Subject: VISnews 120104
Organization: VIS
From: Vatican Information Service - Eng - txt
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
TWENTY SECOND YEAR - N. 3
ENGLISH
WEDNESDAY, 4 JANUARY 2012
SUMMARY:
- Christmas Means Bringing God's Joy and Light to Others
- Papal Message for the World Day of the Sick
- Other Pontifical Acts
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CHRISTMAS MEANS BRINGING GOD'S JOY AND LIGHT TO OTHERS
VATICAN CITY, 4 JAN 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father held his weekly general
audience this morning in the Paul VI Hall, in the presence of 7,000
pilgrims.
Benedict XVI dedicated his catechesis to the mystery of the Lord's
Nativity, noting that "our first reaction to this extraordinary event of God
Who becomes a child ... is joy". This "arises from a sense of heartfelt
wonder at seeing how God comes close to us and cares for us; how He acts in
history. ... It arises from a contemplation of the face of that humble child
because we know that it is the Face of God. ... Christmas is a time of joy
... because God - Who is the goodness, life and truth of mankind - comes
down to man's level in order to raise man to Himself. God comes so close
that we can see and touch Him". For this reason, the Pope explained,
"Christmas is the point at which heaven and earth unite. ... In that needy
Child ... what God is (eternity, strength, sanctity, life, joy) unites with
what we are (weakness, sin, suffering death)".
The phrase "admirabile commercium" is current in the theology and
spirituality of the Nativity, used to describe this "admirable exchange
between the divine and the human. ... The first act of that exchange comes
about in Christ's own humanity. The Word assumed our humanity and, in
exchange, human nature was raised to divine dignity. The second act of the
exchange consists in our real and intimate involvement in the divine nature
of the Word. ... Thus Christmas is the feast in which God comes so close to
man as to share the very act of being born, showing men and women their most
profound dignity: that of being children of God. Humanity's dream which
began in the Garden of Eden - we want to be like God - is realised in an
unexpected way, not through the greatness of man, who cannot make himself
God, but through the humility of God Who came down among us in His humility,
raising us to the true greatness of His being ".
Benedict XVI also turned his attention to another aspect of Christmas,
symbolised by light. "Christ's coming dissipates the shadows of the world
and fills the holy night with a celestial splendour, spreading the radiance
of God the Father over the faces of men, even today", he said. "After having
spoken and intervened in history through messengers and signs, 'He
appeared', He came out of His inaccessible light in order to illuminate the
world". All Christians must be aware of their mission and responsibility to
bear witness to the new light of the Gospel, and to bring it to the world.
The Church receives the light of Christ "to be illuminated thereby and to
spread it in all its splendour. And this must also come about in our own
lives".
"Christmas means pausing to contemplate the Child, the Mystery of God Who
became man in humility and poverty. Above all it means once again making
that Child, Who is Christ the Lord, part of ourselves so as to live our
lives from His, so as to make His feelings, His thoughts, His actions our
feelings, thoughts and actions. To celebrate Christmas is to express the
joy, novelty and light which that Birth brought into our lives, that we too
may bring others joy, true novelty and the light of God".
After his catechesis the Holy Father greeted pilgrims in various
languages, thanked a number of bands for having enlivened the celebration
with their music and imparted his blessing upon those present.
AG/ VIS
20120104 (620)
PAPAL MESSAGE FOR THE WORLD DAY OF THE SICK
VATICAN CITY, 4 JAN 2012 (VIS) - Made public yesterday was the Holy Father's
Message for the World Day of the Sick which will be held, as is traditional,
on 11 February, Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The message, dated from the
Vatican on 20 November 2011, Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ Universal
King, has as its title Jesus' words to the leper from the Gospel of St.
Luke: "Stand up and go; your faith has saved you".
Extracts from the English-language version of the message are given below.
"I wish to renew my spiritual closeness to all sick people, ... expressing
to each one of them the solicitude and the affection of the whole Church. In
the generous and loving welcoming of every human life, above all of weak and
sick life, a Christian expresses an important aspect of his or her Gospel
witness, following the example of Christ, Who bent down before the material
and spiritual sufferings of man in order to heal them.
"I would like to place emphasis upon the 'Sacraments of healing', that is
to say upon the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation and that of the
Anointing of the Sick, which have their natural completion in Eucharistic
Communion. The encounter of Jesus with the ten lepers, narrated by the
Gospel of St. Luke, ... helps us to become aware of the importance of faith
for those who, burdened by suffering and illness, draw near to the Lord. In
their encounter with Him they can truly experience that he who believes is
never alone! God, indeed, in His Son, does not abandon us to our anguish and
sufferings, but is close to us, helps us to bear them, and wishes to heal us
in the depths of our hearts.
"The faith of the lone leper who ... immediately went back to Jesus to
express his gratitude, enables us to perceive that reacquired health is a
sign of something more precious than mere physical healing, it is a sign of
the salvation that God gives us through Christ; it finds expression in the
words of Jesus: 'your faith has saved you'. He who in suffering and illness
prays to the Lord is certain that God's love will never abandon him, and
also that the love of the Church, the extension in time of the Lord's saving
work, will never fail. Physical healing, an outward expression of the
deepest salvation, thus reveals the importance that man - in his entirety of
soul and body - has for the Lord".
"The tandem of physical health and renewal after lacerations of the soul
thus helps us to understand better the 'Sacraments of healing'".
"The Sacrament of Penance ... consists in restoring us to God's grace, and
joining with Him in an intimate friendship'".
"God, 'rich in mercy', like the father in the Gospel parable, does not
close His heart to any of His children, but waits for them, looks for them.
... A time of suffering, in which one could be tempted to abandon oneself to
discouragement and hopelessness, can thus be transformed into a time of
grace so as to return to oneself, and like the prodigal son of the parable,
to think anew about one's life, recognizing its errors and failures, longing
for the embrace of the Father, and following the pathway to His home. He, in
His great love, always and everywhere watches over our lives and awaits us
so as to offer to every child that returns to Him the gift of full
reconciliation and joy.
"From a reading of the Gospels it emerges clearly that Jesus always showed
special concern for sick people. He not only sent out His disciples to tend
their wounds but also instituted for them a specific Sacrament: the
Anointing of the Sick. The Letter of James attests to the presence of this
sacramental act already in the first Christian community: by the Anointing
of the Sick, accompanied by the prayer of the elders, the whole of the
Church commends the sick to the suffering and glorified Lord so that He may
alleviate their sufferings and save them".
"This Sacrament deserves greater consideration today both in theological
reflection and in pastoral ministry among the sick. Through a proper
appreciation of the content of the liturgical prayers that are adapted to
the various human situations connected with illness, and not only when a
person is at the end of his or her life. ... Attention to and pastoral care
for sick people, while, on the one hand, a sign of God's tenderness towards
those who are suffering, on the other brings spiritual advantage to priests
and the whole Christian community as well, in the awareness that what is
done to the least, is done to Jesus Himself".
"The 'Sacraments of healing' ... are precious instruments of God's grace
which help a sick person to conform himself or herself ever more fully to
the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. Together with these two
Sacraments, I would also like to emphasise the importance of the Eucharist.
Received at a time of illness, it contributes in a singular way to working
this transformation, associating the person who partakes of the Body and
Blood of Christ to the offering that He made of Himself to the Father for
the salvation of all. The whole ecclesial community, and parish communities
in particular, should pay attention to guaranteeing the possibility of
frequently receiving Holy Communion, to those people who, for reasons of
health or age, cannot go to a place of worship".
"The Eucharist, especially as Viaticum, is - according to the definition
of St. Ignatius of Antioch - 'medicine of immortality, the antidote for
death'; the Sacrament of the passage from death to life, from this world to
the Father, Who awaits everyone in the celestial Jerusalem.
"The theme of this Message for the Twentieth World Day of the Sick, 'Stand
up and go; your faith has saved you', also looks forward to the forthcoming
Year of Faith which will begin on 11 October 2012. ... I wish to encourage
sick people and the suffering always to find a safe anchor in faith,
nourished by listening to the Word of God, by personal prayer and by the
Sacraments, while I invite pastors to be increasingly ready to celebrate
them for the sick. ... Priests should be full of joy, attentive to the
weakest, the simple and sinners, expressing the infinite mercy of God with
reassuring words of hope.
"To all those who work in the field of health, and to the families who see
in their relatives the suffering face of the Lord Jesus, I renew my thanks
and that of the Church".
"[May] Mary, Mother of Mercy and Health of the Sick ... accompany and
sustain the faith and the hope of every sick and suffering person on the
journey of healing for the wounds of body and spirit! I assure you all of a
remembrance in my prayers, and I bestow upon each one of you a special
Apostolic Blessing".
MESS/ VIS
20120104 (1190)
OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
VATICAN CITY, 4 JAN 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father:
- Appointed Bishop Cirilo Flores, auxiliary of Orange in California,
U.S.A., as coadjutor bishop of San Diego (area 22,942, population 3,118,990,
Catholics 981,211, priests 319, permanent deacons 114, religious 384),
U.S.A.
- Accepted the resignation from the office of auxiliary of Los Angeles,
U.S.A., presented by Bishop Gabino Zavala, in accordance with canons 411 and
401 para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.
NEC:RE/ VIS 20120104
(80)
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