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4th Day of Congress - 14 July 2012

2012-07-14

The 4th day started with a mass of the Ecclesiastical Assistants and
Presidents of the Federations, presided over by the President of FIPC and
dedicated to gift of unity and peace for Pueri Cantores around the world.
The homily of Fr Stanisław Mieszczak will be published on this website.

“If anyone declares himself for me in the presence of human beings, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven.“

Today we are gathered here together around the altar of Christ, so that we
may receive from Christ himself the strength that we all need to achieve
what is necessary for the service each of us does for the benefit of our
choristers and for the national Pueri Cantores federations that we
represent. In the Gospel reading for today, we heard how Jesus prepared
His Apostles for the service that they were to do for the benefit of
mankind. Amongst other advice given to them by our Saviour, we heard this
phrase: “If anyone declares himself for me in the presence of human
beings, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in
heaven.“ Mt10,32.
There are several important things that we must do in our service.
Obviously we must have a very professional attitude towards our music and
we must love what we are doing for the children and young people in our
charge. Again, we must also certainly never lack those typically human
gifts of patience and of being capable of discovering each single person
we may come into contact with – each child and each young person – and of
appreciating them exactly as they truly are: not as we may perhaps think
they should be. And we must also acquire that very useful knack of looking
into the future, so that our projects have a clear path to follow and
worthwhile objectives to be striven for and to be realised.
But there is also one other very special thing that we must never forget.
We must continue to feed our our own personal growth, which must always be
continuously nurtured, too. Here I refer not only to Spiritual Assistants
but also to Presidents and to all others in authority. If we are to bear
true witness to our Faith in Jesus Christ, then we must also nurture our
own courage and honesty, so as to be capable of truly bearing witness to
Jesus Christ: openly and without fear and before all of those many
choristers and any other people that we may perhaps encounter on our way,
because this is the only testimony that will allow us to develop our
various federations as a part of the whole Church of our Saviour Jesus
Christ. This was also the intention of our founder Mgr. Maillet.
The liturgy we have prepared for today clearly shows us the path that we
should follow. In the collect we prayed thus: “Grant us, o Holy Spirit,
that understanding of your truth and peace, that we may recognise within
our hearts that which conforms to Thy will and that we may have the
courage to put into practice within our service to the Pueri Cantores.“

In fact, we have a great need of understanding and of courage in order to put
truth and peace into practice in the context of this service. We will
encounter many difficulties and problems on our way, but this Spirit will
open our hearts to the workings of God’s actions – not merely to the
ghetto our own little ambitions and conceits – and it is in this way that
we can and will become true builders of His Peace within our own
communities and federations. In this way our choirs will not be merely
objects to be admired, but will become a true testimony of Faith and of
God’s holiness, as well as contributing to making this sad little world of ours into something better.
Let us pray, then, that the Lord give us this necessary strength and that
He bless our service towards the choristers and the other fellow beings we may meet.

It was also the day of the rehearsal for the Sunday`s Mass. In the evening
we listened at the Manuel de Falla Concert Hall to the impressive Gala
Concert performed by: Poznanski Chór Katedralny, MädchenŹkantorei des
Rottenburger Domes, Petits Chanteurs de la Trinité and  Maîtrise de la
Cathédrale de Béziers.

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