This year, the Catholic Diocese of Macau is thrilled to announce a contest inviting artists, musicians, and creative individuals to contribute their talents for the upcoming anniversary celebration in 2026. This event not only marks a significant moment in the diocese’s history but also aims to strengthen community bonds through shared creativity and expression.
6th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C (Lk 6:17.20-26) – February 16, 2025 Fr Daniel Antonio de Carvalho Ribeiro, SCJ We can all agree that everyone wants to be happy. However, if we talk to different groups of people from…
Jewish tradition prepared the first Christians of Jewish background to understand the “new” teachings of Jesus such as the Eucharist, the priesthood, the papacy, and the role of the Blessed Virgin. Last time we studied the meaning of the terms ‘rock’ and ‘keys’ in the Old Testament and other Jewish writings.
Human life is indeed a narrative of hopes in the plural – human hopes – and of hope in the singular – Christian or theological hope. The 2025 Jubilee Year is the Holy Year of Hope. We wish to reflect on hope. Thereafter, we meditate on the nature of Christian hope, on the dimensions and properties of hope, on sins against hope, on hope as creative fidelity to the present. Finally, the author tells us how he nurtures his hope and hopes, mainly his theological hope.
A few days ago, the Holy See published an extensive document on artificial intelligence. The title, in Latin as usual, is “Antiqua et nova”. This technology is still in the dazzling phase typical of any innovation. The printing press was a revolution! The railways, too! And the electric light, the telephone, the radio, the automobile, the airplane, the calculating machine! Sometimes newness leads to confusion, especially when compared with common experience. In the 19th century, when a steam train completed its maiden voyage, charitable hands covered with blankets the machine, “sweating and exfoliating”, to prevent it from catching cold. The telegraph was another amazement. You would touch a key and, from across the street, through the wires, the machine would make clicks. Edison explained this transmission at distance with the image of a very long cat: you step on its tail and it meows at the opposite end. The impact of major innovations is enormous. How is it possible to talk at a distance? Or travel through the air? Or, so many things?… But the surprise is short-lived, the thing becomes trivial, and children soon consider it is normal for the fridge to be cold, or the light bulbs to give off light.
The Church in the Vicariate of South Arabia is basically a ‘Church of migrants’ whose members share a common experience: this unpleasant feeling that something fundamental is missing in their daily lives, be it their homeland or the presence of loved ones. However, this seemingly negative perception must be seen first and foremost as an opportunity to open ourselves to one another and, at the same time, to bring to light the source and dynamism of Christian hope, “a hope that does not disappoint us because it is rooted in the love of Christ, an irrevocable love, a love that lasts forever”, as the Franciscan Capuchin Bishop Paolo Martinelli, Apostolic Vicar of South Arabia, writes in a pastoral letter addressed to the Catholic communities of the Vicariate of Southern Arabia – Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.
After a moment of Eucharistic adoration at St. Rose of Lima school, a little girl, perhaps 6 or 7 years old, approached me and said, “Father Ed, Yyou say that Jesus speaks to us, but I can’t hear Him.” Children at this age often go straight to the heart of the matter, asking questions that can be challenging for us to answer. I simply told her, “Jesus speaks inside your heart.” Fortunately, the little girl didn’t ask a follow-up question, but I’m not sure she was satisfied with my answer.
The Catholic Diocese of Macau welcomed the Year of the Snake this Wednesday, January 29th, with the observance of the feast of Our Lady of China. The commemoration of the Virgin of Dong Lu on the first day of the Lunar New Year is a liturgical tradition exclusive to the local Catholic Church. Elsewhere in the world, the solemnity of Our Lady of China falls every year on the day before the second Sunday of May. But how important is Marian devotion to Chinese Catholics? How did Our Lady of China become an integral part of the Lunar New Year celebrations in Macau? Andrew Leong, head of the Department of Catholic Theology at the Faculty of Religious Studies and Philosophy of the University of Saint Joseph, explains.
Starting from February, a new liturgical choir will animate and support English and Tagalog language Masses at the Cathedral of the Nativity of Our Lady. The Padre Pio Choir was formally introduced on Sunday, February 2nd. On the very same day, the Couples for Christ Choir, Macau’s oldest English language ensemble, commemorates its 18th anniversary.
For the untouchable caste of southern India, known as Dalits, this Jubilee Year represents renewed hope in the recognition of their human dignity and another attempt to break the spiral of discrimination and exclusion to which they are usually subjected. Perhaps during this Jubilee period, they could try to counter the caste mentality embedded in Indian culture and seize the opportunities that may arise within society and the Church, on an equal footing with other citizens. At least, this is the opinion of Franciscan priest Fr. Nithya Sagayam OFM Cap, secretary of the Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCST) of the Catholic Bishops’ Council of Tamil Nadu.