The Preacher to the Popes: Raniero Cantalamessa

A message from His Excellency Bishop Barry Knestout, Bishop of Richmond, given at the premiere of the film:

Jose, thank you very much, and Steve as well for the hospitality here at St Patrick’s School and all other guests and those joining us. Welcome everyone here for this international gathering. It’s exciting to be a part of this. I’m grateful for the chance to share a little prayer with you. A few remarks first, and I’m very grateful as well for CMAX streaming platform and all that’s making this possible. You know, the season of Advent and Christmas right in the middle of Advent and so close to Christmas.

It’s a fitting time for each of us to echo a prayer. The prayer that King David offered in the Psalms. Restore to me the gladness of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit. The salvation that is the source of our gladness is, of course, made possible by the incarnation.

Life, death and resurrection of our Lord. And through the power of the Holy Spirit, he continues to impart his saving life in our hearts, in our lives, through the sacraments, the teachings of the church. As recorded in the gospel of John, our lord declares, Amen, Amen, I say to you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the spirit. In describing the Holy Spirit, Jesus further states the wind blows where it wills and you can hear the sound it makes. But you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. With these words, Jesus evokes how the word and the work of the spirit lies behind what we can detect through our own physical senses. Through the washing with water in the sacrament of baptism, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in the recipient of that sacrament, thereby making it a gateway to life in the spirit, as we hear in the catechism. As we who are baptized, Christians are docile to that movement of the spirit or in dwelling presence within our hearts. We call upon that power of God.

This docility to the Holy Spirit received at baptism, leads to God doing great things through us and the fruits of the spirit being manifested in all that we do. Cardinal Cantalamessa is a great example for all of us. His life demonstrates how God desires to lead us daily through inspiration to the Holy Spirit, and how that then gets expressed in very practical ways and inspiring within those we encounter with that same life of the spirit. This film about Cardinal Cantalamessa does not simply entertain.

It also inspires us and shows us what can happen when a person chooses to surrender to the Holy Spirit. I want to thank Ashley Zahorian and Deacon Darrell Wentworth for producing this film and for everyone, for everyone to enjoy in the church. It is a testament, a testament to their faithfulness and docility to the Holy Spirit. The charisms are gifts of the Holy Spirit, and as such, they are given not for the recipient alone, but for the building up of the entire body of Christ.

In a very real way, Deacon Darrell is doing what my two predecessors asked him to do when he accepted God’s call to serve in the diaconate. In a similar way. Ashley is docile to the Holy Spirit and living out her baptism. She has faithfully used her spiritual and material gifts, her expertise, to produce a film that will benefit every Christian who chooses to watch it.

As a bishop myself. I take joy when members of the body of Christ are docile and receptive to the work, the spirit in their lives and empowered through those charisms s to fulfill their own baptismal call of vocation and that great commission to go and make disciples of all nations. And that’s what I think this film will help to do. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of the Son, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the gift of our Catholic Church.

We thank you for the salvation and transformation of our lives and a life that can be ours if we continue to respond to your gifts. We thank you for the good works that you prepared us for us to do from the moment of our conception, and that you empowered us to do through your gift of baptism made possible by the saving work of your Son on the cross. We thank you for Cardinal Cantalamessa and for the model he provides for living in docility to the Holy Spirit. We ask you that as we watch this film, the life of Cardinal Cantalamessa will inspire us to ask the Holy Spirit to awaken within us love for you!

In response to your love for us and thereby reveal that love to others as we use your charisms in living out our baptismal call. We offer this prayer through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit. God, forever and ever. Amen. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you.

Download Bishop Knestout’s Letter.