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VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - N° 144
DATE 08-07-2013
Summary:
- THE POPE IN LAMPEDUSA: LET THE VEHICLES OF HOPE NEVER AGAIN BECOME VEHICLES
OF DEATH
- THE POPE TO SEMINARIANS, NOVICES AND THOSE DISCERNING THIEIR VOCATIONS: OUR
MISSION IS TO ENCOUNTER THE LORD WHO CONSOLES AND TO CONSOLE THE PEOPLE OF GOD
- ANGELUS: JESUS IS NOT AN ISOLATED MISSIONARY
- AUDIENCE WITH PRESIDENT OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
- CARDINAL VAN THUAN: A WITNESS OF HOPE
- AUDIENCES
- OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
___________________________________________________________
THE POPE IN LAMPEDUSA: LET THE VEHICLES OF HOPE NEVER AGAIN BECOME VEHICLES OF
DEATH
Vatican City, 6 July 2013 (VIS) – This morning Pope Francis visited the
Italian island of Lampedusa, for some years now an entry point for many
immigrants, a significant number of whom have lost their lives in the
surrounding seas.
The pope left Rome's Ciampino military airport at 8 a.m. arriving at the
island at 9.15 a.m., where he was greeted by Archbishop Francesco Montenegro
of Agrigento and by the mayor of Lampedusa, Giuseppina Nicolini. He proceeded
to Cala Pisana by car,
where he boarded a boat in order to arrive at the Port of Lampedusa by water.
The Holy Father was accompanied by fishermen in their boats. During the
journey he committed a wreath to the sea in memory of those immigrants who
have lost their lives
attempting to cross the Mediterranean. The Pope's arrival at the port at Punta
Favarolo was awaited by a group of around fifty immigrants, many of whom were
Muslims, living in the reception shelters in Lampedusa. He greeted them one by
one and then
departed by car for the nearby “Arena” sports field in the Salinas
quarter, where at 10.30 a.m. he celebrated Mass.
The form of the Mass was that “for the forgiveness of sins”,
included in the Missal among the masses for particular needs. The Liturgy of
the Word consisted of readings on the story of Cain and Abel, the massacre of
the innocents, and the
Miserere psalm, emphasizing the penitential aspect of the Liturgy. The Holy
Father used a crosier and chalice from the parish of Lampedusa made of wood
from boats by which immigrants reached the island. Both were the work of an
artisan from Lampedusa,
who had offered assistance to the immigrants during the emergencies.
Given below are extensive extracts from the Pope's homily:
“Immigrants dying at sea, in boats which were vehicles of hope and
became vehicles of death. Since I first heard of this tragedy a few weeks ago,
and realised that it happens too frequently, it has constantly come back to me
like a painful thorn
in my heart. So, I felt that I had to come here today, to pray and to offer a
sign of my closeness, but also to challenge our consciences lest this tragedy
be repeated. Please, let it not be repeated!”
The Pope thanked the inhabitants and the authorities of Lampedusa for their
solidarity with the immigrants and greeted the Muslims among them who today
begin the fast of Ramadan, and added, “The Church is at your side as you
seek a more dignified
life for yourselves and your families”.
“This morning, in the light of God's Word which has just been
proclaimed, I wish to offer some thoughts to challenge people's consciences,
to lead them to reflection and a concrete change of heart”.
“'Adam, where are you?' This is the first question God poses to man
after his sin. Adam lost his bearings, his place in creation because he
thought he could be powerful, able to control everything, to be God. Harmony
was lost, man errs and this
error occurs over and over again also in relationships with others. The
'other' who is no longer a brother or sister to be loved, but simply another
person who disturbs our lives and our comfort. God asks a second question,
'Cain, where is your
brother?'. The illusion of being powerful, of being as great as God, even of
being God Himself, leads to a whole series of errors, a chain of death, even
to the spilling of a brother's blood! God's two questions echo even today, as
forcefully as ever.
How many of us, myself included, have lost our bearings; we are no longer
attentive to the world in which we live … we do not take care of that
which God created for all of us, and we are no longer capable even of looking
after each ot
her.
And when humanity as a whole loses its bearings, it results in tragedies like
the one we have witnessed.
“'Where is your brother?' His blood cries out to me, says the Lord. This
is not a question directed to others, it is a question directed to me, to you,
to each of us. These brothers and sisters of ours were trying to escape
difficult situations to
find some serenity and peace; they sought a better place for themselves and
their families, but instead they found only death. How often do such people
fail to find understanding, fail to find acceptance, fail to find solidarity.
And their cry rises up
to God! I recently listened to one of these brothers of ours. Before arriving
here, he and the others were at the mercy of traffickers, people who exploit
the poverty of others, people who live off the misery of others. How much
these people have
suffered! Some of them never made it here.
“'Where is your brother?' Who is responsible for this blood? In Spanish
literature there is a work by Lope de Vega which narrates how the inhabitants
of the city of Fuente Ovejuna kill their tyrannical governor, and they do so
in a way that no-one
knows who carried out the execution. And when the king's judge asks, 'Who
killed the governor?', they all answer, “Fuente Ovejuna, my lord”.
Everybody and nobody! Today too, this question emerges forcefully: who is
responsible for the blood
of these, our brothers and sisters? Nobody! That is our answer: it isn't me, I
don't have anything to do with it; it must be someone else, but certainly not
me. Yet God is asking each of us: 'Where is the blood of your brother which
cries out to me?'.
Today no-one in our world feels responsible; we have lost a sense of
responsibility for our brothers and sisters; we have fallen into the hypocrisy
of the priest and the Levite whom Jesus described in the parable of the Good
Samari
tan:
we see our brother half dead on the side of the road, perhaps we say to
ourselves: 'poor soul...!', and then go on our way; it's not our
responsibility, and with that we feel reassured. The culture of comfort, which
makes us think only of ourselves,
makes us insensitive to the cries of other people, makes us live in soap
bubbles which, however lovely, are insubstantial; they offer a fleeting and
empty illusion which results in indifference to others; indeed, it even leads
to the globalisation of
indifference. We have become used to the suffering of others, it doesn't
affect me; it doesn't concern me; it is none of my business. The globalisation
of indifference makes us all 'unnamed', responsible yet nameless and faceless.
“'Adam, where are you?' 'Where is your brother?' These are the two
questions which God asks at the dawn of human history, and which he also asks
each man and woman in our own day, which he also asks us. But I would like us
to ask a third question:
'Has any one of us wept because of this situation and others like it?' Has any
one of us grieved for the death of these brothers and sisters? Has any one of
us wept for these persons who were on the boat? For the young mothers carrying
their babies? For
these men who were looking for a means of supporting their families? We are a
society which has forgotten how to weep, how to experience compassion –
'suffering with' others: the globalization of indifference has taken from us
the ability to weep!
In the Gospel we have heard the crying, the wailing, the great lamentation:
'Rachel weeps for her children… because they are no more'. Herod sowed
death to protect his own comfort, his own soap bubble. And so it
continues… Let us ask the Lord to remove the part of Herod that lurks
in our hearts; let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our
indifference, to weep over the cruelty of our world, of our own hearts, and of
all those who in anonymity make
social and economic decisions which open the door to tragic situations like
this.
“In this liturgy, a penitential liturgy, we beg forgiveness for our
indifference to so many of our brothers and sisters. Father, we ask your
pardon for those who are complacent and closed amid comforts which have
deadened their hearts; we beg your
forgiveness for those who by their decisions on the global level have created
situations that lead to these tragedies”.
___________________________________________________________
THE POPE TO SEMINARIANS, NOVICES AND THOSE DISCERNING THIEIR VOCATIONS: OUR
MISSION IS TO ENCOUNTER THE LORD WHO CONSOLES AND TO CONSOLE THE PEOPLE OF GOD
Vatican City, 7 July 2013 (VIS) – The joy of consolation, the Cross and
prayer were the reference points in Christian mission proposed by Pope Francis
to the young seminarians, novices and all those who participated in Mass
celebrated this morning
in St. Peter's Basilica. A broad summary of the Holy Father's homily is given
below:
“You are seminarians, novices, young people on a vocational journey,
from every part of the world. You represent the Church’s youth! If the
Church is the Bride of Christ, you in a certain sense represent the moment of
betrothal, the Spring
of vocation, the season of discovery … in which foundations are laid
for the future. … Today the word of God speaks to us of mission.
… What are the reference points of Christian mission? The readings we
have heard suggest three:
the joy of consolation, the Cross and prayer.
“The first element: the joy of consolation. The prophet Isaiah is
addressing a people that has been through a dark period of exile, a very
difficult trial. But now the time of consolation has come for Jerusalem;
sadness and fear must give way to
joy. ... What is the reason for this invitation to joy? Because the Lord is
going to pour out over the Holy City and its inhabitants a 'cascade' of
consolation, a veritable overflow of consolation, a cascade of maternal
tenderness: 'You shall be carried
upon her hip and dandled upon her knees'. As when a mother takes her child
upon her knee and caresses him or her: so the Lord will do and does with us.
This is the cascade of tenderness which gives us much consolation. …
Every Christian, and
especially you and I, is called to be a bearer of this message of hope that
gives serenity and joy: God’s consolation, his tenderness towards all.
But if we first experience the joy of being consoled by him, of being loved by
him
, then
we can bring that joy to others. This is important if our mission is to be
fruitful: to feel God’s consolation and to pass it on to others! I have
occasionally met consecrated persons who are afraid of the consolations of
God, and … the
poor things, they were tormented, because they are afraid of this divine
tenderness. But do not be afraid. Do not be afraid of the consolations of the
Lord. We must find the Lord who consoles us and go to console the people of
God. This is the mission.
People today certainly need words, but most of all they need us to bear
witness to the mercy and tenderness of the Lord, which warms the heart,
rekindles hope, and attracts people towards the good. What a joy it is to
bring God’s consolation to
others!
“The second reference point of mission is the Cross of Christ. Saint
Paul, writing to the Galatians, says: 'Far be it from me to glory except in
the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ'. … In his ministry Paul experienced
suffering, weakness and
defeat, but also joy and consolation. This is the Paschal mystery of Jesus:
the mystery of death and resurrection. ... In the hour of darkness, in the
hour of trial, the dawn of light and salvation is already present and
operative. The Paschal mystery
is the beating heart of the Church’s mission! And if we remain within
this mystery, we are sheltered both from a worldly and triumphalistic view of
mission and from the discouragement that can result from trials and failures.
Pastoral
fruitfulness, the fruitfulness of the Gospel proclamation is measured neither
by success nor by failure according to the criteria of human evaluation, but
by conforming to the logic of the Cross of Jesus, which is the logic of
stepping outside
oneself and offering oneself, the logic of love. It is the Cross –
always the Cross that is present with Christ, because at times we are offered
the Cross without Christ: this has no purpose! … It is from the Cross,
the supreme act of mercy
and love, that we are reborn as a 'new creation'.
“Finally the third element: prayer. In the Gospel we heard: 'Pray
therefore the Lord of the harvest, to send out labourers into his harvest'.
The labourers for the harvest are not chosen through advertising campaigns or
appeals of service and
generosity, but they are 'chosen' and 'sent' by God. It is He who chooses, it
is He who sends ... it is He who gives the mission. For this, prayer is
important. The Church, as Benedict XVI has often reiterated, is not ours, but
God’s; and how many
times do we, consecrated men and women, think that the Church is ours! We make
of it… something that we invent in our minds. But it is not ours!, it
is God’s. The field to be cultivated is His. The mission is grace. And
if the Apostle is
born of prayer, he finds in prayer the light and strength of his action”.
“Dear seminarians, dear novices, dear young people discerning your
vocations. … Listen well: 'evangelization is done on one’s
knees'. Always be men and women of prayer! Without a constant relationship
with God, the mission becomes a
job. But for what do you work? As a tailor, a cook, a priest – is your
job being a priest, being a sister? No. It is not a job, but rather something
else. The risk of activism, of relying too much on structures, is an
ever-present danger. If we
look towards Jesus, we see that prior to any important decision or event he
recollected himself in intense and prolonged prayer. Let us cultivate the
contemplative dimension, even amid the whirlwind of more urgent and heavy
duties. And the more the
mission calls you to go out to the margins of existence, let your heart be the
more closely united to Christ’s heart, full of mercy and love. Herein
lies the secret of pastoral fruitfulness, of the fruitfulness of a disciple of
the
Lord!
“Jesus sends his followers out with no 'purse, no bag, no sandals'. The
spread of the Gospel is not guaranteed by the number of persons, nor by the
prestige of the institution, nor by the quantity of available resources. What
counts is being
permeated by the love of Christ, allowing oneself be led by the Holy Spirit
and to graft one’s own life onto the tree of life, which is the
Lord’s Cross.
“Dear friends, with great confidence I entrust you to the intercession
of Mary Most Holy. She is the Mother who helps us to take life decisions
freely and without fear. May she help you to bear witness to the joy of
God’s consolation,
without being afraid of joy, she will help you to conform yourselves to the
logic of love of the Cross, to grow in ever deeper union with the Lord in
prayer. Then your lives will be rich and fruitful!”
___________________________________________________________
ANGELUS: JESUS IS NOT AN ISOLATED MISSIONARY
Vatican City, 8 July 2013 (VIS) – At midday, following the Holy Mass
celebrated on the Day for seminarians, novices and those discerning their
vocations, in the context of the Year of Faith, Pope Francis appeared at the
window of his study to pray
the Angelus with the faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square.
The Bishop of Rome appealed to all those present to pray for the participants
in this Day, “that their love for Christ might mature more and more in
their lives and that they might become true missionaries of God's
Kingdom”, and then went on
to comment on this Sunday's gospel, relating it to the call to the vocation.
“Jesus is not an isolated missionary”, he said; “he does not
want to fulfill his mission alone, but involves his disciples. Today we see
that, in addition to the Twelve Apostles, He calls seventy-two others, and
sends them into the
villages, two by two, to announce that the Kingdom of God is near. This is
very beautiful! Jesus does not want to act alone, He has come to bring to the
world the love of God and wants to spread that love with communion and
fraternity. For this reason,
he immediately forms a community of disciples, a missionary community, and
trains them for the mission”.
“Beware, however: the purpose is not to socialize, to spend time
together – no, the purpose is to proclaim the Kingdom of God, and this
is urgent! There is no time to waste in small talk, no need to wait for the
consent of all – it is
necessary to go out and proclaim. The peace of Christ is to be brought to
everyone, and if some do not welcome it, then you go on. Healing is to be
brought to the sick, as God wishes to heal man from all evil. How many
missionaries do this! They sow
life, health, comfort in the peripheries of the world”.
“These seventy-two disciples, whom Jesus sent ahead of him, who are
they? Whom do they represent? If the Twelve are the Apostles, and therefore
also represent the Bishops, their successors, these may represent seventy-two
other ordained ministers
– priests and deacons – but in a wider sense we can think of other
ministries in the Church, catechists and lay faithful who engage in parish
missions, those who work with the sick, with the various forms of discomfort
and alienation, but
always as missionaries of the Gospel, with the urgency of the Kingdom that is
at hand. Everyone must become missionaries, everyone can hear Jesus' call and
go on to proclaim His kingdom!
“The Gospel says that those seventy-two returned from their mission full
of joy, because they had experienced the power of the Name of Christ against
evil. … We should not boast as if we were the protagonists: the
protagonist is the Lord
and His grace. Our joy is only this: in being His disciples, His friends.
… Do not be afraid of being joyful! … It is the joy that the
Lord gives us when we let Him enter into our lives and invite us to go forth
into the peripheries of
life and announce the Gospel, with joy and courage!”
After the Angelus, Pope Francis mentioned that two days ago his first
encyclical, “Lumen Fidei” (On the Light of Faith) was published.
Pope Benedict XVI had started this encyclical for the Year of Faith and to
follow the previous encyclicals
dedicated to love and hope. “I picked up this fine project and completed
it. I offer it with joy to the whole People of God: indeed, today more than
ever before, we need to return to the essentials of the Christian faith, to
deepen it, and to
measure current issues by it. I think that this encyclical, at least in some
parts, can also be useful to those who are searching for God and for the
meaning of life. I entrust it to the hands of Mary, the perfect icon of faith,
that it may bring the
fruits the Lord wishes”.
The Holy Father went on to greet the young people of the diocese of Rome who
are preparing to go to Rio de Janeiro to participate in World Youth Day.
“Dear young people, I too am preparing! Let us walk together towards
this great celebration of
faith! May Our Lady accompany us”.
Finally, he greeted the Franciscan Sisters and the Rosminian Angeline Sisters,
who are holding their General Chapters, and the leaders of the Community of
Sant'Egidio who have come to Rome from various countries to attend a training
course.
___________________________________________________________
AUDIENCE WITH PRESIDENT OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Vatican City, 6 July 2013 (VIS) – This morning in the Vatican Apostolic
Palace, the Holy Father received in audience the president of the Republic of
Trinidad and Tobago, Anthony Thomas Aquinas Carmona. The president
subsequently went on to meet
with Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone S.D.B., accompanied by
Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States.
During the course of the colloquial discussions, several topics were covered
including the contribution the Catholic Church offers to the population,
especially in the fields of education, health and assistance to the needy and
vulnerable. The Parties
expressed their commitment to fruitful collaboration in supporting the young
in the fight against crime and violence.
Finally, the focus turned to important themes such as the full formation of
the person and the protection of the family.
___________________________________________________________
CARDINAL VAN THUAN: A WITNESS OF HOPE
Vatican City, 6 July 2013 (VIS) - “A witness of hope” was how Pope
Francis defined the late Cardinal Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, who had
been the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and for
whom the diocesan
phase of the beatification process has now come to an end.
This morning in the Vatican Apostolic Palace the Holy Father greeted the
participants in the closing session of this phase and thanked Waldery
Hilgeman, postulator of the cause of Cardinal Van Thuan's beatification,
emphasizing that “many people
can testify to their edification through meeting the Servant of God
Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan in various stages of his life”.
“The experience shows that his renowned holiness was transmitted through
the testimony of the many people who met him and who cherish within their
hearts his gentle smile and the greatness of his sensibility. Many encountered
him through his
writings, simple yet profound, which demonstrate his priestly heart, deeply
united with He who called him to be the minister of His mercy and His love.
Many people have written to tell of grace received and signs attributed to the
intercession of this
venerated Brother, son of the east, who has completed his earthly journey in
the service of Peter's Successor.
“We entrust the furthering of his cause, and all the others currently in
process, to the intercession of the Virgin Mary. May Our Lady help us to live
ever more the beauty and joy of communion with Christ”, the Pope
concluded.
___________________________________________________________
AUDIENCES
On Saturday 6 July the Holy Father received in audience Cardinal Achille
Silvestri, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches
___________________________________________________________
OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
On Saturday 6 July the Holy Father appointed Archbishop George Kocherry as
apostolic nuncio to Bangladesh. Archbishop Kocherry, titular of Othona, was
previously apostolic nuncio to Zimbabwe.
___________________________________________________________
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