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Vatican City, Mar 19, 2018 / 01:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis marked Monday’s Solemnity of St. Joseph by ordaining three new bishops, telling them prayer is a primary ecclesial duty, and if they do not maintain a strong spiritual life, they are not fulfilling their vocation.

“Announce the Word in every occasion: opportune and inopportune. Admonish, rebuke, exhort with all magnanimity and doctrine. And through the prayer and sacrificial offering of your people, draw from the fullness of the holiness of Christ the manifold richness of divine grace,” the Pope said March 19.

Prayer, he said, “is the first task of a bishop. A bishop who doesn’t pray does not fulfill his duty, he does not fulfill his vocation.”

Francis celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the March 19 feast of St. Joseph, which also marks the fifth anniversary of the inauguration of his papacy.

During the ceremony, he ordained as archbishops three recently appointed nuncios, including Archbishop Waldermar Sommertag, apostolic nuncio to Nicaragua; Archbishop Alfred Xuereb, papal envoy to Korea and Mongolia; and Archbishop Josè Avelino Bettencourt, the Pope’s new ambassador to Georgia and Armenia.

The pope’s brief homily for the day was taken from the section for the ordination of bishops of the Roman Pontifical.

In the homily, he said that while the three men were ordained bishops, “it is Christ who in the ministry of the bishop continues to preach the Gospel of salvation and sanctify believers through the sacraments of faith.”

“It is Christ who in the paternity of the bishop increases his body, which is the Church. It is Christ who in the wisdom and prudence of the bishop guides the people of God in the earthly pilgrimage until eternal happiness,” he said.

Francis reminded the bishops in off-the-cuff comments that they were “chosen among men and for men. You are not called for business, worldliness, or politics: the episcopate is the name of a service, not an honor, as the bishop is more competent for serving than for dominating.”

He told them to love their flock with the love of both a father and a brother, especially priests and deacons.

“Closeness to the priests, please!” he said, and encouraged them to also be close to the poor and defenseless.

“Keep vigil with love on the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit places you to govern the Church of God,” he said, and told them to do this “in the name of the Father, whose image you make present; in the name of Jesus Christ, his Son, by whom you are made masters, priests and pastors. In the name of the Holy Spirit, who gives life to the Church and with its power sustains our weakness.”

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Pilgrims pray in front of St. Peter’s Basilica / Hannah Brockhaus/CNA

Rome, Italy, May 26, 2022 / 08:37 am (CNA).

When St. Philip Neri came to Rome from Florence in 1533, he encountered a city in upheaval. The Sack of Rome six years prior had left famine and plague in its wake. The Protestant Reformation was in full swing and the Church was rife with corruption.

The young Philip, who would spend around 16 years in Rome as a layman before becoming a priest, soon dedicated himself to caring for the city’s sick and poor.

The saint, whose feast day falls on May 26, also realized that Rome’s people were suffering from a spiritual sickness and tiredness as well, and so he set out to reinvigorate Catholics with the joy of the faith through song and dance — and jokes.

Part of St. Philip’s outreach was the revival of the Seven Churches visit. He may not be the originator of the idea of the pilgrimage to some of Rome’s most important churches, but he is credited with renewing its popularity.

After it fell out of use once again, St. Philip’s congregation of secular priests, the Oratory, revived it in the 1960s, including holding the walk one night each year, as close as possible to the way the saint would have done it.

After a two-year pause, on the evening of May 13 into the morning of May 14, around 800 people walked 15 and a half miles in the footsteps of the saint and his followers.

Police officers in cruisers drove ahead of the urban pilgrimage to block traffic as a sea of Catholics from around Italy crossed busy intersections and passed Friday night diners while praying the rosary in unison and singing the Taizé chant “Laudate Dominum,” whose words say in Latin, “Praise the Lord, all people, Alleluia.”

The rosary was prayed four times during the pilgrimage, which took almost 10 hours to complete, including stops for a sack dinner at midnight and short lessons on the virtues led by priests of the Oratory.

The seven basilicas were chosen by the saint for their importance to Christianity, and the walk on May 13-14 followed the path laid out in a 16th-century document almost certainly seen and used by St. Philip — and likely even written by him.

This document, recreated and printed into a booklet for use on the annual pilgrimage today, gives St. Philip’s guidance for those making the Seven Churches visit.

“Before setting out to make this holy Pilgrimage, each of the Brethren must lift up his mind to God, offering him the sincerity of his heart, with the purpose of desiring the sole glory of his divine Majesty in all actions, and especially in this one,” it says.

Those participating can also earn an indulgence under the usual conditions, and are asked to pray for specific intentions. These include praying for the penance of sins, the amendment of lukewarmness and negligence in the service of God, in thanksgiving for the forgiveness of sins, for the pope and the Church, for sinners still in the darkness of an evil life, for the conversion of heretics, schismatics, and infidels, and for the holy souls in purgatory.

The pilgrimage began at Chiesa Nuova, the church built by St. Philip for the Oratory, and proceeded to St. Peter’s Basilica, reaching the site of St. Peter’s martyrdom at sunset.

From there, the group of 800 people followed a path along the Tiber River to stop at the Basilica of St. Bartholomew on the Island (not one of the official seven churches) on the way to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

Each of the seven churches is associated with a moment of Christ’s Passion and Crucifixion. At each stop, an Oratory priest preached on a virtue and its opposing vice, before everyone joined in a prayer for an increase in that virtue and for the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The virtues and vices were abstinence against gluttony, patience against ire, chastity against lust, generosity against avarice, fervor of spirit against acedia, charity against envy, and humility against pride.

After the Basilica of St. Paul, the pilgrimage followed an ancient street still called Seven Churches Way to arrive at the catacombs and the Basilica of St. Sebastian, a third-century Christian martyr.

As a layman in Rome, St. Philip Neri used to visit the catacombs of St. Sebastian to pray. One night in the catacombs, about 10 years after moving to Rome, as he prayed, a mystical ball of fire entered his mouth and went down into his chest, exploding his ribs and doubling the size of his heart with love of God.

St. Philip was changed, both physically and spiritually, by this event, which he only revealed shortly before his death.

Pilgrims next arrived at the Domine Quo Vadis Church after a silent, moonlit walk through the ancient Appian Way Park, flanked by the silhouettes of Italian cypress trees.

The small church of medieval origin marks the spot where, according to tradition, Jesus appeared to St. Peter as he was fleeing Rome to avoid martyrdom.

Peter asked Jesus, “Domine quo vadis?” (“Lord, where are you going?”), to which Christ said, “Venio Romam iterum crucifigi,” (“I am coming to Rome to be crucified again.”) This rebuke caused Peter to turn around and face his own martyrdom.

The next official pilgrimage church was the Basilica of St. John Lateran, followed by a 10-minute walk to the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem.

The Basilica of St. Lawrence Outside the Walls was the penultimate stop. The church, which has the tomb of St. Lawrence, is located next to Rome’s Verano Monumental Cemetery, and was included among the Seven Churches by St. Philip Neri, Father Botta said, as a reminder of mortality.

The final stretch of the walk passed through Rome’s main train station, Termini, where pilgrims sang the Marian antiphon “Salve Regina.”

The pilgrimage finished shortly before 6:00 a.m. at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, the traditional end of the walk, where the “Salve Regina” hymn was sung again in honor of the Virgin Mary.

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