“If I live only to earn money, to have a good time, to gain a bit of prestige or a promotion in my work, I am living for dust,” said Pope Francis. “Even in the Church, the house of God, we have let so much dust collect, the dust of worldliness. Let us look inside, into our hearts: how many times do we extinguish the fire of God with the ashes of hypocrisy!”
The Bishop of Daejeon looks at the situation in South Korea which just had its largest one-day increase. For the Church, scaremongering is feeding fear. All 16 dioceses have suspended open Masses. A pseudo-Christian sect is one of the sources of the outbreak. Some of its members were in the epicentre of the outbreak in China.
For Fr Paul Thabit Mekko, solidarity is the "key word" that inspires deeds and actions among the faithful concerned not only for the local reality, but also the whole country. In Karamles a new community centre will see the day by Easter, providing as place to meet and share. Hope for a new model of living together is rising in Mosul, once an IS stronghold.
Lent “is the time to turn off the television and open the Bible. It is the time to disconnect from smart phones and connect to the Gospel." "It is time to give up useless words, chatter, rumors, gossip, and give yourself to the Lord . It is the time to devote yourself to a healthy heart ecology. To clean. We live in an environment polluted by too much verbal violence, by many offensive and harmful words, which the network amplifies. Today insults are as commonplace as saying 'hello'. We are inundated with empty words, with advertisements, with subtle messages”.
The president of the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences released a letter on the Covid-19 emergency. In it he writes that “Natural disasters, pandemics are grim reminder of our restricted existence. We are powerless in the face of a invisible microbe attack despite stockpiling lethal arsenal of arms.”
In his Lenten Letter, the apostolic administrator of Hong Kong refers to wilderness and temptation in the distrust of people after the battle against the extradition bill. Many acts of selfishness have occurred alongside many acts of “generosity” by those who treat the sick and donate surgical masks and supplies "to those in need". Lent is a "training school”.