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from Robert Tyrała

John Paul II the great friend of Pueri Cantores!

2011-05-21

Rome-Kraków 13^th May 2011
30^th  Anniversary of John Paul II’s Assassination Attempt
 
 
Dear Pueri Cantores,
 
On 1^st May 2011 at the St. Peter’s Square in Rome His Holiness Benedict XVI beatified his predecessor and the great friend of Pueri Cantores, John Paul II. Since that day we have been officially permitted to pray to him for intercession and call him Blessed. Joseph Ma Torrents and I attended the ceremony of beatification on behalf of our Pueri Cantores family.
Who the Blessed John Paul II was to us? Who is he for us now? We are all aware that it is not easy to answer these questions, for each of us has had our own feelings and views connected with the newly beatified. Indeed, besides many official meetings of Pueri Cantores with John Paul II to have been taken place during our Congresses in Rome, each of us had our own, private encounters with him, experienced some things known only to our hearts, our personal but of life-importance thoughts and messages or very brief moments at his presence.  And no matter what our meetings with him looked like we can say with absolute certainty that we knew a holy man, that we experienced his love until the end, that we could see his joy and caring for every man, his wisdom and God’s grace acting in him. We could encounter through him, as if in a living icon, God Himself.  This Pope was given to us so as to remind us of God. Thus he became a peculiar herald of Him. The Gospel preached by John Paul II has again spread onto every nook and corner of the world. It has reached us anew, as well. For John Paul II preached, also to Pueri Cantores, the undying truths, not of his own and not of people’s, but the truths coming from God. Let us now stop to ponder about some of the words he addressed to us.
In 1993 John Paul II said to Pueri Cantores: “I also wish to express my gratitude to the choir directors and other musicians who devote themselves with such generosity and love to training these young singers. Your work demands long hours of practice and great patience, as you strive to foster the natural talents which God has given your pupils, encouraging them to develop and use those talents for his greater glory and for the service of others. Yours is a true mission of education which is deeply appreciated by the Church! Do not the Fathers of the Church frequently use the image of a choir when they describe the splendid variety of the gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit for building up the Body of Christ in unity and holiness? May your choirs always be schools of the Gospel, where young people learn to sing God’s praises with one voice and one heart, and learn to express the beauty and truth of the texts they sing in the tenor of their lives.” John Paul II’s noteworthy message was: >May your choirs always be schools of the Gospel<. If we sing for God and if we sing His Gospel, we proclaim it not only to others, but to ourselves as well. May the Gospel permeate our life!”
We vividly remember another meeting with John Paul II, that of 31^st   December 1999, the Jubilee Year of theRedemption. The Blessed Pope addressed us in St. Paul VI Hall: “You thus have an important role to play in the Church's life. You are the little messengers of beauty. The world needs your singing, for the language of beauty moves hearts and contributes to the encounter with God. The joy that fills you when you sing must radiate around you and spark contagious enthusiasm.Be just as determined to sing well as the young Mozart used to play his scales.One day, when he was a child, he was asked: >Why do you practice so much?< and he answered: >Because I am looking for two notes that love each other!<. You wholove music, work on singing better and better! The Gospel will more deeply penetrate your souls and those of the people you help to pray. Thus you will be the messengers of God's peace and love.” To be messengers of beauty means to build around us and in ourselves the aura of beauty of the spirit. This beauty will save the world! It helps to perceive the things invisible to our eyes. Today, our main task is to bring the world round to beauty. It has been the major aim of Pueri Cantores since the beginning of its Federation when Fr. Ferdinand Maillet preached: “Tomorrow all the children of the world will sing of God’s peace”. By following the mission of building beauty we bring peace into the world. Pueri Cantores is a community specially called to build peace in the world through creating the atmosphere of beauty.
And we recall what John Paul said further on that day: “You are also messengers of faith, for it is not enough that the quality of your singing should lead those who hear you to prayer and recollection. Sacred music and song are an integral part of the Church's liturgy, and your singing helps the faithful to turn to God, especially during the celebration of the Eucharist. In singing God's glory you are the servants and precious helpers of the Eucharist. >In song, faith is experienced as vibrant joy, love, and confident expectation of the saving intervention of God< (Letter to Artists, no. 12). May your singing always be new, because, in singing for God, you are singing the newness of God's grace, the inexhaustible source of joy and peace. Yes, >sing to the Lord a new song<” (Ps 96:1)!Dear >little singers<, may your singing help you to make your life a song of praise to God. >May he who lives for God sing to God<(St. Augustine, Enn. inPs, 67, 5). With your voices, with your youth, with your lives, you proclaim Jesus, the Savior”. The next task with which the Blessed Pope entrusted us makes our vocation of being small artists even more combined with liturgy. Here we are to preach faith. We are the messengers of faith in Jesus for the modern world. We are the messengers wherever we live and wherever we are. In our daily surroundings, for people whom we meet every day and during celebrations at our churches, so as to help them believe in Jesus’ message. Through our beautiful voice and life nurtured with God we are the emissaries of the Saviour. And He trusts us!
The last meeting of Pueri Cantores with His Holiness John Paul II  took place on 4^th September 2004 in Castel Gandolfo where he hosted our representatives (presidents of our Federation). He addressed them: “I am pleased that your Federation combines thousands of young children and youth from worldwide to make them take part in the beauty of liturgy and who by doing so contribute to >distinguishing themselves with the abilityto express adequately the mystery grasped in the fullness of the Church’s faith and in accordance with pastoral guidelines appropriately laid down by competent Authority<(Ecclesia de Eucharistia, No. 50). Thus I strongly encourage you to continue your efforts in forming these young people so as, through their singing, they would be active members of the Church and the authentic witnesses of the Jesus’ Gospel”.The Blessed John Paul II reminded us then that we are inside the Church, inside this huge family which has been established by Jesus. For the generations of Christians have been changing but the community continues. Maybe it is often weak since it is made of people, yet it gives strength and hope as it contains God’s element. Our Pueri Cantores family is a religious movement which enlivens the daily life of the Church. Here is our place and our everyday life. It is so truly beautiful to be a Christian! And it is our vocation and our duty.
 
Dearest Friends,
 
As John Paul II said to us: “May your choirs always be the schools of the Gospel, you are called to build peace in the world through the atmosphere of beauty, you are the messengers of faith in Christ for the modern world, you ought to be the active members of the Church and the authentic witnesses of the Jesus’ Gospel”.
These are our obligations and our duties. May your singing cross the borders and may the evangelical words: „Sing the Gospel to the whole world” be realised in us and in our acts.
Let us be sure that as during his earthly life he was, when now in our „Father’s House”, John Paul II still remains our great friend and our ardent advocate.
Thus we ask you, the Blessed Jon Paul II, pray for us, for our whole Pueri Cantores family worldwide, so that we would rightly fulfill our vocation.
 
 
 
 
Mons. Robert Tyrała
President of
International Federation of Pueri Cantores

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