Oil of listening

In his Angelus address last Sunday, Pope Francis  said:

“The gospel passage we read today recounts that Jesus’s disciples “anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them” (Mk 6:13). This ‘oil’ also makes us think of the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, which gives comfort to spirit and body. But this ‘oil’ is also the listening, closeness and tenderness of those who care for the sick person: it is like a caress that makes you feel better, soothes your pain and cheers you up. All of us, everyone, sooner or later, need this ‘anointing’ of closeness and tenderness, and we can all give it to someone else, with a visit, a phone call, a hand outstretched to someone who needs help.

“Remember that, in the final judgment – Matthew 25 – one of the things they will ask us will be about closeness to the sick.”

Protecting  Christians

At a webinar on ‘The future of Christianity in Lebanon and the wider region’, Lebanese cardinal Bechara Rai, patriarch of the Maronite Catholic Church, said: “The Christians of Lebanon were able to build a unique system of co-living with Muslims; this system gives a great deal of courage and hope to the Christians in the Middle East at large. Therefore, protecting the Christians in Lebanon is  really protecting Christianity in the Middle East at large.”

No plastic in the sea

On July 11, the celebration of Sea Sunday, Pope Francis exhorted people to “take care of the health of the sea: no plastic in the sea!” According to the UN eight million tons of plastic are each year are thrown into the sea, doing irreparable damage.

In Laudato Si’, the Pope wrote: “Oceans not only contain the bulk of our planet’s water supply, but also [an] immense variety of living creatures, many threatened for various reasons... they represent a significant element in the ocean food chain, and species used for our food ultimately depend on them.

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)