MESSAGES

ARQUIDIOCESE PRIMACIAL                                                      ARCHBISHOP’S HOUSE

                  DE                                                                      P.O. BOX NO. 216

        GOA E DAMÃO                                                       Panjim- 403 001

          PATRIARCAL                                                                     GOA-INDIA

                DAS                                                                    

  INDIAS ORIENTAIS                                                     

                                                                                               

         

M E S S A G E

(sent by e-mail)

As I write these words, I am watching, through the Eternal Word Television Network, the children of the world bowing profoundly before JESUS in the Blessed Sacrament, in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC. And to know that they are being joined by children worldwide -- including in my own diocese – fills me with an overwhelming, inner joy!  Could there be anything more beautiful than this?

JESUS in the Gospel has a special predilection for the little ones. So has Mary, His Mother, and she has consistently shown this in the course of history. Jesus and Mary seem to entrust to children the problems of the humankind and of the Church. And when children pray, with the simple and complete trust that can be only theirs, their faces are adorned with a special glow that leads, nay, drags onlookers to experience the Divine.

Let us entrust the children of the world with those things that worry us most and we shall receive the “consolation of the incomparable victory of their precious prayers!” (Pope Benedict XV, at an audience to children, in  July 1916).  And may their angels intercede for us all and lead us to the Bosom of the Holy Trinity!

Archbishop’s House, Panjim. Goa, October 6, 2006.

               Sd/-

+ Filipe Neri Ferrao

Archbishop of Goa and Daman (India)