PASTORAL LETTER
Pope Benedict XVI has announced an important pastoral initiative for the Catholic Church throughout the world—the Pauline Year, a jubilee year dedicated to the memory of the Apostle Paul, the “first Christian Theologian” on the 2000th anniversary of his birth. The following excerpt from the Holy Father’s announcement contains, I believe, a graced opportunity for spiritual renewal for our Catholic Community in Bermuda:
Dear Brothers and Sisters, as in early times, today, too, Christ needs apostles ready to sacrifice themselves. He needs witnesses and martyrs like Saint Paul. Paul, a former violent persecutor of Christians, when he fell to the ground dazzled by the divine light on the road to Damascus, did not hesitate to change sides to the Crucified One and followed him without second thoughts. He lived and worked for Christ, for him he suffered and died. How timely his example is today!
And for this very reason I am pleased to announce officially that we shall be dedicating a special Jubilee year to the Apostle Paul from 28 June 2008 to 29 June 2009, on the occasion of the bimillennium of his birth, which historians have placed between the years 7 and 10 A.D.
It will be possible to celebrate this “Pauline Year” in a privileged way in Rome where the sarcophagus which, by the unanimous opinion of experts and an undisputed tradition, preserves the remains of the Apostle Paul, has been preserved beneath the Papal Altar of [the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls] for 20 centuries.
…there is one particular aspect to which special attention must be paid during the celebration of the various moments of the 2000th Pauline Anniversary: I am referring to the ecumenical dimension. The Apostle to the Gentiles, who was especially committed to taking the Good News to all peoples, left no stones unturned for unity and harmony among all Christians. May he deign to guide and protect us in this bimillennial celebration, helping us to progress in the humble and sincere search for the full unity of all the members of Christ’s Mystical Body.
In September of 2007, the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (CEP), the missionary department of the Vatican, issued a letter to all the residential Bishops of the Dioceses that, like Bermuda, are dependent on the CEP. In his letter, Cardinal Ivan Diaz stated that the Pauline year had special relevance for the Congregation which, similar to the Apostle Paul, is directly involved in proclaiming Jesus Christ to the nations. He stressed that many people in the world still do not accept Jesus as the only Savior of the world who alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
The Cardinal communicated two important observations about the Pauline Year: 1) that at one time in our family history we were all pagans who benefited from the missionary vocation of the Church. (Consider for a moment that there would be no Catholic Church in Bermuda if it were not for the missionary Priest-pastors who came from Canada and other parts of the world!) and 2) that we must praise God in thanksgiving for the gift of the Catholic Christian Faith that we have received.
THE MISSIONARY VOCATION OF THE CHURCH
In his Encyclical Letter, On the Permanent Validity of the Church’s Missionary Mandate, Pope John Paul II described three situations of contemporary evangelization:
A) Situations in which the Church’s missionary activity addresses people for whom Christ and the Gospel are not known or which lack Christian Communities sufficiently mature to incarnate the Faith. This is “mission” in the strict sense, sometimes referred to as mission ad gentes.
B) Situations in which Christian Communities have adequate structures and are fervent in faith, morals and commitment to the universal mission of the Church. The Church carries out her missionary activity through these communities.
C) Situations in which entire groups of baptized people have lost their sense of faith, may even no longer consider themselves members of the Church and live a life removed from Christ and his Gospel.
I personally see the challenge and the grace of the Pauline Year in Bermuda related to letters B) and C) above. How can we help parish communities realize and accept the fact that the Church’s missionary call and identity is expressed in and through the parish? And even more to the point, what do we need to do as a local Church to welcome and to evangelize those who may “no longer consider themselves members of the Church”?
The practical questions for all of us regarding the Jubilee Year of Saint Paul are: How shall we celebrate the Pauline Year? How can we benefit spiritually and pastorally from the Pauline Year? What must we do to build up our Church in Bermuda during the Pauline Year? In order to guide a response to these important questions I suggest the following theme for our observance of the Jubilee year of Saint Paul in our Diocese: Faith, Family and Mission.
FAITH - The theme of Faith responds to the first question and our need to benefit spiritually and pastorally from the celebration of the Pauline Year. At the heart of all Faith is conversion and a personal relationship with the Lord, Jesus Christ. St. Paul stands as a witness to true Faith. In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul writes: “…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.”(2:20). During the year of St. Paul, the Church in Bermuda will strive to provide new opportunities for Adult Formation in the Faith along with the already established ministries for children and youth. The Church will:
1) Encourage personal Bible reading and prayer focused on the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul. Where appropriate, homilies at Mass will draw attention to the Second Reading from the Letters of St. Paul when they appear in the Lectionary for Sundays and Feast days.
2) Offer two special Bible Study Programs open to the whole Diocese along with the Bible Study groups already existing in the Parishes in both Portuguese and English:
a) The Writings of St. Paul offered at St. Michael’s Parish with Fr. Joseph Morley starting in September.
b) Lectio Divina, an introduction to the prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture, based on the Sunday readings offered at St. Theresa’s Cathedral Hall with Bishop Robert Kurtz beginning on Monday, June 30th and continuing every Monday throughout the Jubilee Year.
3) Give special consideration to Pauline themes in regular pastoral ministry and events in the Diocese: “Quiet Wednesdays” at the Caritas House of Prayer, the Diocesan Lenten Mission, the Diocesan Assembly and Retreats for Men, Women and Youth.
FAMILY - This year marks the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the Diocesan Pastoral Council. From the very beginning the Council has always been challenged by the awareness that the Church needs to serve and assist families. Our last two Diocesan Assemblies developed family themes: “The Family as Domestic Church” and “The Church as Ecclesial Family.” The Year of St. Paul provides a new opportunity and, we hope, the necessary grace to be more effective in our family ministry in the spirit of St. Paul who said: “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we are baptized into one body—Jews and Greeks, slaves and free—and we were all made to drink of the one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12: 12-13).
The Diocesan Pastoral Council’s Committee on Family Life will be expanded and given a new mandate to promote family life and faith development by supporting and collaborating in the pastoral work of existing pastoral ministries and offices of the Diocese:
A) Parental and family involvement in the CCD program.
B) Outreach to the families of the MSA students with opportunities for adult and family faith formation.
C) Renewed emphasis on personal contact with families in all areas of parish life and ministry, especially:
1) Preparing parents and sponsors for Baptism.
2) Parent and family Faith formation sessions for First Communion and Confirmation candidates.
3) Pre-Marriage preparation
4) Bereavement counseling and family involvement in preparing Funeral Liturgies.
5) Hospital and home visits to the sick, the aged and the infirm.
6) A renewed effort to know families through the Parish Census and the updating of the parish data file.
D) Added effort in developing a parish-based Youth Ministry with at least one special Diocesan event for the Jubilee Year of St. Paul.
E) In the spirit of Paul the Apostle, begin preparation for the Second Diocesan Synod to be held in January, 2010.
MISSION - The Church is, by its very nature, missionary. Mission and evangelization belong to the very identity of the Church. The Risen Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew’s Gospel: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (28:19). St. Paul was the greatest Evangelizer in the history of the Church, He felt compelled to share his Faith and experience of God with others: “If I proclaim the gospel this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). On a personal note, I believe that I was blessed to experience the urgency of the Lord’s call to evangelize in our own day when I attended the 5th General Conference of Bishops from all the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean that took place in Brazil in May, 2007. I remember Cardinal Hummes saying: “We have baptized our people, but we have not evangelized them.” The Church of today needs to recover the quality of being a missionary, evangelizing Church. In this Year of St. Paul, the Church in Bermuda will strive to:
1) Renew our pastoral outreach in mission to the inactive members of our Church in Bermuda with a special welcome to young adults, single and married, to the separated and divorced, and to all who seldom attend Church.
2) Pray for vocations to the priesthood, the permanent diaconate, religious life and lay ministries as an effective spiritual means to promote the mission of the Church.
3) Promote mission consciousness in our children through the Holy Childhood Association-“Children helping children in the missions.”
4) Develop greater awareness of the needs of the missions and greater sacrificial giving in the regular mission collections of the Diocese.
5) Promote outreach to ‘foreign missions” by a special effort of our Church to collaborate with “Habitat for Humanity” to build homes for the poor.
6) Create a practical plan for our parishes to twin with poor mission parishes in the Antilles Episcopal Conference, e.g., Suriname or Guyana.
JUBILEE PILGRIMAGE
A special feature of the Pauline Year will be Pilgrimage “In the Footsteps of the Apostle Paul” sponsored by the Diocese and organized and guided by Fr. Joseph Morley. The Pilgrimage will begin in Athens with a cruise to Ephesus including stops at Mykonos, Rhodes and Patmos. On the Greek mainland the Pilgrimage will visit sites in Athens, Corinth, Thessalonika and Philippi. The Pilgrimage will last 11 days and it is tentatively scheduled for September 2009. Fr. Morley will announce specific details, including cost, as soon as possible.
During the Pauline Year there will also be a “Local Pilgrimage” with ecumenical prayer services scheduled at each of our parish churches. This will give all our people an opportunity to know and visit all our parishes!
Finally, we hope to conclude the Jubilee Year of Saint Paul with a Solemn Outdoor Mass at the MSA Field on the evening of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, June 29, 2009.
May the Spirit of the Lord guide our efforts to live this Jubilee Year of St. Paul with joy in our hearts so that the Catholic Church in Bermuda might be renewed in Faith, Family Life and Mission.
Fraternally in Christ Risen,
Bishop Robert J. Kurtz, C.R.
Resources:
1. Praying with Saint Paul. Daily Reflections on the Letters of Saint Paul. Published by Magnificat, Books@intrepid.com or call 1-970-416-6670.
2. St. Paul. A Bible Study Guide for Catholics, by Fr. Mitch Pacwa, S.J. Published by Our Sunday Visitor. Call 1-800-348-2440, ext 3.