Cathedral Warmly Welcomes Apostolic Nuncio

26 JUNE 2022 CATHEDRAL WARMLY WELCOMES APOSTOLIC NUNCIO

Apostolic Nuncio to Australia, Archbishop Charles Balvo, recently visited the Archdiocese of Perth and Western Australia for the first time since his appointment earlier this year. Archbishop Balvo is travelling around Australia to meet with Catholics from all the different walks of life. He was warmly welcomed by Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB who said, “we are very grateful that you are able to come and spend some time with us and we hope you feel at home here.” Speaking to a packed Cathedral, His Excellency Archbishop Balvo commented that St Mary’s Cathedral was beautiful and luminous with so much natural light and that he was fascinated by the electronic pulpit. “I have never seen before that you can raise the whole [lectern], up and down, I could play with it, you know, like a little child,” he chuckled, drawing warm laughter from the congregation.

Archbishop Balvo shared that during the 35 years in which he has worked in the diplomatic service of the Holy See, he spent three years in Amman as well as having had the opportunity to go to Jerusalem on a number of occasions. Those trips to Jerusalem, he highlighted, reminded him of Psalm 122. “I rejoiced when they said to me, let us go up to the House of the Lord. And now our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.” “Jerusalem was the City of the Holy of Holies, the place of encounter with God. It was a unique place and still is a unique place. Jewish families like that of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, as recounted in the Gospel of Luke, they regularly went up to Jerusalem on pilgrimage. “In today’s Gospel, Jesus was determined to journey to Jerusalem, and this was a decisive moment in His life. It is where He begins His last journey to Jerusalem, the city of the prophets, the Holy city, the place in which the great and redemptive event would take place of His suffering, His death, and then His resurrection, which is that saving event for us. “It is in Jerusalem where the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin received the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is also from Jerusalem, that the Gospel goes out to all of the world, to all of the corners of the earth. This teaches us that we should focus attention on the commitment that has to be made – a commitment to be a disciple of Jesus and to embark on the mission of preaching the Gospel,” said Archbishop Balvo.