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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said on Wednesday the experience of the Magi urges us not to settle for mediocrity and not to scrape a living but instead examine with passion the great mystery of life. He also said the Magi teach us to recognize the majesty in humility and learn how to knee in front of it. The Pope’s comments came during his Angelus address to the crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square on the feast of the Epiphany.

Pope Francis said the gospel account of the Magi who came from afar to worship the Baby Jesus gives “an air of universality” to the feast of the Epiphany. He said “the Church has always seen in herself the image of all humanity” and through this feast wishes, as it were, “to guide, with respect, every man and woman of this world towards the Child Jesus who was born to save us all.”

The Pope explained that both the Magi and the shepherds who came to pay homage to the Christ Child teach us that in order to meet Jesus “we need to raise our eyes towards the sky and not be bent over ourselves and our own egoism" but instead have our “hearts and our minds open to the horizon of God.”

Just as the Magi experienced a great joy when seeing the star in the sky, it is also a great consolation for us, said the Pope, to feel we are “being guided and not abandoned to our own destinies.” The experience of the Magi, he continued, “is an appeal for us not to settle for mediocrity and not to scrape a living” but instead “seek the sense of things” and “to examine with passion the great mystery of life.” Pope Francis said it also teaches us “to not to be scandalized by the smallness and poverty” but “to recognize the majesty in humility and learn how to knee in front of it.”

In further remarks after the recitation of the Angelus prayer, Pope Francis expressed his “spiritual closeness” to our “brothers and sisters of the Christian Orient,” Catholics and Orthodox many of whom celebrate Christmas on January 7th, saying he wished them peace and happiness.

The Pope noted that the Epiphany is also the Church’s World Day of Missionary Childhood and explained that this is the feast day for “children who with their prayers and sacrifice" help their more needy peers by becoming “missionaries and witnesses of brotherhood and sharing.”

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Washington D.C., Jan 6, 2016 / 03:47 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Religious sisters should not be forced to choose between caring for the poor and obeying their conscience, the Little Sisters of the Poor told the Supreme Court in a recent legal brief, adding that this is what the government is demanding of them through the HHS mandate.

“As Little Sisters of the Poor, we offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home where they are welcomed as Christ,” said Sister Loraine Marie Maguire, mother provincial of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

“We perform this loving ministry because of our faith,” she continued, adding that the Little Sisters “cannot possibly choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith, and we shouldn’t have to.”

Sister Maguire’s comments came Jan. 4, as the Little Sisters filed their Supreme Court brief against the federal contraception mandate.

The case will be heard this Supreme Court term as part of a bundle of cases against the administration’s contraceptive mandate. Representing the Little Sisters and several other plaintiffs in the case is the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which filed the brief before the court on Monday.

At issue is a mandate from the Department of Health and Human Services requiring employers to offer health plans covering free contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can cause early abortions.

The Obama administration established narrow religious exemptions for houses of worship and their affiliated groups, but many religiously-affiliated charities, non-profits, and businesses that morally objected to the mandate were required to abide by it.

In response to widespread protest and lawsuits from hundreds of plaintiffs across the country, the administration later offered an “accommodation” to certain objecting religious non-profits, under which they could notify their insurer of their conscientious objection, and the insurer would then fund the coverage.

Critics charged that the financial costs for the objectionable coverage would still be passed on to the employers, and the groups said they would still be forced to act against their religious beliefs by having to “facilitate access” to the services.

Many religious non-profits – including charities, schools, and dioceses – took their cases against the mandate to court. The Little Sisters lost their case at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in July 2015 after the court ruled that the “accommodation” offered to the sisters did not substantially burden their sincerely-held religious beliefs.

The sisters applied for and received an injunction from the mandate in August, and in November the Supreme Court agreed to hear their case along with the other plaintiffs.

Pope Francis offered a gesture of support for the sisters when he made an unscheduled stop Sept. 23 at their Jeanne Jugan Residence for the low-income elderly in Washington, D.C. during his U.S. visit. The visit was meant as a “sign of support” for the sisters as the Supreme Court was considering taking their case, director of the Holy See Press Office Fr. Federico Lombardi later confirmed to the media.

Ultimately, the brief claims that the government is violating federal law by speaking for the sisters in saying that the accommodation is compatible with their religious beliefs.

The federal law in question, the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, provides that when a government action violates a person’s sincerely-held religious beliefs, the burden of proof is on the government to establish that the action furthers a compelling state interest and is the least-restrictive means of doing so.

Furthermore, though the government may disagree with the person’s religious objections, it may not determine for that person that his conscientious objection is groundless, the brief says.

The administration “wants petitioners to do precisely what their sincere religious beliefs forbid –and it is threatening them with draconian penalties unless they do so,” the document states. “The government’s refusal to acknowledge as much is nothing more than a forbidden attempt to secondguess petitioners’ sincere religious beliefs that the actions the government has demanded of them would constitute sin.”

Additionally, the fact that the administration exempted some employers from the mandate for other reasons undermines their claim that contraception coverage is a compelling interest, since they are not requiring all employers to provide it, the brief claims.

For instance, the health care law exempted “grandfathered plans,” or certain health plans that existed before the law was passed, from having to follow the preventive services mandate, even though it required those plans to offer other coverage benefits, the brief says.

This means that many current plans offered by companies with 200 or more employees are exempt from the contraception mandate, while small businesses with 50 or less employees are exempt from having to provide health insurance altogether.

Furthermore, houses of worship – even those that do not object to the mandate – are exempt from it, meaning that a church could refuse to provide contraception coverage simply out of convenience and not face a penalty.

“If its interests were truly compelling, the government would not exempt the employers of tens of millions of employees from the mandate for mere administrative convenience,” the brief states.

“All we ask is that our rights not be taken away,” Sister Maguire said. “The government exempts large corporations, small businesses, and other religious ministries from what they are imposing on us – we just want to keep serving the elderly poor as we have always done for 175 years.”

 

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Vatican City, Jan 6, 2016 / 04:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In a restless age when humanity fails to find the answer to their continuous searching, the Magi who go out looking for Christ only to find him in a humble stable in Bethlehem are a key example of where to turn, Pope Francis has said.

“Like the Magi, countless people, in our own day, have a restless heart which continues to seek without finding sure answers,” the Pope said in his Jan. 6 homily for the Feast of the Epiphany. “They too are looking for a star to show them the path to Bethlehem.”

However, out of the many stars in the sky, the Magi “followed a new and different star, which for them shone all the more brightly.”

After gazing at and reading the stars for centuries, the Magi had finally found the light they were looking for, Francis said, noting that the star “changed them. It made them leave their daily concerns behind and set out immediately on a journey.”

“They listened to a voice deep within, which led them to follow that light. The star guided them, until they found the King of the Jews in a humble dwelling in Bethlehem.”

He said that the Magi, often referred to as the “Three Wise Men” or the “Three Kings” who brought Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, are “a living witness” to the fact that sees of the truth can be found everywhere.

These Magi represent every man and woman throughout the world who are welcomed into God’s house, the Pope said, noting that before Jesus, “all divisions of race, language and culture disappear: in that Child, all humanity discovers its unity.”

The Church, then, “has the task of seeing and showing ever more clearly the desire for God which is present in the heart of every man and woman,” Francis continued. “This is the service of the Church: with the light, to reflect and to show the desire for God that each person carries inside of themselves.”

Pointing the day's first reading from Isaiah when the prophet tells Israel “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you,” the Pope said that these words are a commission “to go forth, to leave behind all that keeps us self-enclosed, to go out from ourselves and to recognize the splendor of the light which illumines our lives.”

Francis explained that the light Isaiah is referring to “is the glory of the Lord,” and cautioned that the Church “cannot illude herself into thinking that she shines with her own light...Christ is the true light shining in the darkness.”

“To the extent that the Church remains anchored in him, to the extent that she lets herself be illumined by him, she is able to bring light into the lives of individuals and peoples,” the Pope said.

He noted that this light is necessary if the Church is to fulfill her vocation of proclaiming the Gospel throughout the world.

For the Church, being a missionary “does not mean to proselytize,” but rather “to give expression to her very nature, which is to receive God’s light and then to reflect it.”

“This is her service. There is no other way. Mission is her vocation; to reflect the light of God and to serve,” he affirmed.

Pope Francis then encouraged attendees to ask themselves the same question as the Magi in the Gospel: “Where is the child who has been born the King of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”

He highlighted the importance, particularly in our age, of seeking the signs God is giving and of realizing the great effort that is needed to interpret these signs and therefore understand the will of God.

We are challenged, he said, “to go to Bethlehem, to find the Child and his Mother. Let us follow the light which God offers us!”

Once we have found the Lord, “let us worship him with all our heart, and present him with our gifts: our freedom, our understanding and our love. Let us recognize that true wisdom lies concealed in the face of this Child.”

Francis closed his homily by emphasizing that the entire life of the Church is summed up in the “simplicity” of Bethlehem.

It is there, he said, where we find “the wellspring of that light which draws to itself every individual and guides the journey of the peoples along the path of peace.”

After Mass Pope Francis led pilgrims in praying the traditional Angelus prayer, telling them that the experience of the Magi “impels us not to accept mediocrity, not to ‘just get along,’ but to search for the meaning of things, to passionately scrutinize the great mystery of life.”

“They teach us not to be scandalized by littleness and poverty, but to recognize the majesty of humility and to know how to kneel before it.”

Once he concluded the prayer Francis extended his greeting to Eastern Christians, Catholic and Orthodox, many of whom celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7, the day after the Epiphany.

He then noted that Jan. 6 coincides the World Day of Missionary Childhood, saying the day celebrates children, “who with their prayer and sacrifice, help their most needy peers to become missionaries and witnesses of fraternity and coexistence.”

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Omaha, Neb., Jan 6, 2016 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA) weighs new protocol for transgender students’ participation in school activities, the Catholic bishops of Nebraska have urged respect for these persons while also upholding the safety and privacy of other students.

“Any person who experiences gender dysphoria is entitled to the respect and dignity that is the right of every human person, as well as genuine concern and the support needed for personal development and well-being,” Nebraska Bishops George Lucas of Omaha, James Conley of Lincoln, and Joseph Hanefeldt of Grand Island said in a joint statement Jan. 4.

However, they said, support for these individuals “must be provided with due consideration to the fairness and the safety, privacy, and rights of all students.”

On Jan. 6 and Jan. 13 high schools in Nebraska will be voting on whether or not to adopt formally the current NSAA practice of requiring students to participate in activities and sports according to their sex at birth.

The bishops noted that the Nebraska Catholic Conference supports the proposal and that all diocesan high schools that are NSAA will vote in favor of it.

If this proposal fails, the NSAA will consider a different option, which would allow students to participate in sports based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex. These students would have to undergo a review by the “Gender Identity Eligibility Committee” which would include evaluation by a physician, a mental health professional, an NSAA staff member, and an administrator from a non-appealing school.

The bishops stated, “Whichever alternative is chosen will also establish the legal basis for any litigation in Nebraska on important, related issues such as locker room and restroom use, religious liberty, and individual freedom of conscience.”

A shift from the NSAA’s current participation guidelines would not only impact high school activities, but it would also be “unjust to allow a harmful and deceptive gender ideology to shape either what is taught or how activities are conducted in our schools.”

“This would certainly have a negative impact on students’ and society’s attitudes towards the fundamental nature of the human person and the family,” the bishops wrote.

Quoting Pope Francis, who recently addressed the issue of gender ideology, the bishops said that in the name of a “more free and just society”, gender ideology is calling into question the complementarity between man and woman.

But these differences, Pope Francis said, “are not for opposition or subordination, but for communion and generation, always in the ‘image and likeness’ of God.”

The bishops also quoted Benedict XVI, who had said that “if there is no pre-ordained duality of man and woman in creation, then neither is the family any longer a reality established by creation.”

The Nebraska bishops, along with the Nebraska Catholic Conference, urged all NSAA member schools to vote in favor of the “sex on the certificate at birth” bylaw amendment at their upcoming meetings.

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Vatican City, Jan 6, 2016 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The body of Padre Pio will be on display for veneration at next month’s Ash Wednesday Mass in the Vatican, where a group of priests will be sent  out as “Missionaries of Mercy” for the Jubilee Year.

Pope Francis “has expressed his keen desire” for the relics of the Capuchin saint to be exposed during the Feb. 10 Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.

In a letter Archbishop Michele Castoro of Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo, Archbishop Fisichella explained that this year’s Ash Wednesday is the day on which the Pope “will send the Missionaries of Mercy throughout the world, conferring on them the special mandate of preaching and hearing confessions, as a living sign of how the Father welcomes all those who seek his forgiveness.”

“The presence of St. Pio’s remains,” he said, “will be a precious sign for all missionaries and priests, who will find strength for their own mission in the wondrous example of this untiring, welcoming and patient confessor, an authentic witness of the Father’s mercy.”

These Missionaries of Mercy are priests who, during the Jubilee of Mercy, will be given the faculties to pardon sins in cases otherwise reserved to the Holy See.

St. Pio of Pietrelcina, colloquially known as “Padre Pio,” was a priest of the Order of the Friars Minor Capuchin, a stigmatist, and a mystic, who lived from 1887-1968. He was beatified in 1999, and canonized in 2002 by St. John Paul II. He was born in Pietrelcina, but ministered in San Giovanni Rotondo from 1916 until his death.

February’s exposition of Padre Pio’s remains at the Vatican is part of the relics’ tour for the Year of Mercy, which will include stops in Rome and Pietrelcina, according to newly released information.

Italian media reports that Padre Pio’s relics, which reside in the shrine at San Giovanni Rotondo, will arrive Feb. 3 at Rome’s Basilica of Saint Lawrence Outside the Walls, where it will remain through Feb. 4, under the care of the Capuchins.

On Feb. 5, the relics will be carried in procession from Saint Lawrence to St. Peter’s Basilica, where they will remain until Feb. 11. Various events will be held during this period, including a papal audience Feb. 6 with members of “Padre Pio prayer groups,” workers at the Home to Relieve Suffering  – founded by St. Pio in 1956 – and faithful from the Manfredonia-Vieste-San Giovanni Rotondo archdiocese.

On Feb. 9, Pope Francis will preside over Mass with Capuchin brothers, Padre Pio’s own order, from around the world.

After Mass Feb. 11 for the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes presided over by Archbishop Fisichella, St. Pio’s relics will be taken for three days to Pietrelcina.

 

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