HOPE IN WAR

 

              " Protection of the Mother of God" -  Icon by Katerya Shadrina, Ukraine

The apostolic nuncio in Ukraine, Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, emphasized that, despite the pain and devastation of the on-going war, HOPE remains the only refuge for those suffering from the war.

“Pope Francis has proclaimed the Jubilee Year of Hope, and in such a horrible war, there is nothing left but hope. Military chaplains tell us that soldiers are grateful for any message of hope, because it is the only thing they have left,” the Archbishop said in an interview with ACI Prensa (CNA’s Spanish-language news partner).

 Archbishop   Kulbokas criticized the ineffectiveness of the international community in finding a solution to the conflict. “There are no international structures capable of resolving the war. At the beginning, Europe may have thought that this conflict was not its problem, but when wars are not taken seriously, the conflict grows. If wars are not stopped at the outset, it’s too late later on.”

Yet despite the conflict, the apostolic nuncio maintains hope for a diplomatic solution. “In order for the conditions to be met that would put serious negotiations on the table, it’s necessary that there not be not just one or two global actors to decide. Peace in Ukraine must be a matter for the entire international community,” he indicated.

According to recent U.N. data, more than 12,600 civilians have died in the conflict, including more than 2,400 children and  2 million families have been displaced.

THE "NO NAME" BAND- ANOTHER HOLY TEEN

 

VENERABLE MATTEO FARINA was a young athlete and musician who played guitar and loved chemistry. He hoped to become an environmental engineer, but was diagnosed with brain cancer at 13 and died six years later. During his illness, he suffered with joy and continued to embrace Jesus as an ordinary teenager—between band practice and dates with his girlfriend.

Matteo was born in 1990 in Avellino (the birthplace of his paternal grandfather) as the second of two children born to Miky Farina (a bank clerk) and Paola Sabbatini (a housewife); his elder sister was Erika whom he was close to.

 In 2000, Matteo had a dream in which he saw St  (Padre) Pio of Pietrelcina who revealed to him the secret of Christian happiness, urging Matteo  to spread this knowledge to others. This dream made Matteo realize that he was meant to evangelize this secret in order to lead others to God.

Throughout his life, he had a deep devotion to Sts. Francis of Assisi and to Pio of Pietrelcina and would recite the rosary each day and read the Gospel. He went to confession once a week and often attended Eucharistic Adoration.

 He also had a devotion to St. Gemma Galgani and (Soon to be canonized) Pier Giorgio Frassati while the writings of Thérèse of Lisieux inspired him.

  From his father he acquired a love for music and he was trained to play several musical instruments by his father. He and friends formed a music band called "No Name". His friends would often refer to Matteo as "the moralizer" since he often spoke about God and encouraged peace. He also had a passion for chemistry and considered continuing his studies in the environmental engineering field. He also liked information technology during his time at school.

Matteo created a fund for the missions in Mozambique and deposited his savings there while urging his parents to replace Christmas shopping with sending something to the poor of Africa. 

In April 2007, he began dating a girl named Serena, with whom he remained until his death, once referring to her as "the most beautiful gift that the Lord could give."

In September 2003, he began experiencing severe headaches and vision problems and so he travelled with his parents and his uncle Rosario for a series of health checks conducted in Avellino and Verona hospitals before a two-week visit to Hannover for a brain biopsy the next month.

 On their return to Brindisi he believed his health problems were over but the tests soon showed an extended edema in the right temporo-occipital area of his brain with mallignant cells also suspected.

 Matteo had a severe seizure ten months later and found his vision was impaired. This forced him to go to Germany for a craniotomy operation to remove a third degree brain tumor in January 2005. He spent over a month undergoing chemotherapy in Milan and was able to return to Brindisi in April,  the day which Pope (St) John Paul II died.

 He had periodic checks until 2007 when it was believed that the disease was regressing. But this was short lived, as Matteo experienced the first recurrence in December 2007. In October 2008 he left for Hannover for checks in which the second recurrence was discovered, at which stage his mother felt it was appropriate for him to receive the anointing of the sick.

 Matteo had the first of three operations to remove the tumor on 9 December 2008 but his condition worsened. He returned to Brindisi on 13 February 2009 with paralysis of his arm and left leg (due to the operations) and began using a wheelchair in order to move around.

In late March he had a high fever which saw him admitted to the Antonio Perrino Hospital where he received an Easter blessing from Archbishop Rocco Talucci.

His doctors were unable to do anything more for Matteo and advised him to return home. He received his final communion on 13 April 2009 and died a week later on 24 April. His remains were relocated on 29 September 2017 to the Brindisi-Ostuni Cathedral at a Mass which was presided over by Archbishop Domenico Caliandro. 

His mission can be described in his own words : “My God, I have two hands, let one of them to be always clasped to you in order to hold you closer in every trial. And let the other hand fall throughout the world if this is your will… as I Know you by others, so let others know you through me. I want to be a mirror, the clearest possible, and if this is your will, I want to reflect your light in the heart of every man. Thanks for life. Thanks for faith. Thanks for love. I’m yours”.

ANOTHER HOLY TEEN

 

Bl. Carlos Acuti is scheduled to be canonized Sunday, April 27, during the Jubilee of Teenagers, becoming the first millennial saint and a model of holiness for young people in the digital age.

At least six other teens are also being considered for canonization. Because April seems to be teen month, I will present these young people, who are certainly role models for today's youth, especially in their suffering.  SERVANT OF GOD PIERANGELO CAPUZZIMATI, who from the age of 14 suffered from leukemia, lived a life of strong faith, trusting in the Lord. He was born in Taranto in 1990 and grew up in a loving family in Faggiano, in the province of Taranto in the Apulia region of southeast Italy.

His sister Sara was born in 1995 and they were very close, being raised in a loving family. Pierangelo had a calm and thoughtful nature and surprised family and teachers with his insatiable thirst for knowledge. 

(Both photos with his sister Sara).

 After finishing elementary school, in 2001 he enrolled in the “Alfieri” middle school in Taranto, which he attended with great commitment and excellent results, and began to cultivate a love for reading. In 2003 he received Holy Confirmation.

In the summer of 2004, Pierangelo fell ill with leukemia. His life and that of his family were completely turned upside down. Enrolled in the fourth year of high school at the Liceo Classico “Archita” in Taranto, he was forced by constant hospitalizations and long periods of convalescence to attend sporadically, while always keeping in touch with classmates and teachers.

He studied at home with the help of a Latin and Greek teacher, teaching himself the other subjects. In the very short periods in which he was able to attend, he did his homework in class, and was questioned: the results left his classmates and teachers speechless. Advancing, with full marks to the next year, during the summer of 2005, he underwent a bone marrow transplant. The operation seemed to have been a success, but required a long convalescence that did not allow him to attend the next school year.

One would expect a normal teen to plunge into despair, yet his illness only intensified his spiritual life. He spent much time in prayer as well as his studies, and contemplating the beauty of nature. He had a great passion for the history of the Church and loved the saints, who inspired him. He saw his disease as a gift, giving him more time to spend with his friend, Jesus.

In August 2007 he underwent a second transplant: same procedure, same protocol and same commitment to not miss the school year. Studying and reading and praying filled his days. Unfortunately, the disease got the upper hand and on April 30, 2008 Pierangelo died. He would have turned eighteen in June.

Pierangelo was animated by an immense faith, despite having grown up in a family environment rather indifferent to religion. His illness and suffering were the humus within which the Holy Spirit spoke to his parents and the son become the "father" of his elders. 

His statements on illness as a gift, on the limitation of the human mind in understanding divine plans, on the importance of belonging to the Church and of common prayer that he spoke of in the last days of his life, were an example to all. 

4th SUNDAY OF LENT (REJOICE)

 

 

Sisters and brothers, thanks to God’s love in Jesus Christ, we are sustained in the hope that does not disappoint (cf.Rom5:5). Hope is the “sure and steadfast anchor of the soul”. It moves the Church to pray for “everyone to be saved” (1 Tim2:4) and to look forward to her being united with Christ, her bridegroom, in the glory of heaven. This was the prayer of Saint Teresa of Avila: “Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one” (The Exclamations of the Soul to God, 15:3).

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Hope, intercede for us and accompany us on our Lenten journey. (Conclusion of Pope's message for Lent 2025) We also pray for Russia, whom our Lady said would be converted.  The following man exemplifies the hope one must have for this to happen- and soon!

For Lent we are, listening to the memoirs of ALEXEI NAVALNY and while he is not a canonized saint, he certainly was a man of God. He portrayed hope until the end of his all too short life. Hope for himslef and hope for his country. Knowing such people exist in our world today, is a cause to rejoice!

 Alexei’s Memoir “ Shadows of Truth" is more than just about politics, it portrays the mind of a man who faced death yet fought on. This was a man of great courage in the face of the impossible. His was the voice against the brutality and corruption of Putin’s regime.

 In 2020, Alexei was poisoned with a nerve agent, by one of Putin’s henchmen. After recovering from the near-fatal incident in a German hospital, he was arrested upon his return to Russia for violating the conditions of his suspended sentence. He was transferred around Russian prisons and penal colonies for the next three years.

 What comes across in his memoirs is a great sense of  humor, making one laugh at some of the dire circumstances he finds himself in. Also his faith is evident throughout the book, he can see a light at the end.

 “I have always thought, and said openly, that being a believer makes it easier to live your life and, to an even greater extent, engage in opposition politics…[you must ask] are you a disciple of the religion whose founder sacrificed himself for others, paying the price for their sins? Do you believe in the immortality of the soul and the rest of that cool stuff? If you can honestly answer yes, what is left for you to worry about?… My job is to seek the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and leave it to good old Jesus and the rest of his family to deal with everything else. They won’t let me down and will sort out all my headaches. As they say in prison here: they will take my punches for me.”

On February 16, 2024, Alexei Navalny died in a penal colony in the Russian Arctic. He was 47 years old. As tragic as his life was, he left us reasons for hope and strategies for resistance, particularly for those whose advocacy springs forth from a passion for the teachings of Jesus. I highly recommend this book and even better the audio. The narrator is so good one feels they are listening to Alexei himself. 

A MAN OF GOOD FRIDAY

 

In this year of HOPE, one man lived this virtue to the fullest, even though his entire life was Lenten- physically and spiritually. Yet he never gave in to despair.

SERVANT of GOD NINO BAGLIERI was born in Modica, Sicily in 1951. After attending primary school he went to work as a bricklayer. At age 16, he fell from scaffolding from a height of 55 feet, leaving him completely paralyzed. Faced with this dramatic situation his mother Giuseppina, a woman of strong faith, vowed to personally look after him for the rest of her life.

Nino went from one hospital to another but without any improvement. Back in his native town in 1970, after the early days of visits from his friends, ten long years of darkness began for Nino, without leaving the house, alone, in desperation and suffering. Nino Baglieri was drowning in self-pity, cursing his lot , with no hope. However, his courageous mother never lost hope for her son’s conversion.  

On 24 March 1978, Good Friday, a group of people who were part of the Renewal of the Spirit Movement prayed over him. Nino felt himself transformed as he himself recounts: “It was Good Friday 1978; I will never be able to forget that date. It was four in the afternoon; the priest came with a small group of people who began to pray over me, laid hands on my head and called on the Holy Spirit. It was at that precise moment when they were invoking the Holy Spirit, that I felt a great warmth invade my body, a tingling as if there was new strength coming into me and something old was leaving me. 

At that instant I accepted the Cross, said my ‘yes’ to the Lord, accepted Christ into my life and was reborn to new life. At that moment I was looking for physical healing but instead the Lord had worked something greater - healing of the spirit. I was reborn to new life, a new man with a new heart. While still suffering my heart was filled with a new joy, a joy I had never known.”

From that moment Nino began reading the Gospels and the Bible, rediscovering the wonders of faith. It was at that time, while helping some of the neighboring youngsters to do their homework that he learned how to write with his mouth. And this is how he spent his days. He wrote his memoirs and wrote letters to people of all kinds all around the world, and personalized little cards that he gave to people who visited him. 

Thanks to a crossbar he was able to write down telephone numbers and be in direct contact with other people who were sick, his calm and convincing words comforting them. He began a constant flow of relationships with people, which not only brought him out of his own isolation, but left him to witness to the Gospel of joy and hope with courage and without fear. In Loreto, speaking to a large group of young people who were looking at him with a degree of pity, he had the courage to tell them: “If any of you are in mortal sin then you are in a worse state than I am!”

 Yearly Nino celebrated the anniversary of his Cross, and in 1982 he became part of the Salesian Family as a Salesian Cooperator. On 31 August 2004 he made his perpetual profession among the Volunteers. Cardinal Angelo Comastri, who knew Nino said: “When you met him you had the sensation that the Holy Spirit dwelt within him ... He celebrated the anniversary of his call to the cross like others celebrate the anniversary of their marriage or ordination ..."

On 2 March 2007, after a long period of suffering and trial, he died. After his death he was dressed in tracksuit and gym shoes because, as he had said: “On my final trip to God I want to run to meet him.” 

Nino Baglieri was, a magnet of goodness which attracted so many young people to the love of God finding his strength in the Holy Eucharist!

 "Lord, in the Holy Eucharist let Yourself be absorbed in order to transform us into You, to be like You, to love and serve like You. Transform my life, O Lord, change it in Your way, so that I too may be a host for my brothers and sisters, that I may give myself to others with the same love as You give Yourself to me, so that I too may give myself to everyone.’”

3rd SUNDAY OF LENT

"Third, let us journey together in HOPE, for we have been given a promise. May the hope that does not disappoint (cf.Rom5:5), the central message of the Jubilee, be the focus of our Lenten journey towards the victory of Easter. As Pope Benedict XVI taught us in the Encyclical Spe Salvi, “the human being needs unconditional love. He needs the certainty which makes him say: ‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom8:38-39)”. Christ, my hope, has risen! He lives and reigns in glory. Death has been transformed into triumph, and the faith and great hope of Christians rests in this: the resurrection of Christ!

This, then, is the third call to conversion: a call to hope, to trust in God and his great promise of eternal life. Let us ask ourselves: Am I convinced that the Lord forgives my sins? Or do I act as if I can save myself? Do I long for salvation and call upon God’s help to attain it? Do I concretely experience the hope that enables me to interpret the events of history and inspires in me a commitment to justice and fraternity, to care for our common home and in such a way that no one feels excluded?”                (Cont. of message from Pope Francis  for Lent 2025 in the Jubilee year.)

The state of our world today, demands faith from us as well as HOPE. We have been listening to the Memoirs of Alexei Navalny (in another Blog) which reminds me of my stay in the Czech Republic, ten years after the velvet revolution. *

Our dear friend put me in an ex convent, now an inn, which, while clean and well stocked, never gave me a night's sleep.  At first I was puzzled why and then found out that it had been the political prison during the Communist regime. Each nun’s cell became a cell for political & social prisoners, including the future president, Vaclav Havel.  

Václav Havel was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and dissident. He served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until 1992, prior to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 31 December, before he became the first president of the Czech Republic from 1993 to 2003. He was the first democratically elected president after the fall of communism. As a writer of Czech literature, he is known for his plays, essays and memoirs.

If anyone had the right to loose hope in humankind, he would be at the top of the list, and yet he never gave up:

“The kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it’s a dimension of the soul; it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.”

( Vaclav Havel, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvizdala, trans and intro. by Paul Wilson) 

* The Velvet Revolution  was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November 17 to 28, 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party included students and older dissidents. The result was the end of 41 years of  one-party rule in the country, and the  conversion to a parliamentary republic

HOLY MAN OF AFRICA

 

“Lent, O Lord: Do not allow us to resort to broken cisterns (Jer 2:13), nor to imitate the unfaithful servant, the foolish virgin; do not allow the enjoyment of earthly goods to make our hearts insensitive to the lament of the poor, the sick, orphaned children, and the countless brothers and sisters of ours who still today lack the minimum necessary to eat, to cover their bare limbs, to gather the family under one roof” (Radio message of Pope St. John XXIII, Lent, 1963).

The latest to start on the road to canonization certainly lived these words. CARDINAL BERNARDIN GANTIN, whose prominence in the hierarchy of the Church was unprecedented for an African, has been equaled by few non-Italians.

His name, interestingly enough, means “tree of iron on African land”, which was fitting for this holy man as his people and his land were always present in his life. Benin is a French-speaking West African nation, and is the birthplace of the vodun (or “voodoo”) religion and home to the former Dahomey Kingdom from circa 1600–1900. It borders Nigeria and is one of the poorest countries in the world.  65 per cent of the population is under the age of 25. 

The first Christian missionaries arrived in 1861. The main Christian center was in the city of Ouidah, and from there it spread throughout the whole territory. A strong thrust toward Christianity came with the experience of many slaves deported from the country to the plantations of Latin America, the majority of whom upon their return to Africa were witness to the strength and hope they had received from the Gospel.

Son of a railroad official, he was born in 1922 in Toffo, French Dahomey, in what is today known as the People's Republic of Bénin. He entered the minor seminary in Ouidah at age fourteen and was ordained to the priesthood in 1951 in Lomé, Togo, by Archbishop Louis Parisot of Cotonou. He then fulfilled pastoral assignments while also teaching languages at the seminary. In 1953 he was sent to Rome where he studied at the Pontifical Urban University and then at the Pontifical Lateran University, where he earned his licentiate in theology and canon law.

In 1956 he was elected titular Bishop of Tipasa of Mauritania and Auxiliary of Cotonou and was consecrated on 3 February 1957.

On 5 January 1960, St. John XXIII promoted him to Archbishop of Cotonou when his old teacher, the ailing Archbishop Parisot, felt it was time to hand over his flock to the one who could take on the enormous work of the apostolate. His prowess as a pastor was demonstrated in a number of areas: he subdivided the diocese to adapt more effectively to individual situations; he promoted the founding of schools; he vigorously supported the activity of catechists and of indigenous sisters; and, particularly concerned with the problem of priestly vocations, he underwent many sacrifices in order to maintain seminarians and priests of the diocese in their studies.

 He held many important offices in his life, including President of the Episcopal Conference of the region that included seven countries (Dahomey, Togo, the Ivory Coast, Alto Volta, New Guinea, Senegal and Nigeria). He was called to Rome in 1971 as the adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, of which he became the secretary two years later.

From 1975 he was the Vice-President and then President of the Pontifical Commission of Justice and Peace and also Vice-President and then President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum (1976-1984). In 1984 (until 1998) he was Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

In 1993 he was made Dean of the College of Cardinals. In 2002, the Holy Father accepted the request of Cardinal Gantin to be dispensed from the Office of Dean of the College of Cardinals and of the title of the suburbicarian see of Ostia, allowing him to return to his homeland, in Benin, which he had long longed for.

He was very close to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (soon t be Pope). As friends and colleagues alike, the bond between the Bavarian and the Beninese remains the stuff of legend in the famously-fractious Curial world. Both remained far more attached to their respective homelands than the cultural ambit of working at the Vatican. "Many personal memories bind me to this brother of ours," Benedict said in his homily at a 2008 Vatican Memorial Mass for Cardinal Gantin.

 Cardinal Gantin died at Pompidou Hospital in Paris after a long illness on  May 13 (the feast of our Lady of Fatima), 2008, less than a week after being transferred there from Benin and five days after his 86th birthday. The Beninese government declared three days of mourning for him, beginning on 14 May.

 Hailed among his own even today as the "Father of the Nation" -- even as Catholics comprise just a third of Benin's population -- such is Cardinal Gantin's legend at home that pop songs have been recorded in his honor.

 A constant love for the Eucharist, a source of personal holiness and sound ecclesial communion which finds its visible foundation in the Successor of Peter, came to the fore in Cardinal Gantin. And it was in this very same Basilica that in celebrating his last Holy Mass before leaving Rome he stressed the unity that the Eucharist creates in the Church. In his homily he cited the famous sentence of St Cyprian of Carthage, the African Bishop, which is engraved in the dome of St Peter's: "From here a single faith shines throughout the world; from here is born the unity of the priesthood". This could be the message we inherit from venerable Cardinal Gantin as his spiritual testament....

"His human and priestly personality was a marvellous synthesis of the characteristics of the African soul with those proper to the Christian spirit, of the African culture and identity and the Gospel values. He was the first African ecclesiastic to have eminently responsible roles in the Roman Curia and he always carried them out with his typical simple and humble style, whose secret is probably to be found in the wise words his mother chose to address to him when he became a Cardinal on 27 June 1977: "Never forget the little faraway village from which we come"...." Cardinal Ratzinger