Follow the servant or the master? My pilgrimage to Assisi
Assisi has always communicated me something positive. Almost every time I have been there I went home with more Gioa in my heart. I say almost because there was an opportunity several years ago that I remember instead with discomfort. It was the period in which I was in conflict with myself and the Church I was experiencing with its "charismatic" preachers, who seemed unable to ask questions, he acute my discomfort.
My friends went into ecstasy and hanging from the lips of similar speakers while I, a young Christian who began to clash with his diversity, of questions I asked myself many and I was always critical and skeptical. In addition, I thought that nobody in my friends, in those friars, priests and nuns present them could really understand and listen to me.
Of water under the bridges has passed a lot. It is enough to change the air, to attend other people and make new church experiences to return to bloom and to understand that God loves me as they are.
Alla Cittadella dove abbiamo alloggiato abbiamo incontrato don Tonio dell’Olio un prete di frontiera che ci ha raccontato aneddoti divertenti e significativi su di se e sulla storia della pro-civitate christiana, luogo privilegiato di dialogo tra chiesa e mondo contemporaneo. Proprio alla Cittadella Pasolini maturò l’ispirazione per il suo film “Il Vangelo secondo Matteo”.Alla basilica di San Francesco invece abbiamo incontrato un frate amico di uno dei nostri che ci ha fatto da guida facendoci visitare la basilica. Al termine ci siamo fermati a parlare con lui per uno scambio di esperienze.Infine la domenica all’Eremo delle carceri i frati ci hanno dato l’occorrente e uno spazio dove abbiamo celebrato la S. Messa all’aperto. E’ stato bello vedere che oltre a noi si sono avvicinate anche altre persone capitate li per caso ma che sono rimaste fino alla fine.Alle preghiere abbiamo ricordato i cristiani che celebrano il Corpus Domini con processioni sontuose e solenni ma soprattutto quei cristiani perseguitati che in alcune aree del mondo non possono nemmeno uscire dalle loro chiese. Abbiamo pregato anche per le coppie omosessuali, affinche possano essere un segno di speranza e amore visibile; per le persone transessuali che affrontano la transizione, per i nostri gruppi ricordando alcune figure importati per la loro storia come Don Pezzini e le suore di Salvarano. Insomma, sarò super retorica ma lo dico lo stesso: è stata una delle Messe più emozionanti della mia vita!
The word I bring home is the question that the Christ of S. Damiano addresses to Francesco: "Do you want to follow the servant or the master?" Which embodied in my current reality becomes: is what God think of me or what men think more importantly?
The charism of Francesco and Chiara has a lot to say. Often as believing homosexuals we feel removed from God and relegated to the margins by an institution church that does not accept us. Francesco and Chiara tell us provocatively that God is right in those margins. It is in the refusal of honors and in simplicity. It is in a marginality freely chosen that they have experienced him, of that God who is everyone's father!
Staying on the margins also meant for them to be seen with suspicion from the Church institution who had to examine their adherence to the doctrine, he meant not to be understood by their contemporaries, sometimes not even by their confreres. One more reason therefore to set off behind the master and not so much behind those servants who fall like many in the temptation to want to be masters.
St. Francis and Santa Chiara cause us to look at our life of faith with simplicity and humility; To look at the essential things, that after this experience I don't miss anymore because I felt again in communion with God and the brothers.
Even more, they invite us not to disturb ourselves more than necessary in the face of the negative judgments and the refusal of some, because the secret of perfect joy is just there.
