The mercy of the saints never dies
On the day of the canonization of Allamano, Gazing with joy at an “empty tomb” means filling one’s heart with mercy…
To his missionaries, Blessed Joseph Allamano used to repeat, “What so many in the world do out of necessity, you must do out of love.” This is the translation into missionary language of the concept of mercy, as well as the summary of the 14 works, corporal and spiritual.
Indeed, it is not enough to do things, to perform an action toward someone (or to receive it), but to give meaning to every gesture, every word. Give it depth. In the words of Allamano, repeating a phrase of his uncle St. Joseph Cafasso, “it is necessary to do good things well, and without making noise”.
As Pope Francis argued in one of his homilies on June 8, 2018 at “Santa Marta” House, “we do not need big speeches about love, but men and women who know how to do these little things for Jesus, for the Father.” The works of mercy, then, “are the continuity of this love, which hangs together, comes to us, and we carry it on […]; they are the way of love that Jesus teaches us in continuity with that of God”.
For this reason, mercy does not die. For this reason, the tomb of a blessed who will be proclaimed a saint today does not make us sad. Because we know that it is empty, like the one in the tomb. Because it gives us hope that it is possible to be holy, to make ourselves holy.
Today, the world is celebrating not for someone who left this Earth almost 100 years ago, in 1926, but for the way this witness lived, sowing concrete signs, making his life an everlasting gift, embracing the whole world even though he could never leave.
This is somewhat what the Pope repeats to us on several occasions: God does not want to hear from us that we have understood God’s love. The right answer is, “I have made God’s love small. I have fed the hungry, I have given drink to the thirsty, I have visited the sick, the imprisoned”.
It is the how that matters. How you live and grow. How you stand toward your neighbor and how you allow yourself to be approached. How you die.
Love keeps alive and the mercy of the saints never dies. Therefore, it only remains for us to celebrate – united with the missionaries and missionaries of the Consolata (and all other institutes as well) – and, thinking of Giuseppe Allamano’s tomb on World Mission Day, do not forget to smile.
“No pouting! Always joy I want, always cheerful faces”. Because “cheerfulness is a beautiful virtue”and, when wrapped in the holy spirit, is also a work of mercy
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