At the threshold of the beginning of a new pastoral year, some ecclesial events help us to exercise hope. On September 1st we celebrated with the whole Church the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. This year we have been proposed the motto wait and act with creation to confess God as Creator and to highlight the high vocation of the human being, created in his image and likeness, being called by God to be his collaborator in the care of all that is created. With this Day, the time of creationwhich will run until October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. At a time when many seek to erase the imprint of the Creator on creatures and to dispose of our world as if God did not exist, we are called to bring the hope that is born from the encounter with the Risen Christ also to the field of caring for creation.
On the 2nd, Pope Francis also began the longest trip of his pontificate, to Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and Singapore, countries with a Muslim majority, where the Pope is visiting to strengthen interreligious dialogue and the defence of social justice. Aware that Catholic minorities must be a source of hope, the Pope reminds us of the urgent task that we must all fulfil: to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
Along with these events that affect the universal Church, we are approaching the end of the summer season with Marian celebrations that sow hope throughout the diocesan geography. Coinciding with the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, many localities in our diocese celebrate their Patronesses: the same and only Blessed Mary invoked with many names that evoke her closeness and maternal protection in many situations of life.
As a gift from Heaven to prepare us for the beginning of a new year, we receive the Word of God, which is proclaimed alive in the Liturgy. We find a luminous indication in the celebration of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. The Gospel passage that the Church proposes on that day is that of the annunciation to St. Joseph of the birth of the Savior, conceived by the work of the Holy Spirit in the most pure womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When St. Joseph finds himself immersed in the depths of trial and, without doubting the Virgin, does not understand what is happening, he receives in a dream the Word of the Lord that fills his heart with hope: Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. (Mt 1, 20-21).
Is there a better way to prepare for a new course than to receive, with Saint Joseph, more and better each day, the Blessed Virgin Mary who brings us the Savior of the world?
+ Jose Rico Paves
Bishop of Asidonia-Jerez
