Vatican Seeking Spiritual Moms for Priests
December 13th, 2007 by Fr. Gabriel Gillen, O.P.
VATICAN CITY, DEC. 11, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The Vatican Congregation for the Clergy is looking for people willing to offer Eucharistic adoration for the priesthood and “consecrated feminine souls” ready to become spiritual mothers of priests.
A new Web site from that Vatican dicastery offers explanations and resources both for the campaign to begin Eucharistic adoration and for those who would like to be spiritual mothers of priests, following the example of the Virgin Mary.
The initiative was convoked with a letter Saturday, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, signed by Cardinal Cláudio Hummes and by Archbishop Mauro Piacenza, respectively the prefect and secretary of the congregation.
The letter said the campaign is focused on a spiritual endeavor: “In order to continually maintain a greater awareness of the ontological link between the Eucharist and the priesthood, and in order to recognize the special maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary for each priest, it is our intention to bring about a connection between perpetual Eucharistic adoration for the reparation of faults and sanctification of priests.”
In particular, the initiative proposes that, following the example of Mary, people might wish to “spiritually adopt priests in order to help them with their self-offering, prayer and penance.” Resources at the Web site offer several examples of spiritual mothers of priests, including the story of Eliza Vaughan, an English mother of 13. Six of her children became priests, and another four became nuns.
The initiative from the Congregation for the Clergy intends “to entrust all priests to Mary, the mother of the high and eternal Priest, bringing about in the Church a movement of prayer, placing 24-hour continuous Eucharistic adoration at the center,” the letter explained.
The campaign asks that “a prayer of adoration, thanksgiving, praise, petition, and reparation, will be raised to God, incessantly and from every corner of the earth, with the primary intention of awakening a sufficient number of holy vocations to the priestly state.”
Mary Inspires Believers to Fight Evil, Says Cardinal
By Marta Lago
LOURDES, France, DEC. 11, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The papal envoy sent to open the jubilee year of the Marian apparitions in Lourdes said that Mary inspires an attitude of “permanent battle” for good against the forces of evil.
Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Evangelization of People, opened the jubilee celebrations in France on Saturday, feast of the Immaculate Conception, the title with which Mary introduced herself when she appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858.
The cardinal said that the struggle between the forces of good and evil “began at the beginning of human history, and will continue until the end.”
Cardinal Dias said that today “this battle is even bloodier than in Bernadette’s time.”
“The world finds itself terribly deceived in the spiral of relativism that desires to create a society without God, a relativism that erodes the permanent and unchangeable values of the Gospel; and of religious indifference that remains unconcerned before the higher good of things relating to God and the Church,” he added.
But, he said “a mother has bent down from heaven, concerned for her sons who live in sin, far from Christ.” The cardinal said Mary enters into world history, which marks “the hostilities between her and the devil, as described in Genesis and Revelation.”
“The Virgin is weaving a network of her spiritual sons and daughters in order to launch a strong offensive against the deadly forces and to prepare for the final victory of her divine son Jesus Christ,” stressed Cardinal Dias.
The weapons are “conversion of heart, a great devotion to the holy Eucharist, daily recitation of the rosary, constant prayer without hypocrisy, and accepting sufferings for the salvation of the world,” he affirmed. “The final victory will be God’s.”
L’Osservatore Romano noted that for a moment during the celebrations, “around 4:15 p.m. [...] thanks to an international radio connection, everyone prayed to Mary together with the Pope.”
