What does a young Italian boy who was murdered in 1945 have to do with the farewell discourse in John's Gospel and the First letter of St Peter? He models the instruction given by Jesus, to pray for others when we suffer, and to make our lives a sacrifice for them. He also teaches us the road to sanctity by his example of weekly Confession and daily Mass.
Homily for VII Sunday in Eastertide, on 1 Peter 4:13-16 and John 17:1-11
It is a blessing for you when they insult you for bearing the name of Christ, because it means that you have the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God resting on you.
In a small village near Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, there lived a young boy named Rolando Rivi. Rolando was born in 1931 and was, by all accounts, an energetic and lively little boy. His grandmother is said to have told his parents “Rolando will become either a rascal or a saint! He cannot walk the middle ground.”
A change began in Rolando’s life when, at the age of seven, he received his First Holy Communion – he became suddenly more mature and responsible. Rolando began to take his religion very seriously. He went every week to Confession. Every morning, before going out to work in the fields on his family’s farm, he would go to serve as an Altar boy at Mass and receive Communion. At eleven years old, he could ignore his calling no-longer, and his parents agreed to send him to the minor seminary; a kind of grammar school where young boys were prepared to become priests. When he entered the seminary, he was given a cassock – a long black robe like I’m wearing now under my vestments. He wore it with pride, as a sign he belonged to Jesus.
In 1944, just two years into his studies, the Nazis occupied Italy, to stop them from surrendering to the Allies. At this time, in Northern Italy, there was a growing movement that rose to resist the Nazis – the partigiani – Partisans. The Partisans were Communists and as their movement grew, so did attacks on the Church and people connected to the Church. Catholics were viewed by Communists with almost as much hostility as the Fascists. Rolando served as an example to the children in his town. He helped the other minor seminarians to continue their studies and inspired other young boys and girls to stand up to the communists and refuse to be intimidated by them.
It was too much for the Communists. In Easter Week 1945, after Mass, Rolando went home to get some books before going to study in a small wood near his house. The Partisans abducted him and took him out to a farm in the countryside. They beat him with a belt, interrogated him, accused him of spying for the Nazis, and took his cassock away from him. After three days of this treatment, on Friday 13th April, he was carried into the woods to a place where the Partisans had dug a grave for him. Seeing the grave, he cried, and spoke his last words “Allow me the time to say a prayer for my father and mother.” One of the Partisans’ political Commissars shot him twice, ending his life saying, “Tomorrow there will be one less priest!” Rolando Rivi was declared a Servant of God in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI. In 2013, Pope Francis declared him a Martyr and he was Beatified. It is his feast day next Monday.
Why am I telling you this? Why, this Sunday, am I talking about a relatively obscure Italian Blessed? I will confess, Bl. Rolando Rivi is a personal inspiration to me, and I hope and pray he will one day be declared a Saint. As I was reading through this Sunday’s lectionary, thinking both about the Second Reading and the Gospel, I realised that Bl. Rolando actually lived these readings and teaches us how we can live them too.
The passage from St John’s Gospel is part of the farewell discourse, Jesus saying goodbye to his Apostles before he goes to his Crucifixion. He is about to go and face his greatest trial, his worst suffering. What does he do? He prays! Each of the Church Fathers who comment on this passage, St Augustine, St John Chrysostom, and St Cyril of Alexandria, all home in on this; Jesus is teaching us in our trials and sufferings to pray, and not only to pray but to pray for others rather than for ourselves. Jesus, from this farewell discourse to the moment of his crucifixion, in all his sufferings, prays for others. For his disciples, for the world, for his persecutors.
Jesus says, “glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you” and he makes it clear; His glory is in His suffering for the sake of others, that they might have eternal life. He is giving us a pattern to follow for our own suffering or temptation; abandon all other things and flee to God. (Chrysostom) If we imitate him in suffering, and we imitate him in prayer for others while we are suffering, then our sufferings are united to his Cross and become a sacrifice for the salvation of others.
“Allow me the time to say a prayer for my father and mother.”
Bl. Rolando’s last words, despite having been beaten, mocked, and stripped of his outer clothes, despite being so weak he had to be carried to the shallow grave they had dug for him, were not pleading for mercy or begging for release; but uniting himself to the Lord in prayer for those who were left behind. He died, in true imitation of Jesus, on a Friday at three in the afternoon, praying for his family.
He is a model for us today, copying Jesus in this farewell discourse, and mirroring St Peter’s exhortation:
It is a blessing for you when they insult you for bearing the name of Christ, because it means that you have the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God resting on you.
But, and here is the challenge for us, Rolando did not get this way by magic. Remember what his grandmother said: he will either be a rascal or a saint. He had the capacity for either, just as each of us has that same capacity; we can be scoundrels or we can be saints! For certain, there was a special grace given to the boy Rolando Rivi that enabled him to suffer so bravely despite being only fourteen years old. But that same grace is given to each of us, to borrow from the Gospel of Matthew, like seeds scattered in the soil. It is up to us whether that is good soil or bad soil. It is up to us whether the seed bears fruit.
How did Rolando’s life become such an exact mirror of Christ’s? What did he do to till and water the soil? Weekly Confession and daily Mass. He went often to be forgiven for his sins, and he assisted as an altar boy and a sacristan at Mass every single day. These were the days when you had to fast from midnight before receiving the Eucharist; so he would go early to Mass every single day to receive Communion. The first food he ate each morning was the Eucharist.
Weekly Confession and daily Mass, at which he participated fully and actively. For which he made the sacrifice of an early morning without breakfast. This is how he became saintly. This is how he prepared the soil to receive the graces he had been given. This is the lesson we can learn from Him and from today’s Gospel.
At the ending of our Gospel passage, Jesus prays for his followers saying;
I am not in the world any longer,
but they are in the world,
and I am coming to you.’
He sits at the right hand of the Father now, praying this same prayer for us and giving us his grace through the Sacraments. Let us receive them worthily, and follow Bl. Rolando’s example; receive the Lord’s mercy in Confession, receive his body as food in the Eucharist, and (in our sufferings) pray for the salvation of others. This way, we too can answer St Peter’s exhortation:
It is a blessing for you when they insult you for bearing the name of Christ, because it means that you have the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God resting on you.
Sources:
Biography of Bl. Rolando Rivi
'The Testimony of the bloodied Cassock' by Alphonso Bruno FI
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