Monday night I had the great pleasure of gathering with some of my brother priests and our MANY seminarians for dinner as we inaugurated this year’s “Summer Seminarian Gathering Week” with Bishop Morlino. Please pray for our sems this week.
As the evening came to its conclusion, we were treated to another one of Bishop Morlino’s amazing talks. As he drew upon our Holy Father’s recent comments, this Sunday’s Gospel and the topic of “forgiveness,” which was the theme for the sems’ Summer gathering, Bishop Morlino offered us a spiritual cocktail for conversion.
Bishop pointed out that a person of forgiveness is a person who is serene. It was our Holy Father, in his recent heroic efforts to unite our Catholics in China, who “praised those Catholics who resisted pressure to join the official church and paid a price for it ‘with the shedding of their blood.’ But he urged them to forgive and reconcile with others for the sake of unifying the church. ‘Indeed, the purification of memory, the pardoning of wrongdoers, the forgetting of injustices suffered and the loving restoration to serenity of troubled hearts … can require moving beyond personal positions or viewpoints, born of painful or difficult experiences,’ he wrote.”
This gentle pope of ours continues to inspire us, by his example and teaching, to be that precious anawim with such beautiful words as, “The loving restoration to serenity of troubled hearts.” Isn’t that the goal in all relationships?
Even more, it is this “serene heart” — the heart of Mary’s Anawim — that Christ asks us to present to the world, as we heard in this Sunday’s Gospel: “Behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves,” and then calling us to bless with peace upon all first encounters: “Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household'” (Luke 10:3,5).
As courageous and firm are Pope Benedict XVI and Bishop Robert Morlino in bringing the truth to a waiting world, their serenity of heart is profoundly evident. Like Christ, they will not ask us to do anything they would not do first. These courageous leaders are going out like lambs among wolves and they are inspiring the precious anawim to follow.
Mary said, “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly” (Hebrew: anawim). May God continue to bless these courageous and serene spiritual shepherds who are joining, with our Lord, to lift up the lowly (anawim).
What are some of your thoughts about Pope Benedict XVI? About Bishop Morlino? And/or about our call to live as Mary’s Anawim?
Mary\'s Anawim 
I have had the honor of talking to the Bishop on several occasions recently, and of hearing him speak in smaller settings such as the Diocesan Lay Institute, etc. and I am always humbled by the depth of his love for God and His Church. His Excellency shows this love by a prayerful and intense study of God’s word and The Holy Father’s writings. He has been given a special gift of making those teachings understandable and helps us as laypeople to think, act, and live our faith with truth and integrity. We may be the “poor ones” but we have been given the riches of the Holy Spirit in our priests, deacons, seminarians, and Bishop Morlino. The future may hold some difficult decisions for our Diocese that we as laypeople may not fully understand, but I am confident that our Bishop will guide us with love into a peace and serenity. I, for one, pray without ceasing for Bishop Morlino’s strength, health, and wisdom to guide us all into this new springtime.
The courage and serenity with which Pope Benedict and Bishop Morlino take their herioc stands and exercise their leadership inspires me.
They make me think of one of my favorite quotations, “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Douay Rheims Psalm 45:11)(NAB Psalm 46:11)
I really aspire to be able to live that quote – to put aside all anxiety and to act with courage, knowing that I can be confident and still with the knowledge that He Who is behind me is God.
I think that Pope Benedict and Bishop Morlino have this kind of faith. This is what also contributes to their serenity. This is what enables them to speak the TRUTH without fear.
God bless them both, and thank God for them both!
May we try to walk in their footsteps. What an example they set!