Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Cardinal Ivan Dias the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples presided a solemn concelebration of the Eucharist in the chapel of the Pontifical Urban College on June 19th the 25th anniversary of his ordination as a Bishop. “I thank the Holy Father for his message- said Cardinal Dias in his homily - and I thank the Lord for all that he has given me in these twenty five years of Episcopate”. Addressing the representatives of the various realities which refer to the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples who filled the chapel the Cardinal said: “You are the extended family which the Lord has given to me" and he encouraged them to live and work in a spirit of family.
Looking back at the 25 years Cardinal Dias said he had “learned many lessons” especially in his service at Nunciatures in different parts of the world, and that he had seen the suffering of many people who, despite tribulation, demonstrated great faith in the Lord. In particular, he recalled a visit he made to a centre for people with leprosy in Togo, where the lepers lived with their Bishop: “As they came full of joy to meet me they said: we have no eyes, no hands, no feet and yet we thank the Lord for all that he has given us compared to what he has taken away”. And he Ghana he told how miners struggle to extract only 10 grams of gold from a ton of earth. Cardinal Dias concluded his homily asking everyone to pray for this anniversary and for the years which the Lord has reserved for him in the future: “ I place these 25 years of Episcopal ministry in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, because Mary has sealed the whole of my Episcopate, and with her I say again to the Lord: I am your servant as my bishop's motto says”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 20/6/2007; righe 22, parole 328)
