Dearest Brothers, I will not give a second homily, the one of Don Marco was quite rich and eloquent. But I would like to express to all my gratitude for the precious gift of the priesthood and for your affectionate and prayerful presence. But will you allow me to say a few words in French for all those who know French and who have come from far away: from Switzerland, from Germany, from Lithuania and even from the United States.
Dear abbots, dear brothers, it is not without a deep emotion to see so many of you present at this thanksgiving mass for our golden jubilee of the priesthood and surrounded by many priests who share with me the grace of the priesthood. Our Lord Jesus Christ wanted to transmit his own priesthood to continue his Sacrifice by which he saved, he saves and he will save souls until the end of the world. There is nothing greater and more sublime on earth than the Holy Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Immense gift by which he blots out sins and procures eternal life. But before being a means of salvation, the Sacrifice of Christ, which every priest celebrates at the altar, is first of all a praise, an adoration in the honor and glory of God as sung in the conclusion of the canon of the Mass: “omnis honor et gloria”.
We must give thanks to God always and everywhere, but especially today on the occasion of this jubilee, because “every excellent grace and every perfect gift come down from above, from the Father of lights”.
It is therefore to Our Lord Jesus Christ and to the entire Trinity that our thanks go first:
The Mass is the honor and glory of God, the Mass is the joy of the Angels and the saints of heaven, the Mass is the relief of the souls in purgatory, the Mass is the conversion of sinners and the sanctification of the living, the Mass is also the trembling of demons. For all these gifts so great, so infinite, thank you Lord Jesus.
But God loves to give through secondary causes that cooperate with his work and without which it would not be realized. The first person through whom the priesthood is given to us is the Most Holy Virgin Mary, mother of Christ, mother of the priesthood, mother of the priest. She was the first at the foot of the cross to offer the Sacrifice of her Son. For this gift of yourself, O Mary, thank you.
After Mary, all my gratitude goes to my dear parents, my father and my mother. I received everything from them: life, education and above all baptism which erases original sin and confers divine grace. By their example of Christian fidelity they secretly prepared my soul to receive the call to consecrated life and to the priesthood. God blessed them abundantly by calling my two sisters to religious life, one Benedictine, the other Dominican. Dear parents, thank you!
I now turn to the very dear Father Dom Gérard Calvet, founder and first abbot of the Sainte Madeleine monastery. In 1970, he welcomed me as his first novice. I was twenty years old. The monastic life satisfied my thirst for the absolute and total gift to God. There were three of us, he, a brother convert, brother Vincent, and me as a postulant. After my parents, it is to him that I owe everything, my spiritual formation, the love of divine praise combined with a strict rule of life. He had the gift of raising our souls to the things of heaven, he often spoke to us about angels, our companions at all hours of the day and night. This enchantment did not go without a spirit of struggle against everything that opposed God in us and in the world. It was with him that I became aware of the drama that the Church was experiencing, a Church hierarchically occupied by ideas of adaptation to the world and by a false ecumenism. The monk is a seeker of God, a worshiper of God and a savior of souls, said Dom Gérard. He is also a soldier, the peace of the heart, dear to Saint Benedict, is at this price: pax in proelio, peace in combat. Dear Dom Gérard, my Father in Saint Benedict, thank you!
It was he too, Dom Gérard, who called me to the priesthood which I received from the hands of Bishop Lefebvre, a great confessor of the faith, our Athanasius of modern times, excommunicated like him, for having defended the Catholic faith in the face of a Church that had become modernist and liberal in its hierarchy. It took him a profound vision of the crisis and an unshakable courage to maintain against the current the ever-living Tradition. It is his motto, a word from Saint Paul, that he wanted to be inscribed on his tomb: “I have passed on what I have received”. This is the testimony of a great humility and a great love of God, the Church and souls. Dear Monsignor Marcel Lefèbvre, thank you!
I would like to thank all those who organized this celebration of our priestly jubilee, all those present who came to surround us with their friendship and prayers of thanksgiving, and all those who, unable to attend, expressed their fraternal solidarity and encouragement. Thank you all!
But allow me first to mention Father Marco Cuneo, the faithful and generous friend who prepared our arrival in the diocese of Bishop Oliveri and welcomed us to his presbytery in Artallo, near Imperia, before we began our foundation in Villatalla on July 2, 2008, the Feast of the Visitation. I also thank him for the kind words he addressed to us this morning, speaking fluently in both French and Italian. Dear Father Marco, thank you!
I wholeheartedly thank Mother Prioress and our nuns who spent months and months preparing this celebration down to the smallest detail, including the bouquets of flowers that adorn the altar and the church. Their devotion, their trust, and their joyful faces deeply touch me. Dear Mother Prioress, Mothers and Sisters, thank you!
My gratitude also goes to Dom Alcuin and our brothers from the Priory of Saint Benedict in Brignoles, as well as to Dom Bernard de Menthon, founder of the Hermitage of Saint Victor in France, for their generous participation in this ceremony and for the testament of their beautiful friendship.
I also thank our Benedictine brothers who came from the Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in America. We are very closely linked to their monastery and their prior, Father Cyprien, through the same founders from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Thank you to all our brothers in the priesthood for the joy of their presence, especially that of Father Filippo, parish priest of Taggia, where the Madonna Miracolosa is venerated: a statue of the Virgin who, on March 11, 1855, and on many subsequent occasions, turned her eyes upon the faithful present. These eyes of mercy, as the Salve Regina sings: “Illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte” (Let your merciful eyes turn to us).
I thank the families who participated in cleaning the church and preparing the refreshments and festive meal. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generosity and friendship.
Finally, thank you to our oblates, so devoted to our community. I cannot name all those who contributed to the success of this day, and I believe I am forgetting many. May they forgive me. Thank you all, dear faithful, for your prayerful and friendly presence.
May the Lord, Master of all grace, reward you a hundredfold for the joy and affection shared this day. With all my gratitude and fraternal prayers.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the priesthood, Mother of priests, watch over each of you and your families. Sustained by your friendship and prayers, I entrust you to the tenderness of her Immaculate Heart.
