FORMATION PROGRAM FOR PAPAL VISIT 2015 PRENOTES:

These are 4 sessions designed as 1.5 hour sessions for small group settings, such as BECs or church groups and organizations. It will be good to prepare facilitators for these sessions. It will be good to print it book-form to facilitate use. Please read through to prepare materials beforehand.

These can also be used for Sunday masses to prepare for the Pope’s visit. Please put it in appropriate place in the liturgy (before entrance procession? After communion? Takes the place of the homily?). It will be good to dramatize the ‘LIFE’ part or put in power point presentation. The ‘Word of Life’ can be done by a layperson; the Teaching by the priest.

This can also be produced as comics. Maybe the facilitator acts as the main comic character who guides the readers through the sessions.

SESSION 3: THE POPE AND THE PHILIPPINE CHURCH INTRODUCTION: Greetings

Opening prayer/song This is our third session to prepare for the Papal visit which is just in two months' time! In the first two sessions, we got to know more about Pope Francis. In this session, we want to focus on his visit to our country. Why don't we role play this visit? Let us imagine: if Pope Francis is coming to the country, what do you want him to see? LIFE: Put people in small groups. Give each group 3-5 placards. Ask them to write in the placards what they want Pope Francis to see, to notice, to observe when he comes to the Philippines. After 10 minutes of preparation, do the role playing: someone dresses up as Pope Francis and as he passes by, people will be shouting and greeting him and showing their placards to him. After the role playing, ask other questions in plenary:

1. How did you feel about the role play? 2. What kind of things do we want the Pope to notice about our country? 3. How do you feel about these things that we want the Pope to notice about our country?

Why do you feel that way? WORD OF LIFE:

It is a good time to reflect about the Pope’s visit to the country as we celebrate in a few days a very special feast of our Church – the Feast of Christ the King. This is a good time not just to talk about Pope Francis but to enter more deeply into prayer as we focus on the Leader that Pope Francis follows, the Leader that all of us are following, namely Jesus. Getting to know Pope Francis hopefully has inspired us even more to love and follow Jesus. Let us take a text that tells us who Jesus the King is. Perhaps we will recognize in this text the person of Pope Francis as we have known him as a faithful follower of Jesus. Read Matthew 25: 31-46. Read dialogically – one group as translator, one group as Jesus, one group as ‘people on the left’ and one group as ‘people on the right’. A few moments of silence…

Praying The Word: Bring out Manila papers with title placards – ‘hungry’, ‘thirsty’, ‘naked’, ‘in prison’. Ask people to put cutouts (from newspapers, if facilitator can provide) or draw or write words on the Manila paper where they find hungry, thirsty, naked, prisoners in our society today. After 20 minutes of doing so, do a gallery walk. Ask people to walk around the Manila paper collage and silently reflect on these situations in our society.

After a few minutes of gallery walk, a reflection follows. Let us reflect in a deeper way about these posters. Perhaps, these are not just situations in

our society, but they could also be situations about us. Perhaps we too hunger. We too thirst for something. We too feel naked. We too are in some sort of prison or another. Let us reflect in a few moments of silence, where among these situations do we feel we can relate with?

Let us have a few moments of silence while people walk around. Meditative music helps.

When people have found their place among the posters, reflect… Let us spend a few more moments of silence where you find yourself in. Why are we here?

How did we get here? What is God teaching us in this situation? After a few moments of silence…invite people who are standing on the same placard title to

share briefly why they are standing in that place…Share only in groups of 3s or 4s. Give 15-20 minutes for sharing.

After sharing, ask people to link hands. Ask them to pray silently for the people on their left,

then for people on their right. Then the facilitator finishes the prayer by praying spontaneously for healing for all. End the prayer with an appropriate song.

Sacrament of Reconciliation (If it is possible…)

Maybe we have also been the cause why some people are hungry, thirsty, naked or in prison. Let us spend a few moments reflecting on these: Have we been the cause why some people – in our own family, in our office, in school, in our neighborhood, in our society – are hungry, thirsty, naked, in prison? Some moments of silence, meditative music helps….

Sacrament of Reconciliation follows…If there is no priest available, perhaps a simple ritual of asking for forgiveness can follow. Teaching:

Our prayerful reflection on this beautiful gospel prepares us inwardly for the Papal Visit because the theme of his visit is “Mercy and Compassion”. (This teaching is lifted from “Pastoral letter to Prepare the People of God for the Apostolic Visit of Pope Francis” issued in the name of

the Bishops by CBCP President Archbishop Socrates Villegas). “The underlying spirit of this Papal visit is the theme of ‘mercy and compassion’. Our

compassionate shepherd comes to show his deep concern for our people who have gone through devastating calamities, especially in the Visayas. He comes to confirm us in our faith as we face the challenges of witnessing to the joy of the Gospel in the midst of our trials.

From Pope Francis’ teaching, two aspects of mercy may be singled out: The mercy and

patience of God towards sinners are made manifest in Jesus. “God is there always, always waiting for us; he never grows tired. Jesus shows us the merciful patience of God.” And “this patience of God calls forth in us the courage to return to him, however many the sins and mistakes there may be in our lives.”

Secondly, we encounter Jesus in living out his own compassion and mercy towards our

brothers and sisters in need and poverty, in suffering, loneliness, in hopelessness. “To meet the living God, we must tenderly kiss the wounds of Jesus in our hungry people, in the sick and in imprisoned brothers and sisters. Like the apostle Thomas, our life will only be changed when we touch Christ’s wound present in the poor, the sick, the needy. The path to our encounter with Jesus is his wounds. There is no other.” LIVE: Let us continue preparing for the visit of Pope Francis through our acts of mercy and compassion. Perhaps the best way also to worship and hail Christ as our King is to imitate what he did. Can we think of someone we know (or even strangers) who are hungry, thirsty, naked, in prison and what can we do for them as our way of witnessing that Christ is our King? Spend a few moments of silence to reflect on our responses…after a few minutes, bring the group into a closing prayer where the facilitator invites people to pray spontaneously for other people they want to reach out to or for graces they need to be able to respond to such a challenge. End with an appropriate closing song.

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