Friday, October 12, 2012

Bishop urges schools to pray midday Angelus during Year of Faith

For the forthcoming Year of Faith England’s newest bishop has called for “systematic” study of the Catechism, more Eucharistic Adoration in parishes and schools to pray the Angelus at midday.

In a pastoral letter Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth said: “It would be good for all of us, priests and people, to attempt this year a systematic study of the Creed and Catechism, receiving and learning the doctrines expressed therein, and then explore their meaning and value for our lives.”

The bishop said that parishes could “help everyone deepen their faith by arranging periods of Eucharistic Adoration, and advertising times when the church is open for visits to the Blessed Sacrament”.

He added: “It would be good, too, for our schools to pray the Angelus at midday, recalling Mary’s response of faith and to encourage staff and students to say the ‘Apostles Creed’, as on the Year of Faith bookmarks.”

Bishop Egan proposed wearing a crucifix, saying grace before a meal, inviting a non-practising friend to Mass, or installing a rosary or devotional item in a car.

But he reminded Catholics that no one is “saved by a programme or a structure, but only by a Person, Jesus Christ, and, as his disciple, by a personal-passionate friendship with him”.

Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury, meanwhile, also stressed the importance of educating ourselves about the faith in his pastoral letter, saying: “We must know our Catholic faith if we are able to enter into dialogue with our contemporaries on an increasing range of questions.”

The same message was given by Pope Benedict who said that the forthcoming year will give “renewed energy to the mission of the whole Church to lead men and women out of the desert they often are in and toward the place of life ­friendship with Christ who gives us fullness of life”.

“Faith grows when it is lives as an experience of love received and when it is communicated as an experience of grace and joy,” the Holy Father wrote.

The Year of Faith opens next Thursday, October 11, a date chosen by the Pope to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council and the 20th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. 

Besides greater study and prayer, the Year is to be accompanied by more acts of charity.