RELIGION

On the fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, recalled the feast of St. John Bosco and inspired by his work said: “In the face of the difficulties presented to us by others to teach young people, let us become deaf and continue with them in the style of Don Bosco.” Jesus Christ is our model.

Jesus is the Prophet of God, the Father’s envoy, the Holy One of God. The fascination that your person produces cannot be compared to that of any social or political leader of our time or of any era. His figure and message are based on the coherence of life he showed that led him to the final sacrifice on the Cross. When the exercise of power is exercised without principle and without conscience, every spiritual, moral or social authority is lost and falls into authoritarianism, which leads to the imposition of ideas, ignorance or elimination of the adversary, oppression and suppression of freedom. And this, done in a subtle or uninhibited way, leads to the same personal and social result: the destruction of the person and society. He has come into the world to build a new humanity. Jesus reveals God’s love for each of us. His authority is not an oppressive power but a balm that frees us, a new light that illuminates the dark stretches of our existence, a force that encourages us in our struggles, difficulties, trials and temptations.

Among the Church’s most outstanding communicative experiences in Cuba is a project born as a virtual community that in 2020 was extended to other platforms and formats. Since its inception, the Catholic Youth Network (RCJ) has explored the world of social media and the media in order to connect as many young Cuban Catholics as possible.

In his allocution this Sunday, January 24, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, invites us to follow Jesus, as did Andrew, Peter, Santiago and Juan. In this way, we will be fishermen of people “for the greater glory of God and happiness of them, their families, their friends, their neighbors, their peoples”.

Pope Francis has instituted this third Sunday of Ordinary Time as the Sunday of the Word of God. From this virtual pulpit, which we have called “Today’s Word”, we intend to put our grain of sand to fulfill this desire of the Pope: that the Word of God will come to us as the food of the spirit from which we cannot do without. Nor could those disciples who left everything and marched after Jesus could not do without him. Leaving everything means losing everything to win it all. Men and women of all times and places, also today, follow Christ with what they are and have, it is worth it. If others did, how can we not be able to do it ourselves in our time. To this end Christ Himself will give us his grace and the strength of his Spirit.

2020 closed for Cubans amid an informative awakening. This time also demanded from the Church an awakening of evangelizing creativity on social media. Several priests and some bishops, youth groups, marriages, lay movements, and others came together on digital platforms to share and celebrate the faith. Father Rolando Montes de Oca says that “today not only do we all know more about everyone, but we share what we do and think as a people, which has inevitable cultural and social consequences.” In his opinion, on the Internet and on the networks “a new Cuba arises”, to which we must contribute the Christian content it needs to be the happy country that God wants and yearns for our people.

Today we are invited to meet those who last forever, the one who spiritually nourishes our person. Finding him is safe, because he is the one who passes, he continues to become encounterive. God always has the initiative. In his Sunday allocution, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, reminds us that in difficult times it is best to share, because the value of a life is measured by the lives it modifies. “Those who choose to be happy,” he says, “must help others to be happy, because one’s well-being is linked to that of others.”

Jesus wants us to make a way with Him; he does not think it is convenient or enough to explain to us to convince us or suddenly overflow with his truths. He wants us to follow in His footsteps and lively experience who He is and what He calls us to; that we stay with Him to share His own life and destiny because He wants to share ours. The “come and see” that Christ directs us to each one demands renunciation, sacrifice, trust, and patience. The disciple of Christ must be entrusted, sacrificed and light of luggage. The Church is a missionary by nature and all the baptized are called to evangelize, to be missionaries. Anointed by the Holy Spirit, which we have received from God and who dwells in each of us, we also want to say today to the Father, through Christ, from the depths of our hearts: “Here I am, Lord, to do your will”.

On October 3, 2020, Pope Francis gave the Church and the world a new Encyclical, Fratelli tutti (Brothers All), subtitled “on fraternity and social friendship”. In the most recent issue of #PalabraNueva, Fr. Jorge Luis Pérez Soto approaches some topics developed throughout the document, with the intention of sticking them to Cuban reality. It is a material written with reason, as a teacher who wants to enlighten and introduce a student; as a Cuban who feels deeply and with his heart the reality of his land; and above all as a priest and believer, convinced that the gospel and the via amoris are the only way to restore hope.

“Serving means caring for the fragile of our families, of our society, of our people”