Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

People on the Move

N° 110, August 2009

MESSAGE TO THE PARTICIPANTS IN THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE U.S. CONFERENCE OF

CATHOLIC AIRPORT CHAPLAINS

(Mundelein, Illinois, 20-24 April 2009) 

Dear US Catholic Airport Chaplains and Chaplaincy Members, 

It is with pleasure that we greet you on the occasion of your Annual Meeting.

The theme of your gathering will be “Pastoral Care During and After an Airport/Aircraft Critical Incident.” With the latest air accidents that appeared on the front pages of our newspapers or in television news programs, it becomes imperative to know how a pastoral worker can more efficaciously be of service to those who are affected by these events – victims, relatives and friends, airline and airport employees, fellow travelers and others. 

Whatever may be the type of critical incident that takes place, one thing is certain: it causes trauma-related stress to which different people react in different ways. Professional training will enable you to help those involved cope with the phenomenon, which makes the training program that you are to undergo useful in many ways.

Jesus Christ, Our Teacher and Healer, knows the psychology of the human person much better than anybody else. He himself lived through the most traumatic experiences: the fear of death, abandonment and betrayal by friends, the darkness of the cruelest physical pain through crucifixion, even the dark night of his Father’s silence, and death itself (Cf. Message of the XII General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops to the People of God, 24 October 2008). Who more than Him knows what a person needs when he is in distress?

Yet He said, “Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Mt 5:4). From this blessing, we can have an intuition of what suffering means for Christ. He considers it a beatitude. As Pope John Paul II affirmed, “Suffering belongs to human transcendence: it is one of those areas in which men and women, even children, are enabled as it were to go beyond themselves. Accepted and borne in faith, suffering becomes the instrument of our sanctification and the sanctification of others. It becomes a source of redemption for the whole of humanity” (Address to the Group of Volunteers of Suffering from Hong Kong and the Silent Workers of the Cross, 31 May 1996).

It is true that “often we cannot understand why God refrains from intervening”, but “for the believer, it is impossible to imagine that God is powerless or that perhaps he is asleep… Even in their bewilderment and failure to understand the world around them, Christians continue to believe in the goodness and loving kindness of God.… They remain unshakably certain that God is our Father and loves us, even when his silence remains incomprehensible” (Deus caritas est, 38).

However, Christ did not stop there. He promised comfort to those who grieve. My dear Chaplains and Chaplaincy members, this I believe is the contribution you are called to give for the fulfillment of that promise – to comfort those who suffer in the airport community, and in times of critical incidents, to comfort particularly those who are affected by them.

There is one thing that every suffering person needs, and that is loving personal concern, coming from a “love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care of their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support” (Deus caritas est, 28 b.).

Indeed you are called to share in Christ’s mission, which He Himself described as that of bringing glad tidings to the poor, proclaiming liberty to captives, giving back sight to the blind and letting the oppressed go free. Indeed Christ’s love for each one of us urges him to fill our hearts with gladness, replacing with it our mourning (cf. Lk 4:18-19 and Is 61:1-3).

Let your aim then be to help the people entrusted to your care win over suffering and burst out in joy and thanksgiving to the Lord, just like David in Psalm 30:

“O Lord, my God, I cried out to you and you healed me.… You changed my mourning into dancing; you … clothed me with gladness…. With my whole being I sing endless praise to you. O Lord, my God, forever will I give you thanks.” (Ps 30(29): 3,12,13)

With this hymn, we wish you a fruitful Annual Meeting, with cordial greetings in communion.

XAntonio Maria Vegliò

President

XAgostino Marchetto 

Secretary