Birthday gift for Cardinal Rosales:
Conference on Paschal Mystery

On the day that the Clergy of Manila feted him on his 74th birthday on the feast of Mary’s Assumption on August 15 at the Arzobispado de Manila chapel, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales asked for one gift: that his priests listen to his homily/conference on the Paschal Mystery.

"I was told by the organizers of this celebration that I have the liberty to talk about the Paschal mystery which is actually part of our vision,” the Cardinal said, “so this is your birthday gift to me.”

Cardinal Rosales spent his birthday on August 10, in retreat which is his custom. He returned to Manila on Saturday, Aug. 12.

The topic of the “Paschal Mystery” is part of the on-going catechesis on the Vision of the Archdiocese of Manila. The conference he gave to the priests was an expansion of the First Saturday on the Vision he gave to laypeople and religious on August 5,

Also present during the Mass and Conference on August 15 were Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez of the Diocese of Kalookan, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Bernardino Cortez, and employees at the Arzobispado de Manila.

The Cardinal said that the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a “beautiful occasion to go through that phrase (Paschal Mystery) in our apostolic vision.” “Our Blessed Mother had her fill of disappointments and pain, and the death of her son. At the end of course, she showed that fullness that the Lord had promised, the Resurrection, the triumph, the victory of her Son Jesus, so much so that in the fullness of that experience, she lived the pain, the death, and the resurrection of her son Jesus herself, and was assumed into heaven, crowning her experience and the experience of her son,” he said.

The Paschal Mystery, the Cardinal said, is a crossing over that involves three stages: suffering, death, new life. To understand it fully is difficult but once a person understood it, he or she must live it.

Full text of conference: LIVING THE PASCHAL MYSTERY, click here