VATICAN - Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe on pastoral visit to Vietnam visits Hué archdiocese: “We thank God for his great mercy and all missionaries have gave their lives that we might form the People of God”

Thursday, 1 December 2005

Hué (Fides Service) - In the afternoon of 30 November Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, started a new lap of his pastoral journey to Vietnam with a visit to the archdiocese Hué where he met students and teaching staff at Hue major seminary. The Cardinal thanked the St Sulpice Society of Priests in charge of formation of future priests in the archdiocese and mentioned the “generations of priests and bishops who worked and still work in the vineyard of the Lord thanks to formation at this Seminary”. He encouraged the new propaedeutic year with a course in philosophy which he said was “a prolonged period of discernment, spiritual and community growth and cultural preparation in view of philosophical and theological studies”.
In his address to seminarians Cardinal Sepe underlined three aspects of formation dear to the hearts of Pope Benedict XVI and the Prefect of Propaganda Fide: spiritual formation, which must be the centre of preparation for the priesthood; intellectual formation to enable future priests to proclaim the Gospel; and love for the Church. The Cardinal urged seminarians to live a life of daily prayer, to become familiar with Sacred Scripture and to have a sacramental life with daily participation at Mass, adoration of the Eucharist and frequent reception of the sacrament of reconciliation. Intellectual formation “is of capital importance to enable you to announce the Gospel to all men and women” said Cardinal Sepe, recalling that formation should teach seminarians to love the Church: “to love the Church means being faithful to the Pope and the bishops, following their teaching and instructions: fidelity to the Church is a condition and source of your freedom”.
At the end of the day Cardinal Sepe celebrated Mass in Hué cathedral. In his homily he asked those present to pray for vocations because in Vietnam each priest celebrates usually two or three Sunday masses and for some people the nearest church is 20 miles away, “this situation shows that the Church needs more workers for the Lord’s vineyard”. After recalling the missionary mandate Jesus entrusted to the apostles, and the work of the first missionaries to continue this mandate in Vietnam the Cardinal said: “dear Catholic brothers and sisters of Huè, you are the fruits of that precious preaching of missionaries … Let us thank God for his great mercy and the missionaries for giving their lives that we might form the people of God … how can we be indifferent when in our archdiocese 96% of our brothers and sisters have yet to hear about Jesus Christ?”.
Urging lay Catholics to be “salt of the earth and light of the world” with daily life witness transforming each day with the transcendent dimension, the Cardinal said: “God calls you to serve him in every day life, in temporal affairs of human life, at home, at school, in offices, hospitals in the family”. Lastly he invoked the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary that God’s Word may be sown everywhere in society and under all circumstances. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 1/12/2005, righe 41; parole 569)


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