20 August 2014

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Cardinals Update: Passing of Cardinal Edmund Casimir Szoka, Metropolitan Archbishop Emeritus of Detroit (United States of America), at the age of 86

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Cardinal Edmund Casimir Szoka, Cardinal-Priest of Ss. Andrea e Gregorio al Monte Celio has passed away on last Wednesday, 20 August 2014 at the age of 86. He was the Metropolitan Archbishop of Detroit, one of the largest and most important Archdioceses in the United States of America, from 1981 to 1990. He was then appointed as the President of the Prefecture of the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, and the President of the Governatorate of the Vatican City State, a post which he held between 1997 to 2006, essentially the top prelate in charge of the day-to-day governance of the smallest country in the world, the Vatican City, where the heart of the Church is.

http://www.gcatholic.org/hierarchy/data/cardJP2-4.htm#169

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Cardinal Szoka was created Cardinal in 1988 by Pope St. John Paul II in his fourth Cardinal creation consistory on 28 June 1988. His motto was “To live in faith”. This means an emphasis on truly living the faith in the life he led, and truly, he had been faithful and had already shown that faith through the actions he had done in his long and wonderful life filled with total dedication to the tasks given to him and to the people entrusted to his care.

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We pray for Cardinal Szoka, that he will rest in peace, and God will reward him for all his hard and great work as the long time servant of God as the shepherd of the faithful in Detroit, as well as for all the ministries and good works he had done for the sake of God and His people in the entire Universal Church in his dedication and work in the Roman Curia. May the Lord welcome him into His embrace in heaven and give him eternal rest and happiness that he deserved.

With the passing of Cardinal Szoka, and the recent aging out of Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo, the College of Cardinals now stands at 210 members, with 116 Cardinal-electors and 94 Cardinal non-electors. The number of Cardinal-electors now is 4 below the specified maximum limit of 120.

There are now 4 Cardinal-elector vacancy in the College of Cardinals, 0 vacant Cardinal Suburbicarian Sees (for Cardinal Bishops), 5 vacant Cardinal Titles (for Cardinal Priests) and 9 vacant Cardinal Deaconries (for Cardinal Deacons).

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Wednesday, 20 August 2014 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are presented with the very fact of how much the Lord loves us and how He had given us so many opportunities in this life to change our ways and repent, so that we may not be lost but we may gain eternal life and redemption through His most merciful and loving heart. This is what the essence of the parable of the workers in the vineyard is about.

God cares for all of us with all of His heart. And it is truly painful for Him to see all of us scattered and trampled to the dust in the darkness of the world. This is why He was very angry in the first reading we heard today, how the very shepherds whom He had entrusted His peoples to, had abused their power and authority, and ended up causing untold suffering for the people of God, who were manipulated, treated badly and led to the wrong paths by their leaders’ inaptitude and unfaithful nature.

What was said in this Book of the prophet Ezekiel, which happened during the time of the Babylonian exile of Israel, about over five hundred years before the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, was truly fulfilled during the lifetime of Jesus, as the supposed shepherds of Israel, the Pharisees and elders, the scribes and the Sadducees, all the leaders of Israel had misused their authority and power, in order to satisfy their own desires and ambitions.

These shepherds misled the people by not doing what they had preached to the people. In essence, they became hypocrites who did differently as the words that they had spoken to the people. They cared only for themselves and not for the sake of God’s people whom they ignored and led instead to the darkness. They were expected to be role models of the faithful people of God, and yet they miserably failed God’s expectations of them.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Pharisees and the elders of Israel at Jesus’ time were obsessed with one thing, that is the security and prosperity of their own livelihoods. They did not care about any other things so long as their lives were secure and good. And they were very jealous of their power and influence, unwilling to let go their hold over the people, even if prophets would come to rebuke them. In fact, they resented even what Jesus the Saviour had done, and refused to see the truth in Christ.

The Pharisees and the elders of Israel enforced among the people of God, an extremely literal and rigid interpretation of the laws of the Lord revealed through Moses, the Mosaic laws. They were very zealous in pursuing the details of the rigid enforcement of the rules and regulations built up after centuries of interpretations of the Mosaic laws. And Jesus rightly criticised them for these, as these led the people away from the Lord.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Bernard the Abbot, also known as St. Bernard of Clairvaux. St. Bernard of Clairvaux was a truly renowned saint who was a very devout religious who lived during the Medieval era France, and he was particularly known for his efforts to combat heresy among the faithful and bring unity to the Church of God.

St. Bernard exhibited a very exemplary life and devotion to the Lord through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. And he was truly very influential among the numerous people whom he had touched with his teachings and love. St. Bernard brought many souls back on the path towards salvation and into salvation itself, not by imposing rules and laws on the people, or by acting all high and mighty, but through love and dedicated service.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux led the people of God through example, by practicing what the Lord had taught us, and he also wrote extensively and taught indiscriminately, to bring the various segments of the lost ones in the Church and beyond back to the Lord through repentance, as well as to reunite the divisions that existed in the Church of God.

St. Bernard gave us all the examples on how to live our faith in our lives meaningfully, away from all the worldly temptations and worries, which were the things that made the Pharisees and the elders of Israel such bad and wicked shepherds, to whom the Lord would no longer entrust His sheep to. The contrast between the works and life of St. Bernard and the leaders of Israel of Jesus’ time serve as a reminder for us, that in living our faith, we cannot be divided between God and this world as the Pharisees had done.

Instead, let us all follow in the footsteps of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and many other holy men and women of the Lord, who had dedicated themselves in service to God’s beloved children, all of us. Let us all help one another on our way towards the Lord that in the end, all of us may reach the Lord and be reunited to Him and His love. May God be with us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 20 August 2014 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 20 : 1-16a

This story throws a light on the Kingdom of Heaven : A landowner went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay each worker the usual daily wage, and sent them to his vineyard.

He went out again at about nine in the morning, and seeing others idle in the town square, he said to them, “You also, go to my vineyard, and I will pay you what is just.” So they went.

The owner went out at midday, and again at three in the afternoon, and he did the same. Finally he went out at the last working hour – the eleventh hour – and he saw others standing there. So he said to them, “Why do you stay idle the whole day?”

They answered, “Because no one has hired us.” The master said, “Go and work in my vineyard.”

When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, “Call the workers and pay them their wage, beginning with the last and ending with the first.” Those who had come to work at the eleventh hour turned up, and were each given a silver coin.

When it was the turn of the first, they thought they would receive more. But they, too, each received a silver coin. So, on receiving it, they began to grumble against the landowner. They said, “These last hardly worked an hour, yet you have treated them the same as us, who have endured the heavy work of the day and the heat.”

The owner said to one of them, “Friend, I have not been unjust to you. Did we not agree on one silver coin per day? So take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last the same as I give to you. Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Why are you envious when I am kind?”

So will it be : the last will be first, the first will be last.

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Wednesday, 20 August 2014 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 22 : 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.

He guides me through the right paths for His Name’s sake. Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are beside me. Your rod and Your staff comfort me.

You spread a table before me in the presence of my foes. You anoint my head with oil, my cup is overflowing.

Goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.

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Wednesday, 20 August 2014 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Ezekiel 34 : 1-11

The word of YHVH came to me in these terms, “Son of man, speak on My behalf against the shepherds of Israel! Say to the shepherds on My behalf : Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should the shepherds not feed the flock? But you feed on milk and are clothed in wool, and you slaughter the fattest sheep.”

“You have not taken care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak, cared for the sick or bandaged the injured. You have not gone after the sheep that strayed or searched for the one that was lost. Instead you ruled them harshly and were their oppressors.”

“They have scattered for want of a shepherd and became prey of wild animals. My sheep wander over the mountains and high hills; and when they are scattered throughout the land, no one bothered about them or looks for them.”

“Hear then shepherds, what YHVH says : As I live – word of YHVH – because My sheep have been the prey of wild animals and become their food for want of shepherds, because the shepherds have not cared for My sheep, because you shepherds have not bothered about them but fed yourselves and not the flocks, because of that, hear the word of YHVH.”

“This is what YHVH says : I will ask an account of the shepherds and reclaim My sheep from them. No longer shall they tend My flock; nor shall there be shepherds who feed themselves. I shall save the flock from their mouths and no longer shall it be food for them.”

Indeed YHVH says this : I Myself will care for My sheep and watch over them.