Year of St. Joseph: good husbandWorld Day of Peace: Prophets and witnesses of the "culture of care".Pope institutes the first World Day of the ElderlyThe military of #stradesicure who were on duty in Rome on the day of the Immaculate Conception, suffering the cold and rain, have been rewarded in the best way they could imagine. In fact, against all expectations, they saw a man dressed in white get out of a blue Focus and bring them cookies. It was Pope Francis returning from Santa Maria Maggiore where he had been praying and had celebrated Mass absolutely privately. If the videos were not there to document it, one would not believe it.
What happened was that, contrary to what had been announced, Bergoglio decided to go very early, to avoid any crowds, to Piazza di Spagna for the traditional homage to Our Lady, and from there he went to Santa Maria Maggiore where, first he prayed in front of the icon of the Salus Populi Romani and then celebrated Mass in the Chapel of the Nativity. While the whole city, battered by rain and cold wind, was still sleeping in the warmth of their homes, the surprising scene happened for a small group of soldiers who were on duty.
This gesture, like all the Pope's, is full of meaning. On the same day, in fact, December 8, 2020, the Bishop of Rome, with the Pastoral Letter Patris Corde, had decided to dedicate the year to St. Joseph, whose humble and hidden service he had remembered, and on the same occasion he had named the forces of order. "Our lives are interwoven and sustained by ordinary people - usually forgotten - who don't make the headlines in newspapers and magazines or on the big catwalks of the latest show."
The cookies that the Pope wanted to give to the soldiers from #stradesicuresymbolically go to all the people who exercise patience every day and instill hope, trying not to sow panic but responsibility. They are fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, teachers; they are the people who go unnoticed. They are all the people who find in St. Joseph the man who reminds us that, for God, there are no people in the "second line" but only in the "first line", the line of love.
