II - “HOW BEAUTIFUL YOU ARE …”
Ambiance
Prepare a vase of perfumed oil at the foot of the altar or the tabernacle.
Where possible, an icon of the Annunciation.
OPENING SONG
Leader
“Arise my beautiful one and come”
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word”.
The Christian life bears within its heart and has as its beginning and end the <Incarnation
of the Word. Everything is centred on this mystery and is a continuous actualising “today”
of the “yes” that brought God into the world…
After Adam’s disobedience, now in Mary’s disponibility, humankind responds “here I am” to
the “ here I am” of God to mankind.
What happened to Mary happened also to Assunta and happens to each of us today …
How beautiful … come … rejoice …
It is the Lord’s voice that always makes this call and awaits our response with discretion
and patience. It is only through our disponibility and our obedience that the Word can one
again be made flesh in us and through us become life in others … to generate Christ in
the world!
Background music
Reader
From the Canticle of Canticles 2: 8-10
I hear my love
See how he comes
leaping on the mountains;
bounding over the hills.
My love is like a gazelle,
like a young stag.
See where he stands
behind our wall.
He looks in at the window,
he peers through the opening.
My love lifts up his voice,
e says to me:
Come, then, my beloved,
my lovely one, come.
ASSUNTA SPEAKS TO US THROUGH HER LIFE
Reader
2nd March 1897
A peasant carnival feast. A rustic ball.
The young girls participates, dressed as Summer, with her mother and her friend Marietta.
In the middle of the feast, upset, she runs to her mother and begs her to let her go home.
She spends the night weeping, in prayer.
The next day she tells Marietta that a young man accosted her and tells her point blank
“How beautiful you are!
Want to kiss you”.
It is her Annunciation!
“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28)
That Ash Wednesday of 1897 marked for Assunta the dawn of her new future”
This is the testimony of her spiritual director.
Henceforward the road is clear. She no longer has any hesitation or uncertainty. God is
calling her.
“With Marietta, in whom she confided all her secret anxieties, she could speak only about
this.
She wanted to become a nun at all costs …” (Summ. Doc., p. 363)
From PAOLA DAL PRA, Coming down towards the height. EMI, pp. 29,30
LISTENING TO THE WORD Lk 1:28-38
From the Gospel according to Luke
He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, you who enjoy God’s favour! The Lord is with you.’
She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could
mean, but the angel said to her, Mary, do not be afraid; you have found God’s favour.
Look! You are to conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the
throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the house of Jacob forever and his reign will
have no end. May said to the angel, But how can this come about since I have no
knowledge of man? The angel answered, The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the
power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow .and so the child will be holy and will
be called Son of God. And I tell you this too: your cousin Elizabeth also, in her old age, has
conceived a son, and she whom people called barren in now in her sixth month, for
nothing is impossible to God. Mary said, You see before you the Lord’s servant, le it
happen to me as you have said. And the angel left her.
SILENCE
THE WORD BECOPMES PRAYER
Proclaimed in two choirs or sung
I waited for Yahweh,
then he stooped to me,
and heard my cry for help.
He pulled me up from the seething chasm,
from the mud of the mire,
He set my feet on rock,
and made my footsteps firm.
He put a fresh song in my mouth,
praise of our God
Many will be awestruck at the sight,
and will put their trust in Yahweh.
How blessed are those
Who put their trust in Yahweh,
Psalm 39: 1-18
Who have not sided with rebels
and those who have gone astray in falsehood.
How much you have done,
Yahweh my God –
your wonders, your plans for us –
You have no equal.
I will proclaim and speak of them,
they are beyond number
You wanted no sacrifice or cereal offering,
But you gave me an open ear,
You did not ask for burnt offering or sacrifice for sin;
then I said, ‘Here I am, I am coming.’
In the scroll of the book it is written of me;
my delight is to do your will;
your law, my God,
is deep in my heart.
I proclaimed the saving justice of Yahweh
In the great assembly.
See, I will not hold my tongue,
As you well know.
I have not kept your saving justice locked in the depths of my heart,
but have spoken of your constancy and saving help;
I have made no secret of your faithful and steadfast love,
in the great assembly.
You, Yahweh, have not withheld
your tenderness from me,
Your faithful and steadfast love
will always guard me.
For troubles surround me,
Until they are beyond number;
My sins have overtaken me;
I cannot see my way.
They outnumber the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails me.
Be pleased, Yahweh, to rescue me;
Yahweh, come quickly and help me!
Shame and dismay to all
who seek to take my life.
Back with them, let them be humiliated
Who delight in my misfortunes.
Let them be aghast with shame,
Those who say to me ‘Aha, aha!’
But joy and happiness in you
to all who seek you!
Let them ceaselessly cry, ‘Great is Yahweh’
who love your saving power.
Poor and needy as I am,
The Lord has me in mind.
You my helper, my Saviour,
My God, do not delay.
Leader
What happened to Mary happened also to Assunta and today happens to each of us: in
fact, in Baptism, the Father pronounced our name, He calls us to be transformed into His
Son, through the Holy Spirit; he consecrates us in the death and resurrection of Christ and
sends us into the world so that through our ‘yes’ he may be made flesh in so many of our
brothers and sisters.
LET US PRAY WITH FRANCIS OF ASSISI
All together
Almighty, eternal and merciful God, grant us in our misery, to do, by the strength of you r
love, what we know to be your will, and to will always what pleases you, so that, purified
and enlightened interiorly and brightened by the fire of the Holy Spirit, we may be able to
follow in the footsteps of your beloved Don, our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the help of your
grace, come to you, most High, who in the perfect Trinity and simple Unity, live and reign,
glorious, almighty God for ever and ever. Amen.
FINAL SONG