(Vatican Radio) Memory was the focus of Pope Francis’ remarks following the readings of the day at a Mass of which he was the principal celebrant in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, along with the cardinals resident in Rome, who were assembled to give thanks to God on the occasion of the Holy Father’s 80th birthday.Memory – not merely recollection – of parents and forefathers, of friends and relatives who have gone before him, of the signs of a life well and fully lived – but most especially the memoria Dei, the “memory of God” that is present throughout salvation history and is the characteristic and the hallmark of Christian life.Click below to hear our report “In Advent we started this journey, of vigilant expectation of the Lord. Today we stop, we look back, we see that the journey has been beautiful, that the Lord has not disappointed us, that the Lord is faithful,” he said.“We also see that both in histor...
(Vatican Radio) Memory was the focus of Pope Francis’ remarks following the readings of the day at a Mass of which he was the principal celebrant in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, along with the cardinals resident in Rome, who were assembled to give thanks to God on the occasion of the Holy Father’s 80th birthday.
Memory – not merely recollection – of parents and forefathers, of friends and relatives who have gone before him, of the signs of a life well and fully lived – but most especially the memoria Dei, the “memory of God” that is present throughout salvation history and is the characteristic and the hallmark of Christian life.
Click below to hear our report
“In Advent we started this journey, of vigilant expectation of the Lord. Today we stop, we look back, we see that the journey has been beautiful, that the Lord has not disappointed us, that the Lord is faithful,” he said.
“We also see that both in history, and in our own lives, there have been wonderful moments of fidelity and bad times of sin,” Pope Francis went on to say, “but the Lord is there, with hand outstretched to help you up and tell you: ‘Be on your way forward!’ – and this is the Christian life – going forward, towards the definitive encounter. Let not this journey of such intensity, in vigilant expectation of the Lord’s coming, take away the grace of memory, of looking back on everything the Lord has done for us, for the Church, in the history of salvation. Thus shall we understand why the Church does read this passage [the Genealogy of Jesus, Mt. 1:1-17] that may seem a bit boring – but here is the story of a God who chose to walk with his people and become himself, in the end, a man, like every one of us.”
Outer details of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Chicago. / Credit: Eric Allix RogersCNA Staff, May 15, 2024 / 12:12 pm (CNA).Catholics and city preservationists in Chicago are scrambling to try to preserve a historic parish on the city's North Side, one that has survived a century of the city's development including being fully moved to a new location after it was first built. Our Lady of Lourdes Parish will hold its final Mass on Sunday, May 19, before the parish merges with nearby St. Mary of the Lake. The consolidation is part of the Archdiocese of Chicago's ongoing "Renew My Church" initiative that has closed and merged dozens of parishes in order to address shrinking budgets and priest shortages. The archdiocese announced the Lourdes parish merger in 2021. Katerina Garcia, the president of the Our Lady of Lourdes Church Preservation Society, told "EWTN News Nightly" anchor Tracy Sabol this week that parishioners at the parish dispute ...
Cardinal Stephen Chow Sau-yan, SJ, archbishop of Hong Kong, China. / Credit: Daniel IbáñezRome Newsroom, May 15, 2024 / 14:17 pm (CNA).Cardinal Stephen Chow recently visited three Catholic dioceses in mainland China, one year after the bishop of Hong Kong's first historic trip to Beijing.Chow led a 10-person delegation of Catholics from Hong Kong to the southern Chinese cities of Guangzhou, Shantou, and Shenzhen in April in his second official visit to China since becoming bishop of Hong Kong."We brought our people to have an encounter … where we share common concerns, for example, youth ministry, catechism, marriage and family," Chow said in a video interview published May 5.Here is a look at some of the Catholic communities Chow visited:St. Joseph's Cathedral in ShantouSt. Joseph's Cathedral in Shantou, China. Credit: Kc1446 at Chinese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsHundreds of Chinese Catholics attended a Mass in St. Joseph's Cathedral in Shantou concelebrated...
Stained-glass window at the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis. / Credit: Ella Manthey/ShutterstockSt. Louis, Mo., May 15, 2024 / 14:47 pm (CNA).Two St. Louis parishes that appealed to the Vatican after Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski ordered them to merge last year have had their appeals upheld by the Holy See, reversing the archbishop's prior decision.As part of the archdiocese's major pastoral planning initiative dubbed "All Things New," Rozanski announced a year ago that the number of parishes would be reduced by nearly 50 by way of parish mergers and closures.Under canon law, a diocesan bishop has the authority to alter parishes, but only for a just reason specific to each parish. Concern for souls must be the principal motivation for modifying a parish.Amid the All Things New process, a number of parishes announced their intention to send appeals to the Vatican, putting aspects of the mergers planned for the parishes on hold until the Dicastery for the Clergy's rulings. Af...