Wednesday, January 28, 2015

“May parishes become islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference” - Pope Francis

The Vatican has released the Pope’s annual message for Lent. Regarding Curia reform, Dal Toso of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, said a greater impetus will be given to charity


IACOPO SCARAMUZZI
VATICAN CITY

How greatly I desire that all those places where the Church is present, especially our parishes and our communities, may become islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference!” This was the wish expressed by Pope Francis in his annual message for Lent (from 22 February to Easter Sunday on 5 April) which centres on a subject that is very dear to him: overcoming the “globalisation of indifference”.


God “is not aloof from us”, Jorge Mario Bergoglio writes in the message signed last 4 October on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi and presented today in the Vatican. “Each one of us has a place in his heart. He knows us by name, he cares for us and he seeks us out whenever we turn away from him. H





e is interested in each of us; his love does not allow him to be indifferent to what happens to us. Usually, when we are healthy and comfortable, we forget about others (something God the Father never does): we are unconcerned with their problems, their sufferings and the injustices they endure… Our heart grows cold. As long as I am relatively healthy and comfortable, I don’t think about those less well off. Today, this selfish attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions, to the extent that we can speak of a globalization of indifference. But the world tends to withdraw into itself and shut that door through which God comes into the world and the world comes to him. Hence the hand, which is the Church, must never be surprised if it is rejected, crushed and wounded.” “Indifference to our neighbour and to God also represents a real temptation for us Christians.” “Each year during Lent we need to hear once more the voice of the prophets who cry out and trouble our conscience.”

The Argentinian Pope emphasises that “God’s people need this interior renewal, lest we become indifferent and withdraw into ourselves. To further this renewal, I would like to propose for our reflection three biblical texts.

First and foremost, starting with a passage from the Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians (If one member suffers, all suffer together”), Pope Francis underlines that “we can only bear witness to what we ourselves have experienced. “Lent is a favourable time for letting Christ serve us so that we in turn may become more like him.” Christians can remember to become a part of the “Body of Christ”, in other words the Church, and we discover once again that “in this body there is no room for the indifference which so often seems to possess our hearts.” Secondly, taking the Genesis question, “Where is your brother?” as a starting point, Francis emphasises “all that we have been saying about the universal Church must now be applied to the life of our parishes and communities. Do these ecclesial structures enable us to experience being part of one body? A body which receives and shares what God wishes to give?


 A body which acknowledges and cares for its weakest, poorest and most insignificant members? Or do we take refuge in a universal love that would embrace the whole world, while failing to see the Lazarus sitting before our closed doors.” He thus calls on “every Christian community to go out of itself and to be engaged in the life of the greater society of which it is a part, especially with the poor and those who are far away. The Church is missionary by her very nature; she is not self-enclosed but sent out to every nation and people.”

Dear brothers and sisters, how greatly I desire that all those places where the Church is present, especially our parishes and our communities, may become islands of mercy in the midst of the sea of indifference!” the Pope adds. Referring to the Bible verse from the Book of James which inspired the title of this year’s message (“Make your hearts firm”), the Pope remarks that:“As individuals too, we have are tempted by indifference. Flooded with news reports and troubling images of human suffering, we often feel our complete inability to help. 



What can we do to avoid being caught up in this spiral of distress and powerlessness?” The course of action proposed by the Pope is primarily prayer (“The 24 Hours for the Lord initiative, which I hope will be observed on 13-14 March throughout the Church, also at the diocesan level, is meant to be a sign of this need for prayer.”), then charity (“Lent is a favourable time for showing this concern for others by small yet concrete signs of our belonging to the one human family”) and thirdly conversion, because “the suffering of others is a call to conversion, since their need reminds me of the uncertainty of my own life and my dependence on God and my brothers and sisters” and reveals “a heart which is firm and merciful, attentive and generous, a heart which is not closed, indifferent or prey to the globalization of indifference.”

The Vatican spokesman, Fr. Federico Lombardi, welcomed Mgr. Giampietro Dal Toso, Secretary of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, Mgr. Segundo Tejado Muñoz, Under-Secretary of the same Pontifical Council and Michel Roy, Secretary General of Caritas Internationalis, in the Vatican newsroom for the presentation of the papal message. Mgr. Dal Toso, in particular, pointed out three areas of charitable action: rebuilding Haiti after the earthquake (21,5 million dollars have been spent by the Catholic Church so far), the Middle East – especially Syria and Iraq – and the Philippines, which the Pope visited recently. In answer to journalists’ questions regarding the envisioned merge between Cor Unum and other dicasteries as part of Francis’ plans for the reform of the Roman Curia (the Pontifical Council is without a prefect after Cardinal Robert Sarah’s appointment as Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments), Dal Toso said that “charity opens many doors and is representative of the Church, this will certainly be taken into consideration during the review of the Curia’s structures  and I imagine that its reorganisation  will give an even greater impetus to the great world of charity and the Church’s presence in the world for the purpose of human promotion.”

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