Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis urged the faithful to join in prayer on this coming Wednesday, June 1, International Children’s Day, with a special thought for the children in Syria.

Speaking after the Angelus Prayer in St. Peter’s Square the Pope greeted all the Deacons present in Rome for their Jubilee, thanking them for being present for the occasion but also for their presence in the Church.  

And remarking on the upcoming International Children’s Day, Pope Francis said that it will be particularly significant for Christian communities in Syria where Catholics and Orthodox will hold a special prayer for peace, in which children will be the protagonists.

“Syrian children invite children of the world to join them in their prayer for peace” he said.

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Vatican City, May 29, 2016 / 06:19 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Millions of children have either been killed, displaced or orphaned as a result of Syria’s ongoing, bloody civil war.

Some have witnessed bombings, the death of friends and loved ones, and have been forced to leave their homes and villages, seeking refuge in places where soldiers and gunfire don’t wake them up at night.

Hundreds of Syrian children, scarred by five years of civil war, will now be the protagonists in a special June 1 prayer event, which takes place on International Children’s Day and will join together Christians from both Catholic and Orthodox Churches in Syria to pray for peace.

Backed by both Catholic and Orthodox leaders in Syria, the event will gather hundreds of children from different denominations, who will lead processions in ravaged cities throughout Syria such as Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Tartus and Marmarita.

In a show of support for these children and all those suffering due to the country’s gruesome war, Pope Francis on Sunday gave a shoutout to the event after celebrating Mass for the Jubilee of Deacons, urging children around the world to join their peers in Syria in praying for peace June 1.

“This Wednesday, June 1, on the occasion of International Children's Day, the Christian Community of Syria, both Catholic and Orthodox, will participate together in special prayer for peace, which will have children as the protagonists,” the Pope said May 29.

“The Syrian children invite children from all over the world to unite with them in their prayer for peace,” he said, and led the deacons and other pilgrims present at the Mass in praying the Angelus.

Francis’ promotion of the event fell the day after giving a speech to children, which he centered on the heartbreaking story of a young Syrian girl who drowned at sea in an attempt to reach Europe after fleeing the war with her family.

He assured the children that he didn’t want to make them sad, but instead wanted to tell them the truth: “they are in danger – many boys and girls, small children, men, women – they are in danger.”

The June 1 prayer event is being promoted by Catholic charitable organization Aid to the Church in Need, who is asking children from schools and parishes throughout the world to join the youth in Syria in praying for a peaceful end to the conflict.

In a joint message issued by Syria’s Catholic and Orthodox Patriarchs, the leaders said the children will gather and pray so that “peace may come at last.”

“The children in our own home country of Syria are the little brothers and sisters of the suffering Child Jesus,” they said.

For more than five years these kids have been “dragged through a cruel war, wounded, traumatized or even killed,” they said, explaining that “their tears and their sufferings cry out to heaven.”

They noted how Jesus, the God of all creation, chose to become a defenseless child. Often times the Christ Child is portrayed not as a naked infant in a manger, “but as a King, holding in his left hand the globe, representing the world, and with his right hand blessing the whole earth.”

Because of this, the June 1 event has been entrusted to the patronage of the Child Jesus, as well as the Catholic image of Infant of Prague and the Orthodox icon of “The Mother of God of the Never Fading Rose,” in which the Blessed Virgin Mary is depicted holding a crowned Christ Child in her arms.

The children will carry both of the images with them during the June 1 processions.

In their message, the Catholic and Orthodox leaders of Syria asked God to “Protect and save the children of this land! Hear our prayers, now! Delay no longer in granting peace to our land! Look upon the tears of the children; dry the tears of the mothers; let the cries of grief at last fall silent!”

 

Photo credit: Credit: ZouZou via www.shutterstock.com

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Vatican City, May 29, 2016 / 03:52 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sunday Pope Francis celebrated a special jubilee for deacons, telling them that a good servant is one who forgets themselves, letting go of their own plans and humbly placing their lives at the disposal of those to whom they are called to minister.

One of the first steps in becoming “a good and faithful” servant is that “we are asked to be available. A servant daily learns detachment from doing everything his own way and living his life as he would,” the Pope said May 29.

“One who serves cannot hoard his free time; he has to give up the idea of being the master of his day,” he said, adding that one who serves “is not a slave to his own agenda,” but rather, is “ever ready to deal with the unexpected, ever available to his brothers and sisters and ever open to God’s constant surprises.”

A true servant must train themselves every day to be generous with their lives and their time, realizing that “the rest of the day will not be his own, but given over to others,” he said.

“Dear deacons, if you show that you are available to others, your ministry will not be self-serving, but evangelically fruitful.”

Francis spoke to the thousands of deacons and their families present in St. Peter’s Square for a special Mass in honor of the Jubilee for Deacons, which is part of the Pope’s wider Jubilee of Mercy.

The mini-jubilee was marked by three days of events beginning with a Friday, May 29, meeting with the deacons and their families during which the topic of deacons as an “Image of Mercy for the Promotion of the New Evangelization” was discussed.

Saturday, May 28, the deacons, divided into different language groups, made a pilgrimage through the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica. They later visited other parishes deemed “Jubilee churches” around Rome, participating in Eucharistic Adoration and receiving Confession before calling it a night.

Francis’ Mass marked the end of the official celebrations for the deacons. In his homily, he said that the terms “apostle” and “servant” can never be separated.

“They are like the two sides of a medal. Those who proclaim Jesus are called to serve, and those who serve proclaim Jesus,” he said, noting that Jesus, who “came not to be served but to serve,” was the first one to show us this.

“A disciple of Jesus cannot take a road other than that of the Master,” Francis observed, adding that if we want to follow Jesus, we must first imitate him, becoming a servant to others.  

This, he said, “is the only way to be a disciple of Jesus. His witnesses are those who do as he did: those who serve their brothers and sisters, never tiring of following Christ in his humility, never wearing of the Christian life, which is a life of service.”

Pope Francis pointed to the figure of the centurion in the day’s Gospel passage from Luke, who asks Jesus to heal his dying servant.

Jesus, he said, is amazed by the centurion’s declaration of faith in saying that “I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof,” and “only say the word and my servant will be healed.”

Given the centurion’s troubles, he could have been anxious and demanding, using his authority to get what he wanted, the Pope said. Instead, “he was modest and unassuming; he did not raise his voice or make a fuss.”

Without even realizing it, the centurion acted like God himself, who is “meek and humble of heart,” Francis said, explaining that God, who is love, is always ready to serve us and meet our needs.

“This, dear deacons, is how your vocation as ministers of charity will mature: in meekness.”

Francis then pointed to the image of the sick servant himself, who serves as a reflection of each one of us.

“Each of us is very dear to God, who loves us, chooses us and calls us to serve,” he said, but cautioned that before serving others, we must be healed ourselves first.

“To be ready to serve, we need a healthy heart: a heart healed by God, one which knows forgiveness and is neither closed nor hardened,” he said, and encouraged the deacons to ask for the grace to be healed during their daily prayers.

“In this way, available in life, meek of heart and in constant dialogue with Jesus, you will not be afraid to be servants of Christ, and to encounter and caress the flesh of the Lord in the poor of our time.”

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Washington D.C., May 29, 2016 / 05:07 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Growing up in a modest home in southern California, Leo Nestor never imagined that his love of music would one day lead to him becoming a papal knight.

But that’s exactly what happened, as the outgoing music professor at The Catholic University of America received the knighthood upon his retirement, in recognition of his lifetime of work for the Church.

Nestor was inducted as a Knight of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great on May 14, honoring his lifetime of service to the Church through conducting and teaching music.

The order was bestowed upon him by Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington at the diploma ceremony for The Catholic University of America’s School of Music.

Asked about the award, Nestor was quick to draw attention away from himself.

“If it stands for anything, it stands for what the Church needs of her people. She needs artists,” he told CNA.  

The Order of St. Gregory the Great is granted to individuals for extraordinary service to the Catholic Church. It is one of several order of Pontifical Knighthood, which the Church bestows to continue chivalric traditions and recognize merit and service.

Other orders may be bestowed for military service and protection of the Holy See, reserved specifically for a Catholic’s service to the Church, given only to Catholic heads of state, or granted to members of the clergy.

The Order of St. Gregory, in contrast, can be bestowed upon Catholics as well as non-Catholics. Previous recipients include Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics; Chen Chien-jen, vice president of Taiwan; Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus; and Polish composer Henryk Gorécki.

Nestor was quick to add that, as an Equestrian Order, members “have the right to ride a horse into St. Peter’s (Square)!”

With the conclusion of the 2016 academic year, Nestor is retiring as a full-time music professor at the university, and will transfer to Professor Emeritus status, although he will still help some students with thesis work and projects.

Looking back at his academic career, Nestor said that the path to teaching and eventually knighthood was set in motion by both choices and the “happenstance” of his surroundings as a child.

“It’s really been a very easy life, because the choices fell logically, aesthetically, theologically, liturgically into place.”

Nestor’s musical life started as a Catholic elementary student in California. He sang in the school choir, and learned music from both a college professor and several nuns at the school. While his family was not wealthy, his parents agreed to go into debt to buy a piano, on the condition that he would promise to practice it.

As a college freshman, Nestor began studying at the seminary for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where he learned to play organ and met other seminarians who had musical training. He also learned Latin and other theological and academic subjects. Near the end of his training, however, the seminary closed, leaving him to change courses and pursue a music degree at the University of California, Berkley.

While at Berkley, Nestor started composing and conducting a choir and orchestra for a Spanish-language Mass at a local parish. The community insisted on paying competitive wages for his musical direction, holding special collections and fundraisers for his salary.

Nestor was next brought to Washington, D.C. to conduct at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. There, he spent 17 years as music director, right next to the campus of The Catholic University of America.

After years of working next to the university, Nestor became a full-time professor there. “You love your kids, and over the years that’s been one of the great joys,” he said of teaching.

Over the years, Nestor has also served as an advisor to the U.S. Secretariat for Divine Worship. He has composed music for four papal visits to the United States: St. John Paul II’s visits to Los Angeles (1987) and Saint Louis (1999), as well as the Washington, D.C. visits of Pope Benedict XVI (2008) and Pope Francis (2015).

But the concerts and titles are not what Nestor finds most meaningful. Rather, he said that he is grateful for what the compositions let him offer to God and to teach his students.

He said that he owes the honor of the papal knighthood to his students, because of what he’s been able to learn but also how he’s been able to serve and teach students to transform the music they work with.

At the university, he primarily taught conducting. He described his job as helping students to take the vision of “whomever” – from Palestrina in the 16th century to Stravinsky in the 20th century – and to bring those ideas from the music “into the hearts and minds of these people who are coming to hear you.”

“That is a process that is new and electric at every hearing.”

He also commented on conducting and playing music as spiritually significant events, sacrificially emptying out one’s self to portray the thoughts of the composer, and offering music to one’s audience – or, in the case of the Liturgy, to God.

Reflecting on an accomplished academic and musical career, Nestor said that he hopes his life of work reflects what the laity can offer the Church today.

“In the seminary we learn about the arguments for the existence of God,” he said. “For the artist, one of the easiest is the argument for the existence of God from beauty.”

 

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