RELIGION

Mary invites us to set out on the journey, not to allow ourselves to be trapped by the culture of evil and death, to look at the world from God’s eyes and reflect his goodness and mercy in our words and deeds. Putting ourselves on the path towards God and towards others, detaching ourselves from what hinders and hinders us. A path that so often is not made of roses but of thorns, in which the cross appears at every step. We, with Mary and like Mary, from the smallness of our history, from the humility and poverty of how little we are and have, must reaffirm ourselves in faith in God and in the truth that only in Him can we find.

“Our path is the same as that of Christ and the Virgin.” In this way, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, archbishop of Havana, reminded us in his Sunday address that created in the image and likeness of God, who is love, we do not leave space in our hearts for hatred or revenge. “And at the end of life, he said, how wonderful to leave a family full of love, a Church full of faith, hope and charity and a people full of peace.” He begged the Virgin to help those who have Covid, especially pregnant women, whom the Gospel of the day personifies in two great women: Mary and her cousin Elizabeth.

The talk that Fr. Manuel Uña, O.P, gave to the Havana clergy was about the priest’s mission in a changing and complex Cuba. When specifying the three crises that in his consideration affect Cuba today, that of COVID-19, economic and political, Father Uña insisted that before them the Church cannot remain as a mere spectator, nor should it face the situation from out with excessive criticism. “These processes, he said, must be accompanied from within through dialogue. This requires ministers capable of understanding the fate of the sufferer and comforting him. He recalled that it is the pastors who are primarily responsible for the mission of mediating and dialogue at high levels: “A favorable solution will not be reached by impositions, nor by calling for confrontation, but when mutual listening is exercised, They seek common agreements and concrete and tangible steps are taken that contribute with the contribution of all Cubans, without exclusion, to build the homeland of all ”. He insisted on the need to propose ways of meeting and dialogue that can lead to reconciliation and peace as the only valid alternative. He stressed that any mission must free itself from enmity, which already infiltrates many aspects of life and encouraged priests to protect their spirits from the temptation of force, from the contamination of the heart and the contempt of our fellow men. “Let us be shepherds, brothers who strengthen our brother, accomplices of reconciliation and hope. Of that hope that is not utopia but the certainty of a future that is making its way between us ”.

In his Sunday address, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, reminds us that Jesus Christ is spiritual food both in his Word and in his Body and Blood. With this spiritual food we will have life, which will be full if it is led by love. “There is full life in a home if there is love. There is full life in a marriage if there is faithful love, and from there more life will emerge in the blessed fruits. There is full life in the elderly who feel loved, loved, cared for, treated with affection. There is full life in children that make their parents happy. There is full life in the bride and groom who are preparing to form the family they dreamed of and talked about together. There is full life in the neighbors who help each other. There is full life in those who settle their differences and conflicts as brothers ”.

God never leaves us alone; he is a good Father. Our weakness and smallness, manifested in this way, humbly before Him, will be the best soil in which the seed of God’s omnipotence and love will grow and manifest. Because God chooses the weakest in this world to confuse the strong; because the strength of God will be realized in our weakness. In everyday life, we are pilgrims, walkers, who need to get up every time we fall, over and over again, and feed on Him to follow the path that He has marked us on, in which He accompanies us without ceasing.

Today’s Word of God leads us into one of the most important mysteries of our Christian faith: the sacramental presence of Christ alive in the Eucharist, offered to us as the bread of life, to quench our hunger, to quench our thirst. But… what am I hungry for? What is my thirst? These questions can be extended to the society in which we live. Certainly we have to admit with shame and blush that in the world in which we live there are still many people who really starve, who do not have what it takes to live; there are also many men and women who hunger and thirst for justice and freedom. But the hunger and thirst that we are being told about today goes beyond the visible and tangible. It is the hunger and thirst for God. Our world needs God to transform our hearts; you need Christ so that any other type of hunger and thirst will disappear and you will be satisfied and calm. Because from the encounter with God in Christ, new hearts spring up capable of recreating the world in true justice and freedom, that overcome differences, that put the poor and needy in the priority of their work and efforts.

June 7 of this year marked the sixtieth anniversary of the publication in the Official Gazette of the Law of Nationalization of Education. Six decades after its application, it is appropriate to analyze the effects caused by the intervention process. A reliable sample of the result obtained is constituted by the Pious Schools and in particular the one located in the municipality of Guanabacoa. The stupefaction and sadness appear when contemplating the “destructive” state of what was until 1961 one of the best Catholic schools in Latin America and the Caribbean, if not the best in the entire American continent. The deterioration has advanced so much that the walls and ceilings are clearly seen about to fall on the workers of the Municipality of Education of Guanabacoa, who work in the offices installed in the immense building for more than twenty years, despite the danger . Only the novitiate house is spared from decline and it was in this place that the Piarist Father Ricardo Alberto Sola Ros, rector and superior of the order in Cuba, had the kindness to expose a succinct history of the Order of the Clerics to the New Word. Poor Regulars of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, better known as Piarists.

Today’s Gospel invites us to share. “We will lack nothing, and those who give and receive will be satisfied.” In this way, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, in his Sunday address, invites us to give thanks to God every time we eat bread, food … and we pray that we can share them. “God himself, he said, will multiply, in one way or another, return what we gave.” He recalled that Jesus has commanded us to do the same at the Last Supper, take bread, give thanks, share and nourish ourselves with his body and blood in the Eucharist. “How wonderful, Christ and I identified both with a single heart, with a single soul, with a single desire for good and love.”

The Church of the first centuries greatly flourished from the witness and vitality of the early Christians, some of whom gave their lives and shed their blood like Christ. The Church of our time and place will be fruitful if each one of us intends to be Christians and witnesses of Christ to the last consequences, as was James, as were so many apostles and martyrs throughout history. Giving life, so that others may have life … tremendous challenge that, with Christ by our side, is attractive and achievable.

In recent days, the gestures of solidarity that many people have expressed towards the people of Matanzas move to tears. It is known that these actions multiply. It is about that genetic solidarity that accompanies us and that does not need slogans or ideologies to be present when it is most needed. To speak of initiatives of this type, the example of the one promoted by the Daughters of Charity can illustrate the response of the many Havanans who have known how to share what little they have. Many have even decided to keep little or nothing to give more, to share and help.