(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated Mass in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta on Friday morning. In remarks to the faithful following the Readings of the Day, the Holy Father focused on three attitudes that are characteristic of the Christian: “standing” before God in “silence” to hear His voice and readiness to “go out” into the world to proclaim what one has heard to others. The Pope also warned against the danger of paralyzing fear in Christian life, no matter where one is in one’s journey with God and regardless of one’s state of life in the Church:
Standing upright and walking
To explore this issue, and how to escape the tunnel of fear, the Pope focused on the the prophet Elijah, from whose book the First Reading of the Day was taken. The Holy Father recalled how Elijah was victorious, how he “fought so much for the faith,” and defeated hundreds of idolaters on Mount Carmel. Then, he reaches a breaking point: one of the many acts of persecution aimed at him finally hit its mark, and he collapses in discouragement under a tree, waiting to die – except that God does not leave him in that state of prostration, but sends an angel with an imperative: get up, eat, go out:
“To meet God it is necessary to go back to the situation where the man was at the time of creation, standing and walking. Thus did God created us: capable of standing full upright before Him, in his image and likeness, and on our way with Him. ‘Go, go ahead: cultivate the land, make it grow; and multiply.’ [Then, to Elijah], ‘Enough! Go out and go up to the mountain and stand on the mountaintop in my presence.’ Elijah stood up on his feet, he set off on his way.”
The strain of a sonorous silence
Go out, and then to listen to God: only how can one be sure to meet the Lord on the way? Elijah was invited by the angel to go out of the cave on Mount Horeb, where he found shelter to stand in the “presence” of God. However, it is not the “mighty and strong” wind that splits the rocks, nor the earthquake that follows, nor even the fire that follows, which finally induces Elijah to go out:
“So much noise, so much majesty, so much bustle – and the Lord was not there. ‘After the fire, the whisper of a gentle breeze’ or, as it is in the original, ‘the strain of a sonorous silence’: and the Lord is there, speaking to us in it.
The hour of the mission
The angel’s third request to Elijah is: “Go out.” The prophet is invited to retrace his steps, to the desert, because he was given an assignment to fulfill. In this, emphasizes Francis, is captured the stimulus “to be on the way, not closed, not within the selfishness of our comfort,” but “brave” in “bringing to others the message of the Lord,” which is to say, “[to go on a] ‘mission’”:
“We must always seek the Lord. We all know how are the bad moments: moments that pull us down, moments without faith, dark, times when we do not see the horizon, we are unable to get up. “We all know this, but but it is the Lord who comes, who refreshes us with bread and with his strength and says: ‘Arise and be on your way! Walk!’ In order to meet the Lord we must be so: standing upright and on our way; then waiting for Him speak to us, with an open heart; and He will say, ‘It is I’ and there faith becomes strong – [and] is this faith for me to keep? No: It is for us to bring to others, to anoint others with it – it is for mission.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) On Thursday in the Holy See Press Office a press conference was held to present the Jubilee of the sick and disabled (10 to 12 June). The panel was composed of Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, Bishop José Octavio Ruiz Arenas and Msgr. Graham Bell, respectively secretary and under-secretary of the same dicastery.
The Jubilee was scheduled to begin on Friday with a pilgrimage from Castel Sant’Angelo to the Holy Door. Later, at 5 p.m., in the Church of Santa Maria in Vallicella, there will be a catechesis addressed to all and in particular to the deaf and blind, given by the Redemptorist Fr. Cyril Axelrod, also deaf and blind and known throughout the world, especially in China, the United Kingdom and South Africa, for his full commitment to disability issues. The catechesis will be made available in International Sign Language (ISL), in Italian sign language and in tactile sign language.
On Saturday 11 there will be two special moments. The first, of a religious nature, will be an appointment in various churches in the city centre from 10 to 11 am., for catechesis offered in various languages and methods of communication, entitled “Mercy, source of joy”. In the Church of Sant’Andrea della Valle there will be, in Italian, a symbolic catechesis with a dramatisation of the Gospel reading and various simple gestures to accompany prayer, which will enable those with intellectual disabilities to participate.
The second will be a celebration in the gardens of Castel Sant’Angelo, from 6 to 8 p.m., entitled “Beyond the Limit”, to be attended by a number of well-known artists, singers and dancers performing alongside the sick and disabled. From 2 p.m., also in the gardens, seven tents will be set up with stands representing various pastoral and volunteer associations and organisations, who will share their experience of evangelisation for and with the world of sickness and disability.
On Sunday 12 June in St. Peter’s Square pilgrims will have the opportunity to listen to testimonies from people affected by sickness or disability, and from those who live in close contact with it, on the theme “When I am weak, I am strong”. At 10.30 the Pope will preside at the Eucharistic celebration which will be accessible worldwide via live streaming with sign language. The liturgical service and the readings will have as their protagonists people with disabilities, and in particular among the altar servers there will be a number of people with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities. One of the deacons, German, is deaf, the first reading will be read by a disabled Spanish person, and the second will be read in English in Braille by a blind child. All the readings will be translated into international sign language by deaf people from various countries, and the prayers of the faithful in different languages will be read by sick and disabled people of various nationalities. Then, for the first time in St. Peter’s Square, the Gospel reading will be dramatised by a group of people with intellectual disabilities, to enable the text to be understood by pilgrims with mental and intellectual disabilities. At the moment of communion, the Sistine Chapel Choir will be substituted by the “Amoris Laetitia” Choir which, long with other choirs that also use sign language, made up of people with disabilities, will sing Pane del Cielo (Bread of Heaven).
During the Mass, the painting of the Virgin Salus infirmorum, conserved in the Church of St. Mary Magdalen in Campo Marzio, Rome and venerated and invoked as help of the sick, will be displayed.
The initiative of the Med Tag Foundation merits special attention. From Friday 10 June, in the vicinity of the Vatican basilicas, there will be four “Health Points”, which will offer specialised health care free of charge, especially to the city’s many homeless. Around 350 volunteers, including women religious, Red Cross nurses, military staff and health care workers, will offer to more than 700 homeless people the possibility of a specialised examinations in the fields of general medicine, dermatology, senology, paediatrics and gynaecology. Vaccines will be administered against pneumonia, which is one of the most serious health risks for such people. Women will be offered PAP tests free of charge.
After presenting the Jubilee for the sick and disabled, Archbishop Fisichella provided further information on the development of the Jubilee Year. “According to the data available today, the number of pilgrims who have visited Rome for the various Jubilee initiatives and who have visited the four basilicas, as well as the Holy Door of the Shrine of Divine Love, is 9,100,935. It is a significant number for the first six months of the Jubilee, which confirms the great desire of many faithful from all over the world to come to Rome to meet Pope Francis, even though there are many Doors of Mercy around the globe”.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has decided to set up a committee to oversee the distribution of money to Ukrainians who are affected by the conflict in the east of the nation. The money was collected by Catholic churches across Europe on Sunday 24th April in response to a personal appeal by the Pope. The setting up of the committee came just days before a scheduled visit to Ukraine by the (Vatican) Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
Speaking to journalists, the Director of the Holy See’s Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, said the money would be distributed to all those impacted by Ukraine’s conflict, regardless of their religion or ethnic group. He said the committee will consist of a President, Jan Sobilo, auxiliary Bishop of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia, and four other members and its mandate will run for one year and will be renewed if deemed necessary.
Experts say there are more than 1.7 million displaced people in Ukraine as a result of the conflict in the east between government troops and Russian-backed separatist forces.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) The Vatican on Thursday released the programme for Pope Francis’ 27-31 July visit to Poland for the 31 st World Youth Day celebrations.
The Pope will depart from Rome’s Fiumicino airport at 2 p.m. and will arrive at the John Paul II airport of Balice-Krakow two hours later. After the welcome ceremony he will transfer to the Castle of Wawel, where he will address the civil authorities and diplomatic corps, followed by a courtesy visit to the president of the Republic. The Pope’s first day in Poland will conclude with a meeting with bishops in Krakow Cathedral.
In the early morning of Thursday 28 July he will visit the Convent of the Sisters of the Presentation on the way to the airport, and at 8.30 a.m. he will transfer by helicopter to Czestochowa where, in the monastery of Jasna Gora, he will pray in the chapel of the Black Virgin before celebrating Holy Mass in the Shrine of Czestochowa on the occasion of the 1,050th anniversary of the baptism of Poland. At 12.45 p.m. he will return to Krakow where he will address the young people gathered in Jordan Park.
On Friday 29 July he will transfer by helicopter to Oswiecim. At 9.30 he will visit Auschwitz and at 10.30 the camp of Birkenau, returning to Krakow where at 4.30 p.m. he will meet patients at the university paediatric hospital, and at 6 p.m. he will preside at the Via Crucis with young people in Jordan Park.
On Saturday he will visit the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Krakow, where he will pass through the Door of Divine Mercy and confess several young people. After, at 10.30, he will celebrate Holy Mass for Polish priests, men and women religious, consecrated persons and seminarians in the St. John Paul II Shrine of Krakow. The Pope will lunch with several young people in the archiepiscopal residence and then in the evening will pass through the Holy Door in the Campus Misericordiae with various young people. There, at 7.30 p.m., he will give the opening address of the prayer vigil.
On Sunday 31 July, Francis will celebrate Mass for World Youth Day in the Campus Misericordiae, after which, at 5 p.m., he will greet the WYD volunteers, organising committee and benefactors in the Tauron Arena in Krakow. He will depart by air at 6.30 p.m., destined for Rome’s Ciampino airport, where he is expected to arrive at 8.25 p.m.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has received in audience the first Resident Ambassador of Malaysia to the Holy See, Tan Sri Bernard Giluk Dompok .
During a private audience in the Vatican on Thursday morning, Ambassador Dompok presented his Credentials.
The Ambassador is the former minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities in Malaysia and prior to that he was Chief Minister of the State of Sabah.
Born in 1949 in what was then British North Borneo, Dompok received his education at the mission schools of St. Michael and La Salle Secondary School before graduating at the University of East London.
His appointment as the country’s first resident ambassador to the Holy See was announced on 22 March 2016; however he has been credited with being instrumental in laying the groundwork for the establishment of diplomatic ties with the Vatican in 2011.
In a conversation with Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni , Ambassador Dompok speaks of the how the establishment of formal ties between Malaysia and the Holy See came about and what he hopes his contribution will be in his new role.
Listen :
Ambassador Dompok explains that the establishment of formal relations between his country and the Holy See goes back some time. He says he had the privilege to be present during discussions held with the former Apostolic Nuncio who was resident in Bangkok , and who had been coming to Malaysia and meeting with politicians and his counterparts in the hope of setting up diplomatic ties during the Papacy Saint John Paul II, and he speaks of the general feeling that “the people he met were very keen to do so”.
However, he says, the opportune moment arose only some years later when Prime Minister Najib took a serious stand regarding the issue and together with Dompok, which whom he had served on the Federal Cabinet for more than a decade, came to visit Pope Benedict XVI at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo in 2011 where it all came to a “happy ending” with the formal establishment of diplomatic ties.
The Ambassador explains that the process has taken a long time because Malaysia is a diverse and complex nation with a vast multi-cultural, multi-racial and multi-religious reality.
“We have 60% Muslims, 30% Buddhists, Hindus and so on, and only about 10% – and a bit – Christians, and of that 10% about half of them are Catholics” he says.
He says time was needed to understand that having diplomatic ties with the Vatican will actually “convey to the world a nation that is confident of itself and is willing to take part in the world conversation”.
In fact he points out that Malaysia has much to contribute in experience to the development of inter-religious dialogue.
He speaks of how Malaysia and its ‘bigger’ neighbor, Indonesia, which both have a majority Muslim population, have much to teach the world in this sense and that, although there may be challenges and problems “we are still able to overcome most of them in order to make it possible for all races to live together”.
Dompok speaks of the current Prime Minister’s campaign to encourage “a movement of moderates” trying to rally people together to understand that communities cannot live in isolation and that those with more moderate views have a responsibility to work for peaceful dialogue.
The Ambassador says that extremism is a problem throughout the world and expresses his belief that the only way to overcome the fanaticism that leads to terrorism is to engage in reasoning and dialogue.
One of Ambassador Dompok’s core concerns is the promotion of education. “I wouldn’t be here today, speaking to you” he says “if I hadn’t the opportunity to go to a Mission school”.
And so important has Catholic education been in Malaysia, he says, that it has impacted society and empowered the people like nothing else.
“Catholics came to Borneo Island on the back of education. It was education first and then the spreading of the good news!” he says.
He explains that back home, at this moment in time, the Government has had to take over the running of the Mission schools as they have no funding and it is his concern that the Mission fathers be empowered once again.
“The Church, and the related organizations of the Church, have a vast amount of resources – not fixed assets – but expertise: people in the Church have been in education for a long time (…) and some of this can be transported to the rest of the world” he says.
Education – Ambassador Dompok believes – is the most precious tool for people in developing nations to overcome poverty, and he says one of his main appeals to people in the Vatican would certainly be to support this belief and to engage in the commitment to promote education for peace and development.
(from Vatican Radio)…