89th Anniversary of Abbot Celestino Maria Colombo
In addition to today being the feasts of Our Lady of Ransom and Our Lady of Walsingham (whose statue is in our refectory), today is also the dies natalis or heavenly birthday of one of our heavenly friends, the first Mectildian Benedictine monk of Perpetual Adoration, Abbot Celestino Maria Colombo.
The Annals of the monastery of Seregno treat of Father Celestino’s intimate struggle during the years 1899-1903 with his desire to be in spirit “a true member of the Institute [of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration], a true victim of the Most Holy Sacrament”. They read:
After having studied in depth the constitutions and books of the Institute, after having practiced their spirit to the point of heroism, after having established the community in this same spirit with a patient, enlightened, prudent zeal, he [Father Celestino] asked, as a grace, to possess our holy habit, to practice our holy constitutions, to be a true member of the Institute [of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration], a true victim of the Most Holy Sacrament. The religious, with a unanimous transport of joy, received the Eucharistic vow of the Rev. Father. From that day, uninterrupted longings and prayers were raised to Heaven so that the Institute might finally have its complement for the glory of the Eucharist, and so that the last breath of our great father Benedict might also generate for the Host the sons of the Host, the Benedictine Adorers, the priestly victims to support and save the Church in the last most difficult times. And so may it be.
The reference to “the last breath of our great father Benedict” refers to an insight that Mother Mectilde had had about the founding of the Institute of the Benedictines of Perpetual Adoration. She was given to understand that the Institute was mystically signified by the way that St. Benedict died, standing before the Eucharistic Lord, and breathing his last breath into the Eucharistic ciborium.
In her own words that she spoke to her sisters in the Institute (Mystery of Incomprehensible Love, p. 144):
Do you see, my sisters, that St. Benedict died standing up to show us that he breathed forth, with the last effort of love, the holy institute that we profess? He conceived it in the Eucharist, to be produced more than twelve centuries later. . . . No, no, my sisters, this was not at all the plan of a human mind; there is no creature who ordered, instituted, or chose it. It is Jesus in the Host who received it from the heart of our great Patriarch Saint Benedict, and I can say, my sisters, that it was taken from no other place than the tabernacle, where this great saint left it in the last instant of his life.
A Prayer for the Benedictine Monks of Perpetual Adoration
Abbot Celestino was not to live to see this desire for Benedictine Monks of Perpetual Adoration fulfilled, yet the plans and providence of God have their own timing, and no prayer is lost in the divine economy. Needless to say, we at the monastery are continually asking the Lord that, in us, this last breath of our Holy Father Benedict, by which he conceived the daughters of the Eucharistic Host founded by Mother Mectilde, would today give birth to many sons of the Host for the Host.
Would you consider praying this short prayer for this intention?
Almighty and Ever-Living God,
the Father of lights from Whom
descendeth every good gift, Thou
didst implant in the heart of the Abbot
Celestino Maria Colombo the seed of a new
monastic family, sons of Saint Benedict
and, by a particular election of Thy Providence,
sons of the Host for the Host, grant that what Thou
gavest him to desire may come to fruition in us for the
glory of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
and for the comfort of the Church in this present
hour and in generations to come. Through Our
Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who with Thee
liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy
Ghost, God, forever and ever. Amen.
Imprimatur 21 Dec. 2019
