Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization in the Vatican, encouraged future missionary priests of the Pontifical Urban College to train to listen to the will of God.
In the Mass he presided on January 7 at the Pontifical Urban College, the Filipino cardinal encouraged those present to be properly formed to be able to respond well to the Lord.
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“The formation of seminarians and the ongoing formation of priests, nuns and teachers must be a pilgrimage that prepares us to be docile and available to listen to the will of God,” said Cardinal Tagle according to a note from the Pontifical Urban College,
Cardinal Tagle also reminded those present of the Jubilee Year of Hope, which began on December 24, and told them that “the pilgrimage of hope indicates the benevolence and initiative of God that leads us to Jesus” and read a quote from Gospel of Saint John (6, 44ª): “No one can come to me if the Father who sent me does not bring him.”
In that sense, the cardinal encouraged everyone to be pilgrims on the way to Jesus, like the Three Wise Men who were guided by the Star of Bethlehem. Like them, it is necessary, he said, to persevere on the path of faith and vocation, so as not to fall into the temptations of the world such as power and exhorted: “Please do not return to Herod!”
The cardinal’s request is part of the Epiphany of the Lord, celebrated the day before, in which the three Wise Men are warned not to return to King Herod, who, seeking to maintain his earthly power, wanted to know where the Child Jesus was, whom he considered a threat, to kill him.
The Mass was concelebrated by Bishop Salvatore Pennacchio, president of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, and the Eucharist was attended by officials of the dicastery, the rectors of the Roman schools, former formators and former students, teachers, nuns and guests.
At the dinner after the Mass, Father Armando Nugnes, rector of the Pontifical Urban College, thanked Cardinal Tagle for his presence, and the formators for their “commitment in accompanying future missionary priests, and also the seminarians.”
After dinner, seminarians from Indonesia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, Venezuela and Nigeria took turns singing some songs.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.