Nunciature oratory blessed and opened

KUALA LUMPUR (Herald Malaysia): The Oratory at the Apostolic Nunciature in Malaysia was officially blessed and opened by His Excellency Archbishop Angelo Becciu, Substitute of the Secretariat of State, November 24.

Archbishop Becciu was the principal celebrant at the Eucharistic celebration. Concelebrating with him were Archbishop Joseph Marino, Apostolic Nuncio to Malaysia and Bishop Sebastian Francis, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei (CBCMSB).

In his opening remarks, Archbishop Marino thanked the Holy Father for sending the chalice and paten, gifts from the Pope to the Apostolic Nunciature in Malaysia.

He said, “Each time we visit this chapel we will offer the Mass for the Holy Father and will keep him in our prayers.”

He told Archbishop Becciu to inform the Holy Father that the Church in Malaysia and Brunei is full of love for Christ and very united with the Holy Father.

In response, Archbishop Becciu said he would bring these greetings and prayers to the Holy Father when they meet in Myanmar.

The Mass commenced with the blessing and sprinkling of holy water on the people by Archbishop Becciu.

In his homily, Archbishop Becciu, speaking on the Gospel of the day said our Lord told Saint Peter that he was the rock on which He would build his Church and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her.

He said it was significant that Jesus pointed to the future where the Church here was to become a part of that future.

He said, “By God’s grace, in our own days, the vibrant life of the Christian community in this country is fulfilling the Lord’s promise in a wonderful way.”

He said St Peter, the “rock” on which our Lord built his Church, an ordinary simple fisherman. Peter knew himself and he protested his own weakness to Jesus. Nor do the Gospels hide it: they speak of his crippling fear in the storm, his refusal to let Christ wash his feet, and his threefold denial of the Lord in the hours before the crucifixion.

In a particular way, Archbishop Becciu said, the Bishops, in union with Peter’s Successor in Rome, are called to be a visible sign of God’s rock-like presence in the Universal Church and in each of their particular Churches.

Archbishop Becciu said if there were times when we wanted to protest our weakness to Christ, as Peter did, we must trust in the Lord’s unshakable promise to be with us always, to strengthen us in our mission as heralds of the Gospel and as shepherds of God’s faithful people.

He said, “The chapel we dedicate today is Peter’s house; it symbolises your unity and that of your local Churches with the Holy Father, whose ministry, as the successor of Peter, makes him the visible foundation and principle of the Church’s unity in faith: Petrus, ibi Ecclesia.”

He called on all to pray that the chapel and house, including all those who work and dwell here, will always be a sign of the Holy Father’s ministry of service to our communion in the Catholic Church.

“May this chapel, as the heart of the new Nunciature, be a source of spiritual light and strength to the Nuncio and his co-workers in their daily efforts to share with Peter’s Successor the challenges as well as the joys experienced by God’s People in your respective dioceses, and to transmit, in turn, the Holy Father’s pastoral concern and encouragement,” he said.

“In this way,” he said, “the presence of the Nunciature here can contribute to the unity the Bishops’ enjoy with the Pope, among themselves and with the clergy, religious and lay faithful of the local Churches.”

Archbishop Becciu continued saying, “May the blessing of this chapel be the occasion of a fresh outpouring of the Spirit’s gifts and the oil of his gladness anoint our lives and strengthen us in holiness and zeal for the apostolate.”

Before the final blessing Archbishop Becciu inaugurated the tabernacle and blessed the Stations of the Cross.

Article reproduced from Herald Malaysia online