PEACE FOR A BELOVED COUNTRY – Between War and Natural Disasters

adminAll Categories, World

Since the beginning of the civil war in Myanmar in 2021, there have been an increasing number of areas where fighting has taken place, where civilians have been living for too long as displaced people, facing continuous and increasing difficulties whenever they flee from areas of intense conflict. As far as the Catholic community is concerned, the Sagaing region is undoubtedly the most affected, with frequent bombings and “widespread suffering among the civilian population,” as recalled by Peter Sein Hlaing Oo, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Mandalay, in the north-central part of the former Burma. For this reason, this local prelate, like other members of the local Church, view with optimism the words of Pope Leo XIV, who, during the Sunday Angelus prayer on June 15, recalled the ongoing fighting in Myanmar.

THE TABLE OF FELLOWSHIP – Bread, Blessed, Broken and Given (Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ – June 22, 2025)

adminAll Categories, Faith & Life

In a quiet corner of the hills, far from the noise of cities and the distractions of daily life, thousands gathered around a man who spoke not just with words, but with compassion that fed the soul. These people came with emptiness, some of body, some of spirit, and they found in the presence of Jesus, more than they ever expected. They were met not with scarcity, but with abundance. Not with dismissal, but with welcome. This moment, where five loaves and two fish became a feast for thousands, we are invited to live it anew.

PATRON OF THE POOR AND WONDER-WORKER – Feast day of St. Anthony of Lisboa

adminAll Categories, Local

The Church celebrates the Feast of St. Anthony of Lisboa (also known in the Christian world as Saint Anthony of Padua) on the 13th of June. In Macau, the celebration is held every year at St. Anthony’s Church, a Catholic church located on Rua de Santo Antonio close to the ruins of St Paul. This church is a UNESCO World Heritage attraction and one of the three ancient churches in Macau. 

JOURNEYING TOGETHER WITH FAITH AND HOPE (8) – Hope: Fidelity to the Moment

adminAll Categories, Faith & Life

Today is in our hands but not fully: today is made up of many moments. Only this moment is in our hands. From the perspective of Christian faith, of spiritual/moral life, what is the meaning of “the moment”? When she was very young, St. Therese of the Child Jesus was worried about the future. After she became a Carmelite nun, she focused her life on the present moment: “I just keep concentrating on the present moment. I forget the past, and preserve myself from worries about the future… Let us see each instant as if there were no other. An instant is a treasure.”   

A SAINT THE CHURCH NEEDS TODAY – Peter To Rot, the first Saint of Papua New Guinea

adminAll Categories, World

By decision decreed by Pope Leo XIV during the celebration of his first Ordinary Public Consistory, the martyr Peter To Rot, a native of Papua New Guinea, will be canonized on October 19 of this year, precisely on the Sunday on which the 99th World Mission Day is celebrated. On that same morning, the Blesseds Ignatius Choukrallah Maloyan, Vincenza Maria Poloni, María del Monte Carmelo Rendiles Martínez, Maria Troncatti, José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros and Bartolo Longo will be inscribed in the Book of Saints. A month and a half earlier, on September 7, the Italian Blesseds Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis were also canonized.

SOLEMNITY OF THE MOST HOLY TRINITY – Most Holy Trinity: House of Love

adminAll Categories, Faith & Life

This Sunday we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. We can say that the Trinity is the House of love. Through it love overflows, the world made flesh and made His dwelling among us  and the human being is created us in the image and likeness of God’s love. However, due to his natural limitations and because he freely sinned, he lived partially distant from the Trinitarian communion. Even so, God did not abandon him, manifesting His grace to him in different ways until redemption was fully accomplished in the salvific life of Jesus Christ. In today’s Gospel, Jesus promises that He will send the Holy Spirit to teach us all the truth. This shows that we cannot have access to the fullness of truth nor know ourselves deeply without the help of the Trinity. This is because the human being is not self-referential. Creation and its existence are incomprehensible without the Trinity: “the mystery at its highest level, the mystery par excellence” (Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger). Based on Scripture and the Tradition of the Church, this mystery can be called “love.” Since he who loves must love something or someone, the very logic of love demands that – in divine life – there be plurality, authority, communication, reciprocity, that is, it is not just a gift of oneself, like a mirror that reflects its own image, but rather a gift in itself that, like glass, allows the ray of light to pass through it.

THE THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES (1) – Faith: The Fundamental Virtue

adminAll Categories, Faith & Life

The life of an authentic Christian is a virtuous life: following the Virtuous One Jesus Christ, God and Man.  A virtuous life is the life of a disciple of Christ who practices virtues: the seven virtues (and their respective allies) which according to St. Thomas Aquinas make a good Christian. The Magnificent Seven:  faith, hope and charity (the theological virtues), and prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance (the cardinal moral virtues). 

INDO-PAKISTANI CONFLICT OVER KASHMIR – The Vatican Inspires Peace

adminAll Categories, World

In the wake of the recent military crisis between Pakistan and India – which has once again rekindled the threat of a nuclear apocalypse – Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, a Sikh MP, has urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to work with international organizations to begin a process of “adequate recognition” to find a city that can be presented as “a symbolic place of peace for humanity”. Amritsar, the holy city of Sikhism, near the border between India and Pakistan and home to the famous Golden Temple, is an ideal candidate for this purpose and should therefore be declared a “war-free zone” and receive international protection, as is the case with the Vatican.