Lent is more than "just a period of personal penance and almsgiving" says Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin as he emphasises connection between Lent and our Baptism

MASS TO CELEBRATE THE REFURBISHMENT OF THE PARISH CHURCH AND DEDICATION OF THE NEW ALTAR

Homily Notes of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin

at Church of the Nativity of Our Lord, Beaumont, 6th April 2014

          We have come to celebrate the refurbishment of this Church and to dedicate the new altar.   We give thanks to God for the completion of this work and we remember the longer history of this parish and this Church which has been a place of prayer and Christian formation, a place where key moments in peoples lives were marked, a place where the sacraments were celebrated and a place from which Christian charity irradiated in the community. 

We celebrate on this the Fifth Sunday of Lent.  All around the world, during Lent adult men and women are preparing themselves to receive the Sacrament of Baptism at Easter through a process of catechumenate.   In our traditional reflection on Lent here in Ireland we have perhaps never fully grasped the link between Lent and Baptism.  Our tendency has been to look on Lent just as a period of personal penance and almsgiving.

At the Easter Vigil, on Holy Saturday night, we will listen to a series of texts from the Old Testament which show how the entire history of salvation, the story of how God prepared and protected his people for the one who was to come, was filled with symbols of Baptism.  Baptism, won for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, brings to fulfilment in us all of the promises of old.

The Gospel readings for the Sundays in Lent invite us to reflect on the meaning of baptism.  Two Sundays ago, we heard Jesus promise the gift of "living water" to the Samaritan woman. Last Sunday, by healing the man born blind, Jesus revealed himself as "the light of the world".  Today, in the story of the raising of his friend Lazarus, Jesus presents himself as "the resurrection and the life".

Water, light and life are symbols of Baptism.  During Lent, then, we are called to repeat each year our own baptismal journey.  Lent is not just a time for penance and good deeds that we do.  Lent is not self-centred.  Our Lenten conversion is not our own work.   It is above all opening ourselves to the Lord who alone can help us to overcome the sinfulness that is in us. 

During Lent, then, we learn the art of self discipline and penance in order to bring us back to what is most essential in our lives.  We use prayer, fasting and works of charity in order to recognise our dependence on God and realise that the world in which we live is a world which is not ours to do with as we wish; the world and creation are gifts of God to be used according to God’s plan.

Acknowledging that life is not ours, but gift from God, changes our whole attitude towards life. This is brought out in unusual ways in the Gospel story which we have heard of the raising of Lazarus.  Jesus knows what he intends to do, but those who are around him – including his own disciples – are not on the same wavelength.  They look on death as the end.  Once they form the idea that Lazarus is dead, they feel that there is no point in Jesus going from where he is.   Jesus however teaches us that death is not the end of the story of Lazarus, but God’s glory and his saving power.  Set apart from that power, there is neither light nor life.

We come to celebrate the rededication of this Church.  It is an act in which we witness to our faith in the God of life.  It is faith in the God of life that enables us to change and to progress and to interpret change and progress.    Without faith in the God of life, there is no real reason to hope that death is not the ultimate end.  Without faith in the God of life our life is devoid of meaning.

The liturgy of the dedication of the altar is one of the most complex and most profound liturgies of the Church.  It stresses the mystery of God’s presence among us; it reminds us that God does not fit into any of our human categories.  God is totally other and the liturgy stresses this in treating the altar as a sacred place where God is present and which is set apart from today onwards, exclusively for the worship of God.  That is why we will bless and anoint and incense the altar.

We do not create God.  If we create our own idea of God we will end up creating a false God.  The God that was revealed in Jesus Christ is totally ‘other’.  He saves us through being God, not through any power of our own.  But what does “being God” mean:  God’s ‘otherness’ is not an otherness which keeps God distant from us.   The God revealed in Jesus Christ is a God who loves us and loves us with a generosity and an intensity that is beyond anything we merit and even anything that we can imagine.

This Church is not a concert hall or a theatre to which we come as spectators to watch something that is going on.    Through the presence of Jesus in Word and Sacrament, we are invited directly into the very mystery of God.   The Church is therefore the place where we learn what holiness means in our lives, in the world of today where the symbols of God’s presence are so often removed from sight.

 The Church is a place where we come to pray and where we learn to pray.  Prayer means fundamentally placing ourselves unconditionally in the presence of God and recognising his lordship.  It is not running away from reality, quite the opposite.

  When we recognise in prayer that God is Lord of the universe, we can never justify behaviour which would plunder or exploit or misuse or appropriate to ourselves our environment or the goods of the creation which were given for the benefit of all.  If God is the Lord of life then we can never exploit or abuse, mistreat or exclude, much less suppress any other person, created in the image of God and a member of God’s one human family.   Prayer in that sense is the great teacher of discernment in the midst of the ambiguity of progress and all the ambiguities that are present in our own hearts. 

Jesus entered into the new life of resurrection through his self-giving unto death. We attain true life and understand the value of our lives here and now when we die to attachment to self and to possession and become free from all forms of narcissism and self-centeredness.  The Christian life is living our lives with that freedom which can only come from Jesus, who reminds us that, just as for Lazarus, death is not the end of our story, that we too are destined to fullness of life with him.

Courtesy of Archdiocese of Dublin

Gypsies Must Feel Sense of Belonging, says Cardinal President of Pontifical Council to International Catholic Committee for Gypsies

Bishop Lynch, ss.cc
Auxiliary in Southwark

VATICAN CITY, April 04, 2014 - Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, has sent a message to the International Catholic Committee for Gypsies (CCIT) a week before the committee’s meeting from April 4th through 6th in Cavallino-Treporti.

In the message, Cardinal Veglio noted the negative sentiment many possess for gypsies.

“In our globalised world, in fact, walls continue to be built that divide the peoples of the same continent, people from the same country or the same city,” he said, and spoke of how heart is needed to confront challenges.

“Also among the European countries, some are still negatively influenced in their political choices regarding the Roma to whom you are close in your respective pastoral commitments," he said.

"The challenge you face with evangelical courage in your pastoral activities demonstrates that to tear down walls, one must begin in the heart, the first space where another is included, and as long as hearts are not open, it will not be easy to achieve an inclusive society. So this moment of reflection offers you the opportunity to put your energies together to create a social dynamic in which the different cultures can live together.”

Cardinal Veglio emphasized how gypsies must feel a sense of belonging. “The Gypsies need the humanity of the society in which they live in order to feel like members of the human family and benefit from the rights enjoyed by the other members of the community in respect for their dignity and identity," he said.

"There is a need for tenacious, patient work on everyone's part. The Church can be of inspiration and make the efforts converge into a common commitment in order to face the dilemmas at the basis of the Roma's human difficulties … The document 'Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Gypsies' continues to be a fundamental reference for you and you should use it as well as possible for your service in the midst of this People because it offers important guidelines that are the fruit of common work.”

He discussed gypsies’ rights, saying the Roma "have the right to be recognised at least as ethnic minorities in the countries where they live since they are the largest minority in the European Union.”

Concluding his messaging, he wrote, “The Church has the task to bring Jesus' Gospel in their midst but also to support their dream of integration which passes through education, health, work and housing, and all of this in collaboration with people of good will.” (D.C.L.)

Comment: Bishop Patrick Lynch, ss.cc., Auxiliary in Southwark is representing  Bishops' Conference of England and Wales at the meeting in Cavallino-Treporti

The Light over the Confessional is on - a message from Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin

A Message from Archbishop Martin

"When asked by an interviewer who he considered himself to be, Pope Francis surprised many by responding that the best description of himself was: “I am a sinner”.

 Lent is the season of conversion and return to God.  It is a time also in which we can rediscover the joy of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Earlier this year Pope Francis set out a challenge for us all:

“I would like to ask you — but don’t say it aloud, everyone respond in his or her own heart: when was the last time you made your confession? Two days, two weeks, two years, twenty years, forty years? And if much time has passed, do not lose another day. Be courageous and go to Confession!  Jesus will receive you; he will receive you with so much love”.

  

As Lent comes to a conclusion I have asked a number of Centre City Churches (listed below) in Dublin to provide Confessions continually on the
two Final Saturdays of Lent 12th and 19th April, all day from 09.30 until 18.00

There will be a number of confessors available throughout the day so that ample time will be available for a conversation about your life. 

The Light over the confessional is still on for you and I ask you to make the most of this special occasion of grace.

Other parishes may wish to associate themselves with this initiative in their own way.  Resources, posters and leaflets are available from the Office of Evangelisation.

+Diarmuid Martin,

Archbishop of Dublin

Saint Mary’s, Pro-Cathedral                                   

Saint Saviours, Dominick Street

 Saint Andrew’s, Westland Row                               

Saint Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street 

Saint Teresa’s, Clarendon Street                          

Our Lady Queen of Peace, Merrion Rd.

Blessed Sacrament Chapel, Bachelors Walk           

Saint Joseph’s, Berkely Road 

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Whitefriar St.

 Our Lady Refuge of Sinners, Rathmines

  Saint John’s Priory, John's Lane                   

Pope to receive Queen Elizabeth ll in the Vatican

Vatican Radio: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will meet with Pope Francis at a private audience in the Vatican on Thursday afternoon. The Queen, who will be accompanied by her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, will also have a private encounter with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano during the one day visit to Rome.

The audience with Pope Francis will mark the 87-year-old Queen’s fifth encounter with a Roman pontiff here in the Vatican, beginning with Pope Pius XII whom she met in 1951, the year before her accession to the throne. In 1982 she became the first monarch since the Reformation to welcome a pope to Britain during John Paul II’s pastoral visit to the country and in 2010 she also hosted Pope Benedict XVI on his state visit to the United Kingdom.

To find out more details about this brief visit to the Vatican, Philippa Hitchen spoke to Britain’s ambassador to the Holy See Nigel Baker:

"The Queen was due to come to Rome in 2013 at the private invitation of President Napolitano of Italy...but had been unable to come because of ill health...she doesn't like leaving obligations unfulfilled so she was determined to reinstate that visit....it is normal when the Queen comes to Rome that she would visit the Pope so we're delighted that the Queen and Pope Francis will have that chance to get together.....

The encounter itself will be private but it is still an officially recognised visit.....it will be a public event in terms of arrival and departure....

This will be I think the 7th time she's met a pope and the 5th different pope she'll have met.....these meetings help to strenthen the relationship, they help to provide milestones in a sense and if you look back in terms of the Queen's reign, it is extraordinary how far relations between Britain and the Holy See, and between the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church has developed since 1952 when she became Queen...

"We have a new Archbishop of Canterbury who met Pope Francis last year in June and I very much expect him to meet the Pope again in the next few months....she will want I think to understand from Pope Francis how he sees the role of faith in the world...."

Text from page http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/04/02/pope_to_meet_with_britains_queen_elizabeth_in_the_vatican/en1-787174
of the Vatican Radio website          

THE SACRAMENT OF MARRIAGE, ICON OF GOD'S LOVE FOR HUMANITY - Pope Francis

Vatican City, 2 April 2014 - Pope Francis concluded his series of catecheses dedicated to the Sacraments by speaking about marriage. "A sacrament that leads us to the heart of God's plan, which is a plan of alliance with his People, with all of us, a plan of communion". To explain this, he quoted a phrase from the Book of Genesis: "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. ... That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh". "The image of God is a married couple, man and woman, not only man, not only woman, but rather both. This is the image of God: love, God's alliance with us is represented in the alliance between man and woman", he said.

"We were created to love, as a reflection of God and his love. And in matrimonial union the man and woman realise this vocation, as a sign of reciprocity and the full and definitive communion of life". When a man and a woman receive the Sacrament of marriage, "God is, so to say, 'mirrored' in them, he imprints in them the features and indelible nature of His love. Marriage is the icon of God's love for us. Indeed, God too is communion: the three Persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have always lived and live for ever in perfect unity. And this is the mystery of marriage: God makes married couples into one existence. The Bible uses a strong term: it says one 'flesh' only, so intimate is the union between man and woman in marriage. And this is the mystery of marriage: God's love that is reflected in the couple who decide to live together".

Francis mentioned that, in his Letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul emphasizes that Christian married couples reflect the great mystery of the relationship that Christ establishes with the Church, which means that "marriage responds to a specific vocation and must be considered as a consecration. The man and woman consecrate themselves in their love. Married couples, thanks to the Sacrament, are invested with a genuine mission, that of making visible, starting with simple and ordinary things, the love Christ has for His Church".

"The plan inherent in marriage is a truly wonderful! It is expressed in the simplicity, and also the fragility, of the human condition. We are well aware of the many difficulties and trials there may be in the life of a married couple. ... The important thing is to keep alive the link with God, which is at the basis of the matrimonial bond. When a husband prays for his wife, and a wife for her husband, the bond remains strong; each one prays for the other. It is true that married life has many difficulties: work, there isn't enough money, there are problems with the children ... and often the husband and wife become irritable and argue amongst themselves. There are always arguments in marriages, and at times even plates are thrown. But we must not be sad about this: this is the human condition. And the secret is that love is stronger than the moments in which we argue, and I therefore always advise married couples never to let the day draw to an end without making peace. There is no need to call in the United Nations peacekeepers. A little gesture is enough: a caress, see you tomorrow, and tomorrow we start afresh. This is life, and we must face it in this way, with the courage of living it together. Married life is beautiful, and must be protected".

POPE FRANCIS TO THE SALESIANS: BE CLOSE TO THE YOUNG WITH THE LANGUAGE OF THE HEART

Vatican City, 31 March 2014  – This morning, in the the Sala Clementina of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, the Holy Father met with the participants in the General Chapter of the Salesian Society of St. John Bosco, which will take as its theme “Witnesses of Gospel Radicalism”. “When one thinks of working for the good of souls, one overcomes the temptation of spiritual worldliness, and one does not seek other things, only God and His Kingdom. Temperance is a sense of moderation, of acceptance, a simple life”.

The Pope highlighted their work with the young and remarked that the experience of Don Bosco and his “preventative system” helped them in their commitment to living with them. “It is necessary to prepare the young to work in society in the spirit of the Gospel as workers for justice and peace, and to live as agents of the Church. … The presence of the community among them is marked by the tenderness that Don Bosco called 'amorevolezza', kindness, experimenting with new languages, but being well aware that the language of the heart is the fundamental language for being close to them and becoming their friends”.

Before concluding Francis spoke about the vocational dimension and mentioned that next year, which will be dedicated to consecrated life, will be a good opportunity to present the beauty of vocations to the young. Likewise, he gave thanks to God for the fact that they work “not as isolated individuals, but as a community supports the entire apostolate” and encouraged them to revive the charisma of their Founder, the bicentenary of whose birth will be celebrated soon.

The above is from VIS

Pope Francis: don't be 'tourists' on the spiritual journey of faith

(Vatican Radio) Where are you on your spiritual journey? Are you wandering aimlessly like a tourist? Have you stopped or lost your way? Or are you heading straight for your destination? Those questions were at the heart of Pope Francis’ reflections during his homily at Mass in the Casa Santa Marta on Monday morning.

Reflecting on the day’s readings from Isaiah and St John’s Gospel Pope Francis distinguished between three different types of Christians and how they live their spiritual lives. Before God asks anything of us, the Pope said, He always promises us a new life of joy, so the essence of our Christian life is always to journey in hope and trust towards those promises.

But there are many Christians whose hope is weak and while they believe and follow the commandments, they have come to a standstill in their spiritual lives. Pope Francis said God cannot use them as a leaven among his people because they have stopped and they’re no longer moving forward.

Secondly, he said there are those among us who have taken the wrong turning and lost our way. Of course, the Pope continued, we all sometimes take the wrong road, but the real problem arises if we don’t turn back when we realize that we’ve made a mistake.

The model of a true believer who follows the promises of faith, Pope Francis said, is the royal official from today’s Gospel reading, who asks Jesus to heal his son and does not doubt for a second when the Master tells him the child has been cured. But unlike that man, the Pope said, there are many Christians who deceive themselves and wander aimlessly without moving forward.

These people, Pope Francis said are perhaps the most dangerous group because they wander through life like existential tourists without a goal and without taking God’s promises seriously. But the Lord asks us not to stop, not to lose our way and not to wander through life. He asks us to journey on towards his promises like the official who believed what Jesus told him.

Despite our human condition as sinners who take the wrong turning, the Pope concluded, the Lord always gives us grace to turn back. Lent, he said, is a good time to consider whether we are journeying forward or whether we have come to a standstill. If we have chosen the wrong road, we should go to Confession and return to the right way. If we are a theological tourist wandering aimlessly through life, we must ask the Lord for grace to head off again on the journey towards the promises of our faith.

2014-03-31 Vatican Radio