Letter #55: To Prison

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Letter #55: To Prison

[2013-03-22]

[Engleză]

March 21, 2013, Thursday -- To Prison

Pope Francis has done it again.

Breaking once again with papal protocol, he has decided not to celebrate the Mass of the Supper of the Lord in the Basilica of St. John Lateran on Holy Thursday, which falls this year on March 28 -- a week from today.

Instead, Pope Francis will to go to a prison chapel and there wash feet of 12 young prisoners on the afternoon of Holy Thursday.

In a decision evidently taken just a few hours ago -- this afternoon the Vatican web site still contained a notice that the Mass would be held in St. Peter's Basilica (because Pope Francis has not yet officially taken possession of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of the Bishop of Rome, where the Holy Thursday Mass is usually celebrated, with the washing of the feet of 12 priests by the Pope, since the Mass commemorates the Last Supper and the institution of the priesthood) -- Pope Francis will go to the Casal del Marmo penal institute for afternoon Mass on the day before Good Friday.

Here is a link to the Vatican website which now shows the Mass occurring in the prison (see under March 28):
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/calendar/ns_liturgy_calendar_it.html

So Francis, the Pope who "takes the bus" (as he did between the Sistine Chapen and the Domus Santa Marta after his election), "pays his own hotel bills" (as he did the morning after his election), and "wears his old black shoes" (instead of the red shoes worn by his predecessors), is going to be the Pope who washes the feet of juvenile prisoners on Holy Thursday.

In so doing, Francis has taken one more step towards solidifying his image as "the people's pontiff" by going to prison, not a basilica, for a major pre-Easter ceremony here in Rome.

The Casal del Marmo penal institute for minors and young adults is on the outskirts of Rome. During the ceremony the 76-year-old pontiff will wash the feet of 12 inmates.

A Vatican press release said the ceremony would be a continuation of Francis's practice as archbishop of Buenos Aires, when he celebrated the Mass of the Lord's Supper in "a context characterized by simplicity," including prisons, hospitals or shelters for the poor.

Francis's predecessor, Benedict XVI, visited the Casal del Marmo in 2007, but not for the Holy Thursday Mass.

For the first two years of his pontificate, Benedict washed the feet of 12 lay people from the diocese of Rome, but since 2008 he chose a dozen priests for the ceremony.

John Paul II in 1980, his second Holy Week as Pope, chose to wash the feet of a group of homeless men, but the Mass was held, as is traditional, in St. John Lateran.

Pope Paul VI, on four Christmases in the late 1960s, celebrated Christmas Masses in Roman parishes, not in St. Peter's -- in this sense, Pope Francis is returning, somewhat, to a tradition established by Pope Paul VI.

Also, we do not yet know where Francis will chose to live. At the moment, he is still in the Domus Santa Marta, where cardinals stayed during the conclave.

Renovation work is being carried out on the Apostolic Palace to prepare those rooms for him.

But, upon seeing the grandeur of the large papal apartment last week, he is reported to have remarked that there was "room for 300 people."

Some are saying he might not move there at all, just as he never moved to the episcopal palace in Buenos Aires, but stayed in a small apartment where he did his own cooking (he is reportedly an excellent chef).

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The Yellow Bracelet for Lent

2013-03-21 -- From Vatican Radio

We've all noticed the yellow band Pope Francis has been wearing on his wrist since the day after his election. (The photo above shows the Pope receiving the band, and keeping it on his wrist when Archbishop Georg Gaenswein came to take it for safe-keeping.)

It is a simple rubber band that photographers and media have brought to the attention of the public, as we all get to know our new Pope and observe him as he goes about his papal commitments and appearances.

Vatican Radio's Linda Bordoni asked the man who gave the Pope this unusual gift to tell her something about it.

He is Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier (in the photo above, giving the gift to the Pope), the Archbishop of Durban in South Africa.

Napier handed it to Pope Francis when he met with the College of Cardinals on March 14 in the Sistine Chapel, the day following his election as Pope.

One can see the moment in a Rome Reports video, at about 2:30 of the video (but the whole video is worth watching now, at the distance of one week). Click: Video of Cardinal Napier with Pope

Napier explains that a year or two ago one of his priests decided to create a special symbolic object for the season of Lent. Something to remind people to make a special commitment for Lent, to remind them that they've made this commitment. He decided on a black band and on a purple band with the word "Sacrificium" printed on them because -- says Cardinal Napier -- "that's how our Lenten campaign goes: make a sacrifice, give to the poor."

So when it came to the Year of Faith, this priest asked the cardinal whether he should make another band, and Napier said "go ahead."

So what we have got now is the yellow "Year of Faith" band with the words "Credo Domine -- I believe, Lord." And then there is the symbol of the fish and the cross.

"Very important" -- Cardinal Napier points out -- the bracelet "goes with a card which on the one side has a prayer for the Year of Faith where we ask God to help us in this Year of Faith to do the things we need to do to really renew our faith; and on the other side there is a commitment form in which you commit to undertake the things to do."

The band -- or bracelet -- is produced by St. Joseph's Parish in Cardinal Napier's Diocese.

Cardinal Napier says that when he gave Pope Francis the band, the Pope immediately asked what it was about. "He took it out of its box and immediately put it on his wrist," notwithstanding his assistant was waiting to take it...

At lunch, on one of the days subsequent to that, he took it off and showed the cardinals sitting at table with him and explained to them its meaning and its origin...

==========================

Pope Benedict XVI, Six Years Ago Visited the Same Prison

"So his idea was: freedom, doing what I want to do, not recognizing these laws of a God who is remote, not being in the prison of this domestic discipline, but rather doing what is beautiful, what I like..." --Pope Benedict XVI, March 18, 2007, homily on the Prodigal Son in the same prison Pope Francis is going to visit next week

Pope Francis has startled the world with his decision to celebrate Mass on Holy Thursday at a Rome prison for minors.

But will not be the first Pope to visit that prison. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI went to that prison almost exactly six years ago, on March 18, 2007, on the fourth Sunday of Lent.

And at that Mass, Benedict gave a marvelous sermon on the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

And the citations here, above, and below, give a breath of the brilliance, the profundity, of Benedict's thought on this parable.

"Everything became empty: the slavery of doing the same things then also re-emerged. And in the end, his money ran out and the young man found that his standard of living was lower than that of swine...

"The son realized that it is precisely work, humility and daily discipline that create the true feast and true freedom.

"So he returned home, inwardly matured and purified: he had understood what living is..." -- Pope Benedict, Ibid.

POPE BENEDICT'S VISIT TO ROME'S PRISON FOR MINORS, "CASAL DEL MARMO"

HOMILY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI

Chapel of the Merciful Father
Fourth Sunday of Lent, 18 March 2007

By Pope Benedict XVI

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Dear Boys and Girls,

I have willingly come to pay you a Visit, and the most important moment of our meeting is Holy Mass, where the gift of God's love is renewed: a love that comforts us and gives us peace, especially in life's difficult moments.

In this prayerful atmosphere I would like to address my greeting to each one of you: to the Hon. Mr Clemente Mastella, Minister of Justice, to whom I express a special "thank you"; to Mrs Melěta Cavallo, Department Head of Justice for Minors, to the other Authorities who have spoken, to those in charge, to the operators, teachers and personnel of this juvenile penitentiary, to the volunteers, to your relatives and to everyone present.

I greet the Cardinal Vicar and Auxiliary Bishop Benedetto Tůzia.

I greet in particular, Mons. Giorgio Caniato, General Inspector of the Prisons Chaplaincy, and your Chaplain, whom I thank for expressing your sentiments at the beginning of Holy Mass.

In the Eucharistic celebration it is Christ himself who becomes present among us; indeed, even more: he comes to enlighten us with his teaching -- in the Liturgy of the Word -- and to nourish us with his Body and his Blood -- in the Eucharistic Liturgy and in Communion.

Thus, he comes to teach us to love, to make us capable of loving and thereby capable of living.

But perhaps you will say, how difficult it is to love seriously and to live well! What is the secret of love, the secret of life? Let us return to the Gospel [of the Prodigal Son].

In this Gospel three persons appear: the father and two sons. But these people represent two rather different life projects. Both sons lived peacefully, they were fairly well-off farmers so they had enough to live on, selling their produce profitably, and life seemed good.

Yet little by little the younger son came to find this life boring and unsatisfying: "All of life can't be like this", he thought: rising every day, say at six o'clock, then according to Israel's traditions, there must have been a prayer, a reading from the Holy Bible, then they went to work and at the end of the day another prayer.

Thus, day after day he thought: "But no, life is something more. I must find another life where I am truly free, where I can do what I like; a life free from this discipline, from these norms of God's commandments, from my father's orders; I would like to be on my own and have life with all its beauties totally for myself. Now, instead, it is nothing but work...".

And so he decided to claim the whole of his share of his inheritance and leave. His father was very respectful and generous and respected the son's freedom: it was he who had to find his own life project.

And he departed, as the Gospel says, to a far-away country. It was probably geographically distant because he wanted a change, but also inwardly distant because he wanted a completely different life.

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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