Most Rev. Orlando Cardinal Quevedo, D.D. expressed the importance and urgency of building communion with God and with one another amidst the social and moral issues in the society.
On his talk, titled “The Church is Called to be a Communion in the Love and Mercy of God in Jesus Christ” on the second day of the World Apostolic Congress on Mercy at the University of Santo Tomas, Cardinal Quevedo asked the delegates to open their eyes on the issues in the society that lacks in communion .
“There are signs of lack of communion, think about crimes, terrorism, kidnapping, drug war, ethnic war, wars between religion, violation of human rights, freedom of religion, and degradation of environment. We see broken family everywhere, poverty, pictures of the homeless and street children, life in slams,” Cardinal Quevedo said.
In this social, moral, religious context, he said, it is especially now that the Holy Spirit is urgently calling the whole Church to be a communion in the Lord Jesus.
“We have to build communion with one another. We are accord to reach out to our neighbors to our parishes, and communities to the wider society and in love and mercy, reconcile broken relationships, bring peace families and communities broken by crimes and drugs, hostility and faction, biases and hatred. “
“When I consider the situation of the Christians and Muslims in the Southern Philippines, we have to get rid of biases and prejudices. We are all ambassadors of reconciliation,” Cardinal Quevedo added.
Cardinal capped off his talk with a prayer saying that people need to be aware of God’s presence in them as it is the art of the spirituality of communion.
Meanwhile, other talks highlighted the role of the Church as the body of the face of the Divine Mercy and her mission is to preach the Gospel of infinite mercy. For instance, WACOM4 Secretary General Rev. Fr. Patrice Chocholski reflected on “The Church receives and celebrates the Mercy of God through the Word and Sacraments especially the Eucharist and Reconciliation”. He said that today, people can get to know about Jesus’ existence through so many media, and so, the question of evangelization is no more matter of quantity; it is now a matter of quality. He quoted Pope Francis saying that the quality of evangelization is according to the measure of our experience of the richness of the divine mercy.
He also added that experience is the condition for new evangelization, deep experience of Christ’s Mercy and His presence in His community…Experience that needs to be renewed every day through listening to the words of God.
Others talks and reflections were given by Rev. Fr. Seraphim Michalenko, MIC, who discussed “The Church is the Servant and Witness of God’s Mercy” and Archbishop of Medan, Indonesia Most. Rev. Anicetus Bongsu Sinaga, OFM Cap, D.D. whose talk is titled, “The Church is Sent to be Missionary of Mercy to the Poor and Suffering of the World”.
His Eminence Lyon, France Archbishop Philippe Cardinal Barbarin, D.D., presided the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist, with Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) President Most Rev. Socrates Villegas, D.D. as homilist.
The second day of WACOM4 was concluded by a musical presentation by Mr. Joshua Espinosa and a film showing “The Original image of Divine Mercy” presented by Archbishop of Vilnius, Lithuania, Most Rev. Gintara Grusas.
