Month: December 2024

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Hours after the last visitors and pilgrims left St. Peter’s Basilica for the day, a chisel clanged and dust flew as a group of prelates chanted their prayers before a simple wall marked with a cross.

In preparation for the opening on Christmas Eve of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of the basilica, led the brief prayer service and ritual late Dec. 2.

As the cardinal and other priests prayed, workers broke into the wall that has sealed the Holy Door shut since the Jubilee of Mercy ended in late 2016.

The workers removed a metal box, tied with a ribbon and sealed with wax, that contains the handles and the key to the Holy Door as well as Vatican medals, documents about the last Holy Year and four gold-covered bricks.

As the clergy sang the litany of saints, Cardinal Gambetti led them in procession to the altar over the tomb of St. Peter and paused for a moment of prayer.

In a formal meeting room, the metal box was set on a table in front of Cardinal Gambetti, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, and Archbishop Diego Ravelli, master of papal liturgical ceremonies.

The workers pried open the box and unnailed another inside it, revealing its contents.

After Cardinal Gambetti signed a document attesting to what he found, Archbishop Ravelli took custody of the box to deliver it to the pope, the Vatican press office said.

Similar ceremonies were planned to prepare the Holy Doors of the Basilica of St. John Lateran Dec. 3, St. Paul Outside the Walls Dec. 5 and St. Mary Major Dec. 6.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Despite the problems and worries in the world, Jesus invites Christians to look toward heaven, trust in his saving love and make room for him in order to find hope again, Pope Francis said.

“Sadness is awful,” he told visitors gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Angelus Dec. 1, the first Sunday of Advent.

“Indeed, it can happen that the anxiety, fears and worries about our personal lives or about what is happening in the world today weigh down on us like boulders and throw us into discouragement … and induce us to close in on ourselves,” he said.

“Jesus’ invitation is this: raise your head high and keep your hearts light and awake,” he said, reflecting on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Luke, which speaks about “cosmic upheavals and anxiety and fear in humanity.”

“In this context, Jesus addresses a word of hope to his disciples,” he said, by encouraging them to not let their hearts “become drowsy” and to await the coming of the Son of Man with vigilance.

The disciples’ hearts were “weighed down with fear,” the pope said. “Jesus, however, wants to free them from present anxieties and false convictions, showing them how to stay awake in their hearts, how to read events from the plan of God, who works salvation even within the most dramatic events of history.”

Jesus’ invitation is important for the faithful today, he said. “Let’s ask ourselves: what can I do to have a light heart, a wakeful heart, a free heart? A heart that does not let itself be crushed by sadness?”

Jesus, he said, “invites us to lift up our heads, to trust in his love that wants to save us and that draws close to us in every situation of our existence; he asks us to make room for him in order to find hope again.”

“May this Advent season be a precious opportunity to lift our gaze to him, who lightens our hearts and sustains us on our way,” Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis praised a new ceasefire reached in Lebanon, prayed for Israeli hostages and Palestinians in Gaza, and appealed to world leaders to help put an end to the war in Ukraine.

After praying the Angelus with visitors in St. Peter’s Square Dec. 1, the pope highlighted the devastating conflicts underway in the Middle East and Ukraine, and he encouraged all people to pray and work for peace.

“When one renounces the use of weapons and engages in dialogue, a good path is taken,” he said.

“As we prepare for Christmas, as we await the birth of the King of Peace, let these peoples be given concrete hope,” he said on the first day of Advent.

“The quest for peace is the responsibility not of a few, but of all. If habituation and indifference to the horrors of war prevail, the whole, entire human family is defeated,” he said.

A 60-day ceasefire deal between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group, Hezbollah, went into effect Nov. 27. It also requires Israeli troops to pull out of Lebanon and Hezbollah to pull away from the southern border.

The cross-border bombing and fighting, which began more than a year ago, has forced more than 1.2 million Lebanese and 50,000 Israelis from their homes and left more than 3,700 people dead in Lebanon and more than 130 people dead in Israel, according to The Associated Press. The conflict began when Hezbollah launched rocket attacks against Israel in support of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel in October 2023.

Pope Francis said he welcomed the ceasefire agreement “and I hope that it may be respected by all parties” so that all those displaced could return home “soon and safely.”

He also made “an urgent call to all Lebanese politicians, so that the president of the republic may be elected immediately, and the institutions return to their normal functioning, so as to proceed to the necessary reforms and assure the country of its role as an example of peaceful coexistence between different religions.”

Former President Michel Aoun’s term ended in October 2022. The Lebanese parliament has failed to elect his successor.

Pope Francis said he hoped the “glimmer of peace” represented by the agreement between Israel and Hezbollah “may lead to a ceasefire on all fronts, especially in Gaza. I very much have at heart the liberation of the Israelis who are still held hostage and access to humanitarian aid for the stricken Palestinian population.”

The pope also called for prayers for Syria, “where unfortunately war has flared up again, claiming many victims.”

And the pope expressed his ongoing concern and sorrow for the conflict in Ukraine.

“For almost three years we have witnessed a terrible sequence of deaths, injuries, violence and destruction,” he said. “Children, women, the elderly and the weak are the first victims” and winter will only exacerbate the difficulties facing millions of displaced persons.

“I renew once again my appeal to the international community and to every man and woman of goodwill, to make every effort to stop this war, and to make dialogue, fraternity and reconciliation prevail. Let there be a renewed commitment at every level,” he said.

MALVERN, Pa. (OSV News) – More than a million people descended upon Logan Circle on a beautiful autumn day in Center City Philadelphia Oct. 3, 1979, for a Mass celebrated by St. John Paul II, the Polish cardinal who had been elected pope less than a year earlier.

At the center of it all, above a covered fountain on the city’s Eakins Oval, the pope celebrated Mass on an expansive altar in the shadow of an enormous 34-foot-tall white cross.

In the days after the papal visit, the cross, a symbol of one of the greatest Catholic gatherings in North America at that time, was taken to the outskirts of the city where it was erected on the grounds of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. It has been on display at the busy intersection of Lancaster and City avenues the last 45 years.

Earlier this year, St. Charles Seminary moved to another part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and the seminary grounds were sold.

Fast forward to Nov. 11, another beautiful weather day in the Philadelphia area, and the newly refurbished cross was unveiled at its new place of honor at Malvern Retreat House where Father Douglas McKay offered prayers for a gathering of about 100 people. The formal rededication of the statue is scheduled for June at a Mass to be celebrated by Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Pérez.

Father McKay, current rector at the retreat house, was a seminarian in 1979 and was chosen to be a cross bearer at the Mass with the pontiff.

“It means to me … what this is all about … the cross is the most precious image that we have, because it’s a symbol of the paschal mystery of Jesus,” said Father McKay, ordained for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 1982. “The life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus. It’s so Eucharistic. And the Holy Father, John Paul II, he was so Eucharistic. He was so contemplative.”

Father McKay recalled the pope praying before the huge gathering.

“Then we started the procession to the holy sacrifice of the Mass. That’s what this cross is all about, the holy sacrifice of the Mass, the gateway to God, where all the glory lies. What it means to me is Eucharistic, the holy sacrifice of the Mass, and the banquet of heaven that is now. The kingdom of God is with us now.”

Of course, it’s the type of service a person never forgets.

“The privilege of being the cross bearer Oct. 3, 1979,” he said, “standing next to the Holy Father as he celebrated the Mass. … That’s what it all means to me. It’s all about the paschal mystery. Life, death and resurrection, coming home to God where we all belong.”

The idea of bringing the cross to Malvern came when a priest friend called Father McKay. Father Mike Kelly, a seminary official, called him and said with the seminary closing, they didn’t know what to do with that cross. “Do you think Malvern would want it?”

“Everybody got excited,” said the rector, who is a nationally recognized retreat director, author and evangelist.

The blessing and installation service for the cross included remarks from Michael Norton, president of the Malvern Retreat House. Father McKay said Norton and the active Malvern volunteers and donors were instrumental in helping arrange the heavy lifting required for the move.

The cross was moved to the grounds of the retreat house where a team of craftsmen painstakingly restored it for permanent installation on the 125-acre campus.

Officials said many individuals and companies have donated their time to the initiative, including JPC Group, Inc., Pennoni Engineering and Thackery Crane Rentals. JPC Group is a family-owned, full-service construction contractor operated by the Petrongolo family, whose members have been coming to Malvern for decades, organizers said.

Malvern Retreat House is billed as the oldest and largest Catholic retreat community in the nation. Founded more than 100 years ago as the Laymen’s Retreat League, Malvern hosts retreats for men, women, couples and young Catholics. It includes three chapels, four private oratories, four Stations of the Cross walks, a replica of the Grotto at Lourdes and countless shrines.

In August, Malvern was recognized as having the official diocesan shrine to Blessed Carlo Acutis, who will be canonized by Pope Francis April 27, making him the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint.

And now Malvern has a very large relic connected to St. John Paul II.