Prayer to Mary, mother of the Church of Don Tonino Bello

Help us to look at the world with sympathy and the boldness of faith.

Holy Virgin, who guided by the Spirit, "set out to hurry to reach a city of Judah" (Lk 1,39:XNUMX), where Elizabeth lived, and thus you became the first missionary of the Gospel, making you, driven by the same Spirit, we too have the courage to enter the city to bring her announcements of liberation and hope, to share with her daily toil in the search for the common good.
Give us today the courage not to move away, not to ambush us from the places where the fray is rife, to offer our selfless service to all and to look with sympathy on this world in which nothing is genuinely human that should not find echo in our hearts.
Help us to look at the world with sympathy, and to love it.
We priests find the culmination of our presbyterial presence on Holy Thursday, when the oil of the catechumens, the oil of the sick and the sacred chrism are placed in our hands.
Let the oil of the sick mean in our hands the preferential choice of the sick city, which suffers because of its own weakness or the wickedness of others.
Let the oil of the catechumens, the oil of the forts, the oil of the wrestlers, express solidarity of commitment with those who fight for bread, for the house, for work.
Solidarity to be translated also with courageous choices of field, offer of commitment not to be embalmed in the closed of our sterile feelings.
And let the sacred chrism indicate to all the humiliated and offended of our city, but also to the indifferent, the distracted, the sinners their incredible priestly, prophetic and royal dignity.
Like you, holy Virgin, priest, prophet and king, let us enter the city.
Amen