Holiness and the Cross
Even more so as men and women missionaries, St. Joseph Allamano affirmed, we must know how to enter the mystery of the cross (cf. This I want you to be, n. 136). How can I immerse myself in the lives of our people, in the tangle of suffering that grips so many peoples in today’s world, and become a voice of hope and consolation, a proclamation of salvation, without following the same path as Jesus?
In his suffering on the cross, Jesus becomes a figure of every human pain, of every rupture and division, of every illness and those pains that close us in on ourselves such as darkness, aridity, failure, loneliness.
Jesus told us: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (Jn 13:34). As in a divine alchemy, the crucified Jesus is able to change all our pain into love, into communion. We need to recognize his face in every pain, to welcome it, to forget our pain and to begin to love the other.
Invocations
We thank you, O God, source of all good, for having given the church and the world St. Joseph Allamano,
- We ask you that, following his example of daily holiness, we too may collaborate in the proclamation of the Gospel so that all may have fullness of life.
Attentive in the service of your people, he spent himself in humility and wisdom as a comforter of the afflicted and father and guide of families consecrated to the mission,
- through his intercession grant us too to be witnesses of Christ the Saviour everywhere and always.
You who gave Mary Consolata to the Church, as Mother and Sister,
- grant that all the suffering and needy may find, in his intercession, peace and consolation.
Let us pray:
O Father, who wished to save mankind
by the Cross of your only begotten Son,
grant that all those who have known
his mystery of love on earth
may obtain in heaven the fruits of his redemption.
He lives and reigns with you forever and ever.
Amen.
