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While visiting with members of the Curia in Rome, President Michael F. McLean, Chairman of the Board of Governors R. Scott Turicchi, and Governor Lloyd Noble had the privilege of attending a Mass this morning offered by His Eminence Giovanni Cardinal Lajolo, President Emeritus of the Vatican City State. A friend of the College, Cardinal Lajolo visited the campus and presented a lecture in 2008. His homily is published below.

“In Christ, Life is Always Full and Always New”

Homily given by Giovanni Cardinal Lajolo
President Emeritus of Vatican City State
Chapel of the Choir, St. Peter’s Basilica
Vatican City

 

Dear friends of the Thomas Aquinas College in ����ӰԺ,

Click the above photo to see the Vatican’s virtual tour of the Chapel of the Choir in St. Peter’s Basilica.In the Collect for today’s Mass, we pray to almighty God, so that through the power of our risen Lord, the world may receive the gift He has pledged, the fullness of a new life.

In Christ, life is always full and always new: full, because in it nothing is lacking; new, because it is always youthful and looking forward.

The , which we just heard, offer us a model and help us to achieve this in our lives.

The Acts of the Apostles inform us that those who entered the faith after death on the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, were of one heart and one mind. This is an inherent grace of Christ himself, Who died and resurrected for us. Humanity today — lacerated and bloodied by fratricidal hatred — desperately needs this grace more than ever; the Church — which spreads across the world, in different cultures — more than ever today, must never forget its higher bonds of unity; our Nations, with their multiple problems, more than ever — as they search for solutions which divide citizens deeply. Our families need the grace of one heart and one mind more than ever, as they are called to be examples of longed-for unity, while facing daily struggles in complicated and unstable situations; and so too, your wonderful community of young students, as they are called to bring new light and harmony in today’s world and that of tomorrow.

Being of one heart and one mind means knowing how to accept, understand, and help one another; it means — even more so — being in unity for one higher common goal by which to live, love, and work.

And this is indicated to us by Jesus, our Lord and teacher. In the which we just heard, He says: “I tell you about heavenly things.…” This is the horizon, the new and supreme dimension which the Risen has opened for us. The “heavenly things” are certainly the great values to which we must aspire, that uplift humanity: because as the poet Goethe wrote: “We grow with our goals” (Es waechst der Mensch mit seinen Zielen).

Yet even higher and grander are the things that are truly divine. Above all the Father, for whom we dare call ourselves His children — and there is no greater honor, no greater task; Jesus, his first and only begotten Son, who died and resurrected for us, so His human and divine life could become our life; the Holy Spirit, light and force of truth and love, that unites us with God and with all men.

A “heavenly thing” is also being here together today, united in the love of God, under the eyes of his Mother and ours, Mary, with “one heart and one mind,” together with all the students, staff, faculty members and benefactors of Thomas Aquinas College.

We have prayed to the Father so that the world receive and manifest a new life in all its fullness. The word of God has indicated what this consists of. Let us ask with faith and gratitude, so that we ourselves may become instruments of this magnificent grace, which is part of our Easter joy.