Bishop Kevin Farrell

The Chief Shepherd of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas

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Meeting of Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill

February 9, 2016 By Bishop Kevin J. Farrell

Meeting of Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill

Unprecedented is the only word to describe the meeting in Havana on Friday, Feb. 12, between the primates of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches. Pope Francis will stop over at Havana en route to Mexico City. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill will be in the second day of a planned visit to three Latin American nations. St. John Paul II first expressed hope for such a meeting shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union and similar hopes have been expressed by both Pope Emeritus Benedict and Pope Francis.

The two-hour conversation at the Havana airport will be the first time that primates of the two churches have met. Officials at the Moscow Patriarchate reported that the persecution of Christians would be the central theme of the discussion. Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholics have borne the brunt of Christian persecution and oppression in the Middle East. The meeting will conclude with the signing of a joint declaration.

Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, director of foreign relations for the Moscow Patriarchate, told reporters, “The statement will not be of a theological nature since that dialogue takes place in the framework of the International Commission for Dialogue between the Catholic Church and all the Orthodox Churches.” Instead, he says, it will be a declaration on different aspects of collaboration and testimony that the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church can give in our world today. These may include the problem of persecuted Christians in the Middle East, secularization, the protection of life, marriage, the family and other issues of shared concern.

Dominican Father Hyacinthe Destivelle, who is in charge of relations with the Slavic Orthodox Churches at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, stated, “The role of the meeting is within the framework of the dialogue of charity since Pope Francis has often said he is willing to promote a culture of encounter, especially in this Jubilee Year of Mercy – adding, there will be no unity without mercy.”

Meeting of the primates in Havana will mark an important stage in relations between the two churches, which have experienced tension due to the Russian Orthodox claims of Catholic proselytism and the matter of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, which left Orthodoxy in 1595 and restored communion with Rome. Patriarch Kirill brought extensive ecumenical experience to the Russian Patriarchy and has long been seen as more open to closer relations with Rome and other Christian churches.

Separation of Rome from the Orthodox patriarchate in the East occurred in 1054, in the Great Schism. Several attempts at reconciliation failed. Prince Vladimir I (St. Vladimir) of Kiev, whose grandmother had been baptized in Constantinople, was baptized in the Byzantine rite in 988 and led Russia into Eastern Christianity. The Russian Orthodox Church became autocephalous (independent) in 1589.

Father Destivelle also noted that “Beyond an encounter between two Christian leaders, the February meeting also signals a significant and historic move toward wider Christian unity between the long-separated Eastern and Western churches.” The warming of relations began with St. John XXIII inviting Orthodox observers to Vatican II. They were significantly improved by the meeting of Blessed Pope Paul VI with Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in Jerusalem in 1964–the first such meeting since 1438. About 20 such encounters have since occurred, culminating in a close friendship between Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew, the current ecumenical patriarch.

This is also an historic time for Orthodoxy because in June the first synod meeting of the various Orthodox churches in more 1,000 years will take place in Crete.

Please join me in praying for God’s blessing on the primates’ meeting in Havana and on the continuing steps toward unity.

Filed Under: In the News Tagged With: Pope Francis, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill

The responsibility of wealth

June 6, 2015 By Bishop Kevin J. Farrell

The responsibility of wealth

Pope Francis, an avid fan of soccer, offered some comments about corruption this week that were particularly timely in light of the FIFA scandals that are very much in the news.

“The attachment to riches is the beginning of all kinds of corruption, everywhere: personal corruption, corruption in business, even small commercial bribery, the kind that shortchanges you at the counter, political corruption, corruption in education … Why? Because those who live attached to their own power, their own wealth, they believe they’re in heaven. They are closed; they have no horizon, no hope. Eventually they will have to leave everything.”

It is important to note that the Holy Father is not condemning wealth but the dangers attached to it. He continued in his homily, “I say ‘attachment,’ I am not saying ‘good administration of one’s riches’, because riches are for the common good, for everyone. And if the Lord gives them to one person it is so that they are used for the good of all, not for oneself, not so they are closed in one’s heart, which then becomes corrupt and sad.”

In our nation we have examples of great philanthropy on the part of some of our wealthiest citizens. We also have examples of the use of wealth to attempt to manipulate sports, markets and politics for personal financial gain or power.

As the Holy Father observes, “Riches have the ability to seduce, to take us to a seduction and make us believe that we are in a paradise on earth … and makes believe that we are powerful, like God.”

Let us reflect upon Paul’s reminder to Timothy, “…we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it.”

—

Image credit: Tracy O on Flickr

Filed Under: Pope Francis Tagged With: FIFA, Pope Francis, Wealth

Becoming missionaries of Hope

March 21, 2015 By Bishop Kevin J. Farrell

Becoming missionaries of Hope

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13

Pope Francis warns us to not let ourselves be robbed of hope. Despair is the thief of hope. It is a time of desolation when we have lost sight of God. He has not abandoned us, but the scales of self-pity have covered our eyes.” Without hope, we are sucked deeper and deeper into the quicksand of despair.

Desmond Tutu wrote, “Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” Hope strips the scales from our eyes. The quicksand becomes a rock. As the Holy Father reminds us, “Our hope rests upon an immovable rock: God’s love, revealed and given in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” Hope is much more than optimism, it is confidence in the Lord and his promises, as St. Paul writes, it is a virtue of ardent expectation (Rom 5:5) based on the Resurrection.

In April of 2013, Pope Francis charged young people to become missionaries of hope. His words speak to all of us: “I say to you: carry this certainty ahead: the Lord is alive and walks beside you through life. This is your mission! Carry this hope onward. May you be anchored to this hope: this anchor which is in heaven; hold the rope firmly, be anchored and carry hope forward. You, witnesses of Jesus, pass on the witness that Jesus is alive and this will give us hope, it will give hope to this world, which has aged somewhat, because of wars, because of evil and because of sin.

To sow hope where there is despair, answer the Holy Father’s challenge. Become  missionaries of hope, proclaiming that Christ is alive and will come again.

Filed Under: Being Catholic Tagged With: Pope Francis, Prayer of Peace

Pope Francis proclaims a Holy Year of Mercy

March 13, 2015 By Bishop Kevin J. Farrell

Pope Francis proclaims a Holy Year of Mercy

In a surprise statement at the conclusion of his homily Friday, Pope Francis proclaimed an extraordinary Jubilee; a Year to be called a Holy Year of Mercy beginning next December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. It will end on the Feast of Christ the King, November 20, 2016.

Expressing his intention that the Holy Year of Mercy might begin “a new stage in the journey of the Church on its mission to bring to every person the Gospel of mercy,” adding ” We want to live this Year in the light of the Lord’s words: ‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.'” (cf. Lk 6:36)

Mercy has been the emphasis of the Holy Father’s papacy and although the announcement of a Holy Year was unexpected, the choice of Mercy as its central theme is not. The Pope concluded, “I am convinced that the whole Church will find in this Jubilee the joy needed to rediscover and make fruitful the mercy of God, with which all of us are called to give consolation to every man and woman of our time. From this moment, we entrust this Holy Year to the Mother of Mercy, that she might turn her gaze upon us and watch over our journey.

A Holy Year is a year of special blessings and includes special events in Rome beginning with the opening of the Holy Doors at St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 8, which are only opened during Jubilee Years. There will be special observances in the Diocese of Dallas at the Cathedral and in our parishes, to be announced.

I ask each of you to join your prayers with the Holy Fathers that this will indeed be a year of special blessings and an increase in the proclamation and application of God’s merciful love.

Filed Under: Being Catholic Tagged With: Holy Year of Mercy, Pope Francis

Bringing pardon where there is injury

March 7, 2015 By Bishop Kevin J. Farrell

Bringing pardon where there is injury

The teaching of Christ requires that we forgive injuries, and extends the law of love to include every enemy, (Matt. 5:43-44) yet to forgive for many of us is both difficult and onerous. I suspect our emotional struggle with a bruised ego is the principal reason

On the other hand forgiveness is liberating for both the forgiver and the forgiven. It is a double blessing. Shakespeare put it well: “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” (Merchant of Venice)

Forgiveness is an action that flows from the virtue of mercy which St. Thomas Aquinas deemed the greatest of virtues because the others revolve around it. Jesus commands us to be merciful as the Father is merciful. (Luke 6:36)

Of course, it is often as difficult to ask forgiveness as to give it. Once again our egos are involved, as well as guilt and shame. Beyond that is the often seeming inability to forgive ourselves.

We are reminded at the consecration at every Mass that Jesus shed his blood for the forgiveness of our sins. (Matt. 26:28) To deny forgiveness is an affront to God the great reconciler.

In one of his first homilies after being elected, Pope Francis said, “The joy of God is the joy of forgiveness.”

To bring pardon where there is injury is to spread the joy of God.

Filed Under: Being Catholic Tagged With: Pope Francis, Prayer of Peace

Sowing the love of God

February 28, 2015 By Bishop Kevin J. Farrell

Sowing the love of God

In the Peace Prayer of St. Francis the various couplets following our request to be made God’s instrument as we discussed in our last blog, are a litany of those elements necessary for peace; love, pardon, faith, hope, light and joy—”but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:13)

Our verse this week is on love because it is the cornerstone of peace. It is also the antithesis of hatred to which it is closely related as is true of antithetical terms, which are defined by each other. For example, darkness is the absence of light.

Poetess Etla Wheeler Wilcox penned the line, “Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes.” Hate destroys, love gives life. Hatred and love cannot co-exist. Jesus commands us that we are to “love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12). One who loves unconditionally, as God loves us, cannot hate.

Hatred has many faces. Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel professes that “the opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference,” which he characterizes as, “the epitome of evil.” Indeed, Pope Francis has been an outspoken critic of the “globalization of indifference,” which has replaced love and mercy with “an economic system that has removed the person from the centre and replaced him with the god of money; an economic system that excludes, and creates the throwaway culture in which we live.”

We sow love by our witness, acts of kindness, compassion, mercy, consideration shown to others. Love is contagious. The Holy Father observed that “Goodness always tends to spread. Every authentic experience of truth and goodness seeks by its very nature to grow within us, and any person who has experienced a profound liberation becomes more sensitive to the needs of others. As it expands, goodness takes root and develops. If we wish to lead a dignified and fulfilling life, we have to reach out to others and seek their good” (EG 9). Just as “the love of Christ urges us on” (2 Cor 5:14), our acts of love impel others, for God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them. (1 John 4:16)

—

Image Credit: USDA on Flickr

Filed Under: Being Catholic Tagged With: Lent, Pope Francis, Prayer of Peace, St. Francis of Assisi

Becoming an instrument of God’s peace

February 26, 2015 By Bishop Kevin J. Farrell

Becoming an instrument of God's peace

The Peace Prayer of St. Francis begins with a plea that God use us as his instrument. An instrument is something that is used to accomplish a greater purpose than is inherently possible in and of itself. A flute is a device that must be used to be an instrument, such as when it is used by James Galway to make magical music. Mary became the instrument used by God to accomplish the Incarnation.

In praying the Peace Prayer we are asking God to change us, to “make us” which implies we are asking to be changed, to move in a new direction; to experience what the early Church called metanoia, a Greek word meaning changing one’s mind. Our Christian ancestors used it to refer to conversion.

Conversion is always the work of the Holy Spirit, even the grace, the nudge to consider the idea, is from the Spirit. When we ask Jesus to change us into his instrument, what are we asking for? The answer is provided in an old hymn written in 1926 by David Iverson called Spirit of the Living God. Here are the lyrics that describe what we are requesting when we ask to be made into Jesus’ instrument.

Spirit of the living God,
Fall afresh on me.
Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the living God,
Fall afresh on me.

If I may borrow from the 12 Steps Program, it means to “let go and let God.” Conversion is at the heart of Christian Faith. On Ash Wednesday we were charged to “repent and believe in the Gospel.” (Mark 1:15)

The Holy Spirit calls us in many voices. One of those voices we are hearing a lot lately is that of Our Holy Father Pope Francis, who in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium wrote, “The new evangelization calls on every baptized person to be a peacemaker and a credible witness to a reconciled life.” (EG  239)

What habit, what opinion contrary to the Gospel, what withheld forgiveness must we surrender to the cauldron of conversion this Lent to allow ourselves to be melted, molded, and filled? What must we change to become an instrument of God’s peace?

—

Image credit: “IU Violin Shop” by Austin Davis on Flickr

Filed Under: Being Catholic Tagged With: Lent, Pope Francis, St. Francis of Assisi

The Prayer of St. Francis and the writings of Pope Francis

February 22, 2015 By Bishop Kevin J. Farrell

The Prayer of St. Francis and the writings of Pope Francis

Let us begin with The Peace Prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

The Prayer for Peace attributed to St. Francis of Assisi has attained great popularity among both Christians and non-Christians. Although the prayer was not written by St. Francis, it reflects his writings and the witness of his life and has been widely published including in Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

Franciscan Father Albert Haase notes in his brief book on the Peace Prayer, Instruments of Christ, that “It has been prayed in formal settings such as the United States Senate and the inauguration of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister of England. It has also been prayed in times of sorrow such as the funerals of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Princess Diana of Wales….the Peace Prayer is truly a prayer for all times and for all peoples.” As Father Haase observes that is probably because “Its words carry the entire weight of the teachings of Jesus.”

Since Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio became the first pope to take the name of Francis, similarities in style and substance between Pope Francis and St. Francis of Assisi have become apparent, especially the simplicity of lifestyle, commitment to the marginalized and calling us all to return to the foundational teachings of Jesus.

In our blogs during Lent, we will reflect on the similar ways that the basic teachings of Jesus are presented in the Prayer of St. Francis and the writings of Pope Francis, particularly in his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium.

—

Image Credit: Pope Francis kisses a hand-carved figure of St. Francis of Assisi that was given to him as he greeted patients, family members and staff at St. Francis of Assisi Hospital in Rio de Janeiro July 24. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) (July 24, 2013)

Filed Under: Being Catholic Tagged With: Lent, Peace Prayer, Pope Francis, St. Francis of Assis

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About Bishop Farrell

Bishop Kevin Joseph Farrell was appointed Seventh Bishop of Dallas on March 6, 2007 by Pope Benedict XVI.
   
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