Father's Friday, 5/29/2020 Message

In the Gospel today we have the familiar and, beautiful passage of Jesus asking Peter three times if he loves him.  We know that Peter had previously denied Him three times.  While Peter may not have realized at the moment what Jesus was doing, we are blessed to have the continuous teaching of the Church for over 2,000 years, that every sin we have committed, is able to be forgiven. He will also tell him to both feed and tend His lambs, and sheep. In other words, both, young and old must be nourished and cared for in body and soul through the Sacraments and teaching of the Church. This will not always be easy, and, may in fact result in being rejected more often than being accepted.  With this thought in mind, I would like to look at another Pope. Today we celebrate Pope St. Paul VI.

He was born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini, on September 26, 1897 in Brescia Italy. I will only mention two areas in his life where holding fast to the teachings of the Church brought his rejection. The first was when World War II broke out, he was one of the principal figures in the Secretariat of State of the Holy See. Montini was in charge of taking care of the "ordinary affairs" of the Secretariat of State, which took much of the mornings of every working day. In the afternoon he moved to the third floor into the Office of the Private Secretary of the Pontiff. Pius XII did not have a personal secretary. As did several popes before him, he delegated the secretarial functions he needed to the Secretariat of State.  

During the war years, thousands of letters from all parts of the world arrived at the desk of the pope, most of them asking for understanding, prayer, and help. Montini's task was to formulate the replies in the name of Pius XII, expressing his empathy, and understanding and providing help, where possible.  At the request of the pope, Montini created an information office regarding prisoners of war and refugees, which from 1939 until 1947 received almost ten million requests for information about missing persons and produced over eleven million replies. 

Montini was several times attacked by Benito Mussolini's government for meddling in politics, but the Holy See consistently defended him.  Another area concerns the sanctity of human life, and the Church’s teaching against contraception, which he wrote about in the Encyclical, Humane Vitae (On Human Life), on which he was widely mocked and denounced by those outside the Church, and those.within.  May we thank God for the gift of always being forgiven, and also for the grace to stand firm when teaching the faith. 

God bless you,
Fr. Robert.