Vatican City, Jan 12, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).- The Vatican gave guidance Tuesday about how priests can distribute ashes on Ash Wednesday amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments published a note Jan. 12, directing priests to say the formula for distributing the ashes once to everyone present, rather than to each person.
The priest “addresses all those present and only once says the formula as it appears in the Roman Missal, applying it to all in general: ‘Repent, and believe in the Gospel,’ or ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,’” the note said.
It continued: “The priest then cleanses his hands, puts on a face mask and distributes the ashes to those who come to him or, if appropriate, he goes to those who are standing in their places. The Priest takes the ashes and sprinkles them on the head of each one without saying anything.”
The note was signed by the congregation’s prefect, Cardinal Robert Sarah, and its secretary, Archbishop Arthur Roche.
Ash Wednesday falls on Feb. 17 this year.
In 2020, the divine worship congregation put out various instructions for priests on administering the sacraments and offering Mass during the coronavirus pandemic, including for the celebration of Easter, which occurred when many countries were in lockdown and public liturgies were not permitted.
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Vatican City, Mar 5, 2020 / 01:58 pm (CNA).- The International Theological Commission this week published a study into the question of whether two “baptized non-believers” can contract sacramental marriage or whether the absence of faith im… […]
Pope Francis meets with the Order of Malta’s Fra’ Marco Luzzago on June 25, 2021. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, Jun 9, 2022 / 04:26 am (CNA).
In a condolence message on Wednesday, Pope Francis praised the “luminous Christian witness” of Order of Malta leader Fra’ Marco Luzzago.
Luzzago, who had overseen the 1,000-year-old institution since 2020, died on June 7 after a sudden illness.
The pope offered his condolences in a telegram to Cardinal Silvano Maria Tomasi, the pope’s special delegate to the Order of Malta.
The telegram said: “Spiritually sharing in the grief at the sudden passing of His Excellency Fra’ Marco Luzzago, Lieutenant of the Grand Master, I wish to offer my condolences to his family and to the entire order and, in remembering his commitment generously lavished in the performance of his high office in the service of this institution, as well as his love for the Church and luminous Christian witness, I invoke eternal peace for him and from my heart impart my blessing to you … to the interim Lieutenant Fra’ Ruy Gonçalo do Valle Peixoto de Villas-Boas, to the Grand Magistry, and to all the members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.”
Luzzago died at the age of 71 at Villa Ciccolini in the Italian province of Macerata.
Pope Francis’ general audience of April 19, 2023. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 19, 2023 / 04:15 am (CNA).
Even when not called to the particular grace of martyrdom, every Christian is called to testify to Christ through his or her life, Pope Francis said on Wednesday.
At his weekly audience with the public April 19, the pope quoted the Church’s dogmatic constitution, Lumen gentium, to highlight a Christian’s obligation to be a positive witness of the faith in both life and death.
“Although martyrdom is asked of only a few,” he said, “‘nevertheless all must be prepared to confess Christ before men. They must be prepared to make the profession of faith even in the midst of persecutions, which will never be lacking to the Church, in following the way of the cross.’”
Pope Francis’ general audience of April 19, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Persecution of Christians, he added, is not just a thing of the past.
“The martyrs show us that every Christian is called to the witness of life, even when this does not go as far as the shedding of blood, making a gift of themselves to God and to their brethren, in imitation of Jesus,” he said.
Pope Francis spoke to a large crowd of people in St. Peter’s Square on a sunny, spring morning.
The current theme of his Wednesday general audiences is “the passion for evangelization.” On April 19, he focused on the topic of martyrdom and the witness it gives others about the Christian faith.
“Today we will turn our attention not to a single figure, but to the host of martyrs, men and women of every age, language, and nation who have given their life for Christ, who have shed their blood to confess Christ,” he said. “After the generation of the Apostles, they were the quintessential ‘witnesses’ of the Gospel.”
Pope Francis’ general audience of April 19, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
“The word ‘martyr’ derives from the Greek ‘martyria,’ which indeed means witness,” he explained.
Francis emphasized that the Christian martyrs are not individual heroes who acted alone, but are like a “ripe and excellent fruit of the vineyard of the Lord, which is the Church.”
“Christians,” he said, “by participating assiduously in the celebration of the Eucharist, were led by the Spirit to base their lives on that mystery of love: namely, on the fact that the Lord Jesus had given his life for them, and therefore that they too could and should give their life for him and for their brothers and sisters.”
He called Catholics to remember the many men and women who have given their lives for Christ over the more than 2,000-year history of the Church, especially the numerous martyrs of modern times.
Pope Francis’ general audience of April 19, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Quoting again from Lumen gentium, he said, “the Second Vatican Council reminds us that ‘the Church considers martyrdom,’ this disciple, ‘as an exceptional gift and as the fullest proof of love. By martyrdom a disciple is transformed into an image of his Master by freely accepting death for the salvation of the world — as well as his conformity to Christ in the shedding of his blood.’”
Pope Francis concluded his message by naming some of the Church’s recent martyrs in the country of Yemen, including three Missionaries of Charity — Sister Aletta, Sister Zelia, and Sister Michael — who were shot dead in July 1998 while returning home from Mass.
He also recalled the March 2016 attack on the Missionaries of Charity in Aden, Yemen, in which a gunman killed 16 people, including Sister Anselm, Sister Marguerite, Sister Reginette, and Sister Judith. The Catholic missionary priest Father Tom Uzhunnalil was kidnapped in the attack. He was released 18 months later in September 2017.
Pope Francis’ general audience of April 19, 2023. Daniel Ibanez/CNA
The pope pointed out that some of the people killed in the 2016 shooting were Muslims who collaborated with the Missionaries of Charity in their work.
“It moves us to see how the witness of blood can unite people of different religions,” he said. “One should never kill in the name of God, because for him we are all brothers and sisters. But together one can give one’s life for others.”
“Let us pray, then, that we may never tire of bearing witness to the Gospel, even in times of tribulation,” Francis said. “May all the martyr saints be seeds of peace and reconciliation among peoples, for a more humane and fraternal world, as we await the full manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven, when God will be all in all.”
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