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Over two thousand Catholics and over a hundred clergy filled the Jesuit-run St Georges sports field for the 2016 Chrism Mass Tuesday where the Archbishop of Harare, Robert Christopher Ndlovu blessed the Holy Oils for the Catechumenate, Chrism oil and the oil for the Anointing of the sick. Also, present at the Mass were the Apostolic Nuncio to Zimbabwe, Archbishop Marek Zalewski.

The Chrism Mass was for the first time in the history of the Archdiocese of Harare held outside of the Cathedral. Moving the venue to St Georges College grounds was necessitated by the need to accord as many people the opportunity to participate. Further, by celebrating Chrism Mass on Tuesday instead of the traditional Thursday, priests from distant parishes of the diocese were able to attend the Holy Eucharist without the worry of rushing back to their parishes for the Thursday evening liturgies.

Chrism Mass is a special moment in the Church where the unity of the Bishop with his priests is manifest. Together, the Bishop and the priests form the presbyterate. During the Mass, deacons and priests renew their vow of obedience to the local Bishop and their commitment to serve God’s people. At the end of the Chrism Mass, the Holy Oils are brought back to parishes of the diocese for use in the coming year

In his homily, Archbishop Ndlovu asked for forgiveness from congregants.

 “…in trying to work for you, we might have failed to take good care of your souls as expected. We ask for your forgiveness in this Year of Mercy. We ask a bit a bit of amnesty from you,” said the Archbishop.

 Sharing a personal message to his brother priests, the Archbishop of Harare urged the priests to acknowledge that they are sinners but they should strive for holiness as the Year of Mercy is a time for reflection on their ministry.

“We should humbly acknowledge before God and his people the fact that in the history of our priesthood, the dark presence of sin is also found, so there is the need for us in this Year of Mercy to commit ourselves fully to the search for holiness.”

He implored the priests not to limit their interaction with the faithful in celebrations of the Eucharist but also to give them more time for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which he said relates strongly with the Sacrament of Eucharist.

 “It could be that many people tend to be losing interest in going to Confession because we priests are hardly found in Confessionals. If we can truly discover for ourselves the beauty of the Sacrament of Confession then we are better placed to help our brothers and sisters to do the same,” he said.

 (By Nobert Rwodzi and Pylaia Chembe)

Jesuit Communications Zimbabwe –Mozambique.

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(Vatican Radio) On the morning of Holy Thursday, Pope Francis celebrated the Mass of Chrism at St Peter’s Basilica.

During the Holy Mass, the Holy Father blessed the sacred oils (Chrism, the oil of catechumens, and the oil of the sick), which will be used during the Easter Vigil, and in liturgical celebrations throughout the year.

The Mass also included a renewal of promises for the priests present, on the ceremonial anniversary of Christ’s institution of the priesthood.

Listen to Christopher Wells’ report:

In his homily, Pope Francis reminded his fellow priests that “we are witnesses to and ministers of the ever-increasing abundance of the Father’s mercy; we have the rewarding and consoling task of incarnating mercy, as Jesus did.”

Focusing once again on the theme of mercy, the Pope spoke especially about two areas where the Lord shows “an excess of mercy”: in encounter, and in forgiveness.

“The first area where we see God showing excess in his ever-increasing mercy is that of encounter. He gives himself completely and in such a way that every encounter leads to rejoicing,” Pope Francis said. The second area, he said, is forgiveness itself. God not only forgives us, but helps to regain our dignity. Our response to God’s superabundant forgiveness, he continued, should always be to preserve that healthy tension between a dignified shame and a shamed dignity.”

The Holy Father concluded his homily with a plea for gratitude: “In this Jubilee Year we celebrate our Father with hearts full of gratitude, and we pray to him that ‘he remember his mercy forever’; let us receive, with a dignity that is able to humble itself, the mercy revealed in the wounded flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He prayed, “Let us ask him to cleanse us of all sin and free us from every evil. And with the grace of the Holy Spirit let us commit ourselves anew to bringing God’s mercy to all men and women, and performing those works which the Spirit inspires in each of us for the common good of the entire People of God.”

The full text of Pope Francis’ homily for the Chrism Mass can be found here.

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(Vatican Radio)  The man Pope Francis has chosen to be his new Ambassador to South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho and Namibia is Archbishop Peter Wells.

For 14 years a senior official in the Roman Curia, the Pope announced Archbishop Wells’ appointment in February. He was ordained bishop on March 19 in St Peter’s Basilica during a ceremony celebrated by Pope Francis himself.
  
For the past six and a half years, he has been Assessor for the General Affairs of the Secretariat of State. But he has worked in the Vatican since 2002 in the First Section of the Secretariat of State, and was head of its Anglophone desk.

Archbishop Wells has served three Popes: Saint John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis with loyalty, professionalism and dedication. 

Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni sat down with him to find out more about what it means to be a Papal Nuncio and asked him how he is preparing to face the many challenges of his new appointment.

Listen: 

Archbishop Wells says the preparation is two-fold: “The first part begins with the information that is offered to a new nuncio by our different competent offices”.

For instance – he explains – as the countries he will serve are under the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, they are providing him with a set of instructions both regarding areas in need of attention and regarding positive realities to be tapped in to.

Likewise – he says – the Second Section of the Secretariat of State watches very closely on the political and diplomatic levels. It too offer a set of instruction focusing on what it sees as possible challenges and things that need to be supported and encouraged.

The second part – Archbishop Wells continues – has to do with a first-hand encounter with issues that have been raised and with everything else one he sets foot on new soil.

“I look forward to arriving there as soon as possible, to meeting with the bishops, the priests, the religious, the laypeople; to hearing them and then to really start focusing, from my own experience, on what we really need to look at, where we need to move, and where I need to be of assistance to the bishops and to the local Church” he says.

The Archbishop points out that a nuncio is there in a particular way to bring back to the Pope the concerns, the needs, the sufferings and the hopes of the local Church. 

“And at the same time to bring to the local Church the Pope’s encouragement, his love and his message” he says.

So, he reiterates that once on the ground his first priority will be to carefully listen and observe.

He explains that the job of a nuncio also involves entering into relationship with the governments of the countries he is sent to serve and where he has the role and responsibility of a diplomat.    

So, he says, if one of the first things he will do is to find out how he is best able to be of assistance to the local Churches, at the same time “I hope to have very fruitful relations with the local governments (…) and to continue to work to build and improve the relations the Holy See already has with these countries.”

Archbishop Wells says he thinks this is particularly important in the current world scenario with all the issues relating to migration, unemployment, the economic crisis etc.

“These are areas in which we can have very fruitful conversations and hopefully work together to see what kind of solutions can be found, not only locally” he says.

The Archbishop recalls the words of Pope Francis during a private audience with his family when he said: “a Papal Nuncio has a very difficult job because first of all he is a bishop, he’s also a pastor, but he’s also a diplomat. And he’s got to make all those three things come together. And the best thing that you can do is pray for him.”

He speaks of previous experiences in Africa where his first assignment was in Nigeria, and where he travelled with Pope Benedict XVI to Cameroon and Angola.

Wells says he is very happy to be given the possibility of going back to the African continent, a place “that leaves something in your heart, an indelible mark that you never get over. There is always a ‘longing’ to go back.”

Both Benedict and Francis, he says, have described Africa as a true continent of hope “and you see that hope in the people. They are aspiring for much more.”

Archbishop Wells concludes the conversation with a detailed description of the Coat of Arms he has chosen and that features the colours and the symbols of his personal heritage and of his life and growth in the faith and in the Church.

It also carries his motto: “Misericordia et Spes”.  “Mercy” for this Year of Mercy and for his service with Pope Francis, and “Hope” which was a theme in the Pontificate of Pope Benedict and a major component in the Encyclical “Spe Salvi” which Archbishop Wells is very fond of and which he wanted to include in the Coat of Arms that represents him.

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Vatican City, Mar 24, 2016 / 07:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has named Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda as the new head of the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese – a surprise move for the archbishop, who was expected to take over the diocese of Newark in July.

In a March 24 press release, Archbishop Hebda said that he was “humbled by this expression of Pope Francis’s confidence.”

He also said he was "honored" to serve in a diocese with such a “rich history and its long tradition of extraordinary priests, zealous Religious and empowered laity, all working to put their faith into action.”

Archbishop Hebda has been serving as apostolic administrator for the Minneapolis archdiocese since June 15, 2015, when the former archbishop, John C. Nienstedt, stepped down after the diocese was charged with mishandling cases of child sexual abuse.

On June 5, 2015, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis was charged with six counts of failing to protect minors, specifically with regard to the actions of the now-former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who is currently serving a five year prison sentence for sexually abusing two minors and possession of child pornography.

In order to temporarily fill the vacant position of archbishop, the Pope appointed Archbishop Hebda as Apostolic administrator.

The archbishop has since been helping the archdiocese to recover from the scandals and work toward transparency in abuse cases.

In September 2015, the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis removed two priests from ministry pending investigation of sex abuse allegations, while it has reinstated a separate priest on the grounds that an allegation against him was not substantiated.

At the time, Archbishop Hebda was also serving as the Coadjutor Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., and was scheduled to replace Newark’s current Archbishop, John J. Myers, when the latter is expected to retire in July after reaching the age limit.

The official announcement of Archbishop Hebda’s appointment as archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis will be made during a brief news conference at 9:00a.m. local time in the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

In addition to his leadership roles in the Archdioceses of Newark and Minneapolis-St. Paul, Archbishop Hebda also served as bishop of the Diocese of Gaylord, Mich., as well as in the Vatican and in parishes in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Penn.

The archbishop was born Sept. 3, 1959, in Pittsburgh, and joined the city’s seminary in 1984.

In 1985 he was sent to Pontifical North American College in Rome, where he completed his theological studies and earned his S.T.B. from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1989.

He was ordained a priest by then-Bishop Donald W. Wuerl, now the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, July 1, 1989.

After his ordination, Archbishop Hebda briefly served as Parochial Vicar Pro Tem at Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish in Elwood City, Penn., before eventually returning to Rome, where he obtained a licentiate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1990.

The archbishop then returned to Pittsburgh where he served in various pastoral roles around the diocese until 1996, when he was appointed as an official of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in Rome. He was named Undersecretary of the Council by St. John Paul II in 2003.

While in Rome, Archbishop Hebda also served as an adjunct spiritual director at the North American College, and was a confessor for the postulants of the Missionaries of Charity and for the sisters in the community who were working at a home for unwed mothers.

On Oct. 7, 2009, Benedict XVI appointed him as bishop the Diocese of Gaylord, and episcopal ordination took place in December of that year. Four years later, on Sept. 24, 2013, Pope Francis named Bishop Hebda as coadjutor Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Newark.

Archbishop Hebda’s installation Mass as Archbishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul is scheduled to take place Friday, May 13, on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

In a March 24 statement, Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark said that he as been “both privileged and blessed” to have worked closely with Archbishop Hebda.

 “He is a great Priest, and a great Bishop,” Archbishop Myers said, adding that Hebda’s “tireless, positive approach to dealing with the challenges presented him will be one of the graces that he will share with the people of the Twin Cities.”

Archbishop Myers said the faithful of the diocese of Newark are “truly grateful for all that he has done here since 2013, and he will be missed.”

At the same time, the archbishop offered prayers that God would continue to bless Archbishop Hebda “as he enters this new chapter in a life of service to the Church as the new Shepherd of this local Church of St. Paul-Minneapolis.”

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