(Vatican Radio) The 51 st International Eucharistic Congress is taking place in Cebu, Philippines drawing thousands of delegates from around the globe to reflect on the central role of the Eucharist in the life of the Church.
Among those attending the week-long event is the Vatican’s top diplomat at the United Nations in New York, Archbishop Bernardito Auza . Archbishop Auza, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer at the UN in New York, is Filipino himself so his visit to Cebu is a return home.
He tells our correspondent in Cebu, Sean Patrick Lovett, that the centrality of the Eucharist in the Catholic faith is directly related to issues of international political concern such as hunger, poverty and human rights.
Listen to Sean Patrick Lovett’s interview with Archbishop Auza:
Archbishop Auza says he has been pleasantly surprised to hear so many of the week’s discussions centre on hunger and cultural and interreligious dialogue to name a few of the social justice themes on the agenda. “The question of justice, the question of the environment, all of these things are the biggest themes which are also discussed at the United Nations,” he adds.
The Holy See and the Catholic Church, he observes, have much to contribute to the International community and to the United Nations by way of offering a unique religious perspective, and new points of view to dialogue on issues of global concern.
He stresses that all these universal concerns are coming “into our reflection on the Eucharist” in Cebu.
Hunger, interfaith dialogue, social justice “from the perspective of the Eucharist”
Viewing hunger and cultural and interfaith dialogue “from the perspective of the Eucharist,” he notes, “could be very, very interesting and surprising at the same time but indeed for us, [the Eucharist] is …the source, also the inspiration of our participation in the international community. And it is from that particular perspective – our religious perspective – that the international community is also very interested in our participation, in our point of view. That’s why the Holy Father practically opened the [UN] Summit this year on the 2030 Development Agenda where the number one goal is to eradicate hunger and eliminate extreme poverty.”
Bringing love for the Eucharist into dialogue with other faiths
The Vatican Nuncio recounts how the Eucharist “is always available to people” in the Philippines where almost every church, he says, offers 24/7 Eucharistic adoration or other alternatives for veneration if a chapel should be closed. “So bringing this great love of the Eucharist also to the social justice concern to eradicate hunger, eradicate extreme poverty – to bring this love for the Eucharist into the question of dialogue with culture, dialogue with other religions, is something that really expands our vision and also expands our love and our own idea of the Eucharist. So we see the Eucharist as the source also of all these dialogues: that we have to go out into the world and try to be useful, try to be friendly, try to live with others in a harmonious manner.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Let us pray to God that the weakness that leads us to sin will never lead to corruption. This was the theme of Pope Francis homily at daily Mass on Friday morning, a theme he has taken up many times. Beginning with the first reading, which tells the story of David and Bathsheba, the Pope distinguished between regular sinners and those who are corrupt. Unlike regular sinners, the corrupt do not feel the need for forgiveness.
Listen to Christopher Wells’ report:
One can sin often, and always return to God seeking forgiveness, never doubting that it will be obtained. It is especially when one becomes corrupt – when one no longer sees the need to be forgiven – that problems begin.
The corrupt feel they don’t need God
This is the attitude King David assumes when he becomes enamoured with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, an army officer fighting on the frontlines. The Pope outlined the story narrated in the Scripture. After David seduced Bathsheba, he found out that she was pregnant, and he hatched a plot to cover-up his adultery. He recalled Uriah from the front and encouraged him to visit his wife. Uriah, though, did not go to his wife, but stayed with the other officers in the king’s palace. David then tried to get him drunk, but this plan also fails.
“This puts David in a difficult position,” the Pope said. “But he says to himself, ‘I can do it.’ He sends a letter, as we read: ‘Place Uriah up front, where the fighting is fierce. Then pull back and leave him to be struck down dead.’ He condemns him to death. This man, this faithful man [Uriah] – faithful to the law, faithful to his people, faithful to his king – carries his own death sentence.”
The security of corruption
“David is a saint, but also a sinner.” He falls on account of lust, the Pope said, and yet God still loves him very much. However, the Pope notes, “the great, the noble David” feels so secure – “because the kingdom was strong” – that after having committed adultery he does everything in his power to arrange the death of a loyal man, falsely passing it off as an accidental death in battle:
“This is a moment in David’s life that makes us see a moment through which we all can pass in our life: it is the passage from sin to corruption. This is where David begins, taking the first step towards corruption. He has the power, he has the strength. And for this reason, corruption is a very easy sin for all of us who have some power, whether it be ecclesiastical, religious, economic, political… Because the devil makes us feel certain: ‘I can do it’.”
Sinners, yes; but not corrupt
Corruption – from which David was saved by the grace of God – had wounded the heart of that “courageous youth” who had faced the Philistine with a sling and five small stones. “Today I want to emphasize only one thing,” the Pope concluded. “There is a moment where the attitude of sin, or a moment where our situation is so secure and we see well and we have so much power” that sin “stops” and becomes “corruption.” And “one of the ugliest things” about corruption is that the one who becomes corrupt thinks he has “no need for forgiveness.”
“Today, let us offer a prayer for the Church, beginning with ourselves, for the Pope, for the Bishops, for the priests, for consecrated men and women, for the lay faithful: ‘Lord, save us, save us from corruption. We are sinners, yes, O Lord, all of us, but [let us] never [become] corrupt!’ Let us ask for this grace.”
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) “It is very likely that Pope Francis will visit the concentration camp at Auschwitz,” during his visit to Kraków, according to Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., the head of the Holy See Press Office. He noted that every Pope who has gone to Kraków has later travelled to the notorious World War II death camp.
Father Lombardi was speaking at the offices of Vatican Radio at on Holocaust Memorial Day. Vatican Radio was hosting a presentation of the book, “We were Jews: That was our only crime,” (Eravamo ebrei: Questa era la nostra unica colpa, published by Marsilio Editore) by Ester and Alberto Mieli. In the book, Ester Mieli, a Holocaust survivor, relates to Alberto, her nephew, the terrible experience of her deportation.
During the event, Fr Lombardi expressed his deep emotion at the fact that the International Holocaust Day could be experienced at the Vatican, with one of the few living survivors of the concentration camps. He recalled the visits of St John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Pope Francis to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, and the speeches of John Paul and Benedict at Auschwitz. Father Lombardi said he thought it would not be long before Pope Francis would also have a chance to speak there.
Pope Francis will be visiting the Polish city of Kraków – about 70 km away from Auschwitz – in July of 2016 for the upcoming World Youth Day.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Thursday met with actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio.
The actor gave the Pope a book of art from the Dutch Renaissance painter, Hieronymus Bosch, and at the end of the encounter, DiCaprio kissed the Pope’s ring, and, in Italian, thanked the Holy Father for meeting with him.
DiCaprio addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this month, calling on business leaders to do more to fight global warming, and announcing The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation is donating $15 million to environmental projects.
(from Vatican Radio)…
Vatican City, 28 January 2016 (VIS) – This morning in the Holy See Press Office a press conference was held to present the 24th World Day of the Sick, to be celebrated in Nazareth in the Holy Land on 11 February, feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes, on the theme “Entrusting oneself to the merciful Jesus like Mary: ‘Do whatever he tells you’”, based on the account of the wedding at Cana according to the Gospel of St. John.
The panel was composed of Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers (Health Pastoral Care), Msgr. Jean-Marie Mate Musivi Mupendawatu, secretary of the same dicastery, Rev. Fr. Augusto Chendi, under-secretary, Rev. Fr. Pietro Felet, S.C.I., secretary general of the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land and local referent for the organisation of the World Day of the Sick 2016.
The place where the Day will be held – Nazareth, in the Holy Land – is the first point to highlight, said Archbishop Zimowski. Nazareth is the place of the incarnation, where Jesus began His salvific mission and in Galilee cured many people, as is narrated in the Gospel of St. Mark, read in these days, in which Christ calls to the sick to heal them and, in turn, is called to by them. “In a certain sense we are all constantly called upon, although each person in a different way”, explained the prelate. “The human being suffers in different places and, at times, suffers terribly. He calls to another person as he is in need of his help and his presence. At times we are intimidated by the fact of not being able to heal, of not being able to help like Jesus. Let us try to overcome this embarrassment. The important thing is to keep going, to stay beside the man who suffers. He needs, perhaps more than healing, the presence of another person, of a human heart full of mercy, of human solidarity”.
“These are doctors, nurses, all the representatives of the healthcare professions. They are the institutions that serve human health. … We must support this great tradition at all costs: the work of doctors and nurses is treated not only as a profession but also and perhaps firstly as a service, as a vocation. Care for the physically impaired and the elderly, care for the mentally ill – these sectors constitute, more than any other aspect of social life, the measure of the culture of a society and the state”.
Secondly, the archbishop remarked that the Day occurs in the context of the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, and that there will be a visit to the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre and the Basilica of the Agony in Gethsemane, the places where Christ gave Himself to the Father for our salvation. “Jesus unites humanity through His Cross, and the celebration of the World Day of the Sick in the Holy Land will help us to realise the wish Pope Francis expressed in the Bull of Indiction, that is, that ‘this Jubilee year celebrating the mercy of God will foster an encounter with [Judaism and Islam] and with other noble religious traditions; may it open us to even more fervent dialogue so that we might know and understand one another better; may it eliminate every form of closed-mindedness and disrespect, and drive out every form of violence and discrimination’. Every hospital and clinic, as the Holy Father reminds us, can be a visible sign and place for promoting the culture of encounter and peace, where the experience of sickness and suffering, as well as professional and fraternal help, may contribute to overcoming every limit and division”.
Finally, the archbishop spoke about the role of servants at the wedding of Cana, who Mary told to do as Christ told them. “Naturally, the miracle takes place through Christ’s work; however, He sought human help in completing the prodigy. He could have made the wine appear directly in the amphorae. But He wants to count on human collaboration, and asks the servants to fill them with water. How precious and pleasing to God it is to be servants of others! This, more than anything else, makes us similar to Jesus, Who ‘came not to be served, but to serve'”.
“The fruit of this Day must be concrete: the closeness of our hearts that is expressed in mercy towards the sick and needy, who must feel the closeness or proximity, material and spiritual, of the entire Christian community”, he concluded. “It is important that they are not left abandoned or alone as they face such a delicate moment in their life”.
Fr. Chendi explained that the programme of the Day is divided into three parts: liturgical moments; theological-pastoral insights, with the presence on 9 February in the Pontifical Institute Notre Dame Centre of Jerusalem of the Catholic Ordinaries and Patriarchs and bishops of the sister Churches of the Holy Land; and concrete gestures of charity, such as visits to various hospitals and healthcare structures present in the area.
The under-secretary also mentioned that plenary indulgence granted by Pope Francis to those who participate in this Day, with the explicit intention that, through corporal and spiritual works of mercy “they will encounter a renewed and authentic witness and discover the Christian meaning of suffering and its sharing among brothers”.
With regard to the theological and pastoral dimension, the congress of 9 February “will offer the opportunity to identify problems, also of an ethical and pastoral nature, that are urgent from both a legislative and a clinical and care-related point of view. In particular, in the name of the inviolable value of every human life and the unique dignity characteristic of every person, attention will be paid to issues regarding the end of life and the care of people with different pathologies, both physically and psychologically invalidating”.
In relation to the charitable dimension, Fr. Chendi explained that the visits to various entities working in the Holy Land, both Catholic and non-Catholic, will constitute “a tangible sign of what Pope Francis describes in his message as Mary’s tenderness in Cana of Galilee, which translates into a predisposition towards serving those in need and in particular our brothers and sisters in sickness”….