First Greetings of Recent Popes

As the sequence of major events of the Jubilee 2025 take a summer break, it might be of interest to reflect on the first words offered by the recent Successors of Peter on their election.

Pope Leo XIV's first greeting from the balcony of the Vatican Basilica, delivered from a prepared text, was as follows (my translation from the original Italian rather than the English):

Peace be with you all!

Dearest brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting spoken by the risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for God’s flock. I, too, would like this greeting of peace to enter into your hearts, to reach your families, every person, wherever they may be, all peoples and all the earth. Peace be with you!

This is the peace of the risen Christ. A peace that is unarmed and disarming, humble and persevering. It comes from God, the God who loves all, unconditionally.

 There is an echo in Pope Leo's choice of words of that testimony to the Resurrection that occurs at the start of the Papal Mass on Easter Sunday, when the Successor of Peter venerates an image of he Risen Christ, enacting in a way the testimony of the first Peter.

Pope Francis' style from the start of his time as Pope was informal, though not without something that prompts more reflection.

Brothers and sisters, good evening!

You know that it was the duty of the Conclave to give Rome a Bishop. It seems that my brother Cardinals have gone almost to the ends of the earth to get one... but here we are... I thank you for your welcome. The diocesan community of Rome now has its Bishop. ...

And now, we take up this journey: Bishop and People. This journey of the Church of Rome which presides in charity over all the Churches. A journey of fraternity, of love, of trust among us. Let us always pray for one another. Let us pray for the whole world, that there may be a great spirit of fraternity. It is my hope for you that this journey of the Church, which we start today, and in which my Cardinal Vicar, here present, will assist me, will be fruitful for the evangelization of this most beautiful city.

And now I would like to give the blessing, but first - first I ask a favour of you: before the Bishop blesses his people, I ask you to pray to the Lord that he will bless me: the prayer of the people asking the blessing for their Bishop. Let us make, in silence, this prayer: your prayer over me.

The theme of fraternity was to be a feature of Pope Francis' subsequent pontificate; and for those familiar with the life of the Charismatic Renewal, that request for the people to pray a blessing over their bishop was not as unusual as it appeared to many at the time.

Pope Benedict XVI was brief and to the point:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

After the great Pope John Paul II, the Cardinals have elected me, a simple and humble labourer in the vineyard of the Lord.

The fact that the Lord knows how to work and to act even with inadequate instruments comforts me, and above all I entrust myself to your prayers.

Let us move forward in the joy of the Risen Lord, confident of his unfailing help. The Lord will help us and Mary, his Most Holy Mother, will be on our side. Thank you.

Pope John Paul II's first greeting shows similar brevity, and a certain foreshadowing of the words of Pope Benedict XVI (my translation from the Italian):

 Praised be Jesus Christ.

Dearest brothers and sisters

We are still all sorrowful after the death of our most loved Pope John Paul I. And now the Eminent Cardinals have called a new bishop of Rome. They have called him from a distant land ... distant, but always so close by the communion in the Christian faith and tradition. I was fearful in receiving this nomination, but I have accepted it in a spirit of obedience towards Our Lord Jesus Christ and in total trust towards his Mother, the Most Holy Madonna.

I do not know if it is possible to explain myself in your ... in our Italian language. If I make a mistake you correct me. And so I present myself to you, by confessing our common faith, our hope, our trust in the Mother of Christ and of the Church, and also to set out anew on the way of the history of the Church, with the help of God and with the help of men.

The initial greeting - Praised be Jesus Christ - is traditional in some European countries, though not unknown here in Britain, and it has something of the testimony to faith in Christ that can be seen in Pope Leo XIV's first greeting. There is also an echo of Louis de Montfort's spirit in the words of "total trust" towards the Mother of God, which was to be shown in Pope John Paul II's motto "Totus Tuus". 

On the day of his election, Pope John Paul I gave only the blessing "Urbi et Orbi" from the balcony of the Vatican Basilica. It was at the Angelus the following day that he gave some account of his election (I have added italics to one paragraph):

Yesterday morning I went to the Sistine Chapel to vote tranquilly. Never could I have imagined what was about to happen. As soon as the danger for me had begun, the two colleagues who were beside me whispered words of encouragement. One said: "Courage! If the Lord gives a burden, he also gives the strength to carry it." The other colleague said: "Don't be afraid; there are so many people in the whole world who are praying for the new Pope." When the moment of decision came, I accepted.

Then there was the question of the name, for they also ask what name you wish to take, and I had thought little about it. My thoughts ran along these lines: Pope John had decided to consecrate me himself in St Peter's Basilica, then, however unworthy, I succeeded him in Venice on the Chair of St Mark, in that Venice which is still full of Pope John. He is remembered by the gondoliers, the Sisters, everyone.

Then Pope Paul not only made me a Cardinal, but some months earlier, on the wide footbridge in St Mark's Square, he made me blush to the roots of my hair in the presence of 20,000 people, because he removed his stole and placed it on my shoulders. Never have I blushed so much!

Furthermore, during his fifteen years of pontificate this Pope has shown, not only to me but to the whole world, how to love, how to serve, how to labour and to suffer for the Church of Christ.

For that reason I said: "I shall be called John Paul." I have neither the "wisdom of the heart" of Pope John, nor the preparation and culture of Pope Paul, but I am in their place. I must seek to serve the Church. I hope that you will help me with your prayers.

Each of the recent Popes have acknowledged their immediate predecessor, but Pope John Paul I shows a particular appreciation of the pontificate of Pope Paul VI in recognising his suffering on behalf of the Church. I also recall, upon reading the texts of Pope John Paul I's addresses during his short time as Pope, thinking that they were very comparable to the addresses of Pope Benedict XVI during the early part of his pontificate.

Pope Paul VI's first greeting after his election took the form of a Message to the Entire Human Family, dated the day after his election.

Venerable Brothers and beloved children of all the world!

On this day dedicated to the most sweet Heart of Jesus, in the act of taking up the duty of shepherding the flock of the Lord - which according to the expression of St Augustine is before all amoris officium (In Io. 123, 5) in exercise of paternal and thoughtful charity towards all the sheep, redeemed by the most precious blood of Jesus Christ - the first feeling which, before others, which arises from our heart is that of a firm confidence in the all powerful aid of the Lord. He, who had shown his adorable will by way of the consent of our venerable Brothers, the Fathers of the Sacred College, entrusting to Us the care and responsibility for the Holy Church, knows to instill in our soul, fearful because of the huge task imposed, the watchful and serene strength, the untiring zeal for his glory, the missionary anxiety for the clear, persuasive diffusion everywhere of the Gospel.

Pope St Paul then went on to mention each of his immediate predecessors as Pope, Pius XI, Pius XII and particularly John XXIII:

[John XXIII], who has given to the entire world the example of his singular goodness. But I wish to recall in an altogether particular way with pious memory and emotion the figure of the late John XXIII, who, in the short but most intense period of his ministry, know how to draw close to himself the hearts of men, also of those who were distant, by his unsleeping solicitude, by his sincere and concrete goodness for the humble, by the outstanding pastoral character of his action, qualities to which is added the altogether particular charm of the human gifts of his large heart.

Jubilee of Bishops and Jubilee of Priests

 Though they are presented as if they are two distinct celebrations, the Jubilees of Bishops and of Priests due to be marked between 25th June 2025 and the 27th June 2025 form an integrated programme, ending with Mass celebrated on 27th for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If the earlier Jubilee of movements and ecclesial communities reminded us of the role of the charisms in the life of the Church, these two jubilees remind us that, nevertheless, the Church is expressed in a hierarchical structure.

In the programme of the Jubilee, the Bishops will take part in a catechesis with the Holy Father, intended I susggest to manifest the communion of the individual Bishops with the Successor of Peter and their sharing in a care for the universal Church. On the following day, catecheses will be given by Bishops (in language groups) to priests taking part in the Jubilee of Priests, expressing something of the collaboration of a priest with his Bishop in the pastoral care of a parish within a diocese. The Dicastery for the Clergy will also be hosting an event Joyful Priests - I have called you friends, during which there will be testimony of examples of vocational ministry and seminary formation from different parts of the Catholic world.

In a lecture given in 1981, and subsequently published in the journal Communio, Cardinal Lustiger discussed the connection between celibacy and priestly and episcopal ordination. Early in the lecture, he attempted to define "what this episcopal ministry is, priesthood par excellence":

The bishop, exercising in the church the priestly ministry is given to the church-body of Christ as a sign of Christ the head. Thus the whole church can exercise the priestly act of Christ described in the first Epistle of Peter by receiving in the sacramental grace given in the episcopal ministry the assurance that the word which is spoken in her is truly the word that Christ utters in his church, and that faith brought about by the Holy Spirit is truly the common faith of the whole church. Thus guarantees that the holiness given by the Father to his church comes indeed from Christ himself who acts in the sacraments, and so that unity in brotherly love which must always gather the members of the church in mercy and pardon is truly that which is accomplished and operated by Christ himself in his body. Through the priestly ordination of the bishop, the church is assured that she receives herself from Christ, priest, prophet and king. A formula recently quoted by John Paul II condenses the significance of the sacrament of orders - through his priestly ministerial act, the bishop (the priest) acts in persona Christi before the body of Christ, for example, the church.

Cardinal Lustiger continues to suggest that priests "exert jointly and in collegiality the episcopal ministry" as collaborators with the bishop who is the primary priest of his particular church.

In 2009 Pope Benedict XVI wrote a letter to inaugurate a Year for Priests, celebrated to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of St John Vianney. The year began on the Feast of the Sacred Heart that year, the feast being one marked as a day of prayer for the sanctification of priests.

Saint John Mary Vianney taught his parishioners primarily by the witness of his life. It was from his example that they learned to pray, halting frequently before the tabernacle for a visit to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.“One need not say much to pray well” – the Curé explained to them – “We know that Jesus is there in the tabernacle: let us open our hearts to him, let us rejoice in his sacred presence. That is the best prayer”. And he would urge them: “Come to communion, my brothers and sisters, come to Jesus. Come to live from him in order to live with him… “Of course you are not worthy of him, but you need him!”. This way of educating the faithful to the Eucharistic presence and to communion proved most effective when they saw him celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Those present said that “it was not possible to find a finer example of worship… He gazed upon the Host with immense love”. “All good works, taken together, do not equal the sacrifice of the Mass” – he would say – “since they are human works, while the Holy Mass is the work of God”. He was convinced that the fervour of a priest’s life depended entirely upon the Mass: “The reason why a priest is lax is that he does not pay attention to the Mass! My God, how we ought to pity a priest who celebrates as if he were engaged in something routine!”. He was accustomed, when celebrating, also to offer his own life in sacrifice: “What a good thing it is for a priest each morning to offer himself to God in sacrifice!”.

This deep personal identification with the Sacrifice of the Cross led him – by a sole inward movement – from the altar to the confessional. Priests ought never to be resigned to empty confessionals or the apparent indifference of the faithful to this sacrament. In France, at the time of the Curé of Ars, confession was no more easy or frequent than in our own day, since the upheaval caused by the revolution had long inhibited the practice of religion. Yet he sought in every way, by his preaching and his powers of persuasion, to help his parishioners to rediscover the meaning and beauty of the sacrament of Penance, presenting it as an inherent demand of the Eucharistic presence. He thus created a “virtuous” circle. By spending long hours in church before the tabernacle, he inspired the faithful to imitate him by coming to visit Jesus with the knowledge that their parish priest would be there, ready to listen and offer forgiveness. Later, the growing numbers of penitents from all over France would keep him in the confessional for up to sixteen hours a day. It was said that Ars had become “a great hospital of souls”. His first biographer relates that “the grace he obtained [for the conversion of sinners] was so powerful that it would pursue them, not leaving them a moment of peace!”. The saintly Curé reflected something of the same idea when he said: “It is not the sinner who returns to God to beg his forgiveness, but God himself who runs after the sinner and makes him return to him”. “This good Saviour is so filled with love that he seeks us everywhere”.

[It is interesting to compare St John Vianney's observations about the Sacrament of Penance to the late Pope Francis' contemporary emphasis on the mercy of God.]

Jubilee of Seminarians

A special Jubilee of Seminarians is to take place in Rome, starting in the evening of Monday 23rd June and concluding the following day, Tuesday 24th June. It forms the first of a sequence of three "Jubilees", being followed in successive days by the Jubilee of Bishops and the Jubilee of Priests.

Adrienne von Speyr has a lovely book entitled "They Followed His Call", which explores the experience of vocational calling. It combines a theological sense with a certain psychological understanding of the experience of one who listens to the Lord's call, so that in his foreword Hans Urs von Balthasar writes that it "accompanies the young person very seriously and even maternally through the difficult time that leads from the call's awakening in the soul to the great Decision and its realization".

The chapter of Adrienne's book entitled "The Time of Choice" is perhaps most relevant to seminarians.

The experiences of the time of choice are comparable to those of a young mother who, before marriage, had only a theoretical knowledge of how to care for an infant. And now suddenly she is responsible for her living child's most diverse needs. Through his presence God shows what he needs, asks for, and expects. He creates new times and divisions in a day's work, new tools, too, and qualities. A person attempts to reciprocate God's new wishes and designs as best as he can. For the most part, this will mean valuing one's self and one's things less highly, leaving everything to God in ever greater measure, until we can perhaps say that we have totally forgotten about ourselves and find all meaning in God. ...

Just as there is a total treasury of prayer, so too, in particular, is there a treasury of the time of choice, a treasury of consent and of gleaming example. Every newly spoken consent, every example that is given in such a consent, belongs to the Church in an intimate way and is further dispensed by her. It is the Church's to administer. The Church keeps none of her treasures for herself. She no more locks up her spiritual provisions than she removes her monstrances and vestments in cathedrals from use. They are there in order to be seen, used and lived. No consent stands isolated. Each and every consent is related to a future one or an already spoken one, and to every other consent.

Jubilee of Governments

 The days 21st - 22nd June 2025 are being marked as a Jubilee of Governments, though no particular events are indicated at the Jubilee 2025 website as taking part during these days. The target audience for these days is likely to be diplomats and political leaders.

England is the home of St Thomas More, who was declared by Pope St John Paul II in the year 2000 to be the Patron Saint of Statesmen and Politicians. His Apostolic Letter gives a wide ranging account of St Thomas' life and, in the context of the challenges that are today faced in public life, suggests that St Thomas

... distinguished himself by his constant fidelity to legitimate authority and institutions precisely in his intention to serve not power but the supreme ideal of justice. His life teaches us that government is above all an exercise of virtue. Unwavering in this rigorous moral stance, this English statesman placed his own public activity at the service of the person, especially if that person was weak or poor; he dealt with social controversies with a superb sense of fairness; he was vigorously committed to favouring and defending the family; he supported the all-round education of the young. His profound detachment from honours and wealth, his serene and joyful humility, his balanced knowledge of human nature and of the vanity of success, his certainty of judgement rooted in faith: these all gave him that confident inner strength that sustained him in adversity and in the face of death. His sanctity shone forth in his martyrdom, but it had been prepared by an entire life of work devoted to God and neighbour. ... 

[The] harmony between the natural and the supernatural is perhaps the element which more than any other defines the personality of this great English statesman: he lived his intense public life with a simple humility marked by good humour, even at the moment of his execution.

When Pope Benedict XVI visited Britain in 2010, he gave an address to politicians and other participants in public life in the very place where St Thomas More was tried, Westminster Hall. Making reference to the example of St Thomas, Pope Benedict explored the relationship between religious faith and the duties of public office.

And yet the fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident – herein lies the real challenge for democracy. ...

The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. ... This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

 In 1969 Pope St Paul VI published an Apostolic Letter Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum on the mission of Pontifical Representatives. Acting in many instances as the equivalent of ambassadors of the Holy See to the civil governments of the places where they are accredited, they also act as a an instrument of communion between the local churches of those places and the Apostolic See.

It is indeed true that the aims of the Church and of the State are of a different order and that both are perfect societies, endowed, therefore with their own means and independent in their respective spheres of action, but it is equally true that both act for the benefit of a common subject - man, who is called by God to eternal salvation and placed on earth to enable him with the help of grace, to attain it through a life of work which will give him well-being in peaceful co-existence with his fellow beings.

Hence it follows that some of the activities of the Church and of the State are in certain sense complementary, and that the good of the individual and of the community of peoples postulates an open dialogue between the Church on the one hand and the States on the other, in order to establish, foster and strengthen relations of reciprocal understanding, mutual co-ordination and co-operation to prevent or settle possible differences for the purpose of attaining the realisation of the great human hopes of peace among nations, of internal tranquility and the progress of individual nations.

The Apostolic Letter also mentions the representatives of the Holy See to international organisations, perhaps most notable among them being the representatives to the various organs of the United Nations.  

We can see the role undertaken by these Pontifical Representatives as a living expression of the wish for dialogue between the worlds of religious belief and secular rationality of which Pope Benedict XVI spoke during his visit to Britain.

Jubilee of Sport

 The Jubilee of Sport is to be marked from 14th - 15th June 2025. The press conference to introduce this jubilee gives some idea of the relationship between the Church and the world of sport and of the events that will form part of this Jubilee. 

The Jubilee itself reminds me of a chapter in Romano Guardini's short book The Spirit of the Liturgy. That chapter is entitled "The Playfulness of the Liturgy" and, whilst Guardini warns that we should read the whole in order to really understand his idea, I offer two quotations in an attempt to summarise the chapter:

The child when it plays, does not aim at anything. It has no purpose. It does not want to do anything but to exercise its youthful powers, pour forth its life in an aimless series of movements, words and actions, and by this to develop and to realize itself more fully; all of which is purposeless, but full of meaning nevertheless, the significance lying in the unchecked revelation of this youthful life in thoughts and words and movements and actions, in the capture and expression of its nature, and in the fact of its existence. And because it does not aim at anything in particular, because it streams unbroken and spontaneously forth, its utterance will be harmonious, its form clear and fine; its expression will of itself become picture and dance, rhyme, melody and song.

And, towards the end of the chapter:

The liturgy does the same thing. It too, with endless care, with all the seriousness of the child and the strict conscientiousness of the great artist, has toiled to express in a thousand forms the sacred God-given life of the soul to no other purpose that that the soul may therein have its existence and live its life. The liturgy had laid down the serious rules of the sacred game which the soul plays before God. And, if we are desirous of touching bottom int his mystery, it is the Spirit of fire and of holy discipline "Who has knowledge of the World" - the Holy Ghost - Who has ordained the game which the Eternal Wisdom plays before the Heavenly Father in the Church, Its kingdom on earth. And "Its delight" is in this way "to be with the children of men". 

There have been many occasions when the Church has engaged with the field of sports. In the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 a Jubilee of Sport took place, during which Pope St John Paul II met with leading protagonists from the field: Jubilee of Sports People. More recently, in May 2024, the French Embassy to the Holy See and the Dicastery for Culture and Education sponsored a conference "Putting Life into Play". Pope Francis' message to that conference is reported on the Vatican News website, with a full text here. I quote below from Pope St John Paul II's homily of October 2000:

Playing sports has become very important today, since it can encourage young people to develop important values such as loyalty, perseverance, friendship, sharing and solidarity. Precisely for this reason, in recent years it has continued to grow even more as one of the characteristic phenomena of the modern era, almost a "sign of the times" capable of interpreting humanity's new needs and new expectations. Sports have spread to every corner of the world, transcending differences between cultures and nations.

The Holy Father went on to compare the commitments needed to be successful in sport to those needed to live a full Christian life:

 "Those that sow in tears shall reap rejoicing" (Ps 125: 5). The responsorial psalm reminded us that persevering effort is needed to succeed in life. Anyone who plays sports knows this very well:  it is only at the cost of strenuous training that significant results are achieved. The athlete, therefore, agrees with the Psalmist when he says that the effort spent in sowing finds its reward in the joy of the harvest:  "Although they go forth weeping, carrying the seed to be sown, they shall come back rejoicing, carrying their sheaves" (Ps 125: 6).

At the recent Olympic Games in Sydney we admired the feats of the great athletes, who sacrificed themselves for years, day after day, to achieve those results. This is the logic of sport, especially Olympic sports; it is also the logic of life:  without sacrifices, important results are not obtained, or even genuine satisfaction.

Once again the Apostle Paul has reminded us of this:  "Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable" (1 Cor 9: 25). Every Christian is called to become a strong athlete of Christ, that is, a faithful and courageous witness to his Gospel. But to succeed in this, he must persevere in prayer, be trained in virtue and follow the divine Master in everything.

He, in fact, is God's true athlete:  Christ is the "more powerful" Man (cf. Mk 1: 7), who for our sake confronted and defeated the "opponent", Satan, by the power of the Holy Spirit, thus inaugurating the kingdom of God. He teaches us that, to enter into glory, we must undergo suffering (cf. Lk 24: 26,46); he has gone before us on this path, so that we might follow in his footsteps.

 Pope Francis own particular contribution to the Church's engagement with the world of sport is perhaps in his strong encouragement of a culture of encounter and dialogue, something to which the world of sport readily lends itself. In his message for the conference in May 2024 Pope Francis also encouraged the preservation of a genuine sense of "sportsmanship", of the maintenance of a certain amateur spirit in the way in which people take part in sport.

Pope Leo XIV more recently met with the football team of Naples, winners of Italy's equivalent of the British Premier League. In a slightly different way, he picked up Pope Francis' words in favour of a genuine sportsmanship:

Welcome! And congratulations for your victory in the Championship! It is a great celebration for the city of Naples!

And it is precisely on this that I would like to reflect with you. To win the Championship is a milestone that one reaches at the end of a long journey, where what counts the most is not the one-off exploit, or the extraordinary performance of a champion. The Championship is won by the team, and when I say “team”, I mean the players, the trainer with the entire team, and the sports association.

Therefore, I am truly happy to welcome you now, to highlight this aspect of your success, which I consider the most important. And I would say that it is so also from a social point of view. We know how popular football is in Italy, and practically all over the world. And so, from this perspective, it seems to me that the social value of an event like this, which goes beyond the merely technical and sporting fact, is the example of a team – in the broadest sense – working together, in which the talents of the individuals are placed at the service of the whole.

And there is one last thing it is important to me to say, taking advantage of this occasion. It regards the educational aspect. Unfortunately, when sport becomes a business, it risks losing the values that make it educational, and can even become anti-educational. It is necessary to keep a lookout for this, especially with regard to teenagers. I appeal to parents and sports managers: we must be very careful of the moral quality of the experience of sport at competitive level, because the human growth of the young is at stake.

As a final thought, we might remind ourselves that the Apostle Paul more than once compared the Christian life to an athletic competition (cf. 1 Cor 9:24; 2 Tim 4:7-8), a thought that brings us back to Romano Guardini's account of the playfulness of the Liturgy. The "play" that we can see in the exercise of sport can perhaps be seen as one of those "seeds of the Gospel" of which the Prayer for the Jubilee 2025 speaks:

May your grace transform us into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel. May those seeds transform from wthin both humanity and the whole cosmos in the sure expectation of a new heaven and a new earth, when, with the power of Evil vanquished your glory will shine eternally.

Jubilee of the Holy See

 Monday 9th June 2025 is being marked as a Jubilee for the Holy See. Whilst many of the other major Jubilee 2025 celebrations offer something of an invitation to participation by people from all parts of the world, this celebration appears more of a semi-private event. It appears to be a celebration intended for those who work in the offices and missions most closely associated with Vatican, and so express a collaboration with the Successor of Peter in the carrying out of his mission to the Church and to the world.

The choice of day for this Jubilee is interesting. It marks the celebration of the Memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church. In his allocution at the end of the third session of the Second Vatican Council, Pope St Paul VI proclaimed the title of "Mother of the Church":

Therefore to the glory of the Blessed Virgin and for our consolation we declare Mary most Holy as Mother of the Church, that is of all the Christian people, of the faithful and of the pastors, who call her a most loving Mother; and we establish that with this title the Christian people may from now on give even more honour to the Mother of God and offer her their supplications.

[As an aside, when I read of the events surrounding this proclamation, I feel that it is an occasion on which Pope St Paul VI may have acted in response to a particular inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His encyclical letter Humanae Vitae would be another such instance.] 

When Pope Francis decreed that the celebration of a Memoria marking the title Mother of the Church should be inserted into the universal Liturgical calendar of the Church, he offered a brief theological account of the title and then referred back to Pope St Paul VI's allocution:

Thus the foundation is clearly established by which Blessed Paul VI, on 21 November 1964, at the conclusion of the Third Session of the Second Vatican Council, declared the Blessed Virgin Mary as “Mother of the Church, that is to say of all Christian people, the faithful as well as the pastors, who call her the most loving Mother” and established that “the Mother of God should be further honoured and invoked by the entire Christian people by this tenderest of titles”.

Therefore the Apostolic See on the occasion of the Holy Year of Reconciliation (1975), proposed a votive Mass in honour of Beata Maria Ecclesiæ Matre, which was subsequently inserted into the Roman Missal. The Holy See also granted the faculty to add the invocation of this title in the Litany of Loreto (1980) and published other formularies in the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1986). Some countries, dioceses and religious families who petitioned the Holy See were allowed to add this celebration to their particular calendars.

Having attentively considered how greatly the promotion of this devotion might encourage the growth of the maternal sense of the Church in the pastors, religious and faithful, as well as a growth of genuine Marian piety, Pope Francis has decreed that the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, should be inscribed in the Roman Calendar on the Monday after Pentecost and be now celebrated every year.

Towards the end of the Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee 2025 (n.24), Pope Francis wrote of the Virgin Mary as the Mother of Hope:

Hope finds its supreme witness in the Mother of God. In the Blessed Virgin, we see that hope is not naive optimism but a gift of grace amid the realities of life. Like every mother, whenever Mary looked at her Son, she thought of his future. Surely she kept pondering in her heart the words spoken to her in the Temple by the elderly Simeon: “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed, so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:34-35). At the foot of the cross, she witnessed the passion and death of Jesus, her innocent son. Overwhelmed with grief, she nonetheless renewed her “fiat”, never abandoning her hope and trust in God. In this way, Mary cooperated for our sake in the fulfilment of all that her Son had foretold in announcing that he would have to “undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mk 8:31). In the travail of that sorrow, offered in love, Mary became our Mother, the Mother of Hope. It is not by chance that popular piety continues to invoke the Blessed Virgin as Stella Maris, a title that bespeaks the sure hope that, amid the tempests of this life, the Mother of God comes to our aid, sustains us and encourages us to persevere in hope and trust. 

Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations and New Communities

 The days 7th-8th June 2025 are being celebrated as a Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations and New Communities. The days are chosen to be those of the Vigil and celebration of the Feast of Pentecost, when the Church celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit on the infant Church. Some examples of the movements that might be represented in the celebration of this Jubilee are: Communion and Liberation, the Focolare, the Charismatic Renewal, the Legion of Mary and FAITH Movement. I also include SIGNIS as an ecclesial movement, though it has a specific commitment in the fields of film, media and communications. The Jubilee takes place immediately after the annual meeting of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life with the moderators of international associations of the faithful, ecclesial movements and new communities. Some 70 000 pilgrims are expected to take part.

The movements are due to meet with Pope Leo XIV in St Peter's Square on the Vigil of Pentecost, an event which re-creates a meeting of the movements with Pope St John Paul II on the eve of Pentecost in 1998. The memorable expression of that occasion is the reference that Pope St John Paul II made to the co-essentiality of the institutional and charismatic dimensions of the Church, developing the teaching of Lumen Gentium n.12:

The institutional and charismatic aspects are co-essential as it were to the Church's constitution. They contribute, although differently, to the life, renewal and sanctification of God's People. It is from this providential rediscovery of the Church's charismatic dimension that, before and after the Council, a remarkable pattern of growth has been established for ecclesial movements and new communities.

This meeting with St John Paul II took place in the context of the first World Congress of Ecclesial Movements and New Communities. The Holy Father referred to some of the difficulties that had occurred in the growth of these new movements and their relationship to the wider Church. 

Their birth and spread has brought to the Church's life an unexpected newness which is sometimes even disruptive. This has given rise to questions, uneasiness and tensions; at times it has led to presumptions and excesses on the one hand, and on the other, to numerous prejudices and reservations. It was a testing period for their fidelity, an important occasion for verifying the authenticity of their charisms.

Today a new stage is unfolding before you: that of ecclesial maturity. This does not mean that all problems have been solved. Rather, it is a challenge. A road to take. The Church expects from you the "mature" fruits of communion and commitment.

On the Vigil of Pentecost in 2006, the movements gathered again in St Peter's Square, this time with Pope Benedict XVI. After a reflection on the place of the Holy Spirit in creation and within the life of the Trinity (Pope Benedict's words on the abuse of creation foreshadow Pope Francis teaching on the same theme), Pope Benedict spoke on three words: life, freedom and unity.

When all that people want from life is to take possession of it, it becomes ever emptier and poorer; it is easy to end up seeking refuge in drugs, in the great deception. And doubts surface as to whether, in the end, life is truly a good.

No, we do not find life in this way. Jesus' words about life in abundance are found in the Good Shepherd discourse. His words are set in a double context.

Concerning the shepherd, Jesus tells us that he lays down his life. "No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord" (cf. Jn 10: 18). It is only in giving life that it is found; life is not found by seeking to possess it. This is what we must learn from Christ; and the Holy Spirit teaches us that it is a pure gift, that it is God's gift of himself. The more one gives one's life for others, for goodness itself, the more abundantly the river of life flows.

Secondly, the Lord tells us that life unfolds in walking with the Shepherd who is familiar with the pasture - the places where the sources of life flow.

We find life in communion with the One who is life in person - in communion with the living God, a communion into which we are introduced by the Holy Spirit, who is called in the hymn of Vespers "fons vivus", a living source. ... 

Dear friends, the Movements were born precisely of the thirst for true life; they are Movements for life in every sense.

Speaking of freedom:

True freedom is demonstrated in responsibility, in a way of behaving in which one takes upon oneself a shared responsibility for the world, for oneself and for others.
The son, to whom things belong and who, consequently, does not let them be destroyed, is free. All the worldly responsibilities of which we have spoken are nevertheless partial responsibilities for a specific area, a specific State, etc.

The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, makes us sons and daughters of God. He involves us in the same responsibility that God has for his world, for the whole of humanity. He teaches us to look at the world, others and ourselves with God's eyes. We do not do good as slaves who are not free to act otherwise, but we do it because we are personally responsible for the world; because we love truth and goodness, because we love God himself and therefore, also his creatures. This is the true freedom to which the Holy Spirit wants to lead us. 

And of unity:

The Holy Spirit, in giving life and freedom, also gives unity. These are three gifts that are inseparable from one another.  ...

He wants your diversity and he wants you for the one body, in union with the permanent orders - the joints - of the Church, with the successors of the Apostles and with the Successor of St Peter. He does not lessen our efforts to learn the way of relating to one another; but he also shows us that he works with a view to the one body and in the unity of the one body. It is precisely in this way that unity obtains its strength and beauty.

May you take part in the edification of the one body! Pastors must be careful not to extinguish the Spirit (cf. I Thes 5: 19) and you will not cease to bring your gifts to the entire community. Once again, the Spirit blows where he wills. But his will is unity. He leads us towards Christ through his Body.

In a concluding word that foresees the theme of the Jubilee 2025, Pope Benedict observed:

The Holy Spirit gives believers a superior vision of the world, of life, of history, and makes them custodians of the hope that never disappoints.

It has been a common place since Vatican II to speak of a "universal call to holiness", that is, a call to Christian living that is derived from Baptism and Confirmation and that is addressed to all Christians. However, the response to that call is given in the specificity of the life of each individual, and for many people that specificity is found in the charism of one or other of the new movements or communities. Without the presence of these movements, pastoral life can too easily lack the element of specificity necessary to a lively Christian witness.