Holy Mass for the Consecration of the Abidjan Cathedral

On Saturday, 10 August 1985, the Holy Father celebrated Holy Mass for the consecration of the Abidjan Cathedral, Ivory Coast. In his homily, the Pope expressed his desire that “this building will be a testimony of authentic prayer : those who welcome the truth of God and who are enlightened by his Spirit [to] turn to the Father to give thanks for his gifts and to beg him to pour them out abundantly on the human community.”

1. “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” ( Jn 4:23).

A woman of Samaria questions Jesus. She does so because she has discovered the truth of his word: Jesus has enlightened her life. Jesus has announced to her the gift of living water that quenches every thirst forever. This woman, whose people kept their distance from those of Jerusalem, now asks him: where can God be worshipped? And Jesus, the messenger of God to all men, the true prophet, proclaims that the hour has come in which it is no longer on a single mountain or in a single city that one encounters God. In every place, now, the encounter with God is possible with the man who seeks the Father in spirit and truth.

In consecrating your cathedral today, we fervently desire that it become a “true temple of God and of men” in this great city of the African continent: that it serve the worship that “true worshippers in spirit and truth” render. It is our hope and our conviction that this building will be a testimony of authentic prayer : those who welcome the truth of God and who are enlightened by his Spirit turn to the Father to give thanks for his gifts and to beg him to pour them out abundantly on the human community.

2. Five years ago, on 11 May 1980, I was invited by you to bless the first stone of your cathedral. And now I am given to consecrate the house which you have built for God. I give thanks for this rare privilege. I give thanks especially for all that this impressive achievement represents in your nation, which has celebrated the 25th anniversary of its independence. Encouraged by an entire people, the architects and the many builders have completed a marvelous work, because it is an eloquent sign of faith, and a testimony to the maturity and vitality of a Church. With you who fill this cathedral, I give thanks. And with all of you, the crowd gathered outside, around the house of the Lord, I give thanks, because God is establishing his dwelling among men!

The Church of Abidjan, the Church in Ivory Coast, shows with this material construction that it is in truth a spiritual construction . Without the interior dynamism of faith, without hope founded on the living Christ, a temple of stone would remain empty of meaning, however grandiose it may be. The raison d'être of a temple of stone is the interior temple of the community of the Lord's disciples. Let us listen again, as we did five years ago, to the words of the apostle Peter: "You too, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house" ( 1 Pt 2:5).

Building the Church is a work that the Spirit of God animates and makes possible. Erecting a temple is the offering of an entire community that gathers to celebrate the sacrifice of the Lord. It raises on the soil of its country a sign that constitutes a permanent call to praise God, to welcome his gifts, to listen to his word, to strengthen brotherhood, to incessantly invite new brothers to know the good news of salvation brought by Christ.

3. You are completing a building, but you know that the construction of the Church continues. It is a task for every day and for every generation. To carry it out faithfully, men must be purified and constantly renewed , converted by the grace of God and turned away from sin, which is the work of death. For this reason, we have sprinkled on ourselves, as well as on the walls of the church, the baptismal water in which we have been purified and united to the new life given by Christ. Jesus had promised this water to the Samaritan woman in the Gospel, saying: “The water that I will give will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (cf. Jn 4:14).

Before consecrating the cathedral, we will sing the litanies of the saints . We will thus emphasize that the living Church has as its foundation the apostles and saints of all ages. This sanctuary is dedicated to Saint Paul. What a joy to invoke the patronage of the apostle of the nations on this land of Africa! What a joy for the Bishop of Rome to entrust this church of Abidjan to the one who crowned his missionary pilgrimage by fertilizing the land of Rome with the gift of his blood! The people called today to be saints are the people among whom God has raised up countless saints who are examples for us: they are alive in the kingdom of heaven and intercede for us. May the patronage of Saint Paul and the communion of all the saints be for the Church that gathers here a leaven of unity and love! And I would like to recall that you particularly honor the Queen of the Apostles, under the title of Our Lady of Africa , by erecting another sanctuary whose first stone I was able to bless. May she guide you and be of help to you, accompany you on the paths of service to God and men!

4. At the heart of this liturgical action, a great prayer expresses our thanksgiving and our supplication . By consecrating a Church, we praise God who allows us to be gathered by Christ in his dwelling place, we praise God who makes his Church the living body sanctified by the blood of Christ. We praise God who builds the holy city, because it has Christ Jesus as its cornerstone.

And we humbly beg that this place may see sin forgiven, the faithful united in the memorial of Easter. In the hope of salvation, we ask that the gathered community may practice mercy and discover the true freedom of the children of God.

5. With the bishops of this country, I will anoint the altar and the walls of the building with the sacred chrism . The holy oil signifies the power of God who takes and consecrates: with the anointing, the Father has made Jesus his Christ, that is, the one who has been totally penetrated by the Spirit. Today, with the anointing, he makes this church the place where the Spirit of Christ frees each person from sin and baptizes them in the mystery of his death and resurrection. He makes this church, through the anointing, the holy place where he calls his people to gather and to share in his own life .

Today, the Spirit of the Lord has made this altar the sign of Christ , because he is the priest par excellence, he is the one who offers his life in the Eucharistic sacrifice. And he allows us to offer it in our turn through the ministry of the bishop and the priests. At this altar he invites the baptized to communicate his real presence, he unites them in his body. Consecrated by the anointing, the altar manifests the living center of this church, the place of the Eucharist, the center of all the other sacraments.

The smoke of the incense will be the symbol of the prayer that rises to the Father through Christ present in his people, of the offering pleasing to God. The light lit on the altar, spread throughout the cathedral, will represent in our eyes the light of Christ that he asks us to make shine in the eyes of men, bringing his message and spreading his love.

These gestures of the ancient Christian tradition deeply express the reality that is the Church, the beauty of the image of Christ that is imprinted in her. With joy, on this happy day, we praise the Lord, taking up the words of the psalm:

“How lovely are your dwelling places, / O Lord of hosts! / Blessed are those who dwell in your house . . . / Blessed are those who find their strength in you / and whose heart sets out on a holy journey!” ( Ps 84:2. 5a. 6).

6. The page of the book of Nehemiah that we have just read evokes an assembly of the people of God at the temple of Jerusalem. We find in it an example for the Christian assembly of today, for the “inhabitants of the house” of the Lord. May you gather in unity, happy to be the Church, the people that God has acquired for himself (cf. Eph 1:14)! May you listen to the reading of the holy books which are the word and the law of God , and respond to it as our fathers did who acclaimed it by exclaiming: “Amen!”. With this word they pronounced the adherence of their faith and accepted the law of God to lead their lives. The people gathered by Ezra receive with joy and emotion this word that is from God, this word that invites faithfulness in response to the faithfulness of God, this word of the covenant between God and humanity, now fulfilled forever by the Word made flesh, by the Son of God who came "so that we might receive adoption as sons" ( Gal 4:5). May you, in ever greater numbers, share in this cathedral the joy of being enlightened by the word of salvation, of being made strong by the presence of the Lord, of being available to participate fraternally in the gifts received for life!

7. The assembly of Christians takes on a special importance here. The cathedral occupies the first place among the sanctuaries in the local Church: it is the bishop's church, the one in which he gathers the priests and the faithful of the people, the one in which the cohesion of the entire body is manifested around the representative of Christ for this diocese. On the historical occasion of this consecration, I am happy to greet your archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Yago, a pastor who has led this diocese with faith and dedication for twenty-five years. I rejoice in the presence of Cardinals Zoungrana and Thiandoum and the other bishops who represent the episcopates of the countries of West Africa. I greet and encourage all the priests who continue the ministry of the bishop among you, those who were born on this earth and those who left their country to come here to serve the Church. I also cordially greet the brothers and sisters who have contributed so greatly to the building of the Christian community of this country from the beginning, to bear witness to the Gospel with the gift of themselves and through numerous institutions. I address a respectful greeting to the representatives of the other Christian confessions and of Islam, who have wished to participate in this ceremony. And I am sensitive to the presence among you of the high authorities of your country and of the diplomatic corps; I greet in particular the President of the Republic. And I would like to express my fervent good wishes to all of you, my brothers and sisters, Ivorian or from elsewhere: on the occasion of this solemn consecration, may God grant to all of you the gift of fortifying a community happy to carry out his will for peace, unity and love!

May He give you His reward for all the generosity and all the efforts you have made in common to build this cathedral in the capital, in the very place where the representative and governing bodies of this country are located. Here you have erected a sign that recalls the strength of spiritual values ​​in the life of nations.

We entrust this church, this Christian community, to Christ who is the cornerstone of the building; we will do so particularly in the concelebration of the Eucharist of the Pope, of the Archbishop of Abidjan, of the bishops of the Ivory Coast and of their brothers. This underlines how much the bishop who gathers in his cathedral the Church of a diocese is linked to his brothers, those of the same country first of all, those of the whole world, and especially the one who has received the mandate to succeed the apostle Peter to confirm all his brothers in the faith. Dear brothers and sisters of Abidjan and of the Ivory Coast, when you enter this church of the bishop, do not forget that his mission puts him in close relationship with the other Churches; and at present your archbishop, who is a cardinal, is very close to the Pope of Rome, he shares in his concern for all the Churches and for all the problems of the world.

And how can we not evoke from today the International Eucharistic Congress that will open for the first time in black Africa! May it be for all the families of the world a call to unity around Christ the Savior! Because the Son of God came among us, he gave his body and his blood so that all may have life in him.

8. Christ said to the Samaritan woman: “The hour has come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father seeks such worshipers.” This moment comes to this country after a long history ; several groups of evangelizers tried to establish the Church here from the 17th to the 19th century, and they were unable to remain; trials, in which many offered their lives, interrupted their work. The moment came decisively in 1895 , when the foundation of the Church in your country could be undertaken on a lasting basis by the Fathers of the African Missions and the first Apostolic Prefect of Abidjan, who were soon associated with the Sisters of Our Lady of the Apostles. It is right, on this day, to recall the memory of all the evangelizers who spent their health here, and sometimes their lives, to establish - thanks to their heroic charity - a Church that now has its roots and develops its branches by itself, which itself bears the fruits of the seed that comes from God. I think of the dioceses that were able to be erected under the responsibility of the African bishops.

At present, God's "moment" has come in a new way. The cathedral that the Church in Ivory Coast dedicates to Saint Paul with today's consecration, officiated by the Bishop of Rome, is a sign of maturity in the work of evangelization that must always be continued. The Gospel of Christ is addressed to all men, and those who have received it up to now have the responsibility of making it reach their brothers. It has been rightly spoken of as a second evangelization. It is, in truth, the comparison of Christian values ​​with the heritage, aspirations, discoveries and powers of men. In all fields, respect for life, a sense of justice, the search for unity concretely translate the commitment of Christians to imitate Christ in their participation in the various activities of society! May the deepening of ecclesial life make your communities ever more faithful, more capable of radiating, more responsible, in connection with all the members of the body of Christ in the world!

May this external, noble sign deeply mark your souls: this building represents the “dwelling of God with men”. Its form symbolically evokes the Holy Trinity, its structure recalls the structure of Christian life which rests on the seven sacraments given by the Lord to his Church.

You yourselves are the temple of God : each of you is a temple of God. Saint Paul asks us: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” ( 1 Cor 3:16). We will proclaim in the preface of the Eucharistic Prayer: “Your Church is a holy city, founded on the apostles and united in Christ the cornerstone. She grows and builds herself with living and chosen stones, cemented in charity with the strength of your Spirit, until the day when, O Father, you will be all in all and the light of your Christ will shine forever” (“Ritual of the Consecration of the Churches”).

May the presence of God who is Spirit make those who will inhabit this house, which is his house, true worshipers in spirit and truth, now and for ages to come! Amen.

© Copyright 1985 - Vatican Publishing House

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