The embrace that saves

The homily of Fr. Paolo Sottopietra, superior general of the Fraternity of St. Charles, for the funeral Mass of Fr. Aldo Trento.

Padre Aldo Trento Fortunato

It is an honor for me to be able to offer a last goodbye to our dear Father Aldo, during his funeral Mass, and above all I bring to everyone the closeness and affection of Fr. Massimo Camisasca, founder of the Fraternity of St. Charles.

I want to thank the Archbishop, Cardinal Adalberto Martinez Flores, for his desire to preside over this Eucharistic celebration. I also want to thank the Apostolic Nuncio, Msgr. Vincenzo Turturro, for also having desired to concelebrate this Holy Mass. Their presence is a great comfort for the priests of our house and for all the faithful of this parish.

Greetings to my brother priests of the house of the Fraternity and the other priests who are accompanying us at this moment.

A particularly warm greeting to Guido Trento, brother of Fr. Aldo, and his nephew, Federico, both of whom represent here the family of a priest who, when he was still quite young, left his little town and his parents, in the mountains of Feltrino, taken with the idea of mission. As we know, Aldo entered the Congregation of the Canossianms and only after was welcomed into the Fraternity of St. Charles.

I also want to extend a greeting to the members of the Council of the Foundation of St. Raphael, desired by Fr. Aldo to sustain the works that he began here, to whom now falls the delicate task of administering his material and spiritual heritage. A particular thanks goes to Oscar Escobar, director of the “San Riccardo Pampuri” Clinic and to the nurses who took care of Father Aldo with such sincere love right up until his final day.

Greetings also to the sick, the elderly and the young who receive assistance on the part of the Foundation and who are represented here. And finally, I want to greet all of you, friends of the Movement of Communion and Liberation and parishioners, who have known and loved Fr. Aldo and who are here today to bid farewell to his mortal remains.

I would like on this occasion to dedicate a few thoughts to the work to which Fr. Aldo dedicated himself, for the service of the poorest and most marginalized of our society, to look through them at what lay in the heart of this brother of ours.

By now I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve been here. This is the third time this year. When one comes here from Italy, in the parish of San Rafael, he remains awestruck at the place he finds. It has always struck me as a human space, a space that is full of a good operosity.

In this place, every stone, every plant, every image or word that appears on the walls, the cleanliness, the order, and, more than anything else, the proportion of the architectonic spaces…everything speaks of a particular intention and a global gaze, which is trained to embrace all of man and all of his existence, in all of his dimensions and for all of his days, earthly and heavenly. A gaze on man that is truly Catholic which gives form to the material.

This is space designed so that the Holy of Holies might be always at the center, a white host accessible to all

Here one finds a space designed to join youth and old age, health and sickness, life and death. Until a few years ago, when the clinic was still in the building of the shed in the rear, I was struck to see the bodies of the sick who had died in the clinic exposed and watched over in the great covered courtyard where, in the morning, you could hear the joyful voices of the children at school. Human life is such a concrete mystery! And this place represents it well, united the innocent joy of children, the desire for life of young people, the pain of those who have been abandoned and wounded, the solitude of those who have been refused by all, the thoughts of those who are preparing themselves for the great passage into death…and all of this in these same square footage.

This is also a space designed so that the Holy of Holies be always at the center, the white host which becomes available for all, placed on display such that it is visible even from the street, through the great window that seemed to open the chapel of the clinic towards a world that has a need to be attracted by Christ. When he was still pastor here, Fr. Aldo loved to say that the real “pastor” was the Holy of Holies and then that he had nominated it also “director” of the clinic. That host, still today, every single day travels the pathways of the clinic and the corridors of the houses for the elderly, stopping before every bed, blessing, comforting, pointing to the meaning of suffering and rendering it human, or more human. Those who open their heart to it become transfigured. Behind that host, the eyes of our memory still see the figure of this our brother priest, who in the years became more and more hunched and obstructed in his movement. Until, one day, that host began to visit him as well, when he could no longer get out of bed and awaited it like all the other sick and dying, in one of the rooms that he had built for them. On the headboard of his bed, Fr. Aldo had stuck the name Fr. Massimo Camisasca, for whom he was offering his sufferings in a particular way.

Father Aldo desired for the persons who he welcomed, often literally taken in from the street, might be treated like royalty and die having known a gratitude for a tender hand that took care of them, for an unknown smile that came to comfort them. One day, Padre Pio said: “For the Eucharist, we use golden vessels, because it is the blood and flesh of Christ. But Christ is in the sick and if I could build a hospital, I would!”. This could easily have been said by Fr. Aldo. In fact, he was very devoted to Padre Pio.

He learned the language and this people and its symbols, as can be seen in the stained glass windows of this church and even more in the facade of the “San Riccardo” clinic and its beautiful chapel. In these spaces, the Christian tradition of the Paraguayan people becomes reproposed and actualized. San Rafael is a Reducción of the 21st century, a place of beauty and order. Here, a great number of persons received or re-encountered the faith, began to build their lives on Christ and learned to look at the world with a new gaze. Here, many also came into contact with the charism of Fr. Giussani, founder of the ecclesial movement of Communion and Liberation. To the movement of CL belonged also the two priests who preceded Fr. Aldo as pastors of this parish, even before the Fraternity of St. Charles arrived: Fr. Lino Mazzocco, of the Diocese of Chioggia, in Italy, and Fr. Alberto Bertacchini, of the Diocese of Forli. To them are dedicated the two schools of the Foundation where we founded here. It was Fr. Alberto, in particular, to welcome Fr. Aldo and to safeguard his life and his vocation in a very difficult time, of which Aldo himself has spoken about publicly many times and of which we all know.

1 Paraguay, Gennaio

And this is the true Christian paradox that one encounters coming here: this has been a house of mercy and healing above all for Fr. Aldo. It was, being this, that which all the houses of the Fraternity of St. Charles are called to be: places in which, through the communion with the brothers, God takes care of us, almost like a mother who nurtures and safeguards her children.
“In this sense, it is a blessed house,” Fr. Patricio told me during one of my recent visits. A house that, by welcoming the human wound of Fr. Aldo, “knew then, in turn, to welcome the suffering of many and then became fertile,” as Fr. Julian told me.

There is not in fact an interpretive key that could explain more completely the life of Fr. Aldo if not the embrace that he received from God, above all through Fr. Giussani, who for him was like a father who forgave him and launched him back into life, and then through many other friends. Aldo wanted the embrace that he received from Fr. Giussani to be memorialized in one of the frescoes that adorn the walls of the clinic. I remember a conversation that I had with him in 2018. Speaking of that phase of his history and of the crisis that he needed to pass through, Aldo told me: “At times, to save the vocation of a priest, it is necessary to make some severe decisions. Giussani told me that, if I wanted to save myself, I needed to go to Paraguay” –and this meant leaving Italy for the rest of his life–, “but he communicated to me that I was loved. The important thing is that a priest in crisis feels loved by his superiors.”

This is the embrace that saved Aldo. Nothing sentimental, a gaze that does not censure the bad but sees the good and bets on it. Expression of a profoundly virile love, capable of instilling faithfulness and firmly indicating the path to follow.

The interpretive key that explains most completely the life of Fr. Aldo the embrace that he received from God, especially through Fr. Giussani

How many times Fr. Aldo himself would be tender and severe at the same time! How many testimonies did I hear yesterday of persons remembering, “Aldo, that one time, corrected me and changed my life.”

In the end, it is for this reason, I believe, that the echo of this work went beyond the confines of Paraguay. The news of San Rafael amazed and comforted persons in the entire world, persons who were seeking this same embrace. Persons from all over the world were welcomed here. Here was channeled much material help and a legion of men and women collaborated with generosity to make this place what it is. Even Pope Francis wanted to visit this place,

Finally, on this birth day of Fr. Aldo, I want to say thank you to all who have accompanied and sustained the work of Fr. Aldo in these long years. Thanks to all those who fought with Fr. Aldo, for the good of the works or for his good, and have suffered for this. Today it is easier to look with a smile at certain characteristics of this our brother, going beyond his defects and sins, and all of the human fragility in which shined the light of his calling. We are so many vases of clay, fragile, which contain the treasure of the light of Christ. And this, as St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “so show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor 4:7). This is Christian sanctity: to be instruments of a strength that does not come from us.

Fr. Aldo has now concluded his journey on this earth. Before the Heavenly Father, just like he did thousands of times during his life among us, he now asks forgiveness and mercy. Aldo was a man of the mercy of God, above all because he experienced it and then because he desired to be a sign of it for others. He was this, in the end, because he implored with the certainty of a son to receive that mercy in heaven.

Today, therefore, we are overjoyed at the thought that the poorest of the poor who Fr. Aldo hosted here, the rejects whom he loved, the sick whose hearts he healed by bringing them to Christ, welcome him now in heaven with joy. This is also the request that we direct to God for our brother, invoking the intercession of the Virgin of Caacupe, Queen and Patroness of Paraguay. May it be so!

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