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May 27, 2024With this Eucharistic celebration my second pastoral visit to your parish dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help concludes. These have been very intense days for me. This visit ends on a very significant day: today we celebrate the solemnity of the Holy Trinity, which is the face of God as Jesus revealed it to us. The Church, the parish must be an icon of the Trinity: unity among all the faithful and appreciation of our differences. On the same day we also celebrate the first World Children's Day, desired by Pope Francis. Children are gift from God; they are a strong sign of Hope.
In recent days I have had the opportunity to meet many of you. First of all, I thank you all for the wonderful welcome. I met representatives of the linguistic communities. It is important that you maintain your traditions and have the opportunity to enrich yourself spiritually through sharing your cultures. But above all, it is more important that you are attentive and have the mission towards all Catholics who do not participate in the life of the Church. Reach out to them and invite them to participate in parish initiatives. I made the same invitation while meeting the associations, movements and prayer groups: be missionaries; through your charisms you are called to help the faithful rediscover the gift of baptism.
I also met the members of the Pastoral Council; it is the most important participatory body of your parish which has the task of helping the parish priest in facing the challenges of having an increasingly synodal and missionary parish. I was able to thank all those involved in the various ministries who help to make our liturgies more beautiful: the readers, the extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, the members of the choirs, the ushers. Thank you for your dedication. The meetings with the altar servers and a group of young people were very significant. I was asked so many questions. I had the opportunity to appreciate their interests and their desire to live the Christian faith intensely. Your young people are a great reason for hope. So significant for me was the meeting with a group of catechists. Their ministry is fundamental for the transmission of faith. They are aware of the great challenges we face, helping young people grow in faith. We need, young and adults, to help us learn to use the new languages of social media, without being passive, but by developing the critical ability to understand what is right and what is wrong. I also had the joy of celebrating the sacrament of confirmation for 26 children.
In the context of education, I also had the opportunity to visit and appreciate our Catholic school. Investing in schools is always a sign of hope to face the future with courage.
Finally, it was also a great joy to be able to go to Dibba and celebrate the solemnity of the Holy Trinity with the faithful there. We are all part of a single parish. We all need to feel that we are not alone, we belong to God's holy people, each with his own talents and charisms. After all, it is the same mystery of the Holy Trinity that teaches us that the foundation of life is the unity and difference. In this way we too are called to be an icon of the Trinity in this world.
The readings we have heard remind us of the unity of God. God is One. The first reading we heard from the book of Deuteronomy states this forcefully. The Lord is God and there is no other. Furthermore, Jesus reveals to us that the face of God is triune, it is a mystery of infinite communion and profound love between the three divine persons. The unity of God expresses the infinite and eternal love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
But how can we participate in the divine life? Jesus, sent by the Father, made us participants in his relationship with the heavenly Father. Therefore, we participate in the life of the Holy Trinity by becoming sons and daughters in Christ. This is why Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans tells us that through the gift of the Holy Spirit we can address God by calling him ‘Father’.
Dear faithful, today we also celebrate the first World Children’s Day, desired and organized by Pope Francis. Our children are a beautiful gift from God. Children are a sign of hope. Let us pray that they may grow up serene and in peace. We pray for children who find themselves in zones of war and suffering. May they find love and protection in the family and in the world. Children are a sign of newness: for this reason, the Pope chose the theme for this year from the book of Revelation: “Behold I make all things new”. Let us allow our children to open our lives to the eternal youthfulness of the Spirit and renew our hearts. Furthermore, celebrating the World Children’s Day means remembering that even adults must never stop having the heart of children, of sons and daughters. Even when you become a father or a mother, you must never stop being children, because we always remain children of God.
Finally, we return again to the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. From this fundamental mystery of our faith, we also learn to be the Church of Jesus. The Church must be an image of the Trinity where there is unity but also the difference of the variety of people. We are very different in culture, nation, language and rite. However, we are all baptized: one Faith, one Baptism and one Spirit. For this reason, we too can experience the differences in the unity of the Church of Jesus.
Now, let me thank your priests, the dear Salesian Fathers, for their commitment in the parish and in the school. Thanks, in particular to the parish priest, Father Louis, for having organized this pastoral visit in the best possible way. Please, love your priests, pray for them and follow their directions.
To Mary, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, we entrust all children and our parish community.
May Saint Arethas and fellow martyrs, whose relics have been among you recently, support you on your journey so that you can be witnesses of the joy of the Gospel.
