May 19, 2024Catholic News AgencyNews Briefs1Print
Bemidji, Minnesota, May 19, 2024 / 21:47 pm (CNA).
At the start of Mass Sunday at one of thelaunch sites of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, Bishop Andrew Cozzens remarked that although he had his hiking shoes on, the journey ahead would need something more than natural support to reach its intended destination.
“In order tomake this pilgrimage fruitful, we need the Holy Spirit,” said the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, bishop.
If that’s the case,thenthe National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is off to a fantastic start.
The pilgrimage’s four routes, which will crisscross the country over the next two months, began May 19 with Pentecost Sunday liturgies, processions of the Blessed Sacrament, and fervent prayers for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit to renew Eucharistic devotion throughout the United States.
“It’s perfect thatwe’re launching this on Pentecost because Pentecost was a revival,” Cozzens said during his homily, emphasizing that a revival is the work of the Holy Spirit on the hearts of believers, which leads ordinary people to seek extraordinary holiness.
Four routes, one pilgrimage
Joined by brother bishops, clergy, and lay faithful from Minnesota and beyond — some 2,000 people in total — Cozzens presided over an outdoor Mass at Itasca State Park, the starting point of both the Mississippi Riverbut alsothe northern Marian Route, which will lead to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in July.
The Mass was followed by a mile-long Eucharistic procession and benediction.Then, along the shores of Lake Itasca, Cozzens blessed the small cadre of “perpetual pilgrims” who will travel the whole route, and they set off along a dirt path through the woods.
Jesus in the Eucharist, the source of the Catholic faith, crossing the Mississippi River at its source. #MarianRoute pic.twitter.com/mdoT4IbE42
— Jonathan Liedl (@JLLiedl) May 19, 2024
Meanwhile, Eucharistic pilgrimage routes were also underway in the country’s east, west, and south.
In New Haven, Connecticut, the faithful began the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Route with a Pentecost Vigil Mass celebrated by Archbishop Christopher Coyne at St. Mary’s Church, where Blessed Michael McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus andis entombedtoday, before a Sunday morning procession and a Eucharistic pilgrimage boat ride through the Long Island Sound.
The St. Juan Diego Route kicked off in the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, with Mass at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral, celebrated by Bishop Daniel Flores, before pilgrims braved 90-degree heat to join the Eucharistic Lord for the route’s opening procession.
And in San Francisco, following Mass at the Cathedral of St. Mary celebrated by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, the faithful processed with the Eucharist across the 1.7-mile-long Golden Gate Bridge to kick off the St. Junipero Serra Route.
The Marian, Seton, Juan Diego, and Serra Routes will eventually converge inIndianapolisfor the 10th National Eucharistic Congress July 17–21.
And they’re off!
The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage’s Eastern Seton Route has officially begun with a Solemn Pentecost Vigil Mass celebrated by Abp. Coyne in St. Mary’s Church – where Blessed Michael McGivney’s remains are entombed.
📍New Haven, CT pic.twitter.com/tTFJbG3uG9
— Catherine Hadro (@CatHadro) May 19, 2024
Cozzens has served as the U.S. bishops’ leader of thewiderNational Eucharistic Revival, which began in 2022 and includes the pilgrimage andcongress. At the Mass in Minnesota, he askedrhetoricallywhat would happen if the bishops of the United States called for a Eucharistic revival, including two years of prayer before the BlessedSacrament,and a cross-country pilgrimage that asked the Lord to pour out his Holy Spirit upon the whole country.
“What would happen if the bishops did that?” said Cozzens, who will join pilgrims in a 12-mile walk to Walker, Minnesota, in the Diocese of Duluth on Monday. “Well, we’re about to find out.”
Come Holy Spirit
Cozzens told those gathered that, just like the first Pentecost led to Christianity’s spread throughout the Roman Empire, the Holy Spirit could act through the National Eucharistic Revival to start a fire of divine love that would engulf the nation.
But if thatwasgoing to happen, it would require those gathered to embrace repentance, prayer, and the pursuit ofholiness,so that the Lord can “enkindle in our hearts his fire so that we can be the saints he’s calling us to be.”
“Brothers and sisters, would you like to see a revival in our country? Then it has to begin with you and me.”
The thousands gathered in the grassy field for Mass included several families with young children who had brought lawn chairs from homein lieu ofpews.
Instead of the Parthians, Medes, and Elamites mentioned in the Mass readings’ account of the original descent of the Holy Spirit, “out-of-towners” present for the Minnesota Pentecost liturgy included Iowans, Dakotans, and Wisconsinites, some of whom had made lengthy journeys to take part in the historic occasion.
Doug and Stephanie Carder and their four young children, ages8years to 4 months, came all the way from Clear Lake, Iowa, about six hours away by car. The family camped the night before in the state park andwere drawnby the chance to gather outdoors with other Catholics on Pentecost, the feast of the birth of the Church, and give thanks.
“We wanted to give thanksgiving for Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist and to ask that others come to know him that way and love him that way through this pilgrimage,” Stephanie Carder said.
Sunoh and Jenna Choe came from the Twin Cities totake partin the Marian Route’s start, and both shared their hopes for how the Holy Spirit would work through the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage and thewiderrevival.
“I’m just really hopeful about the Eucharisticrevival,and how this is going to change parishes and inspire people to evangelize,” Sunoh Choe said.
Mass intentions asked God to renew Eucharistic faith across the country, to bring those who had fallen away back to the Church, andto drawthe nation to Jesus through the pilgrimage routes about to embark across the country. The eight perpetual pilgrims who will travel the entire Marian Routewere also invited forwardto receive a special blessing from Cozzens.
When Mass concluded, those gathered joined the Eucharist in a one-mile procession to the headwaters visitor center, crossing through dense pine forests and across a bridge over the Mississippi River in fledgling form.
At the front of the procession, between the Knights and Ladies of the Holy Sepulcher, were about 20 father and son members of the Troop of St. George, a Catholic scouting group. Tom Schulzetenberg of Blaine, Minnesota, said he had told the participating scouts that they were taking part in a “historicmoment,that they’d probably never get to do again in their lifetime.”
“I wanted my two sons and all of these other fathers and sons to be a part of that, to show that public expressions of our faith are important,” Schulzetenberg said.
Father Paul Shovelain, pastor of St. John the Baptist in New Brighton, Minnesota, came with about 50 of his parishioners to participate in the Marian Route’s launch. He said he was excited to see how the pilgrimage could be a witness to many that “the Lord is staying with us” — including people like the park rangers and state park visitors, many of whom looked on the Eucharistic procession with curiosity, asking participants what was going on.
Jim Louden, a knight of the Holy Sepulcher and lawyer in the Twin Cities, said he was grateful for the opportunity for spiritual formation at the Marian Route’s start, including the two-day Star of the North Eucharistic Congress that had taken place in nearby Bemidji the day before, featuring talks from renowned catechists such as Bishop Robert Barron and Father Mike Schmitz. Hesaid hehoped the event would “help light a spark in the world so that others can follow Christ.”
“We’re just hoping and praying that this can be the beginning.”
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Vatican City, Jan 13, 2022 / 10:27 am (CNA).
Preparations are already underway in Rome for the 2025 Jubilee, a special year of grace and pilgrimage in the Catholic Church.
Archbishop Rino Fisichella met with Pope Francis this month to discuss the motto for the jubilee.
In a video published by Vatican News on Jan. 13, Fisichella revealed that the motto approved by the pope “can be summed up in two words: Pilgrims of Hope.”
The 2025 Jubilee will be the Church’s first ordinary jubilee since St. John Paul II led The Great Jubilee of 2000. The Jubilee of Mercy opened by Pope Francis in 2015 was an extraordinary jubilee.
Archbishop Fisichella leads the Vatican dicastery entrusted with the event’s organization, the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.
“There is so much work to be done,” he said.
The 2025 Jubilee will include the opening of the Holy Door in St. Peter’s Basilica. Pilgrims who pass through the door – which is only opened during Jubilee years, ordinarily every 25 years or when a pope calls for an extraordinary Jubilee – can receive a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions.
The four major basilicas in Rome all have Holy Doors. During the Extraordinary Jubilee of 2015, Pope Francis also granted cathedral churches around the world permission to establish and open a Holy Door.
Jubilees have biblical roots, as the Mosaic era established jubilee years to be held every 50 years for the freeing of slaves and forgiveness of debts as manifestations of God’s mercy.
The practice was re-established in 1300 by Boniface VIII. Pilgrims to Rome were granted a plenary indulgence. Between 1300 and 2000, 29 jubilee years were held in Rome.
“To pass through the Holy Door means to rediscover the infinite mercy of the Father who welcomes everyone and goes out personally to encounter each of them. It is he who seeks us! It is he who comes to encounter us,” Pope Francis said as he opened the jubilee Holy Door on St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 8, 2015.
“In passing through the Holy Door, then, may we feel that we ourselves are part of this mystery of love, of tenderness. Let us set aside all fear and dread, for these do not befit men and women who are loved. Instead, let us experience the joy of encountering that grace which transforms all things,” he said.
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November 23, 2023Catholic News Agency10
Bishop Gregory Mansour released his sixth pastoral letter on men’s spirituality on Oct. 12, 2023. / Credit: Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn
CNA Staff, Nov 23, 2023 / 10:38 am (CNA).
In his sixth pastoral letter on male spirituality, Maronite Bishop Gregory Mansour says that “fatherhood is expected of all men, whether biological, natural, or spiritual.”
In the Oct. 12 letter titled “The man of God is a man for others: Some themes in men’s spirituality,” Mansour, said that there are “some worrisome trends” in the culture that “undermine masculinity under the guise of remedying past chauvinism or over-reliance on patriarchal structures.”
Mansour added that given “the absence of dads in far too many homes in our country and the need for inspiring male role models, many young men are growing up without effective guidance about how to live out their male identity.”
Expressing the desire to reach the “hearts of men” through his letter, he added that “I would be grateful if this Pastoral Letter nourishes women and youth as well because so much of this letter can be helpful to everyone interested in the spiritual life.”
Pastoral letters are often released by bishops to members of their dioceses on a certain aspect of the faith, in an attempt to guide the faithful.
The letter explores a myriad of topics ranging from a man’s disposition towards his wife and children, the use of contraception and p*rnography, the need for self-mastery and a life of prayer, and the call to fatherhood for all men regardless of one’s current state in life.
“Men who live as ‘chips off the old (divine) block’ are the greatest need today; women and children long for this — many men also long for this,” he wrote.
‘A man for others’
Much of a men’s spirituality can be discovered through reflecting on Jesus as “a man for others,” the letter said.
Mansour cites the Gospel of John where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. He adds that Jesus was teaching “all of us, but especially men” about servant leadership.
“Jesus wanted to teach men how to undo the sin of the first man, Adam, who after the Fall would ‘rule over’ his ‘helpmate’ Eve (Gen. 3:16),” he wrote.
Christ was making service “his privileged way,” Mansour wrote, adding that “the path of redemption would involve self-mastery rather than domination of others.”
Men and women have equal dignity, Mansour wrote pointing to Jesus’s discourse on marriage and divorce with the Pharisees.
Mansour wrote that Christ “rebutted the religious leaders of the day who were justifying divorce by referring to how Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever.”
Jesus responded by stating “that it was God’s intention from the beginning that what God has joined no human authority should separate,” Mansour wrote, adding that his new command “shattered all previous rights to male domination in marriage.”
“Jesus, it should be noted, was speaking only to men, because women did not have the ‘right,’ given by Moses, to divorce their husbands. Thus, Jesus was indicating that a woman and a man are, by nature, and by the intention of the Creator, of equal importance and dignity,” he wrote.
The call to chastity
Noting that men and women are able to give themselves as gifts to each other in the sexual embrace, Mansour said that “a man and woman need to develop within themselves the virtues necessary to ensure that they can be faithful to each other.”
Mansour wrote that chastity orders sexual intimacy to be “appropriately expressed in fidelity, love, and mutual reverence,” adding that “man completes woman and woman completes man, as two halves make a whole.”
“We can easily enslave ourselves to our desires, passions, compulsions, addictions, and whims. p*rnography, masturbation, and sexual promiscuity are always sinful, as is sexual harassment or abuse,” he wrote.
Mansour wrote that if one falls into any of these sins or crimes, “he should repent of these quickly, and ‘flee’ from them, saying that professional help may be necessary in some cases.
“We should all work to rid ourselves and the culture of such ills, to make our culture and ourselves, more holy, chaste, and respectful, especially for the sake of women, girls, and boys,” he wrote.
Mansour said that one way chastity can be used in marriage is through Natural Family Planning, a method of tracking a woman’s natural cycle which can help couples either conceive or avoid pregnancy.
“If a couple for serious reasons prayerfully recognizes the need to space children, they should not make recourse to contraception but work together to achieve a healthy spacing of children in the chaste and natural way given by God,” he wrote.
On the topic of children, Mansour said that God intended “these ‘little ones’” to enter the world in the context of the marriage covenant.
“A child has the right to come into the world through this kind of marital love, embrace, complementarity, and commitment, in which the mother and father mutually pledge to love and care for the child and each other in a stable and permanent relationship,” he wrote.
Turning his attention to the single and celibate man, Mansour wrote that these groups of men are also called to live chaste lives and deny themselves.
Mansour cited Pope John Paul II, who referred to the “nuptial meaning of the body,” adding that those who forsake marriage for the sake of the kingdom can live in a “spiritual union” with God.
“This gift, in imitation of the chaste and celibate Christ, depends on and deepens one’s communion with God, and sets one free to embrace an intense and life-giving love for others,” he wrote.
A man’s prayer
A prayerful man will learn that his life’s purpose is holiness, Mansour wrote. He added that men are called to make themselves vulnerable in prayer.
Mansour notes that it can seem “contradictory” for a man who is a “protector, provider, and cultivator” to become so vulnerable in prayer, but said that to “enter into a prayerful state requires a man to now go a step even further, and to stand vulnerable before another man, that is before the God-man, Jesus Christ, and ask him for help.”
But a man’s prayer is not just for himself, Mansour wrote, it is for “all those for whom he loves and cares.”
“A good father, husband, friend, priest, or consecrated man carries the responsibility to not only answer his call to holiness, but to also help bring others to holiness as well,” he wrote.
Fatherhood “is expected of all men,” regardless of their current state of life, Mansour wrote.
He wrote that all men, biological or not, are called to “natural” fatherhood, which is “a role in which a man teaches by example, providing proof that what the father teaches is possible in one’s life.”
The biological father is a “generator of life” that will “go on to nurture other generators of life,” he wrote.
“Thus, the biological father ‘passes on the torch’ allowing his sons the potential to take on the same name, ‘father.’ Fatherhood does not end with the generation of new life, but rather the perfection of this new life through proper rearing, education, and accompaniment,” Mansour wrote.
A natural fatherhood calls a man “to showcase a virtuous life that embodies a lifestyle worthy of imitating,” he wrote.
“Whether one is both a biological and natural father or only a natural father, both roles are ordered to an even greater level of fatherhood: spiritual fatherhood. This is a fatherhood expected of all men of goodwill, focused on accompanying one’s loved ones through this temporal, earthly journey while keeping their eyes fixated on eternal life,” Mansour wrote.
The full 15-page letter can be read here.
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