Prelate Focused on Marriage and Eucharist During Trip
ROME, OCT. 2, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments said he noted that priests and laypeople in the United States have a desire for ongoing formation.
Cardinal Francis Arinze said that today on Vatican Radio, speaking about his recent trip to Colorado and Kentucky.
The trip was sponsored by Legatus, an association of Catholic business leaders, founded by Tom Monaghan.
Cardinal Arinze said he spoke with the U.S. faithful about the importance of knowing the Creator's design for marriage.
"If the family is OK, if marriage is established according to the Creator’s laws, there is hope for the Church and society," the cardinal said. "Otherwise we are in trouble, because all of us come from a family."
The 74-year-old prelate said he spoke about the "importance of looking at the Creator’s 'instructions.' For example, if someone buys a computer, they read the instructions of who made it. If someone buys an airplane, it is in his best interest to follow the instructions of who built the plane."
"If we look at marriage and family, we see that they are not invented by man," he continued. "The Creator is God and if we want we want them to function well, we must follow the Creator’s 'instructions.' In this way we will be on the right path, because God knows what is good for us.
"Church doctrine is nothing more than explaining the Ten Commandments, explaining human nature created by God, elevated to the state of grace by Christ the redeemer.
"The sacrament of matrimony becomes for Christians an elevation of that natural contract between a man and a woman: This definition cannot be 'rewritten' by us because the Lord has written it."
Central place
Cardinal Arinze led reflections for the priests of the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky, on a three-day formation retreat.
"Their focus was on the liturgy and the Eucharist," he said, "and they asked me to guide their reflections for two days: talking, making propositions beginning with the place occupied by the liturgy in our ecclesial life and in the personal life of Christians and priests, and then the central place of the most holy Eucharist in the life of the Church, of which it is the center and summit."
Cardinal Arinze added: "The life of the Church and all of the other sacraments and all of our efforts, our apostolic initiatives, center around the Eucharist.
"The priest must have a good relationship with Jesus in the most holy Eucharist, which is a sacrifice on one hand and a sacrament on the other.
"In this way, in the sacrifice of the Mass, the Eucharist never ends, it is a continuous sacrament."
The Vatican official encouraged visits to the Eucharist and doing hours of adoration. He suggested perpetual adoration chapels as well. "Why not? It is already being done in many places," he said.
He further encouraged the veneration and adoration of the Eucharist in processions, Benediction and Eucharistic congresses, and highlighted the importance of Benedict XVI's postsynodal apostolic exhortation "Sacramentum Caritatis."
ZE07100206 - 2007-10-02