3/28 On March 28, 1994, Cardinal Felici’s letter declared that on the part of the Holy See there was no impediment to the opening of the Cause for the Beatification of Luisa Piccarreta
March 28, 1994 – Cardinal Felici’s letter from the Sacred Congregation of the Causes of the Saints to His Excellency Archbishop Carmelo Cassati. The letter declared that on the part of the Holy See there was no impediment to opening the Cause for Luisa Piccarreta’s Beatification, and to therefore start the process.
November 20, 1994 – Feast of Christ the King: Archbishop Cassati officially opened the beatification cause of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta in the principal church of Corato, in the presence of a huge crowd of people, locals and foreigners.
In October 2005 at the end of the closure of Luisa’s cause by the Archdiocese of Trani, all official documents were packaged and sealed for shipment to Congregation for the Causes of the Saints – The dicastery, or department, of the Roman Curia responsible to the Holy Father for the investigations which lead to the beatification and canonization of holy men and women. On March 7, 2006 those packages were officially opened by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. Thus began the “Roman Phase” of Luisa’s Cause.
Roman Phase
The Congregation for the Causes of the Saints appoints a Relator from among its College of Relators. His task is to supervise the writing of the Positio, a complete biography containing the evidence for or against the candidate. When completed the Positio is judged by the Congregation’s consultors, and then by a panel of theologians, whose vote determines whether the Positio is presented to the Cardinals of the Congregation for their vote. If the Cardinals approve, the Cause goes to the Pope, whose positive judgment on the Heroic Virtues of the Servant of God permits the person to be called Venerable. This Decree on the Heroic Virtues, together with a Decree approving a Miracle, permits the person’s Beatification.
On March 7, 2006, three days after the 59th anniversary of Luisa’s passage to Heaven, Luisa’s cause was officially opened in Rome. The official seals on the cases containing the documents from the Archdiocese of Trani were broken and the cases opened by the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints. In attendance were Padre Bernardino Bucci and the Vicar General of Trani Msgr. Savino Giannotti.
Mass Reading for March 7, 2006
Matthew 6: 7 – 15
7 “And in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that
they will be heard for their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10 Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as It is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread;
12 And forgive us our debts, As we also have forgiven our debtors;
13 And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.
14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;
15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses.
From 3rd to 5th March, on the occasion of the seventieth anniversary of the transit to Heaven of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, coinciding also with the 30th birth anniversary of the Association Luisa Piccarreta Little Children of the Divine Will, the whole city of Corato, and not only, met to celebrate those events.
“THE PRECIOUS PEARL OF THE KINGDOM” was the theme for those three days.
The Kingdom of God is a beautiful reality, it is a good deal. It is the joy that moves us, it is the love that makes everything easier, allowing us to accept every event, every situation from the hand of God. The Kingdom is the joy, the root of our life, which moves, rushes us, makes us decide. Christianity is not renunciation or sacrifice, it is a treasure: God in me, in us, a beautiful life, crystal clear water.
But how can we rejoice in suffering, in sickness, in the difficulties that we live each day? The joy of the Kingdom is something much deeper and we do not necessarily need to feel it, but we must live it. We must put God at the center of our being, so we can witness in joy the beauty that He continually gives us, we can experience the treasure of the Kingdom, the precious pearl.
In those days we remembered and meditated the great gift that Jesus gave to Luisa, and that she welcomed, by being ready to the Will of God, through her Fiat. She lived her “Yes” in obedience, in love for God, when He wanted her to be intimately united to the Passion of the Son in order to collaborate in the Redemption of the whole human race. Luisa is a great and hidden victim of expiation, who reveals the most rewarding joys of the life of the spirit united with God.
God never acts alone, He always joins man. Luisa teaches us that our Fiat is indispensable for the fulfillment of the Divine Will. Jesus became man to reunite the dispersed humanity, but this is not enough, because God needs our “Yes”. Jesus Christ, taking on human nature and making Himself our head, came to reunite the dispersed humanity, and with His obedience to the Volition of the Father, He came to join God and man once again. But this indissoluble union is strengthened more according to our obedience to the Divine Volition. Jesus told Luisa that if His Celestial Mother contributed by giving her blood, she was able to do that because She kept the Divine Will absorbed within Herself, otherwise, She could not contribute in forming the humanity of Jesus.
The Word of God, in incarnating Himself, became the light of souls. And just as the material sun gives light in general and to each one in particular, so much so, that each one can enjoy it as if it were his own, in the same way, the Word, while giving light in general, is Sun for each one in particular; so much so, that each one can have this Divine Sun as if It were for himself alone. The soul possesses this light, it dispels darkness, just as the material sun. If the soul is cold, this divine light warms her; if she is naked of virtues, it fecundates her. This Divine Sun, introducing her into the center of Its sphere, covers the soul with all Its rays and reaches the point of transforming the soul into Its very light.
The reason that made Jesus come from Heaven was love; His birth was the outpouring of love of the Most Holy Trinity toward creatures. In an outpouring of love of His Celestial Mother He was born from Her womb, and in an outpouring of love He is reborn in souls
So, the Incarnation is the supreme act of Mercy, that is, the assumption by Jesus in all things, except sin, of human nature; “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). What does it mean? To repair the distance between God and the sinning creature. It means that God considered Jesus as the greatest sinner, as the personified sin. The honest person paid for the unrighteous one, He paid on the cross in place of all of us, He has freed us from our sins so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. He made a perfect satisfaction for all the sins. So Mercy and Justice are placed perfectly together in God.
Well, that is not a simple matter, Jesus tells His disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). It is not easy to live as Christians, it costs! Taking up one’s cross means to pay, that is, to go against the tide especially today, and it costs and at a high price. The way to perfection leads through the cross. There is no holiness without sacrifice and spiritual battle.
However this path, this spiritual progress, is directed towards an ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called “mysticism” because one participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments and, in Him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls all people to this intimate union with Him, even if only few people are granted special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life, in order to show the free gift given to all creatures. In Luisa’s life we can see her vocation as a victim, which in time it is specified in the sacrifice of her own will by participating in the suffering of Jesus.
“Living in the Divine Will” is the center of Luisa’s mystical experience and of each page of her writings. It is wrong toread mysticism as something far from us. Mysticism is a baptismal life, lived intensely. It leads to the union with God, and to live the very communion of the Holy Trinity.
It is a free gift to feel the feeling of love, it is God’s entering in the life of man and it surpasses our understanding. Luisa witnesses the Word that God continues to give to humanity, God continues, He does not finishes with the Son (Redemption), but He continues with us believers, because He continues to listen to the groan of His people. In every stage of history, the Lord has never avoid to call women and men who could become witnesses of God’s Word. The great renewal of the Church have always been produced by the spiritual experiences of the Saints who have expressed their desire to live the Gospel to the letter.
Yes, Father, let my will no longer have life
but only Yours live and reign in me.
May Your Will be the life of my spirit, soul and body;
May It be the life of all my being, my person, my life;
May It be the life of all that I am, of all that I have,
of all that I do.
May Your Will be life of my powers, of my senses, of my limbs.
Fiat!
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