only into vague consideration the hypothesis that a Supreme Pontiff can be closed to the actions of grace of the Holy Spirit, poured on him with undoubted abundance, but that in him and through him can operate only if he accepts the gifts of grace and puts them to good use. Here, then, that these subjects scrambles their total rejection, and they react to this problem as confirming and supporting of juke box coin the chant ... 'It, But the Pope can never err when judges in the matter of doctrine and faith, it is dogma, dogma, dogma!».

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Very Serious question: but it is the grace of God that speaks and acts through him, or it is instead he acts irrespective of grace, since it is magically not defeasible in matters of doctrine and faith, It can speak infallibly although closed to the grace and out of the sanctifying grace of God? Because if we are neither before the metaphysical or before the dogmatic, But before the magic. It is in fact the magic that in itself and in itself is totally irrational, while the dogma and dogma are not irrational, They are built on rational principles, for as sure as that the Word became flesh, It has not done thinking vaporous, It became physically and rationally meat.

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Faced with these closed forms of reasoning which are the consequence of escape from reality by all those who pretend to always have a strong logical answer for everything, unless retreat into four protective formulas when the answers to be given when there are none, I repeat that we are not within either of metaphysics nor in that of the dogmatic, But part of the magic, if not worse Gnosticism. For how can the Holy Spirit, through its thanksgivings, cancel the will or no will of man, that is, his freedom and his free will, for sdoppiarlo to your liking and make it totally necessary unfailing, if its nature was not freely open to God's grace? Because if that happens, in that case God would be in contradiction with the mystery of creation and thus with himself through the Holy Spirit, and in this case our God is a magical God, a Gnostic god. Everything always to return to the great speculative minds that face problems until a few years previously unimaginable, but unfortunately real today, instead of really they close themselves up mirror in the cage of their four dogmatic formulas reiterating firm and immovable before the tragic evidence of the facts: "... it is unfailing, cannot err, it is dogma, dogma, dogma!» …

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… and here it is worth remembering that the dogmas are not cages for men claiming at one point the right not to reason, but they are as deeply reasoned heart of the mystery of faith, at least according to a great teacher of school, Sant'Anselmo d'Aosta, which he states the extent to which "faith requires the intellect and understanding the faith" [Faith seeking understanding. In Prosl., Foreword], and again: "I think to understand, I understand to believe » [I believe in order to understand, I understand that you can trust]. And these two are the main foundations of scholastic philosophy, which never, at its foundation, He has placed the magic.

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Well I confess that these arguments are tired. I'm tired of those who before a fire in a library of sacred texts destined to be lost forever, they would rush to save the book Iota Romano Amerio and the Holy Gospel burns. Like the rest are a bit 'tired in general, much to ask with some frequency: deserves continue to speculate, analyze and write, or would it be better to shut themselves up for life I have left in a Carthusian monastery with absolute silence vote, dedicating myself to prayer and penance until death? In August, a few days after the completion of my 55th birthday, as time rushes I proposed more than ever to work to good use throughout the life of this time that separates me from death, I intend to waste it or to defend the indefensible or to save the unsalvageable, least of all to expose my human and priestly dignity to public ridicule just to look in the documents of the Supreme Pontiff Francis I that he has never said and written, pulling out all the costs they have the good that if anything there, through interpretative devices that have indeed pathetic, because you can not put your mouth on the good things he did not say after doing the process to its deepest intentions …

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… and before the solutions are three all'indifendibile: reproaches and complaints of St. John the Baptist, which as we know He lost his head; the speculative analysis of the situation for what it is, however not for what we would like it; the complete withdrawal from the world and total silence vote for life. There are three different ways, but all effective to operate at its best in this disastrous situation and irreversible. For now I have chosen the first solution, the model Giovanni Battista, but I could also decide to choose the third, with perhaps even more effectively.

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The problem, It is not in fact slight: how can we, we, interpret the one who should be the guardian and authentic interpreter of the faith? Or just hurts a lot to some minds have to accept and admit that the keeper of the "magical infallibility", for five years now he has shown with its deliberate and unintentional ambiguity about nothing, It blew up in the Church, the theological and moral relativism, together with the confusion and division, as never before he had been seen in the visible Church? Is it possible that among the pundits of the great theology, not only there is one that poses a question, if anything, likely to remain unanswered, namely this: there may be a case in which a Pope, closed to the actions of the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit, ends up be deprived of the grace of state that is typical of his high office, if anything, with all the consequences that today we have before, all regardless of his legitimate election and the role he equally legitimately busy?

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And with this it is obvious, loved ones and many readers: I will never mock you, because "God has entrusted you to me ', and a father can not and should never make fun of the children who demand comfort, help and support in trial, so as not to face the ghosts of the Demons that there circling around, and that scare us a lot in this dark night.

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Right now our salvation is contained in the theological virtue of hope, on which I wrote abundantly in 2014 [see WHO]. Hope is the great virtue median that binds together faith and charity. And since I have been set up in the service of the People of God and entered the priesthood in the universal fatherhood, this Holy People intend to offer the way of hope, but never the way of illusion, because I am a priest of Christ, not a drug dealer of hallucinogens acids, but mainly because I consider that a Holy People of God, not a people ox which give a pat and aspirin while a terminal cancer corrodes by the time our ecclesial and ecclesiastical body, while the visible Church is already in the antechamber of a morgue reduced for the occasion to a circus of clowns, dancers and dwarfs.

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You want to know what has always saved my priesthood? Perhaps the school, I have studied and deepened; perhaps metaphysics, I have studied and deepened; perhaps St. Thomas Aquinas, I studied in depth? Well, my priesthood is not saved by these “means” effective, but still means. It was saved from my deep love for the Church, the Mystical Body, of which Christ is the Head and we are living members; It was saved by love for the Church that is born of love divine work of the Divine Heart. It is with this awareness that every day I raise the Body and Blood of Christ on the altar cheering:

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By itself, And with the, and in him

it's you, God the Father Almighty,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

All glory and honor

forever and ever.

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Or someone might think I would have given one day of my precious life to this poor whore the visible Church that today we have before, devastating whole operates purely human dwarf, dancers and jesters in the career Court of Miracles big Re Nudo ?

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the Island of Patmos, 16 December 2018

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This article is the last part of a revised much more articulate article published 10 September 2018 and you can find in our archives under the title: "Faced with a visible Church suffers from a doctrinal and moral decay irreversible, you must open as soon as the seed bank " [the text is readable WHO]

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
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father ariel
father ariel
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo
Presbyter and Theologian

( Click on the name to read all its articles )
father ariel
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The desert and the winding streets offers to a man more than ever emblem of living "in a dark forest" where "the straight way was lost"

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L'Angolo di Girolamo Savonarola: Catholic homiletics in lean times

THE DESERT AND THE WAY TO A MAN OFFERS TORTUOUS TODAY MORE THAN EVER EMBLEM LIVE 'IN A FOREST DARK "WHERE" THE RIGHT WAY WAS LOST»

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St. John completes an ancient and long prophetic season marked by equally extraordinary men: the great prophets of Israel. But what in common men like Jeremiah, finished stoned. Isaiah, sentenced to death, It seems to have been sawn in two. Daniele, thrown to the lions ... and the Baptist? All these men, servos they too of truth and justice, John is not dead as of serene natural death in a quiet bed, They were united with each other intuition, a gift enclosed by nature in instinct of every man, that if developed by the touch of God's grace through the Holy Spirit can bring anyone to perceive and see beyond time and space constraints of this …

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Author
Ariel S. Levi di Gualdo.

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PDF homily print format

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Jesus Christ be praised !

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St. John the Baptist in cartoon

Between the lines of Luke This IIª Sunday of Advent [see text of the Liturgy of the Word, WHO] there is our remote start, our past, our present and our future. Or how often I repeat: in the moving message of the living word of God is the totality of our being present and the future of our becoming.

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Essential, piecewise shady, almost as wild as the locusts and the honey they ate, that of St. John the Baptist said, and the precursor, It is not figure that arise out of nothing; or a figure ending their lives dying in a quiet bed seized with senile natural death. Giovanni, who loved truth and justice, - because without truth and justice can not operate either mercy or grace - he was sacrificed for a dance of Salome; and his head, in the name of those political reasons which sometimes seems you can never say no, especially when they are vilifying the truth and justice, it was cut cleanly and placed on a tray for the perverse joy of Herodias who asked for it as a gift. A gift does not denied, indeed readily granted, because it depended on the maintenance of many fragile balances linked to the power for power; no matter if immoral and perverse, what only mattered was to keep.

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St. John completes an ancient and long prophetic season marked by equally extraordinary men: the great prophets of Israel. But what in common men like Jeremiah, finished stoned. Isaiah, sentenced to death, It seems to have been sawn in two. Daniele, thrown to the lions ... and the Baptist? All these men, servants also of truth and justice, John is not dead as of serene natural death in a quiet bed, They were united among them the intuition, a gift wrapped for instinct nature of every man, that if developed by the touch of God's grace through the Holy Spirit can bring anyone to perceive and see beyond time and space constraints of this, in which we often do prisoners instead of free creatures, because if in our space we develop freedom, our lives will be a continuing emancipation. If, on the other hand, we remain closed in our space, we reduce the limited, and in this case, our existence will be an imprisonment, if anything, golden, but still a prison.

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Another element on which today more than ever we should talk in depth, perhaps even dramatic, It is the concept of wilderness. From this page the blessed Evangelist Luke have just heard: "Voice of one crying in the desert". Well, we try to think about what kinds of deserts deaf and dumb you are forced to live today in the noise, between the optical fibers that run unseen and super technological computer networks of our world of real-time news. Yet never before has, the man was only in modern deserts spaces soul, that they are totally different from the deserts in which man retreated in the past, to find himself and feel the breath of God's caress on him.

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What meaning can the words of the prophet Isaiah reported by Luke the Evangelist: "Prepare the way of the Lord, his paths straight?» [cf. Is 40, 3]. It is a seemingly clear sentence, but it needs deeper explanations. Example: All we have heard a few times in life, through the sayings of the elders: "God straightens crooked streets». What that his grace ago and several times throughout history has shown to. But, in this case, the person called to account, or rather work, it seems that both the man. God needs of trails suitable for walking among men, that to meet his Divine Majesty must work to straighten those paths that God had traced the origin rights. Wishing we can add more: Sometimes the streets are not even the most crooked, much more and much worse: apparently the roads are not exactly the most!

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Consider in this regard many ancient streets have disappeared over time, swallowed up by the earth, by vegetation, from urban and architectural layers superimposed on each other. We need only think of our ancient Rome. but yet, those roads once existed. And it was not only the real streets, but also functional; and for longer periods of time they were crossed for centuries by the Etruscans, below by the Romans. Then, after the Roman Empire which marked the largest decline, many of those roads, along with numerous buildings and architectural works, They were swallowed by the vegetation and submerged under layers of earth.

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At times, the street, in order to be prepared It requires careful and laborious archaeological recovery, this thing that at the time John the Baptist intuited. And from the wilderness he drew recovery leading to purification and repentance of sins, then the preparation announcing: "After me he is the one who is stronger than me: I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the laces of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit " [cf. Mt 3, 11].

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Let's try to think about what in the Holy Gospels is the opening of a beginning endless. Have you ever considered the fact that the Gospel, in itself and by itself, It is a beginning endless? In which of the Gospels it is in fact written, or even vaguely implied the word: fine?

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He writes the blessed Evangelist Matthew:

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“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And here, I'm with you every day until the end of the world " [Mt 28, 19-20].

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He writes the blessed Evangelist Mark:

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"And they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord acted together with them and confirmed the Word with the signs that accompanied it " [MC 16, 20].

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He writes the Blessed Luca Evangelista:

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"While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up, in the sky. And they fell before him; then they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God " [LC 24, 51-53].

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While the Blessed Giovanni Evangelista, in his conclusion does not fail to point out:

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"There are still many other things which Jesus, if they were written every one, I think that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written " [GV 21, 25].

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In a different way, at the end of their drafts the Evangelists not in any way put an end to a story, quite the opposite: outline that that story - that's just not -, It embodies the mystery of revelation which starts early: Now start from, make disciples and baptize [cf. Mt supra] ... then they went out and began to preach everywhere [cf. MC supra] ... and after that the Lord was taken up to heaven they returned to Jerusalem and began to always go to the temple to praise God [cf. MC supra]. E, of course: all this is just a small part of everything that really happened [cf. GV supra].

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The Gospel proceeds from beginning to beginning until the Second Coming that will trace a new eternal beginning: God, who bursts in human experience so real, Physical and body through the incarnation. Until you reach, after the 'entire Christology experience that seems to culminate with the shame of the cross, the upturned stone of a tomb that does not mark the end of a story with a happy ending, but the beginning of the true history of mankind that as Christ is risen and begins to move up with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus [cf. LC 24, 13-53] until the return of Christ at the end of time.

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"For we ', says the Blessed Apostle Peter: "According to his promise, We look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness " [cf. Pt II 3, 8-14]. And in this new land and these new heavens, God certainly does not want viewers, but protagonists builders, to wet this new land with the water dripping from the eternal sources justice. The love of God is indeed justice and justice is the most perfect expression of God's infinite love. For he that loves, It is always right; and justice finds meaning and expression of his love creature created in the image and likeness of the Living God. Only then "The winding roads shall become straight, and the rough flattened". And "man" of good will, who knew how to traverse the deserts "will see the salvation of God" [LC 3, 6].

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the Island of Patmos, 9 December 2018

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
risks but also the costs. Help us supporting this Island
with your offers through the secure Paypal system:



or you can use the bank account:
They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
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thanks [ isoladipatmos@gmail.com ]

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AVAILABLE THE BOOK OF MASS DE L'ISLE OF PATMOS, WHO

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Father Ivano
Father Ivano
Ivano Liguori
Of the Order of the Capuchin Friars Minor
Presbyter and Theologian

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A.A.A. Hospital Chaplain Wanted, Please also quote refrain: unable to work, unemployed job seekers and problematic varies made

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- pastoral care of health -

A.A.A. CHAPLAIN HOSPITAL WANTED, PLEASE REFRAIN: Unable to work, UNEMPLOYED IN SEARCH OF IMPEGO PROBLEM AND MADE OF VARIOUS

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… and so we chose to go around the hospital keeping our religious habit in order to be immediately recognized, among many white coats, as Friars Minor Capuchin. E, I must say: it worked. After some time, in the hospital, they realized that the two men in brown clothes, with girdle around the hips, sandals and beards, were the new chaplains.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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PDF print format article

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Cagliari, Church of Saint Lucia: St. Catherine Laboure of distributing the Miraculous Medal [by Aurelio Galleppini]

Let me try to shed light on identity of the hospital chaplain, as strange as it may seem, I realized that in fact the evidence shows, between the various pastoral figures within the Church, It is a being almost mythological.

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First, it is necessary to clarify the canonical and pastoral appearance: the chaplain is a priest chosen by the bishop for the pastoral care of that portion of the People of God which is living the time of disease at a health facility, for example a hospital, a clinic, or in an assisted geriatric nursing home.

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Already this first definition It allows you to do some special considerations: the place of action of the chaplain is not the parish or monastic church, but a care place where he performs a specialized operator function along with other figures. Understanding this is crucial because, within the healthcare facility, the chaplain is not the master, even the legal representative, as it happens instead in the case of the pastor. In facts, It is therefore one of the many. Understanding this aspect, What is crucial.

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Often, the spirit of vanity of us belonging to the clergy, It does not digest this nuance that is ill-suited to the priest, nor what certainly it helps to create opportunities in which God can reveal in a ministry as sensitive as the hospital, there is no doubt that the priest is a man, but never forget that he is - and it is called to be - a man given to God, that the chaplain and through the chaplain and through a dynamic of ordinariness and concealment that I like to approach the biblical period of the youth of Jesus in Nazareth.

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Cagliari: Church of Saint Lucia: The martyrs of Arras killed in hatred of the faith during the French Revolution [by Aurelio Galeppini]

The place where the work is the hospital chaplain, clinic, l’hospice, assisted nursing home. All non-places consecrated by the scented oil of Chrism that the bishop used to consecrate to God a place for the worship. That is why today, the chaplain, It operates within a health resort that takes on highly secular connotations. Therefore, we can also forget the old black and white films of the fifties of the twentieth century, in which they could see the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de 'Paoli with their starched white hats, intent to ring the bell on the wards to announce the arrival of the priest carrying the Blessed Sacrament. None of this is happening today in these structures, within which the chaplain is silent presence, often confused between the various professionals in the health world.

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Having said that I open a small digression now: I arrived at the hospital Brotzu Cagliari, In the 2013, sbrigate hiring practices was offered us the use of white coat: that common to all healthcare professionals. After a few moments of reflection, I and my brother, We decided to reject the proposal, not simply to increase the gap of anonymity and uniformity that the white coat gives. Like this, We chose to go around the hospital keeping our religious habit, especially in order to be immediately recognized among many white coats as Friars Minor Capuchin. E, I must say: it worked. After some time, the hospital realized that the two men in brown clothes, with girdle around the hips, sandals and beards, were the new chaplains.

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Now I wish to share with the readers of The Island of Patmos some other interesting consideration: in health facilities, the chaplain, day after day has the task of earning a right of citizenship. Or to clarify: if the role of the chaplain - to date - is still recognized by the Law, The person filling this role needs to be known, therefore it must necessarily implement a sociability in the healthcare community in which it operates.

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The Daughters of Charity before yesterday – image of the Blessed Giuseppina Nicoli [1863-1924]

It is not my intention to make sermons, However I must say that the identity of the chaplain is inherent in his being priest. Only the priest can be chaplain [cf. can. 564 of the Code of Canon Law]. A good reason, the chaplain is for this required a style suited to its identity, social relations, expressing his devotion to God. And this I have to specify it clearly, because it often happens that the chaplain is instead identified as a kind of social worker, as a psychologist or as a confidant friend to all. And if from a certain point of view this is the consequence of a type of secularism increasingly rampant that tends to reshape what is alien, on the other hand it is necessary to ensure that the priest does not exercise his identity, distorting, up to assume other more attractive identity that are well accepted to modernity on the one hand, the spirit of secularism on the other hand.

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In health resorts, the priest chaplain is a prophet speaking on behalf of God because it is able to listen. It is the angel of Gethsemane who comforts the dying and reconciles with God [cf. LC 22, 43]. It is the guardian of mercy and justice for the Kingdom of God is realized between the platforms of many sick and weak, and father and teacher to guide and instruct men to the Gospel which is good news for all.

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the Daughters of Charity yesterday – image of Mother Suzanne Guillemin, Superior General from 1962 al 1968

Before this priestly identity It fits the varied work of God, creating every man, It gives to each characteristic personal gifts, thus enriching the ministerial priesthood with their charisms at the service of God's people and of the Church.

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Finally, I wish to highlight a critical note concerning the figure of the hospital chaplain and a certain style of doing Health Pastoral. From what little I have written on the figure of the priest appointed to the position of chaplain in a health facility, it is clear how these should be a good quality element or, at least, unproblematic. Unfortunately, the objective data derived from the facts as from the experiences, however this is not always. Indeed, in a historical moment in which the Church is suffering from a growing shortage of priests in the face of a lot of work to be done, the pastoral area of ​​health care is often discriminated. Our pastors prefer to employ their best priests in parishes, in family ministry, in the catechetical formation of young people, in welcoming the marginalized and so. It is a choice that one can also understand, does not share.

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Christ never made a hit parade in their ministry, but all the men who came to him were worthy of your attention and all received help and salvation.

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the Daughters of Charity today – formation meeting for religious

Some examples pastoral bad health implies that the figure of the chaplain. Let's start with the first case: appoint a chaplain elderly priest and sick because no longer able to sustain the parish pace that in itself calls for dynamism, equivalent to thinking that the hospital can provide prompt assistance for his injuries. To follow with the second case: appoint a chaplain priest without a parish in keeping placement is forced out of obedience to his bishop to stay in the hospital, but what with the risk that this person will end soon to be intolerant to disease and death, until not stand the smell of disinfectant or the sight of blood, and soon it became a fugitive difficult to reach, except for the day 27 of the month, when he picks up the salary Ente Hospital. The third case, Perhaps the saddest, Hospital is seen by some bishops as a place of exile, a kind of new Saint Helena Island for priests disobedient and unruly that ultimately this placed among the sick, as a kind of punishment.

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In these three cases, how is it possible to live and practice in the priestly ministry, health ministry through the concreteness of the loving invitation from Christ the Lord who calls us: "I was sick and you visited me" [cf. Mt 25, 36], in the full knowledge that "every time you did it to the least of these my brethren, you did it to me" ? [cf. Mt 25, 40].

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Cagliari, 8 December 2018

Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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«You will know the truth and the truth will set you free» [GV 8,32],
but bring, spread and defend the truth not only of
risks but also the costs. Help us supporting this Island
with your offers through the secure Paypal system:



or you can use the bank account:
They were IT 08 (J) 02008 32974 001436620930
in this case, send us an email warning, because the bank
It does not provide your email and we could not send you a
thanks [ isoladipatmos@gmail.com ]

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AVAILABLE THE BOOK OF MASS DE L'ISLE OF PATMOS, WHO

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Father Ivano
Father Ivano
Ivano Liguori
Of the Order of the Capuchin Friars Minor
Presbyter and Theologian

( Click on the name to read all its articles )
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Jesus Christ in the suffering. Pastoral health theology narrated by those who live the dimension of disease and disability in the daily experience of priestly life

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- pastoral care of health -

JESUS ​​CHRIST IN SUFFERING. HEALTH PASTORAL THEOLOGY TOLD BY THOSE WHO LIVE THE DIMENSION OF DISEASE AND DISABILITY IN THE DAILY EXPERIENCE OF PRIESTLY LIFE

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The disease has the advantage of scale the pride of man and physical weakness causes to be supported by others in corporal practices, even the most intimate. Unfortunately, there is the remote possibility that the sick priest - just as Christ in the Garden of Olives - Know the abandonment of the brothers and their families fleeing the desolation that the disease involves.

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Author
Ivano Liguori, Ofm. Capp.

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San Leopoldo Mandic, recognized by the Italian Episcopal Conference as the protector of suffering from cancer [cf. WHO]

I start collaborating with The Island of Patmos with a reflection on the ministry of the most beautiful and delicate in the life of a priest: the pastoral care of the sick. This article is adapted from a meeting with the seminarians of the Pontifical Regional Seminary Sardo, where I spoke with a group of future priests in a time of dialogue, eschewing the temptation to conduct a pastoral theology lesson.

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I want to clarify immediately what 'it only works well if you believe good ", a concept of extreme importance that concerns each type of pastoral. Often and erroneously, the ministry is identified with the only practice; as if it were a practical reality called to carry alone “operating”. Seen in these terms, Pastoral seems almost natural antagonist of dogmatic theology, seen as the static reality of truth. In reality, is it necessary to make a logical effort and understand that in order to “work well” you need to "think well". The same thing is experienced in the field of Divine Liturgy, we celebrate rites and signs that we firmly believe in the heart [cf. RM 10,10]. Under this, I can not expect to make a good pastoral - whatever it is - not from the strength of the data of Revelation and the Magisterium of the Church. It is necessary to combine the truth to do, faith works, being the practice, so that pastoral theology becomes:

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'Presence and action of the Church aimed evangelization of the world […] by discounting the liberating presence, healing, and savior of Christ, in the power of the Spirit " [cf. Brusco - Painter, In the footsteps of Christ doctor, EDB, Bologna 1999, p.37].

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San Leopoldo Mandic

The ministry thus properly understood, He is turning me into a seeker of God, of that God who always enters into dialogue with the men to be known intimately and in the fullness of time you communicate fully through the Son the Word of Truth [cf. EB 1,1-2]. The ministry is the joyful message that God dwells man's time and in this context, in free and permanently, It works salvation. And in this time of grace in which man seeks God, We'll be guided by the Holy Spirit to communicate to the wells of salvation, which are the Sacraments; to live transfiguring relationships within the church community of believers; to testify and proclaim that every man from baptism belongs to the risen Christ as to be assimilated by him, according to the beautiful words that we find in confessions Sant’ Augustine:

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"You will be you who assimilate me to you, but I who assimilerò you to me ' [cf. S. Augustine, "Confessions", VII, 10].

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Poste be in these considerations, pastoral theology is the purest taking action consciousness of God in the identity of faith - as expressed by dogmatic theology - that the Church proposes to the man who wants to meet God. The ministry is not the container engaging strategies to proclaim Christ or earn disciples, but communication deposit of credit in the heart of humanity that the example of the blessed Apostle Peter proclaims:

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"Man, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life and we believe and know that you are the Holy One of God " [cf. GV 6,68-69].

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For this we say that the ministry is a journey of faith and of the knowledge of Christ.

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PASTORAL CARE OF SUFFERING TO MEET THE "SUFFERING"

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San Leopoldo Mandic

Clarified broadly the discourse on pastoral in its relationship to the truth revealed, Now let us analyze the pastoral care of the sick and suffering brothers. Forever, this is a type of typically Christian activity, because Christ has identified his person with the sick [cf. Mt 25,36ss] and at the time of his passion he is in charge not only of sins, but of all physical suffering [cf. Is 53,4]. His most holy body and his most precious blood which we adore in bread and wine constitutes sacrament ie sacred sign, veil of a real presence; similarly in the suffering body of Christ it is sick veiled but present in the name of the one who suffers for his sickness. About this, Pascal is said that at the end of his life, not being able to receive the holy sacrament because of a bad stomach which would involve the danger of profaning the Eucharist, he asked to receive the Lord through the sign-presence of the sick poor of the hospital for the incurable.

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For us priests and future priests, the pastoral care of the sick is a natural continuation of the Eucharistic celebration where we had the chance to meet and make us listeners and worshipers of Christ the example of Mary of Bethany, only to become his servants myths like Martha. This is why I feel like stating - without fear of contradiction - that the priest who does not visit and serve the sick in his day, seriously it demeans the Eucharistic Sacrifice that celebrates. Unfortunately in fraternal dialogue with several fellow priests and pastors, I gained the feeling of like visiting the sick is becoming one of the most overlooked and forgotten priestly duties. And what I have just said is solid evidence in the experience of the saints. Blessed St. Francis of Assisi made sacramental experience of Christ the Redeemer precisely in the sign of leprosy sufferer who meets along the way:

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"The Lord gave me, Brother Francis, to begin doing penance in this way: When I was in sin, it seemed too bitter to see lepers; And the Lord Himself led me among them and I showed mercy to them. And when I left them, what had seemed bitter to me was turned into sweetness of soul and body. And then, I delayed a little and left the world " [cf. S. Francis of Assisi, "Will" 1-3, FF. 110].

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San Leopoldo Mandic

Before that encounter and dialogue with the Crucifix of San Damiano, Francis of Assisi is dazzled by Christ through the sign of his brother's illness leper [cf. 1Cel17, FF. 348; 3Comp11, FF. 1407-1408]. Like this, following the example of its founder, the first Franciscan fraternity chose to stay with leprosy patients and serve as identification for those in illness, Because of marginality, I'm image of Christ.

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Even before the pauperism choice, St. Francis chose as a way of rapprochement to Christ the category of the scariest sick of his time: the lepers [cf. Arms, SLewis Francis, Ed. St. Paul, pp. 109-110].

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CARE OF SUFFERING IS CAUSE FOR CONVERTING THE PRIEST

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Through the example of St. Francis meeting the leper converts, I now want to underline how this type of ministry is conducted not only in view of a dynamic welfare Ministerial towards the sufferers, but as an occasion of grace and personal conversion to the person of the priest.

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San Leopoldo Mandic

Visiting the sick, proposes the inescapable certainty of the condition of fragility of our human nature contracted with original sin. I have to bear in mind that, the passage of time and the seasons, tomorrow the condition of sickness is also my. In the experience as a hospital chaplain, I have dealt with several times the assistance of inmates sick brothers who have experienced in their own flesh what is in the time of their youth lived only indirectly through the pastoral practice. In such a state of weakness and infirmity, outward priestly insignia and ceremonial trappings that often nourish the vain glory remain mute and are less. In the sick priest, It becomes present in all the crudeness of stripping a necessary realism that makes brilliant empathy to Christ Priest and Victim [cf. Fil 2,7; Mt 27,35]. Depending on the severity of the disease and personal caregiving conditions, the sick priest reflects its image into that of the Suffering Servant of YHWH:

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"He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, no beauty that we should desire him " [cf. Is 53,2].

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The disease has the advantage of scale the pride of man and physical weakness induces to be supported by the other in corporal practices, even the most intimate. Unfortunately, there is the remote possibility that the sick priest - just as Christ in the Garden of Olives - Know the abandonment of the brothers and their families fleeing the desolation that the disease involves. This eventuality that It could relate to each patient. But it is the priest who takes on a particular value of identity with Christ by virtue of sacred ordination. About this, just remember episodes of illness that have touched the long life of John Paul II to understand the role conforming to Christ of the disease in the person of the sick priest.

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San Leopoldo Mandic

The sick priest, sometimes it is no longer able to offer the bread and wine but only himself to the Father. God accepts this sacrifice in union with that of Christ with a view to personal purification and for the redemption of the world. Not already so how bloody reality that seeks pain for pain as well as quench of the cup of divinity [cf. Rene Girard, The Scapegoat].

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I remember very well the words of a senior priest after having administered the Sacrament of the Sick:

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"Tell the bishop that I offer all this for the priests and the Church's needs!».

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Already St. Paul had expressed this with words: "I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in Christ's afflictions, in favor of his body which is the Church " [cf. With the 1,24]. Here's how the disease calls to conversion, to review their priorities and personal positions, to verify their lives as well as gold is purified and refined in the crucible [cf. Sir 2,4-5].

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Looking at our weakness God's ministers, when we suffer with Christ is not the time to put our hands into those of the bishop as the day of priestly ordination but those same Father as a sign of obedience union of the Son on the cross. And repeating with St. Bernard say:

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It was the death of Christ, who pleased God the Father, but his willingness to die spontaneously for us " [cf. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Letter 90, De Error Abelardi, 8,21-22 PL 182, 1070, «not jaws, yet decided on her own that dies»].

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This reflection on the disease in the person of the priest, not only it produces the purpose of a real and concrete conversion, as it sharpens the desire to be well prepared to deal with the illness and death with the weapons of faith. But it also makes present as the disease of those who serve as ministers, acquires meaning only through the wisdom of faith that we find expressed in the scriptures:

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"Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, for they suffered such things? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all perish equally. Or those eighteen, above which Siloam fell tower fell, You believe that they were worse offenders than all the inhabitants of Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent, all perish in the same way » [cf. LC 13 2-5].

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HEALTH messianic TASK DELIVERY IN CHRIST PRIEST.

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San Leopoldo Mandic

The priest in charge of the pastoral care of the sick He embarks on a journey of healing with the suffering brother, that is the Messianic person to whom Jesus addressed the beginning of his public ministry:

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"Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached " [cf. LC 7,22].

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We are facing a new kind of pastoral, Jesus works a therapeutic ministry, capable of involving men in a journey of healing and rapprochement with God precisely because it requires conversion [cf. MC 1,14-15]. This type of ministry takes a step that is not only methodological, but ontological: switching from a pastoral centered only on a pastoral health condition that requires care for the sick. And Jesus is not perhaps the Savior, one who would care salus and realizes? San Pietro Crisologo expresses this thought so:

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"Christ came to take our infirmities and to bestow its virtues, to take charge of the human and to give us the divine, to accept the insults and make about, to endure the hassle and restore health. The fact that no doctor is in charge of disease knows no cure, and one who is not sick with the sick can not give health. [cf. S. Peter Crisologo, sermons, PL 52, 50].

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When Christianity speaks of salvation, uses the Latin word salus. Every Sunday in the Creed we say for our salvation;, that is, for our salvation. The Christian Health, what we see in the Gospels is that when Christ tears me infirmity wanted by the devil - origin and cause of every sin and evil - and introduces me into the Paschal healing at the price of his blood. Inside this logic every healing and liberation that Christ as the author becomes Easter time where the work of the devil is defeated and the man returned their health according to God's saving plan.

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San Leopoldo Mandic

The therapeutic action that Christ does in his public ministry is an anticipation of the final ministry of salvation and health come true with his passion, Death and Resurrection. Popular piety comes to us in this reasoning with the beautiful prayer attributed to St. Ignatius of Loyola: Anima Christi. At one point of the prayerful prayer puts it this way:

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"Blood of Christ, inebriate. Water from the side of Christ, thoroughly ».

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We put before Jesus crucified on Golgotha, Soldiers control the bodies of the condemned and in the manner of Roman crucifixion break your legs to prevent convicted of a slow death, and anticipate death, but Jesus this fate is not up because it is already dead, so that for security it was inflicted a wound to the chest pouring blood and water [cf. GV 19,31-36]. The bath that heals me and tears me from the power of the devil is certainly that figure baptismal water that flows from the side of the redeemer. But there is a second washing, the blood of Christ that the priest administers whenever absolves sins.

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San Leopoldo Mandic

The blood and water are so the two streams where man can cleanse away all his life, and buy with salvation also healing. Interestingly, the blood of Christ in prayer Anima Christi is said that intoxicates. What the author alludes? I do not think of making a mistake if we interpret these words in reference to the Holy Spirit, discreet presence that intoxicates the life of believers with the same love that unites the Father and the Son. The blood that Christ shed is a sign of obedience to the Father, a sign of the highest fidelity that a child can manifest its parent. The moment in which the blood of Christ cleanses me from sin, I wash the sins, I am also reached by the same love which the Son has the Father. I'm filled with the Holy Spirit who gives me the intoxicating sweetness of her vital presence that makes my life [cf. This 37,9]. Not for nothing did the apostle Matthew says that Jesus at the time of his death gave up the spirit [cf. Mt 27,50]. To returns? To the Father as a total surrender of his person and man as a demonstration and teaching a love which goes to the end [cf. GV 13,1]. When Christ saves me with his blood, also it gives me the deposit of its intoxicating love which is the Holy Spirit, making me enjoy salvation and the good that God wants me. The priest is made by Jesus instrument of this grace for the brothers, to the total gift of his person, of his time and his ministry.

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Last Rites, Today Sacrament of the Sick [dipinto di Rogier van der Weyden, 1445]

I conclude by quoting the sacrament of healing that the Church gives to the sick brothers. This sacrament is the wonderful synthesis of the Passion of Christ and of his love offered to each patient. In ministering to the sick, the priest is called to administer promptly the sacrament of anointing of the sick. Sacramento combining the therapeutic character and salvific action of Christ on the bodies and the souls of the suffering. The therapeutic efficacy and remissoria of this sacrament on the evils of body and spirit involves a spiritual bath which always acts in virtue of that blood flowed from the open side of the redeemer. The imposition of the priest's hands on the head of the patient before the anointing is the explicit reference to the gift of the Holy Spirit who is poured out at that time as a liniment man oppressed by suffering.

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Fidelity of the priest to perform these saving acts in his ministry, This healthy and make the saving action of Christ among brothers. The duty-duty of the priest to give salvation is identical to that of Christ. And when Jesus came to give us life in abundance [cf. GV 10,10], the same is called to perform the priest: give life, not possess; work for a healing of men, not to increase the wounds.

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Cagliari, 4 December 2018

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