Particularly significant was the celebration of the Argentine community in Rome who together with that from Ascoli Piceno, were in St Peter’s Square to listen to the Angelus of the Pope. Afterwards in the early afternoon the Argentine groups were in the basilica of the Sacred Heart in Rome where they attended Mass celebrated by Cardinale Jorge María Mejia, retired Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives. The celebration, in which about 50 priests took part – Salesians teaching at the Salesian Pontifical University and other Argentine priests present in Rome, was accompanied by Argentine faithful from Ascoli Piceno, who under the guidance of Mr Alfredo Gende sang hymns in the mother tongue. Present among the 200 faithful who took part in the Mass which was celebrated almost at the same time as that in Chimpay, were Mrs Gloria Custer, wife of the Ambassador of the Argentine to the Holy See Carlos Luis Custer, and Mr. Hugo Javier Gobbi, acting Minister of Affairs of Argentina.
In his homily, Cardinal Mejia recalled his childhood with memories of his mother going on pilgrimage to Fortin Mercedes to venerate the tomb of the new Blessed with her friends and fellow Salesians-Cooperators, “therefore Blessed Ceferino is part of my childhood memories, and so contributed to my Christian formation as well as, I’m sure, to my priestly vocation.” Commenting on the passage in the gospel of St Luke he observed “The Lord is the God of the living not of the dead! So today Ceferino is alive among us. And so he points out a path: and as it were says to us: follow me, I’m waiting for you, so that you too may become sons and daughters of the resurrection, and and in the most real sense children of God. The Saints in fact achieved in the fullest possible way the gift of divine adoption, that all of us received in our Baptism. Let us see them and let us honour them as witnesses to the resurrection: that of Our Lord Jesus in which they believed and also ours.”
At the end of the celebration the members of the two Argentine communities visited the rooms of Don Bosco at the Sacred Heart and an exhibition prepared by Fr Juan Picca, lecturer at the UPS, of 12 sets of photographs and 4 displays containing authentic material referring to Ceferino’s life.
Published 13/11/2007
