VATICAN CITY, 7 OCT 2009 (VIS) - During his general audience, held this morning in St. Peter's Square, Benedict XVI focused his catechesis on St. John Leonardi, patron of pharmacists, the 400th anniversary of whose death falls on 9 October.
St. John Leonardi was born in the Italian town of Diecimo in the year 1541. He studied pharmacology but abandoned it to focus on theology and was later ordained a priest. Together with Msgr. Juan Vives and the Jesuit Martin de Funes he helped to found a Holy See congregation specifically dedicated to missions: the Urban College of "Propaganda Fide" in which countless priests have been formed for the evangelisation of peoples. His apostolic zeal even led him to send a memorial to Pope Paul V suggesting certain criteria for the authentic renewal of the Church. Yet he never lost his passion for pharmacology, convinced that "God's medicine, which is Jesus Christ Who was crucified and rose again, is the measure of all things".
"The resplendent figure of this saint invites all Christians, first and foremost priests, to strive constantly towards the 'highest measure of Christian life', which is sanctity", said Benedict XVI. "Indeed, it is only from faithfulness to Christ that authentic ecclesial renewal can arise. In those years, in the cultural and social passage from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century, the premises of contemporary culture began to be outlined, characterised by an unwarranted fracture between faith and reason which, among the negative effects it has produced, marginalised God and created the illusion of a possible complete autonomy of man, who chooses to live 'as if God did not exist'.
"This is the crisis of modern thought which I have frequently had occasion to highlight and which often leads to forms of relativism", the Holy Father added. "John Leonardi understood what the true medicine for these spiritual ills was, and he summarised it in the expression: 'Christ above all'. ... This was his prescription for all spiritual and social reform".
"In various circumstances", St. John Leonardi, "reiterated that the living encounter with Christ comes about in His Church, which is holy but fragile, rooted in history and in its sometimes murky future where wheat and weeds grow together, but always Sacrament of salvation. Clearly aware that the Church is as the field of God, he was not scandalised by her human weaknesses and, in order to counteract the weeds, he chose to become good wheat; that is, he chose to love Christ in the Church and to contribute to making her a more transparent sign of Him".
"He understood that any reform must be accomplished within the Church and never against the Church", the Pope concluded. "In this, St. John Leonardi was a truly extraordinary figure and his example remains relevant. It is clear that reform affects structures, but in the first place it must affect believers' hearts. Only the saints, men and women who allow themselves to be guided by the divine Spirit, ready to make radical and courageous choices in the light of the Gospel, can renew the Church and make a decisive contribution to building a better world".
AG/ST. JOHN LEONARDI/... VIS 20091007 (540)
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