FRANCIS CARDINAL ARINZE 
at Georgetown University
Vital Statistics:
|
Date |
Age |
Event |
Title |
|
|
Present Age: 72 |
Born |
Eziowelle |
|
|
26 |
Ordained Priest |
Priest |
|
|
32 |
Appointed |
Coadjutor Archbishop, |
|
|
32 |
Ordained Bishop |
Coadjutor Archbishop, |
|
|
34 |
Appointed |
Archbishop, |
|
|
52 |
Resigned, Appointed |
Pro-Prefect, Interreligious Dialogue,
Roman Curia |
|
25 May 1985 |
52 |
Elevated to Cardinal |
|
|
27 May 1985 |
52 |
Appointed |
President of Interreligious Dialogue,
Roman Curia |
|
|
69 |
Appointed |
Prefect, Sacred Congregation of Divine Worship
and Discipline of the Sacraments, Roman Curia |
Francis Cardinal Arinze at
Francis Cardinal Arinze delivered
the commencement address at
graduation ceremonies at
The
Cardinal invited the graduates to:
"Allow serious religion to lead you to
lasting joy."
He
continued:
"Happy
parents and friends surround their loved ones. With them I say: Let us thank God
for the gift of the family. The Company of Jesus, the Jesuits, initiated and
nourished this university. With them I
rejoice at the patrimony of St. Ignatius and especially that the Catholic
Church is God's gift to the world. To all I say:
“Arise, rejoice! God is calling you.”
"My
dear graduates, at this turning point in your lives, it is helpful to keep to
essentials. One of them is to locate in what happiness consists. Everyone wants
to be happy. Every human being desires lasting joy. True happiness does not
consist in the accumulation of goods: money, cars or houses. Nor is it to be
found in pleasure-seeking: eating, drinking, sex. And humans do not attain lasting joy by
power-grabbing, dominating others, or heaping up public acclaim. These three things, good in themselves when
properly sought, were not able to confer on Solomon perfect happiness. And they
will not be able to confer it on anyone else! Happiness is attained by
achieving the purpose of our earthly existence. God made me to know Him, to
love Him, to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the
next.
“You have made us for yourself, and our heart
is restless until it rests in you.”
"My
religion guides and helps me toward this. My Catholic faith puts me in contact
with Jesus Christ, Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. God's grace helps
me to live on earth in such a way as to attain the purpose of my earthly
existence.
"My
dear graduates, allow your religion to give your life its essential and major
orientation In our lives, religion is not something marginal, peripheral,
additional, optional. My Catholic faith
gives meaning and a sense of direction to my life. It gives it unity. Without
it my life would be like an agglomeration of scattered mosaics. It is my
religion, for example, that inspires my profession that teaches me that there is more happiness
in giving than in receiving that helps me to appreciate that to reach the height
of my growth potential, I must learn to give of myself to others as I practice
my profession as lawyer, doctor, air hostess, congress member, or priest.
"Allow
your religion to give life, joy, generosity, and a sense of solidarity to your
professional and social engagements. In a world of religious plurality, you
will of course learn to cooperate with people of other religious convictions.
True religion teaches not exclusion, rivalry, tension, conflict, or violence,
but rather openness, esteem, respect, and harmony. At the same time you should keep intact your
religious identity, your distinction as a witness of Jesus Christ.
"Thank God for the gift of the family. As I see joy and just pride reflected on the
faces of the parents and friends of these graduates, I think of God's goodness
in giving the gift of the family to humanity. It is God Himself who willed that
a man and a woman should come to establish a permanent bond in marriage.
Marriage gives rise to the family. In this fundamental cell of society, love
grows. There the exercise of sexuality has its correct locus. There human maturity is nurtured. There new
life utters its first cry and later smiles at the parents. There the child is
first introduced to religion. Is it any wonder that the Second
"In many parts of the world, the family is
under siege. It is opposed by an anti-life mentality as is seen in
contraception, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. It is scorned and
banalized by pornography, desecrated by fornication and adultery, mocked by
homosexuality, sabotaged by irregular unions, and cut in two by divorce.
"But the family has friends too. It is
nourished by mutual love, strengthened by sacrifice, and healed
by forgiveness and reconciliation.
"The family is blessed with new life, kept
united by family prayer, and given a model in the Holy Family of
"It is a joy, an honor, and a responsibility
to belong to the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. This Mystical Body
of Christ, this largest of all religious families that ever existed, is the
divinely set up family for all peoples, languages and cultures. This Church has
produced saints from every state of life, men and women who, open to God's
grace, have become signs of hope. But this same Church also has sinners in her
fold. Far from discouraging and rejecting them, the Church offers them hope,
wholesome Gospel teaching, saving sacraments, and the invitation to abandon the
food of pigs, make a U-turn, and return to the refreshing joy of their Father's
house, like the prodigal son.
"This Church has inherited from Christ, the Apostles,
and her living Tradition, a non-negotiable body of doctrine on faith and
morals. The tenets of the Catholic faith do not change according to the play of
market forces, majority votes, or opinion polls:
“Jesus
Christ is the same today as He was yesterday and as He will be forever.”
(Cf.
Hebrews 13:8)
"This is the Church which St. Ignatius invites
all his spiritual children to love and cherish. This is the Church to which we
have the joy to belong."
Praised he Jesus Christ!
Now and forever!
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