Your
Excellency,
In today’s world a great many things are necessary for the good of the
Clergy and the fruitfulness of pastoral ministry. With a firm determination to face such challenges without disregarding
their difficulties and struggles, and with an awareness that action follows
being and that the soul of every apostolate is Divine intimacy, it is our
intention for the departure point to be a spiritual endeavor. In
order to continually maintain a greater awareness of the ontological link between
the Eucharist and the Priesthood, and in order to recognize the special
maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary for each Priest, it is our intention to
bring about a connection between perpetual Eucharistic adoration for the
reparation of faults and sanctification of
priests and the initiation of a commitment on the part of consecrated feminine souls - following the
typology of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Eternal High Priest, and Helper
in his work of Redemption - who might wish to spiritually adopt priests in
order to help them with their self-offering, prayer, and penance.
According to the constant content of Sacred
Tradition, the mystery and reality of the Church cannot be reduced to the
hierarchical structure, the liturgy, the sacraments, and juridical ordinances. In fact, the intimate nature of the Church
and the origin of its sanctifying efficacy must be found first in a mystical
union with Christ.
According to the doctrine and the
very structure of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, such a union cannot be
conceived as being separated from the Mother of the Word Incarnate - the one
whom Jesus desired to be intimately united with Himself for the salvation of
all humanity.
Therefore, it is no accident that on the same day in
which the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church was promulgated – 21 November
1964 – Pope Paul VI also proclaimed the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Mother of the
Church,” i.e., mother of the faithful and the pastors.
With reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Second
Vatican Council expresses itself in these words: “She
conceived, brought forth and nourished Christ.
She presented Him to the Father in the temple, and was united with Him
by compassion
as He died on the Cross. In this singular way she cooperated by her obedience,
faith, hope and burning charity in the work of the Savior in giving back
supernatural life to souls. Wherefore
she is our mother in the order of grace.” (LG
61).
Without adding or detracting from the singular
mediation of Christ Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary is acknowledged and invoked
in the Church under the titles of Advocate,
Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix. She is
the model of maternal love who must inspire all those who cooperate – through
the apostolic mission of the Church – in the regeneration of all humanity (cfr LG 65).
In light of these teachings,
which belong to the ecclesiology of the Second
Vatican
Council, the faithful are called to turn their eyes to Mary - shining example
of every virtue - and imitate her as the first disciple. It is she to whom every other disciple was
entrusted by Christ as she stood at the foot of the cross (cfr Jn 19:25-27). By becoming
her children, we learn the true meaning of life in Christ.
Thereby – and precisely because of the place
occupied and the role served by the Most Blessed Virgin in salvation history – we intend in a very particular way to entrust
all Priests to Mary, the Mother of the
High and Eternal Priest, bringing about in the Church a movement of prayer, placing 24 hour
continuous Eucharistic adoration at the center, so that a prayer of adoration,
thanksgiving, praise, petition, and reparation, will be raised to God,
incessantly and from every corner of
the earth, with the primary intention
of awakening a sufficient number
of holy vocations to the priestly state
and, at the same time, spiritually uniting with a certain spiritual maternity –
at the level of the Mystical Body – all those who have already been called to
the ministerial priesthood and are ontologically conformed to the one
High and Eternal priest. This
movement will offer better service to Christ and his brothers - those who are at once “inside” the Church and also
“at the forefront” of the Church, standing in Christ’s stead and representing
Him, as head, shepherd and spouse of the Church (cfr. Pastores Dabo Vobis 16).
We are asking, therefore, all diocesan Ordinaries who apprehend
in a particular way the specificity and irreplaceability of the ordained
ministry in the life of the Church, together with the urgency of a common
action in support of the ministerial priesthood, to take an active role and promote – in the different portions of the
People of God entrusted to them - true and proper cenacles in which
clerics, religious and lay people - united
among themselves in the spirit of true communion – may devote themselves
to prayer, in the form of continuous Eucharistic
adoration in a spirit of genuine and authentic reparation and
purification. For this purpose, we
enclose a leaflet that more fully explains the nature of the initiative, as
well as a form to fill out and return to this Congregation if there is the
intention – as we hope - to adhere to the project presented in this letter in a
spirit of faith.
May Mary, Mother of the One, Eternal High Priest, bless
this initiative, and may she intercede before God, pleading for an authentic
renewal of priestly life, taking as a model the only possible model: Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd!
I greet you cordially in the bond of ecclesial communion, with sentiments of profound collegial affection.
Cláudio Card. Hummes
X Mauro Piacenza
From
the Vatican, 8 December 2007
Solemnity
of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary