BLESSED ANTONIO ROSMINI FEAST DAY July 1 HOMILY

Fr. Rick’s Four-Minute Homily for 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

June 30, 2024, Mark 5:21-43
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/063024.cfm

BLESSED ANTONIO ROSMINI FEAST DAY July 1 HOMILY

On Saturday June 29, we are celebrating the feast day of Blessed Antonio Rosmini for the parish in Blessed Sacrament Church, Seminole.

On behalf of the Rosminian family, I welcome you to celebrate the feast day of our beloved Blessed Antonio Rosmini. On July 1, 2007, Blessed Rosmini was beatified in his hometown of Novara, Italy. Beatification is the last step before canonization to be honored as a saint.

In 1821, he was ordained a priest, and at the encouragement of Cardinals and Pope Pius VII, this young priest devoted his gifts to philosophical studies and writings. He took our Holy Father’s counsel to heart.

He spent the rest of his life publishing works of philosophy, theology, spirituality, and works on the theory and practice of education, politics, and ethics.

He authored 93 books and wrote 15 volumes of letters by hand to members of his religious order and many others. How could he do that without a typewriter or computer?

Fr. Founder, as we affectionately call him, had 12 secretaries around a table and walked from one to the other, dictating on different subjects and letters.

In 1828, he founded our religious order, the Institute of Charity, spreading throughout Italy, England, Wales, New Zealand, Ireland, France, India, the United States, Venezuela, and Tanzania.

We fulfill our vocation as Rosminians by following the two greatest commandments Jesus gave us: Love of God and love of neighbor. Our first calling is a prayerful life of contemplation or communion with God. Without God, we can do nothing.

We leave Jesus in moments of prayer to meet Him in our neighbor and fulfill their needs, whatever they may be. There are many needs, so I am glad to find Jesus in my neighbor.

We do not have any specific work of charity, such as teaching, and if we have the resources, we will happily take on any work of charity we are asked to administer.

We run parishes, boarding schools, homes for the blind and intellectually disabled, and retreat centers. We are chaplains in prisons and hospitals, missionaries, and administering homes for seniors.

Father Founder’s “Maxims of Spiritual Perfection,” written in 1830, is probably his most excellent spiritual work, and Pope John XXIII referred to the Maxims in his “Journey of a Soul.” This Holy Father read the Maxims every night, which are six Spiritual principles of living a gospel way of life.

To be a Rosminian priest, brother, sister, or Ascribed Member is a call to holiness, to be a saint. Priests, brothers, and sisters take religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and live in community.

Ascribed Members are laypeople and clergy who follow the spirituality of Rosmini and are full members of the Institute of Charity.

Fr. General Marco Tanghetti said in a homily here that if an Ascribed Member is the last survivor of the Institute of Charity, our religious order will not cease to exist.

Along with Fr. Gordon and Fr. Bibin, I am very honored to serve with our Ascribed Members at Blessed Sacrament Parish family, who have tremendously supported our communities in Venezuela, which suffer from much poverty. Some of our Rosminian priests have waited all day in line for two gallons of gas all day and left without it.

Thanks to our parish’s good people, Blessed Sacrament, we feed 300 children and 30 families in Venezuela monthly.

With so many injustices in the world today, let us ask the intercession of Blessed Antonio Rosmini and join our prayers and intentions to his for a more just and peaceful world.

Blessed Rosmini defined “justice” as giving someone what is their due. In that sense, we are all called to be Rosminians.
Blessed Antonio Rosmini, pray for us.

Love your Neighbor!

Fr. Rick Pilger, IC
www.bscchurch.com