Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio)  Pope Francis on Wednesday appointed 13 new Consulters for the Vatican's Secretariat for Communications.

The appointments were released in a communique from the Holy See Press Office.

These include:

- Rev. Fr. Ivan Maffeis, under-secretary for the Italian Episcopal Conference;

- Fr. José María La Porte, dean of the Faculty of Institutional Social Communication of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross;

- Dr. Peter Gonsalves, S.D.B., dean of the Faculty of Social Communication Sciences of the Pontifical Salesian University;

- Fr. Eric Salobir, O.P., Promoter General for social communications for the Order of Preachers;

- Fr. James Martin, S.J., Jesuit Magazine America;

- Fr. Jacquineau Azétsop, S.J., dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Pontifical Gregorian University;

- Dr. Paolo Peverini, lecturer in Semiotics at the LUISS “Guido Carli”;

- Dr. Fernando Giménez Barriocanal, president and delegator advisor of Radio Popolar Cadena COPE;

- Dr. Ann Carter, Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications;

- Mr. Graham Ellis, deputy director of BBC Radio;

- Dr. Michael P. Warsaw, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of EWTN Global Catholic Network;

- Dr. Dino Cataldo Dell'Accio, Chief ICT Auditor at the United Nations;

- Dr. Michael Paul Unland, executive director of the Catholic Media Council (CA.ME.CO.).

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(Vatican Radio) St. Peter’s Cricket Club, also known as the Vatican XI, travels to Fatima after Easter for an interfaith tournament that includes Muslim, Hindu and Jewish teams from Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.

St Peter’s third ‘Light of Faith’ tour takes place just ahead of Pope Francis' visit to Fatima to mark the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions there. The Pope will make a pilgrimage to the Portuguese town on May 12th and 13th.

St. Peter’s Cricket Club, made up of priests and seminarians of different nationalities studying for the priesthood in Rome, will travel to Lisbon on Wednesday, 19th April, and will spend the day at the shrine in Fatima. During their four day tour, players will be hosted by the municipal council and people of Miranda do Corvo, near the historic university city of Coimbra.

One of the goals of the 'Vatican' Cricket Club, established in 2013 under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for Culture, is to build bridges with people of other Christian Churches and other faith communities. The Club has hosted Anglican and Muslim teams in Rome and has travelled twice to England on their 'Light of Faith' tours in 2014 and 2016.

St Peter’s manager is Father Eamonn O’Higgins, spiritual director of the Maria Mater Ecclesiae Pontifical College in Rome. He told Philippa Hitchen about the sporting and spiritual goals of this Portuguese tour..

Listen: 

Fr Eamonn says St Peter’s was invited by the Miranda do Corvo Cricket Club which wanted the team to come to Portugal for the 100th anniversary of the Fatima apparitions.

Originally the hosts were keen for the team to arrive with Pope Francis during his pastoral visit. Fr Eamonn says while this “would have made a great photo opportunity”, it was decided “for pastoral reasons” to travel a few weeks ahead of the Pope, and “in some small way, to promote the Holy Father’s visit in May”.

Interfaith a priority for Pope Francis

Reaching out to other faiths and religions is important for Pope Francis, he says, underlining the significance of playing these interfaith matches.

Following the team’s arrival on Wednesday morning, Fr Eamonn says the players go directly to Fatima to celebrate Holy Mass at the shrine’s main altar and “to consecrate the team to Mary”.  He stresses that “all starts with prayer”, and for that reason team members have been praying each day for the spiritual fruits of the tour – while “practicing our batting and bowling as well!”.

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Vatican City, Apr 12, 2017 / 07:21 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Church this week reflects on Jesus’ crucifixion and death, Pope Francis said that it is the cross that gives us hope, and urged faithful to enter into the mystery of Christ’s death by contemplating the joy that comes from sacrifice.

“During these days, days of love, let us be enveloped by the mystery of Jesus who, like a grain of wheat, in dying gives us life. He is the seed of our hope,” the Pope said April 12.

“Let us contemplate the Crucified Christ, the source of hope. Little by little we realize that hope with Jesus is learning to see, indeed right now, the plant in the seed, Easter in the cross, life in death.”

Speaking during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square, Francis told pilgrims he was giving them some homework. He instructed them when they get home to stop in front the crucifix, look at Jesus and tell him: “With you, I can always hope. You are my hope.”

“Now imagine the crucifix,” he told the crowd, “and all together say to Jesus Crucified, three times: ‘You are my hope.’” When the crowd said, Francis wasn’t convinced, and had them repeat it again even louder.

“We we really believe that in the Crucified Christ our hope is reborn,” he said, but cautioned that “it is a different hope from that of the world. What hope is this? The hope that is born of the cross.”

Love and hope come together on the cross of Christ, he said, explaining that this is a cross everyone must carry at different points in their lives.

“But it's beautiful to help others, to serve others,” he said, noting that this can get tiring at times, “but life is like that…This is love and hope together: to serve and give.”

“Of course, this love comes from the cross, from sacrifice, as it did for Jesus,” he said, stressing that the cross in itself is not the goal, but rather “a necessary step” to the ultimate goal, which is “glory, as Easter shows us,” he said.

It is in laying down one’s life, not holding onto it, that we find true joy, the Pope said, and pointed to the sacrifice of a mother, which he said is “another beautiful image that Jesus left to his disciples during the Last Supper.”

Jesus says in John 16:21 that “the woman, when giving birth, is in pain, because her hour has come; but, when she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the suffering, because of the joy that a child has come into the world.”

This is what mothers do, Francis said, noting that they give life to another through suffering, but then they are “joyful and happy (because) love gives birth to life and even gives meaning to pain.”

Love is the “engine” that fuels our hope, he said, and encouraged pilgrims to ask themselves: “Do I love? Have I learned to love? Am I learning every day to love more?”

“There is no other way to overcome evil and to give hope to the world,” he said, except by serving with humility and love.

“Have you thought about this?” he asked. No one likes to lose power and the logic of the seed that must die before bearing fruit is difficult to understand, he said, but stressed that this is the way of God.

He pointed to how many times in life we move forward with the mentality that the more we have the more we want. However, Jesus clearly says the opposite: “He who loves his life will lose it.”

This is why our hope is born from Christ’s transformation of death into life, he said, explaining that in the same way Jesus transforms our own sin into forgiveness, “our death into the resurrection, our fear into confidence.”

“That's why there on the Cross, our hope is born and is always born again; that's why with Jesus all our darkness can be transformed into light, every defeat into victory, every disappointment into hope. Every? Yes, every.”

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Vatican stamp and coin office has big plans for early May: the release of stamps marking retired Pope Benedict XVI's 90th birthday and important events in the life of the church spanning almost 2,000 years.

The Philatelic and Numismatic Office said the stamp sheet celebrating Pope Benedict's April 16 birthday was designed to "offer our affectionate tribute to him."

Designed by the artist Daniela Longo, the sheet features a drawing of Pope Francis and Pope Benedict embracing, while the actual stamps show the retired pope praying his rosary.

Separate 95 euro-cent stamps will be released to mark the 1,950th anniversary of the martyrdoms in the year 67 of Sts. Peter and Paul, founders of the church in Rome.

Information announcing the stamps' release noted, "Peter was crucified upside down and Paul decapitated, a distinction reserved to Roman citizens."

The stamps feature close-ups of their faces and symbols associated with them. For St. Peter, a rooster as a reminder of his denying Jesus before it crowed twice, but also two keys recalling Jesus' words to St. Peter, "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven." For St. Paul, the stamp shows the traditional symbols associated with him -- the book and the sword.

Another stamp, accompanied by a postcard, set for release May 4 marks the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of Mary to the three shepherd children in Fatima May 13, 1917.

The stamp and postcard feature paintings by Stefano Morri of Mary, "clothed in white, radiating light, wearing a veil with a gold border covering her head and shoulders," which is how the children had described her. In front of Mary are the three children in prayer.

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IMAGE: CNS/Paul Haring

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The cross, loving service and humble sacrifice are the only way to overcome evil and give hope to the world, Pope Francis said.

Those who love their own lives and always hunger for more are the losers, the pope said at his weekly general audience April 12.

Rather, those who readily serve others and "live God's way" are the winners, who "save themselves and others, becoming seeds of hope for the world," he said.

This seemingly illogical process is the source and strength of Christian hope, Pope Francis said, continuing his series of talks on the unique nature of this hope.

Jesus explains the new kind of hope he offers in a verse from the Gospel according of St. John when he says, "unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life."

It is only when a seed splits apart and opens up that it can give rise to new life that grows and gives abundant fruit, the pope said.

Jesus himself followed this process by "falling to the earth" from his celestial glory as a small baby, like a tiny grain of wheat.

"But that was still not enough. To bear fruit, Jesus lived love all the way, letting himself be broken by death like a seed under the earth. Precisely there, at that extreme point of his lowering himself, which is also the highest point of love, hope germinated," sprouting forth because of the power of love, he said.

That is why with his death and resurrection, God made everything new, transforming "our sin into forgiveness, our death into resurrection, our fear into faith. That's why, there on the cross, our hope was born and is always reborn."

That is why Jesus is the one who can always turn every single dark moment into light, "every defeat into victory, every disappointment into hope," he said. "Hope overcomes everything because it is born from the love of Jesus who made himself be like a grain of wheat on earth and died to give life" -- a life full of the love that comes from hope.

When people begin to choose God's way, they soon discover the victorious path in life is the life of a seed and humble love, he said. "There is no other way to defeat evil and give hope to the world."

Real love must follow the cross and sacrifice, not as its goal, but as the necessary path to true glory and new life, the pope said.

"This is what mothers do, they give another life, they suffer (with labor and birth), but then they are joyful and happy because they have given birth to another life."

"Love is the engine that drives our hope forward," and people need to learn to love more and more each day.

One can see how a life built on having and possessing, rather than giving and serving, leads nowhere, the pope said. Voracious greed is never satisfied -- the more one has, the more one wants and "that is a terrible thirst."

Instead, "it's wonderful to help others, serve others," he said, because though it may be tiring, "the heart fills with joy and hope."

The pope asked people to contemplate the crucifix every day and tell Christ, "With you, nothing is lost. With you, I can always have hope. You are my hope."

"Bit by bit, we will realize that hoping with Jesus is learning to already see the plant inside the seed, Easter in the cross, life in death."

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Follow Glatz on Twitter: @CarolGlatz.

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Copyright © 2017 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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