Allocution Sunday April 25, Fourth Sunday of Easter
We greatly value the efforts of those who make this radio broadcast possible, today, Sunday, April 25, Fourth Sunday of Easter, also known as Good Shepherd Sunday and Sunday of prayer for priestly and religious vocations.
We hear in all the Catholic churches of the world the gospel according to Saint John, chapter 10, verses 11 to 18.
(GOSPEL)
Cowboys who have cattle understand this evangelical passage very well. They talk to their cows, caress them, know the maximum amount of milk they have produced and if they get sick, they cure them. The same thing happens with the owners of sheep, pigs, chickens. Their animals know their owners by their whistle, by their walking, by their smell. Those who have pets carry them, play with them and when they leave the house, upon returning, from several blocks away, they already know that their master is coming. This is what the good shepherds of Christ’s time were like.
An example of greater love is that of our mother, who from the womb until today, all the beats of her heart, all her thoughts, all her actions, all her words, are for our happiness, although when they scold us for our good we don’t understand it.
All these loves that we see and experience, multiplied to infinity, is the love of God the Creator Father, of God the Shepherd Son, of God the Sanctifying Holy Spirit. God the Father thought of us from eternity so that we would be happy, receiving and sharing love.
He sends us messengers of love: our parents, grandparents, relatives, doctors, nurses, teachers, friends, priests, nuns and countless people who positively mark our lives.
God, like the Good Shepherd, knows us, since he created us. He goes before us so that we may walk in his way, in which no one has ever been lost. He goes next to us, teaching us to be happy. He goes behind us, protecting us from the dangers of sin, of selfishness. He sends us his Holy Spirit so that when we reach the crossroads and do not know which path to take, we know how to discern and choose the best one.
He feeds us with his Word and with the Body and Blood of Christ, so that despite fatigue and failure, we continue doing good.
Let’s listen to His whistles, His voice, let’s let Him carry us when we are on the ground; Let us allow ourselves to be healed by Him when the wounds of sin harm us and make us sick, let us look at His cross, a sign of His great love. No one has greater love than the one who gives his life for his friends and let us live with the certainty that our Shepherd God will never leave us abandoned and awaits us in the house of heaven where we will multipliedly enjoy the happiness lived on this earth for the love received and shared.
(SINGING)
Let us pray this Sunday for the messengers of peace and joy that The Good Shepherd sends us.
Christ, Lord of the harvest and the Church, thank you for the priests you gave us. They baptized us and gave us communion.
So many times, in confession they forgive us in your name and continually feed us with your Word and the Sacraments.
But, if we are grateful for all this, we are also worried.
Well, there are so many people who still do not have priests.
City neighborhoods, new towns, chapels, do not know the presence of priests.
Who will go to bring the Gospel to those people?
Will they be abandoned without the presence of the Church, the richness of the Word and the grace of the Sacraments?
Lord, also send them priests, nuns and missionaries as you sent them to us.
Call new apostles as you called Peter and James, John and Andrew and all the others. Call them from our town. Call them from our community. Call them our family. Come to us, Lord. Knock on our door. Call someone from our family, a son to be a priest, religious, missionary, a daughter to be a nun, religious, missionary, catechist, servant. Call them, Lord.
We will support them. We will help you. Give us, Lord, that grace and that joy. Amen.
(SINGING)
The Pope tells us that vocal prayer is dialogue. Conversation of the Father with his Son, of the Shepherd with his sheep.
“Prayer is dialogue with God; and every creature, in a certain sense, ‘dialogues’ with God. In the human being, prayer becomes a word, invocation, song, poetry… The divine Word has become flesh, and in the flesh of each man the word returns to God in prayer.
”Words are our creatures, but they are also our mothers, and in some way they shape us. ”Words are our creatures, but they are also our mothers, and in some way they shape us. Words hide feelings, but there is also the opposite path: that in which words shape feelings. The Bible educates man so that everything comes to the light of the word, that nothing human is excluded or censored. Above all, pain is dangerous if it remains covered, closed within us… A pain closed within us, which cannot be expressed or released, can poison the soul; It is mortal.
”For this reason Holy Scripture teaches us to pray also with sometimes bold words. The sacred writers do not want to deceive us about man: they know that in their hearts they also harbor unedifying feelings, even hatred. None of us are born holy, and when these bad feelings knock on the door of our hearts it is necessary to be able to deactivate them with prayer and the words of God. In the psalms we also find very harsh expressions against our enemies—expressions that spiritual teachers teach us to refer to the devil and our sins; and they are also words that belong to human reality and that have ended up in the channel of the Holy Scriptures. They are there to testify to us that, if words did not exist in the face of violence, to make bad feelings harmless, to channel them so that they do not cause harm, the world would be completely sunk.
”The first human prayer is always a vocal recitation. First of all, the lips always move. Although, as we all know, praying does not mean repeating words, however, vocal prayer is the safest and it is always possible to exercise it. Feelings, however, even if they are noble, are always uncertain: they come and go, they leave us and return. Not only that, the graces of prayer are also unpredictable: at some point consolations abound, but on the darkest days they seem to evaporate completely. The prayer of the heart is mysterious and at certain times it is absent. The prayer of the lips, that which is whispered or recited in chorus, however, is always available, and is necessary like manual labor. The Catechism states: ‘Vocal prayer is an indispensable element of the Christian life. To the disciples, attracted by the silent prayer of their Master, he teaches them a vocal prayer: the Lord’s Prayer’ (n. 2701). ‘Teach us to pray’, the disciples ask Jesus, and Jesus teaches a vocal prayer: the Lord’s Prayer. And in that prayer it is all.”
(SINGING)
“We should all have the humility of certain elderly people who, in church, perhaps because their hearing is no longer good, quietly recite the prayers they learned as children, filling the hallway with whispers. This prayer does not disturb the silence, but rather testifies to fidelity to the duty of prayer, practiced throughout life, without ever failing. These prayers of humble prayer are often the great intercessors of the parishes: they are the oaks that extend their branches every year to provide shade for the greatest number of people. Only God knows how much and when their heart is united to those recited prayers: surely these people have also had to face nights and moments of emptiness. But one can always remain faithful to vocal prayer. It’s like an anchor: cling to the rope to stay there, faithful, whatever happens.
“We all have to learn from the perseverance of that Russian pilgrim, of whom a famous work of spirituality speaks, who learned the art of prayer by repeating the same invocation infinite times: ‘Jesus, Christ, Son of God, Lord, have mercy on us sinners!’ He repeated just this. If graces arrive in your life, if prayer becomes hot enough one day to perceive the presence of the Kingdom here in our midst, if your gaze is transformed until it is like that of a child, it is because you have insisted on the recitation of a simple Christian ejaculation. Eventually it becomes part of your breathing. The story of the Russian pilgrim is beautiful: it is a book for everyone. I advise you to read it: it will help you understand what vocal prayer is.
”Therefore, we should not despise vocal prayer. Some say: ‘It’s a child’s thing, for ignorant people; I am looking for mental prayer, meditation, the inner emptiness for God to come.’ Please, it is not necessary to fall into the arrogance of despising vocal prayer. It is the prayer of the simple, the one that Jesus has taught us: Our Father, who is in heaven… The words we pronounce take us by the hand; In some moments they restore the flavor, awaken even the most sleepy heart; They awaken feelings of which we had lost memory, and they lead us by the hand towards the experience of God. And above all, they are the only ones, safely, that direct to God the questions that He wants to hear. Jesus has not left us in the fog. He told us: ‘When you pray, say like this!’ And he has taught the Our Father prayer.
(SINGING)
Tonight, everyone in the house, gathered around a religious image with a candle or oil lamp, let us pray the best prayer, the one that Christ taught us, all with our hands raised.
In these 50 days of Easter, joy is felt in our hearts due to the presence of the Risen Christ. Already in the Old Testament the Word of God invites us to joy.
Do not be sad, because the joy of God is your strength. Jeremiah 8-10.
The hearts of those who seek God rejoice. First book of Chronicles, chapter 16, verse 10.
Give me back the joy of your salvation. Psalm 50.
The righteous run in joy. Proverbs 29.
Joyful are those who walk in the law of the Lord. Psalm 118.
This is the day on which the Lord acted, be our joy and our joy. Psalm 117.
What joy when they told me, let’s go to the house of the Lord. Psalm 112.
And Jerusalem will be my joy and my people my joy and from now on no more crying will be heard in it.. Isaiah 65.
Serve God with joy, come joyfully into his presence. Psalm 99.
Make me feel the joy and happiness. Psalm 50.
I will change your grief into rejoicing and I will comfort and cheer you in your sadness. Jeremiah 31.
Look towards the East, Jerusalem, and see the joy that comes to you from God. Baruch 4.
Whatever good you can do, do it with joy. Ecclesiastical 9.
I will cheer you up in my house of prayer. Isaiah 56.
The commands of the Lord are right and rejoice the heart. Psalm 18.
(SINGING)
And the blessing of Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit descend on our families, on our sick, on the people we love and reign forever. Amen.
(SINGING)