PORTRAIT OF POPE FRANCIS
In 1929 Regina and her husband Mario Bergoglio had emigrated from Piedmont in Northern Italy and had started their family in the Americas. Mario toiled on the railway, while Regina became a full-time housewife and devoted her life to her five children. They had a modest existence, being so thrifty that new clothes were seen as dangerously lavish, not once going on holidays and never owning a car.
They were not poor, but were unassuming upper-working-class Italians who considered themselves very fortunate to have secure housing in Flores, an ordinary suburb of Buenos Aires, a city that had its share of squatter settlements and slums. Many of Mario Bergoglio’s fellow workers on the railroads would have lived in shanty towns.
The Bergoglios were different: unlike many of their contemporaries, they were cultured but not obsessed with social climbing.
BENEDICT XVI – SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD
Brothers and Sisters, in answer to the question, “What do you think of the Holy Father resigning? Shocked to say the least but not surprised.
The bear on Benedict’s seal comes from the legendary story of a Frankish saint by the name of St. Corbinian who was once on his way to Rome. Along the way, a bear attacked the priest and his packhorse, killing his horse. Rather than flee in terror, the Saint rebuked the bear and made the animal carry his luggage the rest of the way to the Vatican. Once he arrived, he released it from his service, and it returned to Bavaria in Germany. Benedict when telling this story compared himself not to the saint but to the bear, sometimes lamenting his Predecessor calling him to Rome but unlike the bear not allowing him his freedom. As Cardinal Ratzinger, Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he tried to resign a few times and return to Germany to teach theology but his Pope wouldn’t allow it. St Corbinian’s bear, as God’s beast of burden most definitely symbolized the weight of the Petrine office in which Benedict carried over the past eight years.
I am always surprised to see how people of little or no faith like to celebrate Christmas. They have parties, they say “Happy Christmas” to everyone, they give presents, and do everything to put aside their worries and extend goodwill to all. They do this as if they really believed.
In a way I am pleased that they enter into the spirit of Christmas, but I would like them to take it further of course, a lot further. Maybe that is our job, to bring up the real meaning of Christmas in our conversations and to invite someone to go to Mass with us this Christmas.
MARY’S REVOLUTION
When we read in the Bible that we should tremble at the Word of God it means that we should really get excited and take it personally as it is personally directed to us. Jesus was speaking to each of us when He said to the woman at the well: “If only you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you give me to drink.” The gift of God is the gift of Himself in the Holy Eucharist and the drink is keeping Him company in a Holy Hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.
If only we knew the importance of this gift and how meaningful is the drink we give to Him during this Holy Hour of prayer then all of us would consider a day without making a Holy Hour a day wasted no matter what else we may have been able to do that day.
Wishing you a very Happy Easter Season! The Lord has truly risen, Alleluia! Last September Fr Donal McIlraith asked me to consider taking over as Responsible from Fr Hugh Thomas, who, as you know, was transferred to Sydney. This is a high honour but was also quite a daunting proposal, because Fr Hugh had a very high profile in WA and was very active in
giving retreats and missions both here and abroad. However, encouraged by other Priests of the MMP, I have accepted the challenge and have committed myself to working for Our Lady as Her representative in WA.
“My beloved priests, today is your feast. It is the day that recalls the Last Supper, the institution of the Eucharist and of the new priesthood, in the Cenacle of Jerusalem. It is your feast because you, to whom it has been given to share in the ministerial priesthood of Jesus, were also spiritually present in the Cenacle.” Holy Thursday, 31/3/1988 ‘To the Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons’
REFLECTIVE THOUGHTS FROM ARCHBISHOP, BJ HICKEY, PERTH WA
As I move through the last days, weeks or months before my retirement as Archbishop, I am mindful of the hundreds of matters that need to be dealt with before I can happily hand over to my successor. I want everything to be in order when I do.These days of waiting for the announcement of my successor prompt me to think about the past and how time flies.
The rule that St Irenaeus gave Christians in the year 200 to enable them to discover the true faith, beset as they were with a myriad of conflicting calls from so many Gnostic sects. It is fascinating to see the Blessed Mother recalling us to this as we begin the Third Millennium. This simple, but Spirit-led demand helps us to maintain our equilibrium in these challenging times. “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.” (Mt 16:18)