The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
19 October 2003
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Peace
in our hands
Jubilee
week for Pope
Special
guests at Mother Teresa’s beatification
School
insurance hike
Honoured
by university
It’s
truly feminine and truly beautiful
Spiritually
renewed by Lourdes
$1.75m
for Caritas
Catholic
Women’s Network
Board
short bonanza for Vinnies
Advice
to lectors, acolytes
Much
deeper reality
Editorial:
Time for tribute
Letters:
Barrel of a gun
Conversation:
Terry Hanley, lay missionary who has spent nearly 15 years in the field - Happy
to ‘spend rest of my life in Africa’
What
is peace like?
Religion
test upsurge
Malouf
on campus
Ministry
of Jesus to the sick and dying
‘Father,
this is your life’
‘Priest
in residence’ honoured
Bushland
setting for Thurgoona church
Full-on
disciple of Jesus
Active
practice of faith
Requiem
Mass for ‘Bacon Priest’
Editorial: Time for tribute
The Church rightly pays tribute this week to two of its best loved contemporary servants - Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Pope John Paul II.
In keeping with the way of life and service that the founder of their order advocated and followed, members of the Missionaries of Charity who attend the ceremony in St Peter’s Square for the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta will share the visual and spiritual beauty of the event with 3000 homeless and poor - men, women and children who eat or sleep at the soup kitchens and shelters their order operates in Rome.
Seats have been reserved for them at the Mass. And immediately after the ceremony they will be served lunch in the Vatican audience hall.
This reflects the devotion and dedication of Mother Teresa and the impact she has had on and the inspiration she has been to those who have chosen to follow her.
She has been described as a “real model of holiness” because “she took care of the dying and the poorest of the poor”.
Pope John Paul recognised the holiness of this daughter of the Church when he gave permission for her beatification cause to begin only 15 months after her death in September 1997, even though Church rules require a waiting period of five years.
By her example of helping the poor “while living among them”, she has set a benchmark for Christians. Her beatification will be greeted with universal applause.
So, too, will the celebration of Karol Wojtyla’s 25 years as Bishop of Rome and leader of the Church as Pope John Paul II.
He has led the Church longer than any other Pope in the past century. Indeed, he is the fourth longest serving pontiff. Only St Peter, Pope Pius IX (1846-78) and Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) have served longer. Pope Leo served 25 years and five months.
With the aid of modern technology, John Paul has been the most visible and most travelled Pope. He has taken the Church to the world, the Mass to masses who might never otherwise have seen faith in action, bringing more people into the faith and more people back to the fold.
The Church has much to celebrate in him.