Vocation of the Pope

Fr Roy often sent e-mails to Confreres with  links which he thought would of particular interest to them. One of the last links that he sent out was to the following article about the Pope’s own youthful days; Fr Roy saw the possibilities that the Pope’s own testimony had in vocation animation of our young people. Being so close to Vocation Sunday and also as we bid our last farewell to Fr Roy as a Province, let us reflect on it at a personal level and use it in our ministry.

My dear
brother Salesians,

I am forwarding the latest article of Sandro Magister about Pope Benedict's 'confessions' about his early days, which were included in his message for World Youth Day.  I think they could be useful in youth ministry and vocation promotion …

Roy

ROME, September 6, 2010 –Benedict XVI released a message unusually rich in autobiographical details.

It is the message for the World Youth Day that will be held in Madrid in August of 2011. It is a text plainly written by the pope himself, a concise summary of his vision. From the God lost to the God who makes himself near again in Jesus. A Jesus whom it is possible to "touch" in the sacraments of the Church.

It is a text that demands to be read in its entirety. But to begin, here are the three passages in which pope Joseph Ratzinger talks about himself, about his childhood during Nazism and the war, about the blossoming of his vocation to the priesthood, about the birth of the idea of writing a book about Jesus: "almost to help to see, hear, touch the Lord."

by Sandro Magister

The Confessions of the Young Ratzinger

The three autobiographical passages included by Benedict XVI in the message for the World Youth Day
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DURING NAZISM AND THE WAR

[...] In thinking of my own youth, I realize that stability and security are not the questions that most occupy the minds of young people. True enough, it is important to have a job and thus to have firm ground beneath our feet, yet the years of our youth are also a time when we are seeking to get the most out of life.

When I think back on that time, I remember above all that we were not willing to settle for a conventional middle-class life. We wanted something great, something new. We wanted to discover life itself, in all its grandeur and beauty. Naturally, part of that was due to the times we lived in. During the Nazi dictatorship and the war, we were, so to speak, “hemmed in” by the dominant power structure. So we wanted to break out into the open, to experience the whole range of human possibilities.

I think that, to some extent, this urge to break out of the ordinary is present in every generation. Part of being young is desiring something beyond everyday life and a secure job, a yearning for something really truly greater. Is this simply an empty dream that fades away as we become older? No! Men and women were created for something great, for infinity. Nothing else will ever be enough. Saint Augustine was right when he said “our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you”. [...]
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THE CALL TO THE PRIESTHOOD

[...] There is a moment, when we are young, when each of us wonders: what meaning does my life have? What purpose and direction should I give to it? This is a very important moment, and it can worry us, perhaps for some time. We start wondering about the kind of work we should take up, the kind of relationships we should establish, the friendships we should cultivate...

Here, once more, I think of my own youth. I was somehow aware quite early on that the Lord wanted me to be a priest. Then later, after the war, when I was in the seminary and at university on the way towards that goal, I had to recapture that certainty. I had to ask myself: is this really the path I was meant to take? Is this really God’s will for me? Will I be able to remain faithful to him and completely at his service? A decision like this demands a certain struggle. It cannot be otherwise. But then came the certainty: this is the right thing! Yes, the Lord wants me, and he will give me strength. If I listen to him and walk with him, I become truly myself. What counts is not the fulfilment of my desires, but of his will. In this way life becomes authentic. [...]
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WHY THE BOOK ABOUT JESUS

[...] In the Gospel we find a description of the Apostle Thomas’s experience of faith when he accepted the mystery of the Cross and resurrection of Christ. Thomas was one of the twelve Apostles. He followed Jesus and was an eyewitness of his healings and miracles. He listened to his words, and he experienced dismay at Jesus’ death. That Easter evening when the Lord appeared to the disciples, Thomas was not present. When he was told that Jesus was alive and had shown himself, Thomas stated: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe” (Jn 20:25).

We too want to be able to see Jesus, to speak with him and to feel his presence even more powerfully. For many people today, it has become difficult to approach Jesus. There are so many images of Jesus in circulation which, while claiming to be scientific, detract from his greatness and the uniqueness of his person. That is why, after many years of study and reflection, I thought of sharing something of my own personal encounter with Jesus by writing a book. It was a way to help others see, hear and touch the Lord in whom God came to us in order to make himself known.

Jesus himself, when he appeared again to his disciples a week later, said to Thomas: “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe” (Jn 20:27). We too can have tangible contact with Jesus and put our hand, so to speak, upon the signs of his Passion, the signs of his love. It is in the sacraments that he draws particularly near to us and gives himself to us. Dear young people, learn to “see” and to “meet” Jesus in the Eucharist, where he is present and close to us, and even becomes food for our journey. In the sacrament of Penance the Lord reveals his mercy and always grants us his forgiveness. Recognize and serve Jesus in the poor, the sick, and in our brothers and sisters who are in difficulty and in need of help. [...]

St Joseph song - How could it be?

To you, O blessed Joseph,
do we come in our tribulation,
and having implored the help of your most holy spouse,
we confidently invoke your patronage also.
Through that charity which bound you to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God and through the paternal love with which you embraced the Child Jesus,
we humbly beg you graciously to regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ has purchased by his Blood,
and with your power and strength to aid us in our necessities.
O most watchful Guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ;
O most loving father,
ward off from us every contagion of error and corrupting influence;
O our most mighty protector,
be propitious to us and from heaven assist us in our struggle with the power of darkness;
and, as once you rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril, so now protect God?s Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity;
shield, too, each one of us by your constant protection,
so that, supported by your example and your aid, we may be able to live piously, to die holily, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.

St Paul's Shipwreck - something to celebrate.

The 10th of February is a special day on the island of Malta, for on that day people celebrate the feast of the shipwreck of St Paul. this occured in the year 60 AD and is recoreded in the last chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Last year was the 1950th annivesary of this event and Pope Benedict XVI visited the island to mark the occasion. Here we bring some extracts from his homily; these were delivered when the Pope himself was experiencing a his own storm in the media.



The Holy Father praying at the Grotto of St Paul in Rabat during his visit to Malta.



“Saint Paul’s arrival in Malta was not planned. As we know, he was travelling to Rome when a violent storm arose and his ship ran aground on this island. Sailors can map a journey, but God, in his wisdom and providence, charts a course of his own. Paul, who dramatically encountered the Risen Lord while on the road to Damascus, knew this well. The course of his life was suddenly changed; henceforth, for him, to live was Christ (cf. Phil 1:21); his every thought and action was directed to proclaiming the mystery of the Cross and its message of God’s reconciling love.

“That same word, the word of the Gospel, still has the power to break into our lives and to change their course. Today the same Gospel which Paul preached continues to summon the people of these islands to conversion, new life and a future of hope. Standing in your midst as the Successor of the Apostle Peter, I invite you to hear God’s word afresh, as your ancestors did, and to let it challenge your ways of thinking and the way you live your lives.” [St Paul’s Grotto, 17^th April 2011, Rabat]

“[In] the account of Paul’s shipwreck on the coast of Malta, and his warm reception by the people of these islands [we] notice how the crew of the ship, in order to survive, were forced to throw overboard the cargo, the ship’s tackle, even the wheat which was their only sustenance. Paul urged them to place their trust in God alone, while the ship was tossed to and fro upon the waves. We too must place our trust in him alone. It is tempting to think that today’s advanced technology can answer all our needs and save us from all the perils and dangers that beset us. But it is not so. At every moment of our lives we depend entirely on God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Only he can protect us from harm, only he can guide us through the storms of life, only he can bring us to a safe haven, as he did for Paul and his companions adrift off the coast of Malta. They did as Paul urged them to do, and so it was “that they all escaped safely to the land” (Acts 27:44).

“More than any of the cargo we might carry with us – in terms of our human accomplishments, our possessions, our technology – it is our relationship with the Lord that provides the key to our happiness and our human fulfilment. And he calls us to a relationship of love…” [18^th April 2011 – Floriana]

St. Josephine Bakhita of Sudan

 Today,February 8, is the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita. She was born in what is today the troubled region of Darfur, Sudan around 1870. St. Bakhita was canonized by Pope John Paul II in the Jubilee Year 2000, and is cited by Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical, Spe Salvi as an inspiring example of Christian hope.

... at this point a question arises: in what does this hope consist which, as hope, is “redemption”? The essence of the answer is given in the phrase from the Letter to the Ephesians quoted above: the Ephesians, before their encounter with Christ, were without hope because they were “without God in the world”. To come to know God—the true God—means to receive hope. We who have always lived with the Christian concept of God, and have grown accustomed to it, have almost ceased to notice that we possess the hope that ensues from a real encounter with this God. The example of a saint of our time can to some degree help us understand what it means to have a real encounter with this God for the first time.

I am thinking of the African Josephine Bakhita, canonized by Pope John Paul II. She was born around 1869—she herself did not know the precise date—in Darfur in Sudan. At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan. Eventually she found herself working as a slave for the mother and the wife of a general, and there she was flogged every day till she bled; as a result of this she bore 144 scars throughout her life.

Returning to Don Bosco’s initial exposure to the youth reality…

Don Bosco had an intuitive understanding of the positive impact that active participation in the apostolate had on his young clerics. This is the way he chose to form his first collaborators – Rua, Cagliero and others. In the midst of their many studies they were involved in the life of the Oratory and in daily assistance and also entrusted with different responsibilities. We know how this was a bone of contention with Bishop Gastaldi who was horrified to see clerics mingling in such an undignified way with the young.

In writing his Memoirs of the Oratory Don Bosco talks of his own apostolic engagement as a boy and teenager with his companions as the key moments of his own vocational discernment and growth. But also, he himself experienced the formative dimension that active ministry can have on a young priest  if one is accompanied and helped to reflect on the experience. There is no doubt that the three years that Don Bosco spent at the Convitto were crucial. As Don Ceria testifies in his book Don Bosco con Dio, the years ‘contributed powerfully to mould his spirit in a definitive manner’. After six years of speculative theology isolated from reality in a seminary, insertion into the active apostolate was not easy.

Fr Joseph Cafasso [1], exposed the young priests under his care to the challenging pastoral realities of a city fast becoming industrialized. Don Bosco was no exception, and in reading the Memoirs one can see the impact that Don Bosco’s visit to the prisons left on him: “It was Fr Cafasso who  first took me into the prisons, where I soon learned how great was the malice and misery of mankind.”

This exposure often led the young priests to a crisis point as they were confronted by the harsh realities in which the masses had to live in.  We know of Don Bosco’s own horror when he visited the prisons: “…seeing them [the youth] idle there, infested with lice, lacking food for body and soul, horrified me.” Yet in this situation something else was even more shocking for him: “What shocked me most was to see that many of them were released full of good resolutions to go straight, and yet in a short time they landed back in prison, within a few days of their release.” This was unacceptable!

The exposure led the pastoral ministers to a crisis “…because they were aban­doned to their own resources.”