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May 17, 2023Fujairah.
Concluding his pastoral visit to the parish of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Bishop Paolo Martinelli addressed the faiful of the parish during the Holy Mass on the Sixth Sunday of Easter.
During the celebraion of the Mass, Fr. Louis Irudayasamy SDB was installed as the new parish priest of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The Bishop thanked him for his willingness to take up the commitment to serve the parish . He also expresses his gratitude to the outgoing parish priest Fr. Rajan Pushpam for his service and invited all to pray for his new mission.
The Bishop encouraged the parishioners to rediscover the enthusiasm of faith, the joy of being Christians, and the desire to bear witness to all the joy of the Gospel.
Below is the full text of the homily.
Dear brothers and sisters,
May the Lord give you Peace and Paschal Joy.
With this celebration, I conclude my first pastoral visit to your parish dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. These were the wonderful days for me during which I was able to meet so many faithful, many groups, communities, and people involved in different ministries. The word “encounter” is a word that has great spiritual value. Christianity begins with an encounter and continues through meetings. Jesus became a man to meet us.
First, I want to recommend that you grow in the awareness that you are all baptized. Indeed through baptism, we have become one Church in Christ. We are all children of God with the same dignity. But in this Holy Mass, for the conclusion of the pastoral visit, we are also celebrating the beginning of the ministry of the new parish priest, Father Louis, who arrived here yesterday. This celebration is also an occasion to thank the outgoing parish priest, Father Rajan.
The Gospel that we have just heard helps us understand the meaning of the pastoral visit and the task of the priest, particularly the parish priest. It is part of the farewell speech of Jesus that Saint John presents before Jesus faces the paschal mystery and dies for us on the cross.
There are two fundamental aspects of the life of the Church in this speech. First of all, the Lord requests his disciples and a promise. The request is to follow his commandments. As we know, Jesus sums up the whole law in the commandment of love: love one another as I have loved you. Jesus revealed to us that God is love, and we are called to be loved and to love with our whole selves. Life is realized only in love. Nothing can replace love. But loving is not an individualistic effort. We are limited and sinners. We long for love but don't have the strength to love to the end. This is why Jesus makes a promise: the gift of the Holy Spirit. The most important fruit of the paschal mystery is the Holy Spirit, poured into our hearts.
The Spirit is called by Jesus, the Paraclete\advocate and the Spirit of truth who lets us know the divine mysteries. The Spirit is the strength of God. It is the Spirit of love. God gives us the Spirit to live the law of love. The Spirit of truth introduces us into the life of God. And what do we discover in God? God is a mystery of communion and mutual love between the Father and the Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, Jesus in the Gospel reveals a great thing to us: we are called to participate in the divine life: just as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father, in the same way, Jesus wants to live in us and us to live in him. This gift is realized in us in baptism. Indeed, in baptism, Jesus comes into us, and we become members of the Church. But if we are in Jesus and Jesus is in us, we are called to live the mystery of communion in our parish and communities. This gift grows in us through participation in the Eucharist, in which Jesus renews the sacrifice of his body and blood to make us grow in his love.
Dear friends, this parish, like all the parishes in our apostolic vicariate, is made up of very different people from different nations and cultures, with different languages and rites. But all these diversities, which are a richness, must never overshadow the most important thing, that is our unity. With baptism, we are in communion with one another and form a single body, a single Church. Even those who seem distant because they are so different are close because we are all baptized and children of God. And when we are united in his name, Jesus is present. He works great things. As we see, our world has many divisions and contrasts. There is so much violence and many conflicts. There is a greater need to testify that being united is possible; we must attest that it is possible to love each other.
From all this, we learn the importance of priests and parish priests. They are here for all of you to guarantee the spiritual support you need for your Christian life. You are called to holiness, and the Lord never lets us lack help to become saints and live our baptism to the full. In particular, I would like to remind you that the parish priest is responsible for all pastoral action towards you. He is a sign of unity for all of you. I ask you to welcome the new parish priest and to pray for him. I thank Father Louis for his willingness to take on this significant commitment. I also express my gratitude to Father Rajan. I invite you to pray also for him and his new mission. I take advantage of this opportunity to thank the Salesian fathers for their commitment, both for the parish and for the schools that they lead on behalf of the apostolic vicariate.
May the pastoral visit of the bishop and the installation of the new parish priest be an opportunity for all parishioners to rediscover the enthusiasm of faith, the joy of being Christians, and the desire to bear witness to all the joy of the Gospel. As Pope Francis often says, let us be a more synodal Church: we will walk together toward the Kingdom of God.
May Our Lady of Perpetual Help intercede for us all. May the Mother of God open us to the gift of the Holy Spirit, keep us united with her Son Jesus, and let us live among us united in love.