Year: 2020

Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, said in his Sunday allocution that Christ, King of Mercy, invites the baptized, whom he also considers kings, to fill their homes with mercy and to turn churches into mercy. In his desire that we be servants of mercy, the Cardinal recalled that without it the houses will be a battlefield, hearts a dumpster and the churches an undesirable place: life a hell. “Choose to live in hell, away from God, now and forever or live in the heavens of mercy, now and forever,” he said.

The Solemnity of Jesus Christ the King of the Universe concludes the Liturgical Year and opens us to a new one, which will begin with the first Sunday of Advent. Today we celebrate Christ in his divinity and in his humanity, as Lord of heaven and earth, King of the Universe. Victor of sin and death, risen, he has been startled and glorified to the right of the Father and from there we believe that one day triumphant and glorious will come to judge the living and the dead. His invitation is to do good to all without distinction, particularly the poorest, smallest, weakest or needy. If we recognize him in them, at the end of our day he will recognize us as the friend is recognized, see his same face reflected in our lives, and say, “Come, blessed of my Father, to inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.” In this hope we live and walk toward God’s eternity.

Holy Mass on the occasion of the Fourth World Day of the Poor, whose theme is “Put your hand to the poor” (Sir 7:32)

On the penultimate Sunday of the Liturgical Year, before the Solemnity of Jesus Christ the King of the Universe, in which Pope Francis invites us to celebrate the Fourth World Day of the Poor, the Gospel helps us to realize that we are all poor, for all that we are and have received from God. He, being rich, became poor for us to enrich us all. He looked at us with love, gave us existence and filled us with talents, qualities and potentials, each of us differently, without any merit on our part. The way to multiply the talents God has given us is to use them for the good of others, as works of love that leap into eternal life.

At the arrival of the husband, who is Christ, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, invited the wife, the Church, to keep the lamp of faith lit. “How wonderful that when he comes he finds us at Sunday Mass, in a merciful action, in family prayer, in the teaching of catechism, in forgiveness to those who have done us evil, in family love! Thus, the lamp of our faith will be fully lit with the oil of love,” he said in his allocution on this Sunday, November 8.