Amidst Conflict In Syria Christianity Prospers

The streets of the Old City are alive with hymn singing and perfumed with incense and jasmine as Christians flock to churches to mark the crucifixion of Christ.The police have closed main streets to vehicles, making way for tens of thousands of pedestrians. 

 

A Christmas tree still stands at the entrance to the Christian quarter; the cobbles underfoot are polished by centuries of wear. Shops selling snacks, clothes, toys, food and mementos are open. Lights blaze after years of power-rationing

 

A burst from a machinegun fired into the air at a wedding or a funeral rattles no one, although last week these streets were empty, shops were closed and families hid at home.

Mortars shot by insurgents in eastern Ghouta struck churches, schools and houses. Now the armed groups observe a ceasefire and negotiate surrender or evacuation to a distant province. “Christians who left the country will start coming back,” says Joseph, who guides my colleague Karin and me to seven churches traditionally visited on Holy Thursday night.

Syria is caught between two Easters. The Catholic one this Sunday, the Orthodox one next Sunday. Christians make the rounds of each other’s churches in a popular celebration of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. Ecumenism is at work in Damascus, the cradle of Christianity.

We begin at the Maronite Catholic Church of St Anthony as the priest prepares to wash the feet of several men standing beside him before the altar to commemorate Jesus’s bathing the feet of his disciples before the Last Supper. The church slowly fills while the choir sings sweetly from the gallery.

Many Altars :

At St Francis Latin Catholic Church, 11 elderly men, five in wheelchairs and six on chairs, sit facing each other at the front of the congregation while a priest with a fine, sonorous voice sings the Mass. Incense hangs in the air. Red carnations and white lilies decorate the church’s many altars.

The next house of God, the fourth we have on our programme, is the massive Zeitoun Greek Catholic (Melkite) church. Spotlights set behind the building range across the sky. A giant television screen mounted on a frame in the courtyard shows Patriarch Joseph Absi carrying a huge cross in a procession within the church, tightly packed with the faithful.  

Welcome Welcome ---

A woman asks where I come from. “Cyprus, ” I reply. “Welcome, welcome,” she says, yielding her place and pushing me forward so I can glimpse the procession making its final round of the church. A Muslim woman in a white headscarf is here with friends.

The streets are filling. We meet Joseph’s son and his girlfriend on our way to the Syriac Orthodox Church of St George. People come, listen to the choir, cross themselves and pause to recall the April 23rd, 2013, kidnapping of Aleppo’s Greek Orthodox bishop Boulos (Paul) Yazigi and Syriac Orthodox bishop Gregorious Yohanna (Gregory John) Ibrahim while on a mission to free two priests who had been abducted earlier. Despite rumours of their release, the clerics have never been seen since.

Asked how many churches there are in the Old City, Joseph reels them off by denomination, reaching 15, not counting chapels. Then, of course, there are churches elsewhere. “On this night some people cross to the new city to attend services there,” he says. “They keep going till 11 or 12 before going home. When I was a teenager I used to spend the night visiting churches with my friends. Before long the streets will be packed.”

St Therese’s Chaldean Catholic Church, our sixth, has few visitors. The priest at the Armenian Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, our seventh, proclaims the Mass in Armenian. A young man outside takes us around the back to the school to show us the place where a mortar struck last week, the hole patched with cement but not yet painted white to blend with the wall.

Groups of friends and families pause in their rounds to drink coffee, tea and wine at restaurants and cafes open late for the celebration.

In the West the faith languishes; Christianity, plagued by war, remains vigorous in Damascus, from where St Paul launched his mission to the world. 

Credits : The Irish Time, March 31, 2018 

We make our way along the Street Called Straight to the entrance to St Paul’s Syriac Catholic Church where Joseph pauses to greet a grey-bearded soldier on guard, his assault rifle slung from his shoulder, and to pluck a cube of sweet bread from a basket held by a girl scout. The scouts are out in force tonight, tending to the throng of visitors. The music here is in a very different style to the other two churches, the language of the Mass the same: Arabic, the tongue of most congregatWe make a detour from our set route down a narrow street where, along both sides, candles in white paper bags decorated with crosses light the way to the first Christian church, named for St Ananias. He was told by Jesus in a vision to go to a house where he would find and heal Saul of Tarsus, blinded by Christ on the road to Damascus. Ananias objected as Saul persecuted Christians but followed his master’s command, laid his hand on Saul, restoring his sight and transforming him Down a flight of steps are two small caves where early Christians worshipped in secret, fearing persecution by the pagan Romans. The rooms are simply furnished, one with an altar and the other with a series of pictures depicting the story of Paul. He escaped capture by fleeing to the site of St Paul’s Church, which we have just visited. Here, at the wellspring of Christianity, the church is filled with chatting, cheerful teenagers, the future of the faith in this ancient l‘Welcome, welcome’

Understanding The Sacred Blood Of Our Lord

To understand the devotion to the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we should look carefully at the meaning of blood and blood that is shed. By doing this, we can then consider the meaning of the shedding of the Precious Blood of Christ.

We all know that blood is biologically part of our body. However, blood is also intimately associated with the vital element of the individual as a person. That is why we give to the Blood of Christ all the adoration due to Christ Himself.

Our blood is naturally meant to be inside the body. Hence, every time we bleed, it is something of an unnatural or catastrophic nature. Many illnesses, for example, are perceived by bleeding caused by some malfunction inside the body. Bleeding is almost a sign of alarm, which because of its violence, calls attention to the fact that something is terribly wrong with the person.

Besides illnesses, bleeding also calls to mind fighting and crime. For example, the idea of bloodshed instantly calls to mind the blood of Abel, shed by Cain and which, according to Scripture, rose to God clamoring for vengeance. When blood is shed by crime, we sense a profound violence applied to the body that conveys the idea of something unjust, brutal and iniquitous which profoundly disturbs an existing order and clamors to God for the reestablishment of order.

That Blood was shed by the great anguish of soul when Our Lord, in His agony, began to suffer and sweat blood all over His Body.

When we consider the infinitely Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, many things come to mind.

We think of that blood begotten in the womb of Our Lady. We think of that Blood that was shed, leaving His Body from whence it should never have left. That Blood, like everything else in the Body of Christ, is in hypostatic union with Him and when it leaves His sacred Body, it is as if symbolizing all the dignity of that Body.

We might compare this departure to the juice that comes from the grape to make up wine. That juice represents the essence of the grape, all the best the grape has to give. So also Our Lord’s Blood represents the best of blood – the blood of David, the blood of Mary, the Blood of God-Man.

Through a series of unspeakable, violent deicidal actions, that Blood was shed in the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the Holy Cross and torments of all kinds. That Blood was shed by the great anguish of soul when Our Lord In His Agony, began to suffer and sweat blood all over His Body.

That Blood shed and falling on the ground clamorously attests to the insult made to the God-Man. It is a manifestation of how far human wickedness can go. It is a manifestation of the mystery of iniquity. We see in that Blood how much God tolerates. We are reminded how fallen human nature in this valley of tears (above all when guided by sin and the devil) is capable of going to the extremes of evil shrinking from nothing.

These considerations should lead us to always be extremely suspicious towards evil. We should follow Our Lord’s precept: “Watch and pray.” Our suspicions are based on the fact that evil is capable of the worst infamies. One can expect everything from it. Thus, we should do great violence to ourselves to fight against it.

We should avoid all drowsiness, foolish optimism or procrastination in face of evil. Indeed, failing to combat evil is a true crime since we see that if evil was capable of such horrible acts against Our Lord, it is capable of everything. Evil calls unto other evils and can go to the very depths of all evil.

In a sense, every drop of blood is like a tiny death, for it is a drop of life that goes away.
Our Lord wanted to go through these “deaths” to show how infinite is His love for us.

Looking at this bloodshed, we should note that the mercy of God wanted all that Blood to be shed with unheard-of abundance. All the blood in the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ was shed, as if to show that He gave us everything, without holding back even one drop, because of His immense desire to save us. 

One drop of His blood would have sufficed, yet He shed all His blood to the point that the last drops were mixed with water that left His Side when Longinus pierced His Heart with the lance. He wanted to hold nothing back in order to redeem us.

This superabundance of blood, suffering and offering up of self recalls Our Lord’s words: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Considering the devotion to the Most Precious Blood, we might say: “Greater Love than this no man hath, than He who gave His life for us.”

However, He did even more than just giving His life. He wished to suffer death from the beatings, anguish and the shedding of every drop of blood in His sacred Body. In this sense, every drop of blood is like a tiny death, for it is a drop of life that goes away. He wanted to go through all these “deaths” to show how infinite was His friendship for us.

Such considerations lead us to confide in His mercy. If He so wanted to save us, we should understand that we might cover ourselves in His Blood and present ourselves to the Eternal Father.

Begging forgiveness thus covered in His Blood, we should confide that we can obtain it. On the other hand, we must consider how horrible is the eternal destiny of the damned. If Our Lord suffered all these torments to spare us from eternal doom, then this damnation is a very serious thing. So let us meditate on the depths of Hell by considering a drop of the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
This inevitably leads us to other considerations. First, we must see how the Blood of Christ calls to mind the tears of Mary, shed along with the Blood of Christ. Our Lord did not want Our Lady to shed any drop of her own blood. He allowed all types of torments against Himself but forbade the powers of evil from raising even a finger against His Immaculate Mother.

Thus, she suffered no physical torments. None of her blood was shed on behalf of humanity, nor would it have had the redeeming force of the infinitely precious Blood of Christ. The entire Redemption would come specifically from the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

However, Our Lady did shed a kind of blood: Her tears. It would serve as only a kind of complement to Our Lord’s Blood. We can say that Tears are the blood of the soul. She suffered all the pain of His death and shed tears. That is why it is impossible to think about the Blood of Christ without at the same time considering the tears of Mary that were joined to that Blood and constituted the first tribute of Christendom to complete the part of His Precious Blood that God wanted to be completed – with the suffering of the faithful – so that souls would be saved in great numbers.

Finally, we should think about the Holy Eucharist. The Blood of Christ was shed in streets, squares, Pilate’s palace and on top of Mount Calvary. That Blood of Christ is found entirely in the Holy Eucharist. How many times we have received this Blood of Christ in us.

Thus, as we receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we should remember this. We are receiving this Precious Blood, shed for us. Inside us, it is like the blood of Abel, not to clamor for punishment against us, but to clamor for mercy for us. So let us receive the Eucharist with great confidence and joy, as we receive the Blood of Christ that rises to Heaven clamoring for mercy on our behalf.

 Credits : Tradition, Family, and Property 

Full Of Grace Cafe, Small Town Parish Thinks Big

When Fr. Josh Johnson arrived as pastor of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church over a year ago, he slept in a room above the choir loft.

The church and rectory had been ravaged by a flood a couple years prior that had destroyed or damaged 95 percent of the small town of St. Amant, Louisiana. The pastor of Holy Rosary had also left due to health reasons, leaving the wrecked parish without a pastor.

Knowing he was coming into a difficult situation, Johnson called in the big guns: he asked communities of cloistered nuns to surround his new parish in prayer.

“I immediately reached out to the cloistered convents and was like: ‘Hey y'all, here's the deal. I'm going to this parish that's just been devastated, can y'all please adopt this parish as spiritual mothers and intercede for these people?’” Johnson told CNA.

Then he bumped up the amount of time that the sacraments would be available to his parishioners. He rearranged the schedule so that his staff could start their day with Mass and adoration.

Fast-forward to today - the prayers of those nuns, and of the people of the parish of Holy Rosary, have come to fruition in the booming and thriving Full of Grace Cafe, a one-stop-shop community center run out of the renovated rectory.

The full name of the rectory-turned-community-center is: Full of Grace Cafe: Quenching God’s Thirst for Charity & Justice.

And the name fits, because it’s hard to come up with a service that Full of Grace Cafe doesn’t offer.
It’s a coffee shop, but it’s also a food pantry and a soup kitchen and a diaper drive and a laundromat.

There are volunteer Human Resources specialists, psychological counselors, a hair stylist, a Creighton FertilityCare specialist and an ultrasound machine. There’s a room for small groups and bible studies. There’s a fireplace and a pool table and a courtyard for outdoor movie nights and socials after Mass.

That wasn’t the original vision. At first, Johnson had the simple idea to move the existing food pantry to a more prominent location, and to maybe one day open a coffee shop.

“I had a very small vision at first, just put the food pantry up front, that way when people come to our campus, you see a beautiful church, and then you see a space for service of the poor,” he said.

“And then from that, different parishioners just began to share their dreams.” All of the services are offered pro bono by parishioners who wanted to share their gifts with the community, Johnson said.
“One lady came to me and said I have the gift of doing hair, and then she said my friends do too, and we would love to come and do hair for free there. And so I said ok, cool, it can be a food pantry and a salon.”

As word got out about the cafe, the offers of help just kept coming.

“And then someone said why don't we make it a soup kitchen too? I love to cook. These people out here can cook well! So I was like ok, we can do that. Then another woman who works with me, she's a Creighton fertility care specialist, and she was like, I can walk with couples and do Creighton FertilityCare for people who are infertile or who have endometriosis or cysts on their ovaries or who want to do Natural Family Planning.”

Johnson also recruited the help of local branches of Catholic Charities, St. Vincent de Paul, and other non-profits in the area to bolster the services and to provide legal help and counseling.

He said he hopes to bring Jesus to people in a way that is non-threatening, in a way that informs, but doesn’t force anything. He said he wants people to feel heard, and for them to know that the cafe is a place where people can come and mutually share their gifts and their lives.

“The goal is really to have a place where the body of Christ can come together to give and receive,” he said.

“I'm going there to receive too, I'm certainly going to give in there, but I'm also receiving. Like when
I do a bible study with our parishioners, God speaks to me through their wisdom and through their love for the Lord. And whenever I'm with the poor I'm receiving as much as I'm giving, so its a place of mutuality, where I can give to you and I can receive your gift and we can accompany each other toward heaven.”

Johnson is not foreign to mission work. Before he became a priest, he spent time serving with Mother Teresa’s order, the Missionaries of Charity, in Calcutta, India. He’s served the poor with a religious order in Jamaica, and several years ago he was on mission at the U.S.-Mexico border.
But the cafe is just a means, Johnson said, not an end. The goal is to point people to Jesus, and ultimately, to make saints.

“On the wall for (Mother Teresa’s) home for the dying and the destitute, there's a quote on the wall that Mother Teresa said to God,” Johnson said. “She said: I will give Holy Mother Church saints.

And I remember when I saw that quote it pierced my heart, so it’s on my ordination card...and this is my way of drawing people to the sacraments.”

Johnson himself left the Church when he was young. What brought him back, he said, was the Eucharist.

“The Eucharist is what brought me back to Jesus and so I believe if I could just get people to come to our campus, then I have the opportunity to point them to Jesus and the Eucharist because the Eucharist is where transformation happens,” he said.

“The Eucharist is going to do everything else, I've seen Jesus work miracles, it’s so cool,” he said.
He’s invited Protestants to come to Eucharistic adoration at his parish, and “I've just seen legit transformations... people who don't even know what's going on have these hardcore transformations because Jesus is alive, and I think we just need to believe that Jesus is God and that he can do what he says he does.”

Johnson has endless stories of all kinds of providential encounters that have happened through the Full of Grace Cafe. There was Micky, a homeless man who wanted community and is now connected to a bible study. There was a distressed young man in the parking lot who needed a job - and was able to take a roofing job that another man had told Johnson about the day before.

Something else Johnson wanted to emphasize was the evangelizing aspect of the Full of Grace Cafe. He didn’t just want to offer food or laundry services to people in need without also trying to tell them about Jesus, he said.

“One thing I noticed in seminary, helping out at Catholic apostolates, when they did work for the poor and with the poor, they wouldn't evangelize well,” he said. “They would give people food, like handouts and stuff, but they wouldn't try to tell people about the story of salvation, and share Jesus with people and really proclaim the faith.”

That’s why in every room of Full of Grace Cafe, there are scripture verses on the wall and pictures of saints. “And they're really diverse saints, because I want everyone who comes to see a saint who looks like them,” he said, from Our Lady of Kibeho to Our Lady of Guadalupe to Fr. Augustus Tolton, St. Jose Sanchez, St. Dymphna, Saints Peter and Paul and more.

“So whether you're white, black, Asian or Hispanic, you're going to see someone who looks like you who's a saint, so you're going to be inspired. You're going to see scriptures on the wall. You're going to meet people who aren't just going to give you a hand-out, but who are going to ask you your story and ask if they can pray with you. I want it to be a place where people would legit encounter Jesus.”

He’s also hoping that he will find an order of religious sisters who will fill the convent in the back of the cafe and help out at the parish.

“I want nuns!” he said. So far he’s had a few different orders of religious sisters come and visit to see if the parish would fit them.

“I want nuns who love Jesus and who love the poor and who love the Blessed Sacrament,” he said.
Johnson said one of the most rewarding things about Full of Grace Cafe has been seeing how willing his parishioners are to pitch in and share their gifts with the community.

“They're like my kids,” he said of his parishioners. “It’s like wow, I'm younger than them because I’m only 31, but I'm like oh man, look at my kids, they're happy about this, they're excited about doing ministry.”

“I recognize I am a limited member of the Body of Christ,” he added. “I'm a necessary member for sure, but I'm very limited, my role is limited, so if I can just build up my parishioners to say yes to being the particular member of the body of Christ that they're called to be, I've done my job well because then we're gonna run, we're gonna thrive.”

The projects at Holy Rosary parish and Full of Grace Cafe have only just begun.

Taking another cue from Mother Teresa, the next step for Johnson is, unsurprisingly, building an adoration chapel and setting up perpetual adoration.

“I've been telling people ok, now, we have to set up perpetual adoration because I don't want any of us to become a bunch of heretics out here thinking we're gonna work our way to heaven,” he said.

“We've got to focus on the Eucharist and we're going to see so much more supernatural fruit.”
He said that when Mother Teresa’s sisters prioritized time in prayer in front of the Eucharist, they saw their order and apostolates flourish in new ways.

“We're going to follow the model of saints,” he said. “We're going to next focus on getting an adoration chapel built so that we can have really hardcore time of just Jesus and I, and adore the Lord and watch him work! Watch the Lord do his thing, and he will, he will. It’s so exciting.”

Credits : Catholic News Agency, December 2018 

Rome’s Center of Divine Mercy established by St. John Paul II

Each day at 3 p.m. people gather to pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet in Rome’s Santo Spirito in Sassia, a church containing relics of both St. Faustina Kowalska and St. John Paul II.

Located just steps from St. Peter’s Basilica, Santo Spirito in Sassia is Rome’s official Divine Mercy church.

"At the hour of Divine Mercy … truly the church is filled with many souls -- the young, the sick, couples, and people facing great difficulties of a moral nature who come to implore the Divine Mercy," Monsignor Jozef Bart, the church’s rector told CNA.

The Polish priest was personally selected by St. Pope John Paul II to transform the 16th century church, originally built as a hospital chapel, into a center for the spirituality of Divine Mercy in 1994.

"Today in particular, I am pleased to be able to give thanks to God in this Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia, attached to the hospital of the same name, and now a specialized center for the pastoral care of the sick, as well as for the promotion of the spirituality of divine mercy," John Paul II said on Divine Mercy Sunday in 1995.

"It is very significant and timely that precisely here, next to this very ancient hospital, prayers are said and work is done with constant care for the health of body and spirit,” he said of the church.

This year, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin celebrated Mass for Divine Mercy Sunday in the church and Pope Francis extended a greeting to all who gathered in Santo Spirit in Sassia for the feast during his Regina Coeli address.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, the order to which St. Faustina belonged, help to lead the daily prayers and catechesis on the Divine Mercy in Santo Spirito in Sassia.

“Jesus told St. Faustina, ‘Man does not find any peace until he turns with faith to the Divine Mercy,’” Monsignor Bart said.

The church offers Eucharistic adoration with priests available for confession in several languages, including English, at 6 p.m. each day.

“We priests must remember that we are channels, instruments of the Divine Mercy,” Bart explained.
"Divine Mercy! This is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity at the dawn of the third millennium,” St. John Paul II said on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2001.

“‘Jesus, I trust in you.’ This prayer, dear to so many of the devout, clearly expresses the attitude with which we too would like to abandon ourselves trustfully in your hands, O Lord, our only Savior,” he continued.

"A simple act of abandonment is enough to overcome the barriers of darkness and sorrow, of doubt and desperation. The rays of your divine mercy restore hope, in a special way, to those who feel overwhelmed by the burden of sin,” John Paul II said.

The Church of Santo Spirito in Sassia is located at 12 Via dei Penitenzieri in Rome, a five minute walk from St. Peter’s Basilica.

Credits : Catholic News Agency, April 28, 2019 

In war-torn South Sudan, two Spanish priests build a shrine to Our Lady of the Rosary

Ave Maria, the parish church outside Mupoi, South Sudan, fell into disrepair decades ago. It was abandoned at the beginning of Sudan’s civil war, and then ransacked. It is dilapidated and practically unusable.

But two strong-willed Spanish missionaries in South Sudan are working to change that. They have a vision for the church, which they hope to turn in a continental Marian Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary.

The church, near Mupoi, in the South Sudanese diocese of Tombura-Yambio, is massive. It was built almost a century ago by Combonian missionaries from Italy.

The missionaries are followers of St. Daniel Comboni, the first Bishop of Sudan, who founded their order in the late 19th century. The Combonians became the leading evangelizing force of Sudan, and were especially successful in converting to Catholicism the tribes in the territory that today comprises the new nation of South Sudan.

Sudan became an independent nation in 1956. Its first prime minister, Ismail al-Azhari, in order to appease the Islamists of the country’s north, expelled all Catholic missionaries from the country. The majority of those missionaries were Italian Combonians.

Their churches, rectories and missions were either abandoned or transferred to young native clergy and religious. Ave Maria was one such Church. But after the missionaries were expelled, and the civil war began, most of the region’s Catholic population fled. The Church building was left to crumble.

But Catholics are returning to the area. And two Catalonian priests, themselves missionaries to the region, are determined to turn the massive Catholic church into the continental Marian Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary.

"Now that the people has returned to this area, our goal is to rebuild physically, but most importantly spiritually, with a comprehensive vision” says Fr. Avelino Bassols, pastor of the mission parish.
Bassols and his vicar, Fr. Albert Salvans, belong to the Missionary Community of St. Paul  the Apostle (MCSPA) made up of men and women, priests and lay people, who have decided to leave everything behind  in order to follow Christ as missionaries in the most demanding areas of the globe.

The MCSPA was founded by the Spanish missionary priest Francisco Andreo García, who died of cancer in 2013 at Nariokotome Mission, in Turkana, Kenya.
Garcia moved to Kenya in 1988. After that, each time he visited Spain, he strengthened his relationships with the young people from the parishes where he had served during his years in Spain.

This group later became the seed of the MCSPA, which now includes members not only from Spain but also from Kenya, Ethiopia, Germany, Malaysia, Italy, Mexico and Colombia.

Ave Maria Parish is now the epicenter of the peace and rebuilding effort in the northern part of war-ravaged South Sudan’s Diocese of Tombura-Yambio.

"Our mission here is to bring the Gospel in full, and that means not only spreading the Gospel, but also bringing education, peace and reconciliation to the region," the Bishop of Tombura-Yambio, Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala, told CNA.

While the priests work in the slow rebuilding of the shrine, a building for a secondary school has been started with financial help from the U.S. based Sudan Relief Fund. The Catholic school will cater to all the students from the nearby towns of Yubu, Ngpotoneyo, Nboko and Sabamile.

"Many African Catholics come in pilgrimage to the shrine of the Holy Cross in nearby Mupoi," explains Fr. Bassols, "Bishop Eduardo has proposed to connect both shrines, thus, people can come to pray to Our Lord in Mupoi and to Our Lady here."

Fr. Bassols does not hide his enthusiasm when he explains: "We are located at the very heart of Africa. If you draw a cross from North to South and from East to West in an African map., Ave Maria is almost at the exact center."

"In the state of Tombura, 84% of the population is Catholic, and I mean, truly Catholic. We need schools, drinking water, a healthcare facility, issues we are addressing with the help of the Sudan Relief Fund. But what we have in abundance here is a deep faith. Our people have survived persecutions, the expulsion of the missionaries, many decades without priests... but their deep faith remains," Fr. Bassols told CNA.

"Is wonderful to devote one's life to the people that need, the most and to preach them the Gospel. Catholics, especially the young, should remember that our baptismal call to be missionaries is not only fulfilled by being evangelizers to  our neighbors, but also to respond to Jesus' call to 'go to all the nations' and therefore, become missionaries Ad Gentes... we invite young people to seriously consider becoming missionaries here," Fr. Salvans added.

Bassols and Salvans are hopeful that in 2023, the centenary of the foundation of Ave Maria, the shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary will be completely restored, and will attract Catholics from all over the world.

Credits : Catholic News Agency, May 31, 2019 

A HARVEST OF GREAT FRUITS IS AVAILABLE FOR THE ASKING FROM EUCHARISTIC ADORATION

Like many others across Scotland, the children of our parish are now in the final stages of preparation for their First Holy Communion in the coming weeks.

I must say I find the excitement with which they’re looking forward to the big day rather edifying.

I remember there was a little girl in my previous parish who, in the weeks after her First Communion, would come up to me at the end of Mass and say, eyes wide with excitement, ‘Fr Jamie, that was my seventh Communion!’

Great Joy:

I’m not sure if she’s still counting, but it was clear that the great joy of receiving our Lord in the Eucharist was still fresh in her mind.

For most of us, though, the excitement of novelty wears off soon enough. The reception of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord and Saviour becomes, by its regularity, something we can come to take for granted.

Our Faith in the Holy Eucharist, the mystery of the Lord’s Body and Blood made truly present on our altars and in our tabernacles, might weaken with time: we begin to doubt if the Lord is really there, we begin to forget what a tremendous gift the Eucharist is, and we might even begin to ask ourselves what the point is in coming to Mass at all.

Danger to Faith:

Familiarity, even if it doesn’t always breed contempt, can be a dangerous thing for our Faith.
If this is true in our own lives, it’s also true in the history of the Church.

There have been periods in the Church’s pilgrimage through history when the Eucharistic Faith that was handed on by the apostles has been denied, or has been mis-represented, or has simply been neglected.

Love for the Eucharist:

In the 16th century, the great, reforming Archbishop of Milan, St Charles Borromeo, established the practice of 40 hours of continuous, solemn exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in his diocese to foster a greater love for the Eucharist in the aftermath of the Reformation.

The practice has survived to this day and is still celebrated around this time in parishes throughout the country.

In a few weeks, we’ll celebrate the Forty Hours devotion in our Cathedral in Edinburgh as a way of renewing and refreshing our Faith in the Holy Eucharist, asking the Lord Jesus to pour out his blessings on our parish, on our city and on our country.

Faithful Souls:

We’re fortunate to have a good number of the faithful souls described by Fr Michael last week who already attend Mass every day and who have already committed to keep watch with the Lord: people who already have a deep Eucharistic Faith and who, like Simeon and Anna in St Luke’s Gospel, seem ‘never to leave the Temple but worship there with fasting and prayer night and day.’ Thanks be to God for them!

We have many others who come to Mass on Sundays, and who are perhaps feeling the Lord calling them to move beyond their comfort zone to the ‘deep waters’ of quiet prayer with him.

We also have people, whose stories I’ll never know, who drift in and out of our church all day long—some are tourists, come to admire the beauty of the cathedral, others come carrying heavy burdens to lay before the Lord and his saints.

Something for everyone:

That’s one of the great things about Eucharistic Adoration! There’s something in it for everyone, wherever we are on our journey of Faith.

The American lay evangelist Sherry Weddell says that we ought to think of exposition of the Blessed Sacrament not only as a devotion for the already convinced, but also as a form of evangelisation.
She describes it as the perfect point of access for postmodern people: experiential, non-judgmental and mysterious.

As she says, it’s accessible to everyone: “the non-Baptised, the unchurched, the lapsed, the sceptical, the seeking, the prodigal and those who aren’t sure that a relationship with God is even possible.”

Daunting :

As much as I love the Mass and the liturgy, I know it can be daunting to someone who doesn’t know what to say or what to do. At adoration, you can (within reason!) say or do whatever you like. You can say or do nothing, if you prefer.

The Cure d’Ars once famously asked one of his illiterate, peasant parishioners what he did during prayer and received the wonderful response: “I look at Him and He looks at me.”
Of course there are as many ways of praying as there are people who pray. We can pray anywhere: indoors and outdoors, in our bedrooms and in the car.

Presence of Jesus:
But, in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, we enter into the presence of Jesus in a very special way.

Parishes which are able to offer regular, and even continuous, periods of Eucharistic Adoration, often reap a harvest of great fruits: the Lord Jesus is never outdone in generosity.

Whenever we come to adoration with open hands and with open hearts, the Lord always responds with abundance. He’s waiting for us in the Blessed Sacrament: come, let us adore Him

Bronze Statue Of Our Lady Installed At The Marian Sheshan Basilica in Shanghai

A new bronze statue of Our Lady holding up the Child Jesus installed on the rooftop of the Sheshan Marian Basilica is seen by Shanghai Catholics as the restoration of a revered heritage.

Local Catholics have longed for the installation of such a statue since the original Marian statue was destroyed more than 20 years ago.

The new statue was blessed by government-recognized Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian of Shanghai when it was installed on top of the belfry of the Marian Basilica at the Sheshan hilltop outside Shanghai, eastern China.

At the April 18 ceremony Bishop Jin thanked all who have showed love and care for Shanghai diocese, and prayed to Our Lady of Sheshan for her blessings to the diocese and all its Catholics.

The rooftop statue project is part of the diocese´s celebrations for the Jubilee of the Year 2000, the basilica parish pastor Father Wu Jianlin told UCA News April 27. Many Catholics and priests have been longing for the statue, he noted.

Some 10,000 Sheshan Catholics have contributed 300,000 yuan (US$36,234) since last May for casting and installing the statue, Father Wu revealed.

The statue, which is 3.87 meters tall and weighs one ton, resembles the original statue that featured Mary standing on a dragon and holding up the Child Jesus above her.

In 1936 the Marian statue was placed on the basilica´s rooftop and has become the symbol of the Sheshan Marian Basilica built in 1935.

However, the statue and many parts of the basilica were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution 1966-1977. When the church was restored in the early 1980s, a cross was erected on the rooftop where the Marian statue stood.

With the installation of the new statue, the cross has been moved to the Sheshan Regional Seminary located beside the basilica, according to Father Li Junzhong, who was in charge of the statue project.

Attending the April 18 ceremony were about 300 Catholics including the vicars general of Shanghai Fathers Joseph Ai Zuzhang and Joseph Xing Wenzhi, priests and seminarians of the Sheshan seminary.

The basilica was founded on a site where the Jesuits first built a church dedicated to Mary Help of Christians in 1873.

In 1942, Pope Pius XII gave the title of Basilica Minor to the Sheshan church. In 1947, a coronation ceremony took place for the Marian statue.

Every year in May, Sheshan becomes a pilgrimage site for Catholics along the Yangtze river, neighboring Shanghai city, and from other parts of China.

The basilica marks the feast of Mary Help of Christians May 24 as its annual feast.

The Great Jubilee is a year of pilgrimages and the Sheshan basilica has been a popular pilgrimage site, particularly in the Marian month of May. With the new statue, the basilica will attract more pilgrims, Father Wu said.

The present Gothic-Roman basilica on the hilltop together with three mid-hill pavilions of the Three Holy Ones -- Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as well as 14 stations of the cross along the hillside are popular prayer sites for pilgrims.

Credits : UCA News