Lorenzo Albacete facing the infinite. Unknown date.
Lorenzo Albacete: Image Gallery
In addition to archiving and publishing Monsignor Albacete's writings, The Albacete Forum is engaged in an ongoing project to collect and preserve photographs, tapes, and other materials associated with his life.
◆ Image of the Week ◆
The recently ordained Fr. Lorenzo Albacete is greeted by Pope Paul VI during an audience in Rome.
◆ Youth ◆
Lorenzo Albacete, age one, 1942.
"... if you do read the signs of Its presence amongst men, then your eyes will see beauty, you will hear music, your touch will be soft, you will grasp at times an incomparable fragrance, your talk will be wisdom." - Lorenzo Albacete, 1968
The editorial staff of Veritas, the school paper of Sacred Heart Academy, Santurce, Puerto Rico. Lorenzo Albacete on far left.
◆ Vocation ◆
At the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle, Washington, D.C. in the early 1970's. From left to right, Fr. Bernard Gerhardt, Fr. Lorenzo Albacete, and Fr. Frank Early.
"I must affirm and witness to the fact that this experience of liberation takes place only through the communion of persons that has its center in this communion with Christ crucified who lives now to open up the space for this communion. It does not come to us as 'individuals' nor as a 'mass' called humanity. It comes to us as persons and personhood emerges only in a network of relationships." - Lorenzo Albacete, 1992
Saying Mass with Don Carlo Caffarra, President of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, later Archbishop of Bologna, April, 1985.
"Let me tell you, the fact that I am a priest is a constant reminder to me that whatever it is we do for the Lord, it never originates in our own efforts, our personal holiness, our understanding of the Mystery, our openness to the Holy Spirit, or whatever. In my case it seems the Lord is pleased in showing me how good comes out of my mistakes and sins when He picks up the pieces of the messes I’ve made!" - Lorenzo Albacete, 1996
'Because of death, husbands and wives put a great burden on each other: the burden of having to satisfy fully each other's hopes and desires. And that's a burden because it is not possible. Only Jesus Christ can satisfy all our hopes and desires because we were created for him. Put this burden on each other and soon you'll be looking for someone else, or you'll be cynical and unhappy... Rather you must share each other's solitude; you must hope together." - Lorenzo Albacete, 1993
"It is through the Eucharist that Jesus becomes our contemporary in the flesh... Without the Eucharist, love would not be incarnate." - Lorenzo Albacete, 1996
◆ Encounters and Friendships ◆
A meeting with Pope John Paul II early in his pontificate.
His last meeting with Fr. Luigi Giussani, founder of the Communion and Liberation Movement.
Greeting Pope Benedict XVI in Rome with Fr. Julian Carron, President of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation.
"(Christianity) shows itself as a fact that happened, an event; it is not an intellectual proposal that shows itself as an event. I don't know if you are grasping what I am telling you because it took me an incredibly long time to grasp this. It was not it's complexity but it's simplicity that was a obstacle to me. The complexity in me could not deal with this simple fact, that at the origin it is a simple fact. This struck me. Fr. Giussani said: you may know everything theologically about Christ, but that means nothing. You've not understood a thing if you do not grasp that before being all of that, he appeared as a lump of blood in the womb of a Jewish girl." - Lorenzo Albacete, 2005
Behind the scenes at the 2011 New York Encounter with his dear friend Cardinal Sean O'Malley.
With Rita and Frank Simmonds. Three months before his own death in January, 2015, Frank told Rita that he had just conversed with his friend Lorenzo who was in heaven and that Lorenzo had told him, "It's a big party up here."
Crossroads Cultural Center event with Heather King, September 21, 2010.
Introducing Vicky Aryenyo at another Crossroads event. Albacete: "...rather than offer an intellectual explanation of the hope born from our faith, we are anxious to offer to you a concrete fact, a person we have encountered..."
◆ Objects ◆
"Remembrance of the Priestly Ordination of Lorenzo Albacete Citrón, conferred by Monsignor Luis Aponte, February 17, 1973 in the Holy Church Cathedral, San Juan, Puerto Rico." (Aponte was the Archbishop of San Juan and would be appointed a Cardinal the following month by Pope Paul VI.
"Taking the Incarnation seriously also means that Christian spirituality has a very definite, incarnate, tangible and sensible expression or form outside of which it simply does not exist." - Lorenzo Albacete, 2000
"To Monsignor Lorenzo with gratitude for his faith and humility and with hope of each other's help." Luigi Giussani
Holy Face prayer card found in Monsignor Albacete's wallet after his death.
