“What a beautiful Feast of the Immaculate Conception today! A new air has moved around it. And to you. In the sky. And inside the houses. And he asked her. Like a mysterious spirit. A new soul. Pervasive. Not intrusive. How discreet it hovered over us. The people who were visibly unhappy yesterday are more serene today. A feeling of peace seems to dwell inside the heart, like a need for Love. Need to love. To be loved. A need for a different song. Which is what we have heard in the different churches. Festive hymns to the Madonna, the heavenly mother, yes, but more and more, we all children of a woman, see her again in the beautiful face and in the hard journey of our mother. We feel a profound spirit that instills hope and spreads in daily life as a need also for spirituality, whether or not we believe in God. We need to look beyond what our eyes see today. See in depth. This we need. Look further. Beyond hypocritical worldliness.
The petty power and evil ambitions to achieve it. Beyond the lights of the illuminations and shops. Beyond our empty pockets. In depth, where there is no fire of wars and long trails of hatred that generate those wars and any other conflict. Even the small one in our village, where the courtyard, the landing, the corridor, the school clearing, the brazier, the dirt or concrete pitch under the house have long been missing. The small square for meeting friends. Few but known one by one, face to face, eye to eye. We are afraid of everything. Also fear of the culture of terror that is imposed on us as the truth of reality, an inevitable condition of life. All closed in their own homes, a sort of evening curfew, to which distrust of others pushes us. Whoever he is, if he shows poverty, the condition that we most fear already belongs to us, he is the different. To fear. To be removed. This new spirit, from collective bewilderment, also brings out a different fear, more aware of being able to be changed. That of not having been good fathers, a holy family, educating parents. This society suffers from orphanage.
Both ideal and ethical reference points are increasingly lacking. This society of the global world suffers from the absence of the father. And of the principle of authority that he embodies. The new spirit that leads us into the deepest spirituality seems to have created a new need: if we have not succeeded in being good parents, then let us go back, at least for a short time, to being children. Today’s feast of Mary Immaculate, mother of humanity, brings us this desire, which goes far beyond nostalgia. In Catanzaro we lived it more forcefully.
The Immaculate Conception is the feast of the city. Perhaps the most important. It is true history, today reproduced in summary from the notarial document read in the Basilica by the notary, called to renew the pact of love between the City and the Madonna, to which there is large uninterrupted popular devotion for four centuries. It is hoped that the Immaculate will continue to save Catanzaro from any serious adversity, as it is said to have happened in 1641 during the plague. Perhaps he saved it even months ago from the strong earthquake that hit it and from the last flood, last Saturday, which everywhere did more damage, even irreparable, than here.
The Basilica is full again. There were the most awaited people and authorities. You all moved by the change introduced in the ceremony. I don’t remember if in the past it was as we saw it today. I haven’t had time to study the fact historically. However, it was nice that the Bishop went to meet the Mayor, outside the church and that together they entered the Basilica, escorted by banners and banners, by priests and councilors. This is a gesture that goes beyond rituality and rapid symbology. It makes you reflect, think deeply. One thing above all, that in order to work together, the Church and the Municipality, for the good of the Community, for the rebirth of the territory, its protection, the construction of authentic wealth equally divided between its producers and those who have nothing but the load of one’s needs and weaknesses, the encounter must take place on the field. Where all the people are.
The young people, above all, who don’t go to church and who deny themselves politics. And the increasingly numerous old people who, in a place without the most essential services, find themselves far from everything. The road is the most suitable field. Here a new conscience can be born, stimulated by those with greater authority who stimulate sensibilities. First civil and then political. An individual and collective conscience also capable of creating a new intelligent, cultured, refined ruling class. Prepared. Honesty. And a beautiful Catanzaro. More beautiful than it already is, for me the most beautiful in the world. The Bishop and the Mayor seem to have a good human understanding as well. You can change. But Politics and the Church must be more courageous. And more consistent with the values professed and the commitments undertaken. They should be somewhat imitators of Francis, the Pope, for Catholics and men of faith, the man, for all the others, laymen and non-believers, with a marked charisma, who, in the vacuum of authority I mentioned above , is exercising, lonely and tired, the role of leader of this burning world. Today, in Rome, in Piazza di Spagna, in front of the statue of the Immaculate Conception, he made a highly revolutionary gesture. He wept as he uttered the following words: ”“ I wanted to bring you today the thanksgiving of the Ukrainian people. ” The man of faith who reproaches his God and remains incredulous in front of the unheard request. The simple man, humble and fighter, the seeker of peace and the beauty of man, who weeps with acute pain for these wars, armed with fires and induced misery, of killings on the battlefield and on the seas, of soldiers without uniforms and of sailors without a compass, especially children. And women, grieving mothers trying to save their children. As he does, apparently even without the always desired results, the Madonna. Immaculate Mary. For us the mother, the Matrona of Catanzaro”.
Franco Cimino
Cimino: “Feast of the Immaculate Matrona of Catanzaro and that tears of the Pope” – CatanzaroInforma