Focus on Christ and be open to the Holy Spirit, abbot tells cardinals
April 30, 2025
Abbot Donato Ogliari, OSB—one of two prelates selected to preach meditations to the College of Cardinals before the election of the new Pope—preached his meditation during the cardinals’ sixth general congregation on April 29.
The prelate, appointed by Pope Francis as abbot of Montecassino (2014-22) and abbot of St. Paul Outside the Walls (2022-present), called on the cardinals to focus on Christ and be open to the Holy Spirit. Abbot Ogliari gave the sections of his meditation (full text, Italian) the following titles:
- The centrality of Christ Jesus
- Meekness and humility
- The freedom of the Spirit
- The “upper room”
- The challenges of the Church in the world
- The Church as a “workshop”: a work in progress
“The Church rooted in Christ is an open, courageous and prophetic Church, which abhors violent words and gestures, which knows how to be the voice of those who have no voice and which, if necessary, also knows how to be a voice out of the chorus in order to stubbornly indicate the paths of justice, fraternity and peace,” Abbot Ogliari preached. “The Church rooted in Christ is a Church that is a teacher of fraternity, taught with words and gestures marked by mutual respect, dialogue, the culture of encounter and the building of bridges and not walls, as Pope Francis has always invited us to do.”
He concluded:
Allow, therefore, the light of the Spirit to enter into your freedom; let it enter into dialogue with you, with your inner world and—through you—with that world so varied and universal of which you are an expression; let it creep into the folds of your conversations, dialogues, comparisons; and let it also find a place in the dynamics, sometimes dialectical, that characterize every human assembly, and therefore yours too.
Let him, the Holy Spirit, truly be the main protagonist, let him be the one to shape your hearts, to kindle your minds and to enlighten your eyes so that you can hear, understand and see the wonders that the Lord is about to work for the good of his Church and of the whole world!
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