Mother Church in Corato, Italy
Closing Cause of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta – October 29, 2005

***

Mons. Giovanni Battista Pichierri

ARCHBISHOP
of TRANI
– BARLETTA – BISCEGLIE

TITOLARE of NAZARETH

Prot. 29/06GBP

Dearest brothers,

             In the meeting held at Corato last October (in 2005) on the occasion of the closing of the Cause of Beatification of Luisa Piccarreta, Providence had allowed many of you to participate, who for so many years worked in order to make known the great
spiritual wealth and the gift that the Lord offers us in the life and in the writings of Luisa.  At that gathering stood out the desire of meeting again in the next few months, in order to deepen the sense of fraternity that must be there between those who serve the
Kingdom of the Divine Volition according to the spirituality of the Servant of God, keeping in mind the Pauline text 1, Cor. 1,10:  “Therefore I urge you, brothers, in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to be completely unanimous in speaking, so that
there are no divisions among you, but be in complete union of thought and intent.”

The meetings are profitable for various reasons:

1^st.  The life of the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta is extraordinary, especially in the way of how she lived the spirituality of the Divine Will, of which she is an exemplary model.  But not only her life gives proof of it, also her writings do.  It is necessary, therefore, to understand them and to present them in the context of her
life.  We must therefore know how to present her spirituality taking into consideration the deeply human Christian and Ecclesiastical roots that sustain and accompany all her
spiritual experience.

2^nd.  Such mystical experience, by itself very profound, Luisa sometimes had difficulty in manifesting in writing because of the limits of the human language and of her own personal, cultural, and historical limits.  We cannot therefore teach
or claim to apply to life, in a literal and radical way, all that one reads in her writings.

We need a mature reflection in the context of the Catholic Faith and in the overall view of all her writings for however long she lived and wrote, so that our teaching be fruitful.  Otherwise we run the risk of diffusing not a spirituality that helps to fully grow, but a spiritualism separated from the concrete life and from the ecclesiastical life, that easily becomes fanaticism.

3^rd.  All of you who have taken part in the meeting of October, certainly feel as one called and feel a duty shared with everyone in the Church, the spirituality lived by Luisa.

Nevertheless, the experiences of these years says to us that the doctrine of the Divine Will has not always been presented in a respectful and correct way, according to the Doctrine and the Magisterium of the Church, placing in the mouth of Luisa statements that one does not find even implicitly in her writings.  This causes trauma in consciences and even confusion and refusal in the people and among the Presbyteries and Bishops.

Other times they distort certain essential themes or points of this spirituality,
presenting them outside of the context and the totality of the writings.  They make unauthorized deductions or conclusions; subjective thoughts are given as objective truth, or else they emphasis secondary aspects as if they were essential, in this way distorting the substance and diverting attention to less important things.  From this is the need of seeing possible deformations, inaccurate interpretations, imprudent or inappropriate teachings, in order to correct them and to present everything in full conformity with the Doctrine of the Church.

The meetings should help us to have a clear hierarchy of the truths that the Lord
has given Luisa, so as to pass them on in order and with the suitable educational methods.

4^th.  The gatherings will help us to remember those essential points of our Faith, that we can never forget in presenting the Divine Will.  If at times they become
implied, ignoring them or diminishing their importance, it is because the writings of Luisa and the spirituality of the Divine Will are placed above, creating a kind of confrontation between both of them.  Other times they are reinterpreted in the light of such doctrine, but not in a correct way.

5^th.  In each meeting we can examine some from among the most significant or essential aspects of the spirituality of the Divine Will, to make evident what possibly does not go well in the way it is presented and taught to the faithful, and arrive at practical conclusions for a more uniform and healthy diffusion of the writings of Luisa and of the spirituality that they contain.

Therefore, by personal and restricted invitation, in the month of October, a gathering of thorough study will take place.  (Detailed invitation will follow)

The subject to be taken into consideration is:  the Life of Luisa as life in the Divine Volition.  From the analysis of the writings drawn from:

–         The Hours of the Passion;

–          The Queen of the Kingdom of the Divine Will;

–          Letters of Luisa and St. Annibale

–          The First 19 Volumes of the Diary; It will have the following question to argue:  “What does to live in the Divine Volition mean?”

The meeting will conclude with the preparation of a summary of the subjects dealt with, and proposal of a presentation of themes for the faithful.

I thank each one in advance for your helpfulness,  I cordially bless you,

Trani, March 9, 2006

X Giovan Battista Pichierri

Meditations for the Stations of the Cross
from the
“The Twenty-Four Hours of the Passion”

Let us continue our most special spiritual journey by the meditation on the book:
“The Twenty-Four Hours of the Passion”
 by by Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta, Little Daughter of the Divine Will . . .

 St. Mary Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament was born the following year on August 2, 1905

Poland, the birthplace of the Divine Mercy message, and also of Saint John Paul II (Mary’s “Masterpiece” in a message of the Blessed Mother’s to Fr. Gobbie), points to a more positive sign of the times—the gradual reconciliation of the Eastern and Western Churches. The period between Luisa’s death and the opening of her cause for beatification coincided with a grace-filled movement toward reconciliation between the Church of Rome and the ancient Churches of the East, especially the Orthodox Church. Luisa’s Cause was opened during the Pontificate and approval of Saint John Paul II.

As a meeting place for the Latin Rite Catholics of the West, and the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics of the East, Poland gave to the world the devotion to the Divine Mercy that combined the Trisagion prayer of the Byzantine liturgy “Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, Have mercy on us and on the whole world” (Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostrom), with the use of the Rosary. Luisa is also connected to this same prayer, which the Priest would say while at the same time making the sign of the Cross on her hand to command her soul to return to her body. This connection between Luisa and Poland, the home of Saint John Paul II, is made even more clear by the date of Luisa’s death on March 4, 1947—the Feast Day of St. Casimir of Poland.

St. Casimir of Poland—Feast Day March 4th. He was third of the 13 children of King Casimir IV of Poland and Elizabeth of Austria, daughter of Emperor II of Germany. He was born at the royal palace in Cracow on October 3rd. Many miracles were reported at his tomb, and he was canonized by Pope Adrian VI in 1522. He is the Patron of Poland and Lithuania.

As Cardinal Archbishop of Cracow, Wojtyla ordered a theological review of St. Faustina’s diaries, which had been condemned by the Holy See. As a result of the inquiry, the prohibition against the spread of her writings was removed. Six months later, Wojtyla was elected to the Chair of Peter. As Saint John Paul II, he published one of his first encyclicals on the Mercy of God, and acknowledged the importance of Blessed Faustina and her writings by beatifying her on the Feast of Divine Mercy. The beatification of Saint Faustina attracted new interest in the prophetic content of her diaries, which predicted the Second Coming of Jesus.

The principal aim of the Paschal cycle, first of all, is to prepare our hearts and souls for a worthy encounter with the Risen Christ.  We prepare ourselves for this joyful meeting by humble prayer, fasting, penance and meditation on the passion and sufferings of Christ.  This preparation culminates in Easter Confession and Holy Communion  And so, with a pure heart, we go forth to meet the Risen Christ, singing the hymn of victory:  “Christ is risen from the dead, by death He conquered death, and to those in the graves, He granted life.’

The next aim of the Easter cycle is to have us participate in Christ’s joy, victory and trump, for, just as He rose fro the dead, so we too, shall rise to new life.  “For the hour incoming,” says Christ, “in which all who are in the tombs shall hear the voice of the Son of God.  They they who have done good shall come forth unto resurrect of life; but they who have done evil, undo resurrection of judgement.”  (John 5, 28).

Our re-enacting the Easter cycle is very closely related to the church services of that season.  These services, depending on whether they bear a joyful or penitential character, put our souls in a joyful or penitential mood.  The Easer season teaches us the great and salutary lesson of salvation history, namely, that there is no glorious resurrect without a Calvary; that, like Jesus Christ, we too, must pass through the Golgotha of our life, in order to enter into the joy of the everlasting Easter heaven.

When the Easter cycle ends with Evening Prayer on Pentecost (6/8/2014), the ordinary Sundays begin.  The number of these ordinary Sundays depends upon the date of Easter; that is, if Easter comes earlier then there will be more ordinary Sundays, if later, fewer ordinary Sundays.

Letter #72 from the Servant of God, Luisa Piccarreta, to Mother Cecilia

In Voluntate Dei!

My good and reverend Mother,

(…) Now I feel the need to send you my Easter wishes.  My Mother, what wish can I send you?  I know that crosses surround you; how many times you have to swallow bitter pills, that make your heart bleed.  It seems to me that dear Jesus surrounds you with these pains in order to give you strength, and with tender and loving voice, He says to you:  “My daughter, give these pains to Me, that they may form my arms, my heart, my steps – my whole Life, to be able to live within you.”  My Mother, it is the crosses, the sufferings united to the Divine Volition, that form the raw material in order to receive in us the life of Jesus, Who calls our littleness to live in Him and to rise in Him.

Here is my wish, my Mother:  to rise not only on Easter, but continually in Jesus; so that every pain and each one of our acts, may be the means in order to rise in the One Who loves us so much.  I believe I could not send you a more beautiful wish; and I believe you will appreciate it, more so, under the rain of unheard-of crosses and of profound humiliations.  The storms give no sign of ceasing.  Pray that He will make peace rise again from the storms, otherwise one cannot live.

My sister tells you many things and sends you her affectionate wishes.  In a special way, I send my wishes to Sister Remigia, that she may form her perfect resurrection in the Divine Will, and use every act does in order to grow in sanctity.  We must be convinced that not the great things make us saints, but the little ones, which we have in our power and which serve as the nourishment of sanctity.  I commend myself to your prayers, and leaving you rising together with Jesus, I kiss your right hand and with a thousand regards, united to my sister, I say,