Monday, February 17, 2025

Warm welcome for Filipino Cardinal in Mullingar

The Cardinal Archbishop of Manila, His Eminence Luis Antonio Tagle, received a warm welcome from the large attendance at a concelebrated 10am Mass in Mullingar Cathedral on Friday last, 20 May, at which he was chief celebrant. Those present included eighteen concelebrating priests and hundreds of members of the Filipino community living in the midlands, as well as children from local schools.
In his homily, Cardinal Tagle – who had led the priests from Meath diocese on their annual retreat in the earlier days of last week – expressed his pleasure at being in Ireland, and thanked Fr. Padraig McMahon, Adm. and the parish pastoral team for organising everything. Thanking the people of Ireland for sending so many missionaries to the Philippines and other countries, the Cardinal said the Church in the Philippines could not have progressed so much but for the work and dedication of great Irish missionaries. “I thought Jesus was Irish”, he joked, in speaking about having encountered such great numbers of Irish missionaries.
He thanked Irish people for welcoming “our brothers and sisters from the Philippines who had come to Ireland. “We see the promise of a new world when people from different traditions speaking a common tongue come together and work as one family,” he remarked. This was one of the key messages in the readings of the day, advising people not to complain against one another, or be too quick to judge others, and stressing the unique relationship of husbands and wives and the value of the nuclear family in God’s plan. Jesus put his finger on the heart of things, when he spoke of how stubbornness and hardness of heart had led to Moses permitting divorce, but from the beginning, God had not created them thus, he created people with a human heart, not a heart of stone. The law of God is written not on tablets, but on the flesh of the heart. Hearts have become stone when they do not feel for others, do not have regard for their feelings or pain, and don’t feel love or respect. God wants us to return to what He intended for the human person, with a human heart that could beat for other people, and be moved by God. Jesus is happier when we allow love to open the eyes and ears of the heart.
Addressing the young people present, the Cardinal stated: “Young people of Ireland, I know you have dreams. Don’t lose your hearts, learn how to be compassionate and from the heart, listen to God. I feel God urging me to tell you young people to consider the priesthood and religious life, to listen to God speaking to your hearts.
“Let us pause and open our hearts so that we again experience a heart of flesh that is open to God and open to forgiving our neighbour,” he concluded.
The Cardinal was invited by Bishop Michael Smith to conduct the retreat which began on Sunday, 15 May and concluded on Thursday, 19 May. It was attended by over 70 priests from the Diocese of Meath, as well as a number of priests from Cavan and Longford and some Columban missionaries who worked with the Cardinal in the Philippines.

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