L’Osservatore Romano
Sunday, September 4, 2005


APOSTLE OF SALVIFIC SUFFERING, NOURISHED BY EUCHARISTIC SPIRITUALITY

Conclusion of the diocesan phase of the Cause of beatification and canonization of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta

Next October 29th, at the main church of the Apulian city of Corato, Mons. Giovan Battista Pichierri, Archbishop of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie, will close the diocesan phase of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta , a humble and hidden tertiary Dominican, in a bed for over sixty years.

With much prudence and as much constancy—beginning with the Dominican Archbishop Reginaldo Giuseppe Maria Addazi, who was followed by Archbishop Joseph Carata—all the Diocesan Bishops, one after another, did everything in their power to rediscover and bring to light Luisa’s exemplary life experience, while the believers persevered in their ever-increasing devotion toward such an excellent soul.

REDISCOVERED AND REVALUED

During these almost sixty years following her death, the Carthusian [i.e. the most careful and painstaking] research of the handwritten and the printed writings of Luisa has greatly intensified; many groups and private associations have risen, inspired by her spirituality and attracted by the many benefits received by reading the already published works.

The Holy See gave the authorization to transfer the mortal remains of this Dominican Tertiary from the Corato’s Cemetery to her parish church of Saint Maria Greca. In the repurchased building on Via Nazario Sauro, which was the residence of the Servant of God for so many years, there has been canonically established the Pious Association of the "Little Children of the Divine Will."

Through mysterious ways opened by Divine Providence, the figure and spirituality of the "Divine Will" of Piccarreta have become discovered and appreciated also by a large number of believers in the Americas. In the fortunate linking of the steps of revaluation, the Archbishop Mons. Carmelo Cassati has obtained from the competent Roman Congregations, the nulla osta [approval] for the opening of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of the Servant of God, which took place on November 20, 1994 -- the feast day of Christ the King. And now we have finally reached the conclusion of the first phase of the lengthy ascent to the honors of the altars.

The memory of Luisa was never buried; and so also her humble and extraordinary teachings, the testimony of her evangelical existence, the spiritual edification that magnetizes the souls to follow her example, and the blessings that she continues to pour down from Heaven through her intercession.

Three truly historical events have crowned the walk of affirmation of Luisa Piccarreta in these last years: the International Congresses held at San José of Costa Rica in December 1995, at Corato in October 2002, and, again in Corato, from the 27th to the 29th of October 2005. The International Congress of Costa Rica, which lasted eleven days, comprised five, teeming, daily presentations—more appropriately "meditations" centered on the Divine will as lived and taught by Luisa Piccarreta—and they were accompanied by Eucharistic Celebrations and a steady adoration to the Holy Sacrament.

The following data may underline the significance of that memorable Congess: several hundred attendees coming from sixteen American nations; representatives of Italy and India; various Bishops; about three hundred priests, one hundred and fifty seminarians, and many members of religious orders.


TOWARD THE OCTOBER CONGRESS

The 2002 Congress, held at the Oasis of Nazareth in Corato, with many participants coming from foreign countries, served to shed light on the status of the Cause. The upcoming International Congress, anticipated for next October, on the occasion of the closing of the diocesan phase of the Cause of Beatification of Luisa, will contribute to shed light on the salient aspects about the person, the spirituality, and the holiness of life of Piccarreta, in light of the testimonies and of the documents retrieved during these last years.

Speaking of the Cause, in 1994—just after the opening of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal and the publishing of the Archbishop’s edict for the collection of the names of witnesses to be interviewed, as well as of the writings of the Piccarreta—crowds of believers came around the bed of the Servant of God to listen to her simple and illuminated lessons on the Divine Will, just as it had happened when she was alive.

In fact, the first result of the process of beatification was the retrieval and the cataloguing of the diaries and publications of Luisa’s works. In 1996, Archbishop Mons. Cassati, upon formal request to the then Card. Joseph Ratzinger, obtained from the ex Holy Office a photocopy of the thirty-four autographic notebooks of the Servant of God, which had been appropriated in 1938 by the aforesaid Congregation. He then appointed some reputed theologians to reexamine such writings and to judge the orthodoxy of the Luisa’s writings, which were needed for the proper procedural acts.

Since her death, the fire of these writings has almost blazed like wildfire, and the Tribunal has now been able to ascertain their great importance and scope—a rich mine of spirituality! Also, the diffusion of her works, which have been translated in many languages, constitutes a devoted pilgrimage and a religious hearing of her simple, humble and effective word, proclaimed both with her life and with her writings.

We shouldn’t believe, however, that the Servant of God was a graphomaniac or a person who wrote a lot to get attention. Rather, she was a person extremely reluctant to put in writing the fruits of the prolonged nighttime contemplations of her loving dialogues with her bridegroom, Jesus. She surrendered only for her spirit of obedience to her confessors—to Don Gennaro De Gennaro, her first confessor, and then to St. Hannibal Maria Di Francia, her spiritual guide and promoter of the first publications.

The Tribunal acquired a rich dossier of testimonies for its procedural actions, which were collected and recorded in the '70s, before the opening of formal Process, by Father Bernardino Joseph Bucci, on authorization of Archbishop Mons. Carata, so that they would not be lost, given the age of the testimonies de visu et ex auditu [by people—now deceased—who had personally known Luisa or had personally interviewed eye-witnesses.]

Upon formally interviewing the above-mentioned, surviving witnesses—who were all invited to give testimonies under oath—a unanimous consent was reached regarding the holiness and heroic exercise of the theological and cardinal virtues of the Servant of God; and the secret is not violated if we affirm that their unanimous opinion is much more valid because it perfectly fits in the context of the unchanged and always growing plebiscite of devotion of the present faithful people.

Through their answers, the members of the Tribunal, under the guidance of the Postulator of the Cause, Don Lattanzio, seemed to experience again the enthusiasm of the four days of exposition of Luisa’s body at the triumphal funeral of that prophetic March 1947—apotheosis and crowning of her terrestrial existence.

A pale profile of the main characteristics of Luisa’s persona, which remained impressed in the witnesses’ memory, include the following: Luisa Piccarreta, by people’s opinion, already enjoyed in life the appellative of "saint" and, as already mentioned, all called her and still call her "Luisa the Saint." This opinion doesn't intend to anticipate the final judgment of the Holy Mother Church—even if it remains an ardent desire!—but it denotes only a judgment of the people, strongly struck by her simplicity, transparency and holiness.

Never was there seen in her the desire for the sensational or extraordinary phenomena: her existence was conducted for over sixty years in sufferings, in union with the suffering Jesus, and in uniformity to the Will of God, to which she consecrated her life with a vow, as victim soul. She asked God not to leave visible marks on her body. Concerning the work she was able to do, she taught it to her students. She lived in poverty and absolute detachment from earthly things, in a state of continuous prayer.

Among the everyday routine of her duties there was only one extraordinary phenomenon: the regime of her food intake and the nighttime bodily stiffening that she called "my usual state.”* According to those who assisted her, Luisa ate very little, without suffering any damage to her health. There was only one thing that she could not do without: the Holy Eucharist.

She recounts in her autobiography that since her teenage years: " Communion became my predominant passion. In It I centralized all my affections. I was happy to hear Our Lord speaking; and it cost me very much to be deprived of It, when my family forced me to go with them to the farm house, leaving me many months without Mass and without Communion.”


CONVERSATIONS WITH HER BRIDEGROOM

Her conversations with her Divine Bridegroom extended lengthily into the night, and they were accompanied by a stiffening of her limbs, from which she could be awakened only upon a call to obedience by the priest that went daily to her house to celebrate Holy Mass or to bring her Holy Communion.

The rest of the day was spent between working and smiling at those who went to visit her for counsel and comfort. Don Benedict Calvi, her last confessor and inimitable promoter of her name and writings, said: "Her bed turned into a marvelous desk from which, with wisdom and divine unction, she intimately changed many souls. More than few people left her little room visibly changed, surprised, touched, and... ready to purify themselves with a Holy Confession."

To everybody she gave the example of a normal, daily, working, and consistent holiness, in the simplicity and humility of life, in her brief exhortations, in her striving for supernatural intentions, and in the perfection of her actions—precisely the style of holiness that is currently looked for by the great majority of believers.

The characterizing spirituality of her life, the words, and the writings of the Servant of God were mainly centered on "doing the Will of God", "being the little daughter of the Divine Will" and "being the missionary of the Kingdom of God’s Will," in light of the affirmation of Jesus: "My food is to do the Will of Him who sent me" (John 4: 34), and in light of the famous prayer of the Dominican St. Albert the Great: "Lord, I would love to always be in your beloved Will."

The exhortations, the diaries, the books, the counsels were, therefore, given in light of the "fiat voluntas tua," as Jesus did, taught, and told us to do in the “Our Father” prayer.

This was her fulcrum, which explains the constant and heroic exercise of Luisa’s virtues, especially her imperturbable serenity in the tests that she had to endure. During her life in fact, she was often seen visited, examined, observed, and questioned by ecclesiastical authorities, by superiors, by priests, and by religious of strong theological and ascetic culture; yet, she perfectly remained serene, and above all, humble and obedient to the Will of God, which was manifested to her through the Church and her ministers.

And now it seems that this same august Divine Will is manifesting Itself in removing all the obstacles to the promotion and diffusion of a spirituality that is greatly needed for the salvation of humanity.

As a teacher and missionary of the Divine Will, she promoted It not "with words of human wisdom", in an areopagus of wise men of the earth, but as a fruit of her great love for God, as a humble woman of the people, with a degree of culture barely elementary, and with an existence almost buried and "hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3: 3).


SPIRIT OF OBEDIENCE

There glows in the Servant of God her spirit and practice of obedience to the Holy Church. We have already mentioned her acts of obedience for her writings and for her daily exits from "her usual state." Her full submission to the will of her ecclesiastical superiors has been considered the most radiant pearl of her soul. She herself—it is worth noticing—used to instill such feelings into the minds of the priests involved in her life. Therefore, she was always treated with great respect by all the archbishops of her diocese, by the local priests, and by the religious that visited her.

Luisa remains in the sky as a luminary of this virtue, in an era which is not free of confrontations —fruits of the "not serviam" spirit [the refusal to obey, to submit] largely spread in the Church, family, nations, and social groups.

A last touch for an almost complete spiritual profile of the Servant of God arises from the conclusions of the Process: she was an apostle of salvific suffering.

Contemporary man, who trusts in the certainties of his scientific, technological, and social conquests, tries to flee from the mystery of the cross and from the pains of suffering. He in fact, interprets suffering as an annihilation of his dignity; he doesn't understand it, and he intends to eliminate it from history.

On the contrary, with evangelical wisdom, Luisa Piccarreta presents the cross, in concrete and popular terms and with incisive examples, as a remedy and health for the world. In her opinion, the human crosses become a fertile suffering when they are united to the crucified Christ, and mystically immolated in the Eucharist; the cross then becomes a suffering full of love, a suffering willingly hidden and always in line and in tune to the Fiat pronounced in Nazareth and renewed on Calvary by the Most Holy Virgin Mary, to whom Luisa was very devoted.

Therefore, not complaints, but only union with Christ victim, to atone for sins and to appease the justice of God on behalf of men: she reminds us that to the divine chalice, overflowing with the merits of Christ’s suffering, we need to add the drops of man’s suffering, in order to cooperate in the same Redemption.

To all those who asked her to implore from God relief from the pains of life, she ever reminded them of the sublimating value of suffering, which she embraced in her Via Crucis to the Gethsemane up to the "consummatum est" of March 7, 1947.

We believe that we are not exaggerating if we affirm that Luisa Piccarreta became a creature that left indelible signs of her charisms, of her spiritual faculties, and of her developed apostolate. For mysterious dispositions of the Will of God, she now shines as a star in the firmament of Christ, whose light is reflected in the innumerable facets of her brothers and sisters united to her. The spirit of the virtues practiced by Luisa has remained on earth, and it is ever enlarging, notwithstanding so much time that has passed, becoming an example and a stimulus to follow her own way of holiness.

May this humble lay woman—both elderly and perpetually young in the freshness of her flesh, tortured by a long and inexplicable illness , always peaceful, serene, humble, and innocent—intercede from Heaven for us wandering pilgrims, and obtain for us celestial protection.

SABINO LATTANZIO
Postulator
PIETRO CIRASELLI
Delegated Judge