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DON PiGi’s SPIRITUAL WILL
‘To the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit I hand over my soul. You know what my soul is like. Please, wrap it up in mercy and take it into Heaven, by also fulfilling the prayer of our Lady, your Mother and mine, whom I besought countless times: ‘Pray for me, a sinner, now and at the hour of my death. Amen’
With these words, who form the spiritual inheritance of my uncle don Norberto, I wish to start these lines, meaning to be immersed with you in the torrential flow of Grace, which speedily flows carrying all the wealth of the past, watering the soil of the present and bearing fruit in a positive vision of the future.
As I gather up all the wealth of the past, I can say that I had the joy to raise up children, adolescents and youngsters in the years of my priesthood in the Parish of St Mark in Milan, where I encountered the welcoming hands of those families, who were fascinated by the vision of the Church envisaged by the Second Vatican Council, which was being implemented with all our passion, day by day, as we looked at this in awe and wonder; I was then called to lead the parish of St Eustorgio, as the womb and cradle of a new vision: the vision of a parish in flames, as the Grace of the Holy Spirit was able to truly turn it into.
I saw myself being swept away by the strong current of Grace, which, by overflowing from heart to heart, from family to family, reached the very ends of the earth proclaiming Jesus’s Gospel with the enthusiasm shown and renewed by those who transmitted their love for the Gospel with the example of their own lives. That gift was so great that it did not go unnoticed and the Holy See called me to provide the Parish Cells of Evangelisation with a legal framework. The latter was to become instrumental in ensuring that the charism that had given new life to the parish of St Eustorgio and to many more could be offered by the Church as a gift of the Spirit of Christ to every baptized person, called to put it into practice in their own lives by proclaiming it in a sensible and credible way.
How many graces, o Lord! Have I responded to them? And how many souls were entrusted to me! Have I done good to all of them as I should have? What did the Church hope to receive from me? O Lord, you know in how many things I have failed: forgive me!
You too, brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, forgive me for all the good you did not enjoy because of me! I do not think I have done any evil to anyone, at least deliberately, and in fact I can assure you I have loved you all so much.
You too have loved me: in my family and parish life, in the brotherhood of many priests and lay people with whom I have experienced the communion of life, beginning with the Eucharistic one. Everywhere, in Milan and in the world, you have shown me greater affection than I deserved: I thank you for that.
Now, if you want to show that your love does not end, do not only pray for me, but carry out the work that the Lord called me to do through you: I shall continue to accompany your kind response, since the gift we have received can only continue to be what it is if it continues to be handed on.
I still share, as in fact I am doing now while drafting this set of recommendations, the truth of a Pastoral Letter written by my uncle don Norberto, archbishop and “Prince” of Fermo [in Central Italy] in 1963, a year that the local diocese was called to live out as a ‘Year of Goodness’:
‘Be good and kind!... When is a man or a woman said to be truly good and kind? They are said to be truly good and kind if they love, desire and enjoy goodness, both when they find it in themselves and when they find in others.’
Love! Love is the keystone that supports the Gospel and the only means to meet Jesus, our hope.
Keep the faith, the living faith, in all its fullness by your conviction and courage in embracing the truth of the Gospel, which is God’s own overflowing love, as it is taught by the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, given the great glory and grace of being her children.
Do whatever you can to communicate your faith, so that it may grow in you and through you in all the brothers and sisters that God puts in your daily lives: in your families, workplaces and leisure.
Be constant in prayer and caring in your loving and genuine service and so you will be credible witnesses of the love that has called you to.
My dear brothers and sisters of the cells spread all over the world, I address these words to you with tenderness: we have prayed worked and cried together. I thank you for the comfort you have given me with your active obedience to the Gospel and with your faith. I thank you for the good examples by which you have strengthened me. What would a priest have got from You if he had been able to precede you with his virtues and prayers? Forgive me for failing to be able to do so! I shall pray Jesus, the Good Shepherd of souls, for my successor to be able to do so.
Always support your parish priests, in communion with the Bishops of your Dioceses and with our beloved Pope Francis, so that each and every parish may be a sign and an instrument of a faith enlivened by the Holy Spirit and enlivening through the power of the Spirit of the Risen one, who, by leaving us the Great Commission to which we have responded, assures us his presence with us always, to the end of the age. Hence, be holy and celebrate and live out the Eucharist without fear, but full of joy!
If I manage to get into Heaven, where many dear ones wait for me, I will help with my prayers, parish by parish, family by family, soul by soul, so that we may all be saved and meet one day in the Church of the Father! Amen!
‘To the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit I hand over my soul. You know what my soul is like. Please, wrap it up in mercy and take it into Heaven, by also fulfilling the prayer of our Lady, your Mother and mine, whom I besought countless times: ‘Pray for me, a sinner, now and at the hour of my death. Amen’
With these words, who form the spiritual inheritance of my uncle don Norberto, I wish to start these lines, meaning to be immersed with you in the torrential flow of Grace, which speedily flows carrying all the wealth of the past, watering the soil of the present and bearing fruit in a positive vision of the future.
As I gather up all the wealth of the past, I can say that I had the joy to raise up children, adolescents and youngsters in the years of my priesthood in the Parish of St Mark in Milan, where I encountered the welcoming hands of those families, who were fascinated by the vision of the Church envisaged by the Second Vatican Council, which was being implemented with all our passion, day by day, as we looked at this in awe and wonder; I was then called to lead the parish of St Eustorgio, as the womb and cradle of a new vision: the vision of a parish in flames, as the Grace of the Holy Spirit was able to truly turn it into.
I saw myself being swept away by the strong current of Grace, which, by overflowing from heart to heart, from family to family, reached the very ends of the earth proclaiming Jesus’s Gospel with the enthusiasm shown and renewed by those who transmitted their love for the Gospel with the example of their own lives. That gift was so great that it did not go unnoticed and the Holy See called me to provide the Parish Cells of Evangelisation with a legal framework. The latter was to become instrumental in ensuring that the charism that had given new life to the parish of St Eustorgio and to many more could be offered by the Church as a gift of the Spirit of Christ to every baptized person, called to put it into practice in their own lives by proclaiming it in a sensible and credible way.
How many graces, o Lord! Have I responded to them? And how many souls were entrusted to me! Have I done good to all of them as I should have? What did the Church hope to receive from me? O Lord, you know in how many things I have failed: forgive me!
You too, brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, forgive me for all the good you did not enjoy because of me! I do not think I have done any evil to anyone, at least deliberately, and in fact I can assure you I have loved you all so much.
You too have loved me: in my family and parish life, in the brotherhood of many priests and lay people with whom I have experienced the communion of life, beginning with the Eucharistic one. Everywhere, in Milan and in the world, you have shown me greater affection than I deserved: I thank you for that.
Now, if you want to show that your love does not end, do not only pray for me, but carry out the work that the Lord called me to do through you: I shall continue to accompany your kind response, since the gift we have received can only continue to be what it is if it continues to be handed on.
I still share, as in fact I am doing now while drafting this set of recommendations, the truth of a Pastoral Letter written by my uncle don Norberto, archbishop and “Prince” of Fermo [in Central Italy] in 1963, a year that the local diocese was called to live out as a ‘Year of Goodness’:
‘Be good and kind!... When is a man or a woman said to be truly good and kind? They are said to be truly good and kind if they love, desire and enjoy goodness, both when they find it in themselves and when they find in others.’
Love! Love is the keystone that supports the Gospel and the only means to meet Jesus, our hope.
Keep the faith, the living faith, in all its fullness by your conviction and courage in embracing the truth of the Gospel, which is God’s own overflowing love, as it is taught by the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, given the great glory and grace of being her children.
Do whatever you can to communicate your faith, so that it may grow in you and through you in all the brothers and sisters that God puts in your daily lives: in your families, workplaces and leisure.
Be constant in prayer and caring in your loving and genuine service and so you will be credible witnesses of the love that has called you to.
My dear brothers and sisters of the cells spread all over the world, I address these words to you with tenderness: we have prayed worked and cried together. I thank you for the comfort you have given me with your active obedience to the Gospel and with your faith. I thank you for the good examples by which you have strengthened me. What would a priest have got from You if he had been able to precede you with his virtues and prayers? Forgive me for failing to be able to do so! I shall pray Jesus, the Good Shepherd of souls, for my successor to be able to do so.
Always support your parish priests, in communion with the Bishops of your Dioceses and with our beloved Pope Francis, so that each and every parish may be a sign and an instrument of a faith enlivened by the Holy Spirit and enlivening through the power of the Spirit of the Risen one, who, by leaving us the Great Commission to which we have responded, assures us his presence with us always, to the end of the age. Hence, be holy and celebrate and live out the Eucharist without fear, but full of joy!
If I manage to get into Heaven, where many dear ones wait for me, I will help with my prayers, parish by parish, family by family, soul by soul, so that we may all be saved and meet one day in the Church of the Father! Amen!