Cardinal Jose Advincula of Manila called on Filipinos in the United States to be agents of communion and solidarity with all people.
Addressing a group of Marian devotees in New Jersey on August 6, the prelate asked the faithful to let their devotion shape or even set the mission of their everyday life.
“With Mary as our Queen of Peace, let reconciliation and solidarity win over our political, regional and economic divisions,” said Cardinal Advincula.
The cardinal was the guest speaker of a gathering held in the city’s Edison district that was hosted by the Devotees of Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag-New Jersey.
With the recently-concluded observance of 500 years of the arrival of Christianity in the Philippines, Filipino Catholics are more challenged “to be missionaries in our own ways,” said Cardinal Advincula.
“With our vibrant Filipino Christian faith, I pray that each of us may courageously and devotedly live out and witness to our Christian faith in whatever circumstance we find ourselves in,” he said.
He also encouraged the Filipino faithful to be “bearers of life and hope” to others, especially those “who feel alone, abandoned or alienated.”
“Let us bear Christ to one another, especially those among us who are forlorn, discouraged, and distressed,” said the Manila prelate.
The cardinal served in at least three parishes in New Jersey when he was a young priest in the 1980s.
In 1984, he served at St. Cecilia Parish Church-Kearny. In 1985 to 1989, he was at the St. Mary’s Immaculate Conception Parish Church-Jersey City, and in 1988 at the Star of the Sea Parish Church in Long Branch.
