The Colombian bishops renewed the country’s consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus with a Mass held in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Bogotá, in which it was requested by the reconciliation and achievement of the long -awaited peace.
The Eucharist was chaired by Mons. Francisco Javier Múnera, president of the Episcopal Conference of Colombia and Archbishop of Cartagena.
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The renewal of the consecration to the Sacred Heart takes place in the midst of a complex socio -political context, reflected in the confrontations of the Government with the legislative and judicial powers, the increase in terrorist attacks and the displacement of populations.
Before a cathedral crowded with faithful, Mons. Múnera highlighted the importance of the country renews its consecration and, for this, it cited part of the encyclical letter Loves us that Pope Francis wrote about the heart of Jesus.
“Before the heart of Christ,” the Colombian archbishop said, “I ask the Lord to once again have compassion on this wounded land, that he wanted to inhabit as one of us. That she spokes the treasures of his light and his love, so that our world that survives between wars, socioeconomic imbalances, consumerism and antihuman use of technology, can recover the most important and necessary: the heart.”
The prelate told the faithful that this paragraph “invites precisely to recover the most important and necessary in the lives of all of us: the heart.” “The memory of this consecration connects us with our history as a nation in its slow to walk towards peace and reconciliation,” he added.
Mons. Múnera recalled that the desire to consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart was born in the context of the War of the Thousand Days, which was still desolate the country. “Colombia needed to return to the source of forgiveness, of peace and reconciliation: the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, our redeemer,” he said.
The Archbishop said that this act remains “being a pascual, prophetic and special act”, because “proclaims that Jesus is Lord of time, redemptive of the history and heart of a people renewed by peace.” “This consecration and its renewal today reaffirms that only in their mercy we find real hope for our present and our future,” he said.
The president of the CEC indicated that Jesus calls Colombians “to work tirelessly for peace and reconciliation”, assuming a personal and community commitment, opening to the evangelical pedagogy of forgiveness, because “without the willingness to offer and ask for forgiveness, we can never leave the dehuman spiral of revenge and violence.”
Therefore, he invited to cultivate “narratives of hope” in all family and social spaces. “Let us ask Jesus, the good shepherd, to guide us along the fair path and meets us at a single table, together with the adversaries, to help us find them and recognize them as brothers,” in order to build the “common project of the nation that we so long for and need.”
The homily completed, the president of the CEC directed the prayer with which the consecration of the country was renewed to the sacred Heart of Jesus.
Colombia was enshrined to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in June 1902, to ask the Lord to pacify the country that he was still suffering a bloody civil war. This initiative was supported by the Government with Decree 820 of May 18 of the same year.
In June 1902, the first stone of the National Voting Church was also placed, located in Bogotá and conceived to contribute to the reconciliation of Colombians. Five months later, the war with the treaties of Dutch and Wisconsin culminated.
Eduardo Berdejo
Professional in Social Communication of the National University of San Marcos in Peru, I have more than 20 years of experience in Catholic digital journalism. As part of ACI Press, I have been sent to cover the trips of Pope Francis to Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Peru, in addition to the Synod of Sinodality in the Vatican in 2023.