Madrid, Spain, Feb 16, 2011 / 16:04 pm
Cardinal Lluis Martinez Sistach of Barcelona, Spain is exhorting Catholics to “love our holy Mother Church as we love our own mothers.”
In his weekly letter which will be published Feb. 20, Cardinal Sistach underscored the virtues of Blessed Francisco Palau of Spain, “who devoted himself with enthusiasm to the service of the Church because she was – for him – a loving and tender mother.”
The cardinal recalled that this year marks the bicentennial of the birth of Blessed Palau, the founder of the Teresian Carmelite Missionaries and the Carmelite Missionaries. He wrote that the blessed “was very conscious of the fact that by loving the Church, he was fulfilling the great Christian commandment to love God and neighbor.”
At a time of “religious indifference,” this awareness is crucial to preventing the spirit of evangelization from diminishing.