(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, on Sunday celebrated Mass to consecrate the ‘Dormition of the Mother of God’ Cathedral of the Bulgarian Catholic Apostolic Exarchate of Sofia.
Cardinal Parolin is on an official state visit to the Republic of Bulgaria, and his trip also included a three-day stopover in Macedonia.
At the conclusion of the Mass, Cardinal Parolin exhorted the Bulgarian Church to awareness of the universality of the Church. “We find ourselves in a church, intended as a structure in which the faithful gather together to pray and celebrate the liturgy. The community gathered here is not isolated but connected to all the other Christian communities in the world. We are therefore called to turn our eyes to the Church in its catholicity, that is, in its universality. When we are united in church, dear brothers and sisters, we can sense our belonging to this great Christian family which lives, works, and prays in the entire world.”
Later, after a lunch at the Apostolic Nunciature, the Secretary of State visited the Monastery of the Eucharistine Sisters dedicated to Pope St. John XXIII, also speaking to the Catholic clergy of the Bulgarian Catholic Church gathered in St. Joseph’s Cathedral.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) In a telegramme sent on Sunday, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin said Pope Francis “was saddened to learn of the tragic air accident in Rostov-on-Don and he sends his sincere condolences to the relatives and friends of the victims.”
The telegramme, addressed to the competent authorities of the Russian Federation, continued, “His Holiness commends the souls of the dead to the mercy of Almighty God and implores the divine gifts of consolation, strength and hope upon all who mourn their loss.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has expressed his “prayerful solidarity” with victims of Saturday’s bomb attack in Istanbul.
In a telegramme addressed to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said Pope Francis “[grieved] to learn of the casualties caused by the bombing in Istanbul yesterday morning, and he expresses his prayerful solidarity with all touched by this tragedy.”
Below, please find the full text of the telegramme:
His Excellency Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
President of the Republic of Turkey
Ankara
His Holiness Pope Francis grieves to learn of the casualties caused by the bombing in Istanbul yesterday morning, and he expresses his prayerful solidarity with all touched by this tragedy. His Holiness asks you to convey his spiritual closeness to them, as well as to the personnel assisting the injured. Commending the souls of those who have died to the mercy of the Almighty, Pope Francis invokes divine strength and peace upon those who mourn, and upon the entire nation.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin
Secretary of State
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday presided at the Procession and Mass for Palm Sunday, as the Church enters into the celebration of Holy Week.
Palm Sunday commemorates the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem one week before His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. The crowds in Jerusalem joyfully welcomed Jesus, the Pope said in his homily, and “we have made that enthusiasm our own: by waving our olive and palm branches we have expressed our praise and our joy, our desire to receive Jesus who comes to us.”
The Holy Father continued, “Nothing could dampen their enthusiasm for Jesus’ entry. May nothing prevent us from finding in him the source of our joy, true joy, which abides and brings peace; for it is Jesus alone who saves us from the snares of sin, death, fear and sadness.”
Pope Francis’ homily focused on the redemptive Passion of Jesus, who emptied Himself , dying on the Cross for our sake. Even “at the height of His annihilation, revelas the true face of God, which is mercy.”
“If the mystery of evil is unfathomable,” the Pope continued, “then the reality of Love poured out through him is infinite, reaching even to the tomb and to hell. He takes upon himself all our pain that he may redeem it, bringing light to darkness, life to death, love to hatred.”
God’s way of acting, Pope Francis said, may seem very different from our own; nonetheless, we are called to “we are called to choose His way: the way of service, of giving, of forgetfulness of ourselves.” Jesus, he concluded, “invites us to walk on his path. Let us turn our faces to him, let us ask for the grace to understand something of the mystery of his obliteration for our sake; and then, in silence, let us contemplate the mystery of this Week.”
Below, please find the full text of Pope Francis’ prepared homily for Palm Sunday 2016:
Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis
Palm Sunday
20 March 2016
“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” (cf. Lk 19:38), the crowd of Jerusalem exclaimed joyfully as they welcomed Jesus. We have made that enthusiasm our own: by waving our olive and palm branches we have expressed our praise and our joy, our desire to receive Jesus who comes to us. Just as He entered Jerusalem, so He desires to enter our cities and our lives. As He did in the Gospel, riding on a donkey, so too He comes to us in humility; He comes “in the name of the Lord”. Through the power of His divine love He forgives our sins and reconciles us to the Father and with ourselves.
Jesus is pleased with the crowd’s showing their affection for Him. When the Pharisees ask Him to silence the children and the others who are acclaiming Him, He responds: “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” ( Lk 19:40). Nothing could dampen their enthusiasm for Jesus’ entry. May nothing prevent us from finding in Him the source of our joy, true joy, which abides and brings peace; for it is Jesus alone who saves us from the snares of sin, death, fear and sadness.
Today’s liturgy teaches us that the Lord has not saved us by His triumphal entry or by means of powerful miracles. The Apostle Paul, in the second reading, epitomizes in two verbs the path of redemption: Jesus “emptied” and “humbled” Himself ( Phil 2:7-8). These two verbs show the boundlessness of God’s love for us. Jesus emptied Himself : He did not cling to the glory that was His as the Son of God, but became the Son of man in order to be in solidarity with us sinners in all things; yet He was without sin. Even more, He lived among us in “the condition of a servant” (v. 7); not of a king or a prince, but of a servant. Therefore He humbled Himself, and the abyss of His humiliation, as Holy Week shows us, seems to be bottomless.
The first sign of this love “without end” ( Jn 13:1) is the washing of the feet. “The Lord and Master” ( Jn 13:14) stoops to His disciples’ feet, as only servants would have done. He shows us by example that we need to allow His love to reach us, a love which bends down to us; we cannot do any less, we cannot love without letting ourselves be loved by Him first, without experiencing His surprising tenderness and without accepting that true love consists in concrete service.
But this is only the beginning. The humiliation of Jesus reaches its utmost in the Passion: He is sold for thirty pieces of silver and betrayed by the kiss of a disciple whom He had chosen and called His friend. Nearly all the others flee and abandon Him; Peter denies Him three times in the courtyard of the temple. Humiliated in His spirit by mockery, insults and spitting, He suffers in His body terrible brutality: the blows, the scourging and the crown of thorns make His face unrecognizable. He also experiences shame and disgraceful condemnation by religious and political authorities: He is made into sin and considered to be unjust . Pilate then sends Him to Herod, who in turn sends Him to the Roman governor. Even as every form of justice is denied to Him, Jesus also experiences in His own flesh indifference, since no one wishes to take responsibility for His fate. The crowd, who just a little earlier had acclaimed Him, now changes their praise into a cry of accusation, even to the point of preferring that a murderer be released in His place. And so the hour of death on the cross arrives, that most painful form of shame reserved for traitors, slaves and the worst kind of criminals. But isolation, defamation and pain are not yet the full extent of His deprivation. To be totally in solidarity with us, He also experiences on the Cross the mysterious abandonment of the Father. In His abandonment, however, He prays and entrusts Himself: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” ( Lk 23:47). Hanging from the wood of the cross, beside derision He now confronts the last temptation: to come down from the Cross, to conquer evil by might and to show the face of a powerful and invincible God. Jesus, however, even here at the height of His annihilation, reveals the true face of God, which is mercy. He forgives those who are crucifying Him, He opens the gates of paradise to the repentant thief and He touches the heart of the centurion. If the mystery of evil is unfathomable, then the reality of Love poured out through Him is infinite, reaching even to the tomb and to hell. He takes upon Himself all our pain that He may redeem it, bringing light to darkness, life to death, love to hatred.
God’s way of acting may seem so far removed from our own, that He was annihilated for our sake, while it seems difficult for us to even forget ourselves a little. He comes to save us; we are called to choose His way: the way of service, of giving, of forgetfulness of ourselves. Let us walk this path, pausing in these days to gaze upon the Crucifix, the “royal seat of God”, to learn about the humble love which saves and gives life, so that we may give up all selfishness, and the seeking of power and fame. By humbling Himself, Jesus invites us to walk on His path. Let us turn our faces to Him, let us ask for the grace to understand something of the mystery of His obliteration for our sake; and then, in silence, let us contemplate the mystery of this Week.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) At the conclusion of the Solemn Mass for Palm Sunday, Pope Francis led the faithful in the recitation of the Angelus.
In brief remarks ahead of the Marian prayer, the Holy Father greeted all those taking part in the ceremony, including those watching and listening by means of television, radio, or other means of communication.
The Pope noted the 31st World Youth Day, commemorated on Sunday, which will culminate in the “great world Meeting in Krakow,” Poland, this summer. The theme of this year’s World Youth Day is “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.” “I hope that many of you can come to Krakow, the homeland of Saint John Paul II, the founder of World Youth Day,” Pope Francis said. “We entrust to his intercession the final months of preparation for this pilgrimage, in the context of the Holy Year of Mercy, will be the Jubilee of the Young People at the level of the Universal Church.”
Pope Francis also noted the many young volunteers from Krakow who were in the Square on Palm Sunday. “Returning to Poland,” he said, “they will take to the leaders of the Nation the olive branches gathered from Jerusalem, Assisi, and Montecassino” which were blessed during the ceremony, “as an invitation to cultivate proposals for peace, reconciliation, and fraternity.” He thanked them for their initiative, and encouraged them, “Go forward with courage!”
(from Vatican Radio)…