VATICAN CITY, NOV 5, 2002 (VIS) - Mass was celebrated this morning in St.Peter's Basilica for the cardinals, archbishops and bishops who died over the past 12 months. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, secretary of state, was the main celebrant and Pope John Paul delivered the homily.
Noting that today's Mass closely follows upon the solemnity of All Saints and the commemoration of All Souls, the Pope said that these feasts "stimulate in the faithful an intense and widespread climate of prayer," a climate "in which the consoling certainty of the communion of saints lessens the pain, which never disappears entire, for those persons who have died."
Pope John Paul stated that he was "linked by bonds of deep friendship to many of the deceased prelates" and named in particular the cardinals who died this year: Paolo Bertoli, Franjo Kuharic, Louis-Marie Bille, Alexandru Todea, Johannes Joachim Degenhardt, Lucas Moreira Neves, Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan and John Baptist Wu Cheng-Chung.
He recalled that there was a day in which each of the deceased prelates, "fresh with energy, pronounced his 'Here I am!' at the moment of priestly ordination. ... At the hour of death they pronounced their final 'Here I am', joined to that of Christ who died entrusting His spirit into the hands of the Father."
John Paul II recalled that the deceased commemorated today "were pastors of Christ's flock. ... Through their preaching, they instilled in the hearts of the faithful the disconcerting yet consoling truth of God's love. ... In the name of the God of love, their hands blessed, their words comforted, their presence - sometimes silent - witnessed with eloquence that God's mercy is endless, that His compassion is tireless."
"Several of them," the Pope affirmed, "had the grace of offering this witness in a heroic way, facing harsh trials and inhuman persecutions."
HML;REMEMBRANCE DECEASED PRELATES;...;...;VIS;20021105;Word: 310;
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