My dear Reverend Confrers, with the liturgical feast of our glorious Confrer, St. Anthony,
my brief stay in the United States of America ends, and for Fr. Ignatius Maria Manfredonia,
begin a new mandate as Superior of the Delegation and the Father Guardian of His Marian Friary of Griswold.
In the Thanksgiving of the Holy Mass, I would like to thank the Lord for the welcome and good example offered me,
the Eucharist celebrated and adored with you, the Rosaries recited together,
and the moments of joy and joy.
The moments of brotherhood in Franciscan joy.
Travel is always an opportunity to get to know new and beautiful aspects of our large religious family in the world,
united by the love of our common mother, the Immaculate,
but also by filial love and respect for the superiors, the founders,
and particularly the men who we rightly recognize
are the ones who are the most important to us.
Thank you.
Thank you to the common father.
Our religious institute looks with interest to the United States,
which is very promising for the spread of the Marian Franciscan charism,
for the sanctification of souls.
The ideal of freedom, which recalls to us the truth and the moral responsibility of the Son of God,
has always been present.
Thank you.
For our culture, which was built by the meeting of many peoples.
Despite the difference, the search for reasons to unite together then divided the nothing
the younger nation of the United States of America and made it prosperous.
The minister general with this council recognizes the efforts and sacrifices
that each of you makes every day for the great reason,
where the humanist Suimizi are not known by their own faces.
for the greatest possible glory of God,
renewing and leaving the vow of a total consecration
to the immaculate.
Father Stefano sends his greetings
and encourages you to persevere in doing God,
to fulfill God's plan of love and sanctification for you
and the souls entrusted to you.
Following the Marian Traccia of a Franciscan life,
I wrote to bring everyone to heaven,
and therefore on which to sow the seed of hope
for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
I was personally very pleased to have participated
in the beautiful Corpus Christi procession at Unibed Fort.
The different attitudes of a person by some attentive
and devout, others indifferent or irreverent,
reminded me of the
Eucharist miracle of St. Anthony.
Because of his great faith in Eucharist,
St. Anthony challenged the heretic of Toulouse,
who did not believe in the real presence.
St. Anthony was aware that his faith was not just
something personal, but something
that must be shared, defended, and borne witness to.
He wanted the challenge.
St. Anthony, who had not eaten for three days,
preferred to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament,
rather than dive into a fine quantity of food
to satisfy his belly.
If an irrational creature recognizes
the sacramental saints, then much more so.
Man is bound to assent by faith to God who reveals himself.
St. Maximilian Marie Colbe loved to connect the mystery,
the mystery of the Eucharist, with another reality
that very much regards us as religious, obedience.
As in the Eucharist, the saints see only a piece of bread,
so in the figure of the superior,
we religious see only a man of flesh and blood
with his qualities and his defects.
As faith causes us to recognize the presence of Christ
in the consecrated host,
so also by faith we must recognize in the person
of the superior the presence of Christ who governs,
and in this way manifests his holy will.
Obedience and faith in God are closely linked
and are part of a single attitude of the heart.
Obedience even reaches the level of Aorism
when it is lived in the night,
and in the dejection when one cannot understand God's plan,
and yet, nevertheless, trusts oneself fully to him.
Obedience gives us religious the possibility
to have a supernatural light in our life
and to believe in the power of the channels through which God
habitually speaks to us to let us know his provident and loving
plan for our life.
The role of the Immaculate as efficient and exemplar cause
is fundamental to our capacity to listen to the Lord's voice
and assent to his will.
We must put our trust in the Immaculate,
turning to her intercession and drawing inspiration
from her examples, which is the point of reference
and the teaching of the first order
for us to be able to live listening and to end
assenting to divine will and glorifying the Trinity
in our life.
In the name of the Institute, I thank Father Angelo Maria Geiger
for all the good he has done in the US delegation
during his long mandate, and offer my best wishes that he
will be able to continue to do so.
Father Angelo Maria Geiger will continue to edify the brothers
and the souls entrusted to him where the Immaculate herself
will lead him by means of the superiors.
To Father Ignatius and Maria Manfredonia,
I would like to express my personal thanks
for his brief but intense activity
as a member of the General Council
and to offer my best wishes that he
will be a worthy and transparent mediator of the wisdom,
the will of God, facilitating the journey of those
who will look to him.
Of all of you, I ask a prayer for me, also for my English,
and for the Institute, together with a prayer
to the faithful collaborators and those
who are subjects of the New Superior here at Griswold.
My wish for you and for myself.
It is that we always have the vision of Father Kolbe who so
deeply believed in the function of authority
as the expression of the will of God.
It is also my wish that we may believe
the Immaculate's own obedience and be
docile to the will of God, just like that host which
is transformed into the body, blood, soul,
and divinity of Jesus Christ, obedient to the formula
of consecration, pronounced by every priest on the earth
who celebrates.
Laudetur Jesus Christ, Maria.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus,
et estus.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus,
et estus.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus,
et estus.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus,
et estus.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus,
et estus.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus,
et estus.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus,
et estus.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus,
et estus.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus,
et estus.
Laudetur, misericordes, oculo, ad nos convertem, et estus.
Thank you.