(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis received the participants in the 33rd Ecumenical Meeting of Bishops, Friends of the Focolare Movement this Friday. The meeting opened on November 3rd, and concluded with the audience at the Vatican. For four days, nearly forty Catholic and non-Catholic Church leaders from nearly thirty different countries met to explore the theme:…
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(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue on Friday released a Message to mark the Sikh festival of Guru Nanak Jayanti, an annual recurrence celebrating the birth of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak. The theme of the Message is: Christians and Sikhs – together to promote compassionate service . Below, please find the full text of the Message, in English.
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Christians and Sikhs:
together to promote compassionate service
Message for Guru Nanak Jayanti
2014
Vatican City
Dear Sikh Friends,
1. The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, in a spirit of friendship and goodwill, extends its warmest greetings and felicitations to you as you observe the Prakash Diwas of Siri Guru Nanak Dev Sahib on 6 November this year. May the celebrations of this feast further strengthen the bonds of relationships between your families and communities for greater happiness, harmony and peace!
2. We wish to reflect with you this year on how we, both Christians and Sikhs together, can promote compassionate service in the society. Compassionate service, in its different aspects and nuances, can be said to lie at the very heart of every great religion. For us Christians, it finds its perfect expression in the very person of Jesus Himself. The most eloquent description of it in the Holy Bible (NT), can be found in the parable of the ‘good Samaritan’ (Lk 10:25-37). For you, too, compassion ( daya ) and service ( seva ), selfless service rather, for the benefit of others, are the core concepts. Bhai Gurdas, the first interpreter of Gurbani wrote: “the hands and feet that shun seva are condemnable; actions other than seva are fruitless” ( Varan , XXVII.10). To do compassionate service means to reach out to the poor, the needy, sick, elderly, differently-abled, migrants, refugees, the exploited and persecuted, transcending all kinds of barriers and giving up one’s own interests and comforts, for they, too, are God’s handiwork and as such our brothers and sisters and are part of our one large human family. When clothed in the true spirit of charity and selflessness, such a service becomes an all-encompassing and rewarding experience for both the giver and the receiver.
3. The growing materialistic, consumerist and individualistic tendencies in today’s world, unfortunately, are making humans more and more self-centred, insensitive and indifferent to the needs and sufferings of others. Decrying these disturbing trends, Pope Francis, whose words and gestures of compassion and service have by now become proverbial, has called for a culture in which everyone feels loved, wanted and cared for and “no one is seen as useless, out of place or disposable” ( Message for the 101st World Day of Migrants and Refugees (2015), 3 September 2014).
4. As believers in our own respective religions with a shared treasury of values, may we, Christians and Sikhs, rediscover the importance of compassionate service in our personal and collective lives and make it a way of life, inspiring and encouraging others as well in this regard so as to promote happiness, harmony and peace everywhere. May we, joining hands with others, contribute to making a better, more just and fraternal world.
We wish you all a Happy Prakash Divas of Siri Guru Nanak Dev Sahib!
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran
President
Father Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot, MCCJ
Secretary
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue on Friday released a Message to mark the Sikh festival of Guru Nanak Jayanti, an annual recurrence celebrating the birth of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak. The theme of the Message is: Christians and Sikhs – together to promote compassionate service. Below, please find the full text of…
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(Vatican Radio) Even today there are “pagan Christians” who “behave like enemies of the Cross of Christ”, said Pope Francis at morning Mass Friday at Casa Santa Marta, warning that we must guard against the temptations of a worldly society that lead us to ruin.
Emer McCarthy reports Listen:
Pope Francis was inspired by the words of St. Paul to the Philippians to dwell on two groups of Christians, still present today as they were in the time of the Apostle of the Gentiles. Christians who go forward in faith and Christians who “live like enemies of the Cross of Christ”.
“Both groups – he said – were in the Church together, they went to Mass on Sunday, they praised the Lord, they called themselves Christians”. So what was the difference? The second group “act like enemies of the Cross of Christ! Christians enemies of the Cross of Christ”.
The Pope said these were “worldly Christians, Christians in name, with two or three Christian things, but nothing more. Pagan Christian”. “A Christian name, but a pagan life.” Or to put it another way: “Pagans with two strokes of Christian paint, so as to appear like Christians, but pagans nonetheless”.
“Even today there are many! We must be careful not to slip toward the path of being pagan Christians, Christians in appearance. The temptation to get used to mediocrity, the mediocrity of Christians, these Christians, it is their undoing because their hearts cool, they become lukewarm. And the Lord had strong words for these lukewarm [Christians]: ‘because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth’. These are very strong words! They are enemies of the Cross of Christ. They take the name, but do not follow the requirements of Christian life”.
Paul, he said, speaks of the “citizenship” of Christians. “Our citizenship,” he noted, “is in heaven. Theirs is on earth. They are citizens of the world, not of heaven”. “Citizens of the world. And their surname is worldly! Beware of these” warned Pope Francis adding that everyone, himself including, must ask: “Do I have something of these? Do I have some worldliness within me? Some paganism?”.
“Do I like to brag? Do I like the money? Do I like pride, arrogance? Where are my roots, that is, where am I a citizen of? Heaven or earth? In the world or the worldly spirit? Our citizenship is in heaven, and we await heaven and Our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And theirs? Their ultimate fate will be destruction! These painted Christians will end badly … But look at the end: where will that citizenship that you have in your heart lead you? The worldly one to ruin, that of the Cross of Christ to an encounter with Him “.
The Pope then outlined a few signs “of the heart” that show us whether we “are sliding towards worldliness”. “If you love and if you are attached to money, vanity and pride – he warned – you are heading towards the bad road”. If, instead, “you try to love God, serve others, if you are gentle, if you are humble, if you are the servant of the other, you are on the right road. Your citizen’s card is good: it belongs to heaven”. The other, by contrast, “is a citizenship that will bring you only bad”. The Pope pointed out that Jesus asked the Father to save his disciples “from the spirit of the world, this worldliness, which leads to destruction”.
The Pope then turned his attention to the parable of the steward who cheated his master, told in the Gospel of the day:
” How did this steward in the Gospel arrive at this point of cheating, of stealing from his master? How did he get there, from one day to the next? No! Little by little. One day a tip here, the next day a bribe there, and this is how little by little you arrive at corruption. The path of worldliness of these enemies of the Cross of Christ is like this, it leads you to corruption! And then you end up like this man, right? Openly stealing … ”
Pope Francis returned to the words of Paul, who asks us to remain “firm in the Lord” without allowing our heart to weaken and end up in “nothing, in corruption”. “This is a good grace to seek – he said – remaining firm in the Lord. It is all of salvation, there lies transfiguration in glory”. “Firm in the Lord and following the example of the Cross of Christ: humility, poverty, meekness, service to others, worship, prayer.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has denounced the assassination of a young couple in Pakistan, who had been accused of blasphemy.
In an interview with Vatican Radio, the cardinal added that he was “shocked” by the “barbarous acts”.
Listen to the report:
According to the couple’s Christian lawyer, the young Shahzad and Shama Masih were beaten by an angry Mulsim mob on Tuesday and then burned alive. Police instead report the young couple was beaten to death and then their bodies burned.
“Obviously, one remains speechless before such barbarous acts,” said the cardinal. “And what is worse is that religion is invoked in a specific way. A religion cannot justify such acts, such crimes. There is this lay on blasphemy, the ‘blasphemy law’, which poses a problem.”
The cardinal noted that there have been about 60 executions under the blasphemy law since it was adopted. He called for some international intervention in the matter, saying that a minimum of humanity and solidarity is required and that dialogue is necessary.
Since direct intervention in Pakistan’s domestic affairs is not appropriate, said the cardinal, legislators must be helped to understand that laws must respect the dignity of the person.
Cardinal Tauran said the Church must denounce such violent acts publicly, with consistency and force. He said he hopes Muslim leaders will do the same. He said Muslims are victimized by these acts of violence as well, as they give a very negative image of Islam.
“Therefore, it is in their interest to denounce such acts in a vigorous manner,” he said.
The cardinal said solidarity is the way to continue giving hope to Christians facing daily threats and violence. He also underlined some encouraging and well-received initiatives by the Church in the Middle East.
“We need to bet on fraternity,” he said, “which is the theme of the World Day of Peace.”
Report read by Andrew Summerson, article by Laura Ieraci
(from Vatican Radio)…