The door was opened: the Secretary of State His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin gave the start to the Lauretan Jubilee. A Jubilee for all; a jubilee that crowded the Piazza della Madonna, which united the high offices of the air force with the pilgrim, who united everyone in the passage of the holy door.
"Mary is the Virgin Mother, depicted in the door of the temple, facing east, through which the Lord enters" so says the praise before the opening of the Holy Door. Archbishop Dal Cin in his pastoral letter described the meaning of this jubilee with a splendid narrative image: "a furious storm hit the passengers of a departing plane and everyone was hurrying to board. After the last one, the hatch was closed. From outside a man was knocking asking to enter, but the steward did not want to open. A woman saw the scene and convinced the steward to open. It was the pilot. That woman is Mary and that man is Christ, who asks to enter to be the pilot of our life ".
The images of the opening are loaded with meaning: the long procession of bishops and priests who go towards the Basilica, the hands of the cardinal pushing the door to the words "Open the doors of justice, we will enter to give thanks to the Lord"; the authorities who pass through the holy door in the procession, the silence of the assembly, the singing of the Hymn to the Virgin composed by Mons Marco Frisina, present here to direct the great choir. Indelible images that summarize what the meaning of the jubilee is "Called to fly high", aiming at holiness, that of Mary, who as a bride always loved her husband even in those small misunderstandings that exist in every family, like Mary who, as Cardinal Parolin recalled, "also welcomed the difficulty of Jesus' adolescence, who was a young man like any other".
This Jubilee which opened with the sound of the ram's horn, as in the time of the people of Israel to start the Jubilee year, sees the dawn on the day of the Immaculate Conception, the day in which the church remembers Mary, like the spotless woman. Thus the hope, that by welcoming Christ as the Pilot of man's life, each one tries to keep faith with the baptismal promises, to keep that white, clean and spotless robe for eternal life. "Among the simple joys that the Lord has on the journey of his people" he said in the homily in Cardinal "there are also the Marian feasts, and this joy is particularly intense as we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary Most Holy, one of the most beautiful and most popular festivities increased even more for us by the fact of being in the sanctuary of Loreto which according to tradition preserves the stones of the holy house of Nazareth, where Mary lived and received the announcement of the angel. We can look at her without fear with absolute trust without fear of the light that emanates from her perfection, feeling attracted to her holiness. Holiness is the most attractive face of the church, as Pope Francis says. This is the invitation of today's celebration to let ourselves be fascinated by Mary Immaculate to become beautiful ourselves: a beauty obviously not external, but internal, a beauty that is not disfigured by the passing years, but only by sin. This invitation to holiness, thanks to the Lauretan jubilee that the Holy Father granted to commemorate the centenary of the proclamation of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Loreto patron saint of aeronauts, will continue to resound in the chapels of civil airports and in military departments until December 10, 2020. "
(edited by Diletta D'Agostini)
Cover photo by Giancarlo Piccione
The entire celebration follows.