Letter from the Prelate (9 September 2019)

Monsignor Ocáriz encourages us to ask our Lady to teach us to turn suffering into a place where we can find light, peace and joy.

My dear children: may Jesus watch over my daughters and sons for me!

On the upcoming 14th, the Church’s Liturgy leads us to reflect on the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and, the next day, on the Sorrows of our Lady.

In conversations and encounters with a great variety of people (as also happens to you), spontaneous remarks sometimes come up about situations that are difficult or cause suffering or leave us in interior darkness. On these occasions, words of Saint Josemaria about the Mother of Jesus often come to mind. God wished to fill our Lady with the fullness of grace, but “it is equally true that he did not spare her pain, exhaustion in her work, or trials of her faith” (Christ is Passing By, no. 172).

Although we will never fully understand this fact, if we look at Mary, above all at the foot of the Cross, we will enter a bit more deeply into the experience of suffering. And we will discover little by little the meaning of those words of Saint Paul: “In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church” (Col 1:24). Thus suffering can become a place where we find light, peace and even joy: “Lux in Cruce, requies in Cruce, gaudium in Cruce.”

Your Father blesses you with all his affection,

Rome, 9 September 2019