A prayer vigil to “dry
the tears” of those who are suffering and in need of consoling. A visit to a
hostel and moment for penance. These are a few examples of the events which the
Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization has added to their
calendar of events for the extraordinary
Holy Year on the website www.im.va . These meetings, in which Pope Francis will participate, will
involve families, pilgrimage organizers, parish priests and rectors of shrines,
members of the Roman Curia, of the Governorate of Vatican City State and other
Holy See institutions, teenagers, deacons, catechists and inmates. In addition
to the detailed agenda of these special days, the dicastery has announced that
in order to promote pilgrimages there will be a series of jubilee audiences
with the Pope which will be held on 12 Saturdays from January to November 2016. These new additions
to the calendar of the Jubilee of Mercy were conceived of as moments of
awareness and welcome, demonstrating that no one is excluded from divine mercy.
The Jubilee — which opens on 8 December 2015, the Feast of Christ the King —
intends to show the world the abundance of divine mercy. From the opening of
the Holy Door to its closing, the Pontiff will perform several signs of the
jubilee bearing witness to corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Many of the
larger events will be held over several days in order to offer the possibility
reflection and further involvement in the path to conversion that the Gospel calls for. The
Pope will participate in moments of prayer, liturgical celebrations and
Eucharistic adoration….
(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization has published a calendar of “Great Events with Pope Francis” which will take place during the upcoming Jubilee of Mercy.
The Jubilee will begin Tuesday 8 December, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, with the opening of the Holy Door of Saint Peter’s Basilica. The following Sunday, 13 December, the Third Sunday of Advent, Holy Doors will be opened at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran and in Cathedrals around the world.
Highlights of the Jubilee include the sending forth of the Missionaries of Mercy on Ash Wednesday, 10 February, and World Youth Day, which will take place in Krakow, Poland from 26-31 July. The theme of next year’s World Youth Day is “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Mt 5:7).
Special jubilee days throughout the year are dedicated to groups of people in the Church, including Jubilees for Consecrated Life, for young children, for the sick, and for catechists. There will also be a Marian jubilee on the Saturday and Sunday following the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary.
The Jubilee of Mercy will conclude with the closing of the Holy Door of Saint Peter’s Basilica on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, on Sunday 20 November.
The full schedule can be found on the official website for the Jubilee of Mercy.
(from Vatican Radio)…
(Vatican Radio) “A blessing to one another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People” is the title of an exhibition showing in the Vatican’s Charlemagne Wing.
Scheduled to last until September 17, the exhibit was previously displayed in a number of state capitals in the USA where it received more than a million visitors.
“A blessing to one another” illustrates the steps Pope Saint John Paul II took to improve the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, and reflects the continuing relevance of the conciliar declaration “Nostra Aetate”, in which the Catholic Church expresses her appreciation for other religions and reaffirms the principals of universal fraternity, love and non-discrimination.
Dr William Madges, one of the exhibition curators, spoke to Vatican Radio about the event.
Listen to the interview:
Madges explains the exhibit is divided into four sections and consists of photographs, videos, recordings and other interactive sources.
The first section illustrates Karol Wojtyla’s early years in his birthplace Wadowice, what would become a lifelong friendship with the young Jew Jerzy Kluger, and the relations between Catholics and Jews in Poland during the decade 1920 to 1930.
The second section is dedicated to the Pope’s university years in Krakow, and his work not far from his friends in the Ghetto who knew the horrors of the Shoah.
The third describes his priestly and episcopal life, Vatican Council II and the change of direction it represented in relations between Jews and Christians, and the close link between the cardinal archbishop of Krakow and the Jewish community in his archdiocese.
The final section considers the figure of Wojtyla as the Successor of Peter, his visit to the Synagogue of Rome, and his trip to Israel in the year 2000 when he left a prayer in the Western Wall asking for divine forgiveness for the treatment that Jews had received in the past and reaffirming the Church’s commitment to a path of fraternal continuity with the People of the Covenant.
Visitors to “A blessing to one another” are invited to write a prayer to be placed in a reproduction of the Wall. They will be gathered and deposited in the Western Wall without being read.
For more information about the exhibition click here .
(from Vatican Radio)…
SECAM, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) is today Wednesday set to officially launch the African Year of Reconciliation (AYR) as it commemorates its 46th Anniversary since it was founded.
SECAM, the Pan-African Conference of Catholic Bishops’ conferences in Africa and Madagascar, was inaugurated in July 1969 in Kampala, Uganda, during the visit by Pope Paul VI, with the aim to promote collaboration and foster communion among Bishops’ conferences in view of enhancing the mission of evangelization and integral human development on the continent.
According to a press release by the Communications office of SECAM, the event of launching the AYR will take place at SECAM Secretariat in Accra, Ghana, beginning with the celebration of the Eucharist and followed by a reception “for a cross-section of people.”
The year-long AYR being officially kicked off on Wednesday will conclude on 29 July 2016 during the 17th Plenary Assembly of SECAM scheduled to take place in Angola.
The celebration of AYR was recommended by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Africae Munus.
“In order to encourage reconciliation in communities, I heartily recommend, as did the Synod Fathers, that each country celebrates yearly a day or week of reconciliation,” the Pope stated in Africae Munus, 157.
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI tasked SECAM to facilitate the various reconciliation initiatives saying, “SECAM will be able to help bring this about and, in accord with the Holy See, promote a continent-wide Year of Reconciliation to seek God’s special forgiveness for all the evils and injuries mutually inflicted in Africa, and for the reconciliation of persons and groups who have been hurt in the Church and in the whole of society.”
“This would be an extraordinary Jubilee Year during which the Church in Africa and in the neighbouring islands gives thanks with the universal Church and implores the gifts of the Holy Spirit especially the gift of reconciliation, justice and peace,” the Pope continued in Africae Munus 157.
In a letter addressed to the Bishops’ conferences in Africa, the Treasurer of SECAM, Archbishop Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, writing on behalf of SECAM President, asked each Conference of Bishops to put in place some programmes to mark the AYR.
“Each Conference, with the assistance of its Justice and Peace Commission is expected to kindly celebrate the “Year of Reconciliation” according to its own programmes based on the general theme: “A Reconciled Africa for Peaceful Co-existence,” Archbishop Palmer-Buckle reminded Bishops of Africa, on behalf of SECAM President Archbishop Gabriel Mbilingi of Lubango, Angola.
The scheduled celebration of the 46th Anniversary of SECAM will also be the second year SECAM is marking SECAM Day. On this day, local churches in Africa are expected to take a collection from the faithful to help sustain the activities of SECAM.
The collections are to be shared on the ratio of 75% for SECAM and 25% for the National Conference,” concludes the SECAM Treasurer’s message to the bishops’ conferences in Africa.
(CANAA, By Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla)
e-mail: engafrica@vatiradio.va
(from Vatican Radio)…
Vatican City, 28 July 2015 (VIS) – “A blessing to one another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People” is the title of an exhibition opening today in the Vatican (Charlemagne Wing, 29 July to 17 September), previously displayed in a number of state capitals in the U.S.A., where it received more than a million visitors. The exhibition, presented as a gift to John Paul II for his 85th birthday, was inaugurated at the Xavier University of Cincinnati, Ohio, on 18 May 2005, just a month after the Pope’s death. It then arrived in Rome, and while in Europe its organisers wanted it to visit Krakow, the Polish city where Karol Wojtyla was archbishop. “A blessing to one another” describes the steps the Pontiff took to improve the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, and reflects the continuing relevance of the conciliar declaration “Nostra Aetate”, issued fifty years ago, in which the Catholic Church expresses her appreciation for other religions and reaffirms the principals of universal fraternity, love and non-discrimination. Funded by various universities and private individuals and bodies who see interreligious dialogue as a source of progress for humanity, the exhibition narrates John Paul II’s relations with those whom he defined during his historic visit to the synagogue of Rome on 13 April 1986 as “our elder brothers”. It is divided into four sections and consists of photographs, videos, recordings and other interactive sources. The first section illustrates Karol Wojtyla’s early years in his birthplace Wadowice, what would become a lifelong friendship with the young Jew Jerzy Kluger, and the relations between Catholics and Jews in Poland during the decade 1920 to 1930. The second section is dedicated to the Pope’s university years in Krakow, and his work not far from his friends in the Ghetto who knew the horrors of the Shoah. The third describes his priestly and episcopal life, Vatican Council II and the change of direction it represented in relations between Jews and Christians, and the close link between the cardinal archbishop of Krakow and the Jewish community in his archdiocese. The final section considers the figure of Wojtyla as the Successor of Peter, his visit to the Synagogue of Rome, and his trip to Israel in the year 2000 when he left a prayer in the Western Wall asking for divine forgiveness for the treatment that Jews had received in the past and reaffirming the Church’s commitment to a path of fraternal continuity with the People of the Covenant. Visitors to “A blessing to one another” are invited to write a prayer to be placed in a reproduction of the Wall. They will be gathered and deposited in the Western Wall without being read….