tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49871332271827648772024-03-15T18:09:36.146-07:00Godwin Xuereb“Most High, glorious God, enlighten the shadows of my heart, and grant me a right faith, a certain hope and perfect charity, sense and understanding, Lord, so that I may accomplish your holy and true command. Amen.” Saint Francis of Assisi.
“I plead with you! Never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid.” Saint John Paul II.
This Blog covers, in particular, Orthodoxy, Catholicism, the papacy and the Order of Saint John.
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger101125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-90102442741301123942023-12-06T21:46:00.000-08:002023-12-06T21:46:21.780-08:00Papal supremacy and the Orthodox Church<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMMiZYB3AkYW8lLx9nJMaRxemYGV1avlZkDbkrf47xio34xUIvx9jrwWQ_QZAjEdjobAQPWxYooWKTtAqECDhNc7lDmbPD-IdUORM9myOAXRsBGeVbR0jb27qyCKHNW-5FSMOmSKjMBS0tVfWxY4vXO0I0VpEnrCnfdZYjsL5sQPtXZU9x-cLiCQ/s300/download%20(1).jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMMiZYB3AkYW8lLx9nJMaRxemYGV1avlZkDbkrf47xio34xUIvx9jrwWQ_QZAjEdjobAQPWxYooWKTtAqECDhNc7lDmbPD-IdUORM9myOAXRsBGeVbR0jb27qyCKHNW-5FSMOmSKjMBS0tVfWxY4vXO0I0VpEnrCnfdZYjsL5sQPtXZU9x-cLiCQ/s1600/download%20(1).jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br />The Eastern Orthodox Church is opposed to the Roman Catholic doctrine of papal supremacy. While not denying that primacy does exist for the Bishop of Rome, Eastern Orthodox Christians argue that the tradition of Rome's primacy in the early Church was not equivalent to the current doctrine of supremacy.<p></p><p>The Bishop of Rome, according to the Orthodox, is simply “first among equals” (<i>primus inter pares</i>). </p><p>This Blog will post important documents from the Orthodox tradition on this issue, from time to time. They are the following:</p><p><a href="http://godwinxuereb.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_6.html">The Role of the Bishop of Rome in the Communion of the Church in the First Millennium</a><br /></p><p><a href="https://godwinxuereb.blogspot.com/p/position-of-moscow-patriarchate-on.html">Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem of primacy in the Universal Church</a><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-32881131096002842412023-04-13T01:17:00.007-07:002023-04-13T01:17:54.593-07:00Cardinal Ratzinger on true consciousness in liturgical matters<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFxXpAoeP3UAr5JIObE_PmLv0MdgqJh7_XdcCMnN_DPa_kqtw4oT6XpTGOQjUWxVD0rPZOEvGMuhnVCd1wgC8OlJCpei3xnjnBZZKsfY_iUc6SSiBQT1DBQJWfxgll2akNWunxB19-bTV_gtFWBbdVUBg1958smCXkTp1q8ic045o2fO-_QxQUVQ/s750/20200826150832_5f46653fc2bf74d8ccd66f34jpeg.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="750" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFxXpAoeP3UAr5JIObE_PmLv0MdgqJh7_XdcCMnN_DPa_kqtw4oT6XpTGOQjUWxVD0rPZOEvGMuhnVCd1wgC8OlJCpei3xnjnBZZKsfY_iUc6SSiBQT1DBQJWfxgll2akNWunxB19-bTV_gtFWBbdVUBg1958smCXkTp1q8ic045o2fO-_QxQUVQ/w416-h269/20200826150832_5f46653fc2bf74d8ccd66f34jpeg.jpeg" width="416" /></a></div><br /><p></p><blockquote style="background-clip: padding-box; background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", Garamond; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px 10px 0px 40px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"For fostering a <span style="background-clip: padding-box; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">true consciousness</span> <span style="background-clip: padding-box; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">in liturgical matters</span>, it is also important that the proscription against the form of liturgy in valid use up to 1970 should be lifted. Anyone who nowadays advocates the continuing existence of this [older] liturgy or takes part in it is treated like a leper; all tolerance ends here. There has never been anything like this in history; in doing this we are despising and proscribing the Church’s whole past. How can one trust her at present if things are that way?"</span></blockquote><p><span style="background-clip: padding-box; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", Garamond; font-size: 16px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-clip: padding-box; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", Garamond; font-size: 16px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger</span><em style="background-clip: padding-box; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", Garamond; font-size: 16px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">, God and the World</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", Garamond; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">, trans. Henry Taylor (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), p. 416.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-84233473481416164572023-03-25T03:56:00.003-07:002023-03-25T04:05:02.761-07:00Archives of the Order (6) - Ad Providam Christi Vicarii<div class="zpRow standard" data-row-id="567" style="-webkit-box-align: start; align-items: flex-start; background-color: #e4e4e4; color: #1c2f3d; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; margin-bottom: 16px;"><div class="zpColumn odd zpColumnWidth1 c12 first last" data-column-id="596" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px 15px; width: 630px;"><div class="zpColumnItem" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; width: 600px;"><div class="articlearea zpwText" data-article-id="1858" data-zpleid="1858" id="a1858" style="margin-bottom: 0px;"><div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyPOz8C_OGXTv9Kkv7SOtv5BIWIhAyAA_J6PYEZH7CGvy_TNiu7RVf9eSdfvheGEkpv-OJiIBb82w_FnJXvggNAjpnnBJgiQf_-yebScX3e-67qX7DboDNNrmvT7pauC0r5tLAmtRtmTelhSLeMU9ziQoqGep8VwEmGphQ1MgyEgu5dxhvep9QfA/s733/die-templer-ad-providam-large.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="551" data-original-width="733" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyPOz8C_OGXTv9Kkv7SOtv5BIWIhAyAA_J6PYEZH7CGvy_TNiu7RVf9eSdfvheGEkpv-OJiIBb82w_FnJXvggNAjpnnBJgiQf_-yebScX3e-67qX7DboDNNrmvT7pauC0r5tLAmtRtmTelhSLeMU9ziQoqGep8VwEmGphQ1MgyEgu5dxhvep9QfA/w390-h294/die-templer-ad-providam-large.jpg" width="390" /></a></div></span></div><h2 data-zpfieldname="headline" style="line-height: normal; margin: 16px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding-top: 8px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><i>Ad Providam Christi Vicarii </i></span></h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">For an everlasting record. It belongs to Christ’s vicar, exercising his vigilant care from the apostolic watch-tower, to judge the changing conditions of the times, to examine the causes of the affairs which crop up and to observe the characters of the people concerned. In this way he can give due consideration to each affair and act opportunely; he can tear out the thistles of vice from the field of the Lord so that virtue may increase; and he can remove the thorns of false dealing so as to plant rather than to destroy. He transfers slips dedicated to God into the places left empty by the eradication of the harmful thistles. By thus transferring and uniting in a provident and profitable way, he brings a joy greater than the harm he has caused to the people uprooted; true justice has compassion for sorrow. By enduring the harm and replacing it profitably, he increases the growth of the virtues and rebuilds what has been destroyed with something better.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">A little while ago we suppressed definitively and perpetually the order of the Knights Templar of Jerusalem because of the abominable, even unspeakable, deeds of its master, brothers and other persons of the order in all parts of the world. These men were spattered with indecent errors and crimes, with depravity- they were blemished and stained. We are silent here as to detail because the memory is so sad and unclean. With the approval of the sacred council we abolished the constitution of the order, its habit and name, not without bitterness of heart. We did this not by definitive sentence, since this would be unlawful according to the inquiries and processes carried out, but by apostolic provision or ordinance. We issued a strict prohibition that nobody might henceforth enter the order or wear its habit or presume to behave as a Templar. Anyone doing otherwise incurred automatic excommunication. We commanded, by our apostolic authority, that all the property of the order be left to the judgment and disposition of the apostolic see. We strictly forbade anyone, of whatever state or condition, to interfere in any way regarding the persons or property of the order or to act in prejudice of the direction or disposition of the apostolic see in this matter, or to alter or even to tamper; we decreed all attempts of this kind to be henceforth null and void, whether made knowingly or in ignorance.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Afterwards we took care lest the said property, which over a long period had been given, bequeathed, granted and acquired from the worshippers of Christ for the help of the holy Land and to assail the enemies of the christian faith, should be left without management and perish as belonging to nobody or be used in ways other than those intended by the pious devotion of the faithful. There was the further danger that tardiness in our arrangements and dispositions might lead to destruction or dilapidation. We therefore held difficult, lengthy and varied consultations and discussions with our brothers, the cardinals of the holy Roman church, with patriarchs, archbishops, bishops and prelates, with certain outstanding and distinguished persons, and with the procurators at the council of the chapters, convents, churches and monasteries, and of the remaining absent prelates, in order that, through this painstaking deliberation, a wholesome and beneficial disposal of the said property might be made to the honour of God, the increase of the faith, the exaltation of the church, the help of the holy Land, and the salvation and peace of the faithful. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">After especially long carefully thought out, deliberate and complete consultations, for many just reasons, we and the said fathers and patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, other prelates, and the outstanding and distinguished persons, then present at the council, finally came to a conclusion. The property should become forever that of the order of the Hospital of saint John of Jerusalem, of the Hospital itself and of our beloved sons the master and brothers of the Hospital, in the name of the Hospital and order of these same men, who as athletes of the Lord expose themselves to the danger of death for the defence of the faith, bearing heavy and perilous losses in lands overseas.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">We have observed with the fullness of sincere charity that this order of the Hospital and the Hospital itself is one of the bodies in which religious observance flourishes. Factual evidence tells us that divine worship is fervent, works of piety and mercy are practised with great earnestness, the brothers of the Hospital despise the attractions of the world and are devoted servants of the most High. As fearless warriors of Christ they are ardent in their efforts to recover the holy Land, despising all human perils. We bear in mind also that the more plentifully they are supplied with means, the more will the energy of the master and brothers of the order and Hospital grow, their ardour increase and their bravery be strengthened to repel the insults offered to our Redeemer and to crush the enemies of the faith. They will be able to carry more lightly and easily the burdens demanded in the execution of such an enterprise. They will therefore, not unworthily, be made more watchful and apply themselves with greater zeal.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: times;">In order that we may grant them increased support, we bestow on them, with the approval of the sacred council, the house itself of the Knights Templar and the other houses, churches, chapels, oratories, cities, castles, towns, lands, granges, places, possessions, jurisdictions, revenues, rights, all the other property, whether immovable, movable or self-moving, and all the members together with their rights and belongings, both beyond and on this side of the sea, in each and every part of the world, at the time when the master himself and some brothers of the order were arrested as a body in the kingdom of France, namely in October 1308. The gift is to include everything which</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span>the Templars</span><span style="font-family: times;"> </span><span style="font-family: times;">had, held or possessed of themselves or through others, or which belonged to the said house and order of Knights Templar, or to the master and brothers of the order as also the titles, actions and rights which at the time of their arrest belonged in any way to the house, order or persons of the order of Knights Templar, or could belong to them, against whomsoever of whatever dignity, state or condition, with all the privileges, indults, immunities and liberties with which the said master and brothers of the house and order of Knights Templar, and the house and order itself, had been legitimately endowed by the apostolic see or by catholic emperors, kings and princes, or by other members of the faithful, or in any other way. All this we present, grant, unite, incorporate, apply and annex in perpetuity, by the fullness of our apostolic power, to the said order of the Hospital of saint John of Jerusalem and to the Hospital itself.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">We except the property of the said former order of Knights Templar in the kingdoms and lands of our beloved sons in Christ, the illustrious kings of Castille, Aragon, Portugal and Majorca, outside the kingdom of France. We reserve this property, from the said gift, grant, union, application, incorporation and annexation, to the disposal and regulation of the apostolic see. We wish the prohibition made a little while ago by other proceedings of ours to remain in full force. Nobody of any state or condition may intervene in any way as regards these persons and property in prejudice to the regulation or disposition of the apostolic see. We wish that our decree concerning these persons and property in the kingdoms and lands of the above kings should remain in full force until the apostolic see makes another arrangement.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Occupiers and unlawful detainers of the property, irrespective of state, condition, eminence or dignity, even if this is pontifical, imperial or royal, unless they abandon the property within a month after it is called for by the master and brothers of the Hospital, or by any of them, or by their procurators [. . .]. The property must be fully and freely restored to the order of Hospitallers and to the said Hospital, or to the master, priors, preceptors or brothers of the said Hospital, in any regions or provinces, or to any of them individually, or to their procurator or procurators, in the name of the said order of Hospitallers, even if the priors, preceptors and brothers and their procurators or any one of them have no special mandate from the master of the Hospital, provided that the procurators hold or show a special commission from the priors and preceptors or from any one of them, in the provinces or regions in which these priors and preceptors have been delegated. The priors, preceptors and brothers are obliged to give a full reckoning to the master concerning everything: conduct, actions, receipts and negotiations.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> The procurators are to render a similar account to the priors and preceptors, and to each one of them, by whom they were delegated. All who have knowingly given counsel, aid or favour to the occupiers and detainers mentioned above concerning such occupation or detention, publicly or secretly, lie under excommunication. Chapters, colleges or governing bodies of churches and monasteries, and the corporations of cities, castles, towns and other places, as well as the cities, castles, towns and other places themselves which were at fault in this, and the cities, castles and places in which the detainers and occupiers hold temporal lordship, if such temporal lords place obstacles to the giving up of the property and its restoration to the master and brothers of the Hospital, in the name of the Hospital, not desisting from such conduct within a month after the property is called for, are automatically laid under interdict. They cannot be absolved from this until they offer full satisfaction. Moreover the occupiers and detainers and those who have given them counsel, aid or favour, whether individuals or the chapters, colleges or governing bodies of churches or monasteries, as also the corporations of cities, castles, lands or other places, incur, in addition to the above-mentioned penalties, automatic deprivation of everything they hold as fiefs from the Roman or other churches. These fiefs are to revert freely without opposition to the churches concerned, and the prelates or rulers of those churches may dispose of the fiefs at will, as they judge will be to the advantage of the churches. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Given at Vienne on 2 May in the seventh year of our pontificate (1312).</span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">Pope Clement V</span></p></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-37857553090768772152023-01-14T09:01:00.002-08:002023-01-14T09:01:14.499-08:00Cardinal Ratzinger on the 9th Station of the Cross<p><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOOM8WKKmCLXTufrs8DEp1nlWRi5fAh8FOYsLrM3vyTnUKoqZ9j3yj-pS1apSgFRP7q2ejhEAU07-x_vqBBIqsqz41zDJqXJAynvyg2LKOTciHqHJgZTEaJmPE6ReiYA09vowRIDQgIkhzpXQhF0trpFybMqua-mDmi7ByDU3_uAJHt07p_XpKOA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="330" data-original-width="240" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOOM8WKKmCLXTufrs8DEp1nlWRi5fAh8FOYsLrM3vyTnUKoqZ9j3yj-pS1apSgFRP7q2ejhEAU07-x_vqBBIqsqz41zDJqXJAynvyg2LKOTciHqHJgZTEaJmPE6ReiYA09vowRIDQgIkhzpXQhF0trpFybMqua-mDmi7ByDU3_uAJHt07p_XpKOA=w292-h400" width="292" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"><br /></span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"><b><u>NINTH STATION</u></b></span></span></div><p></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></div><span><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 18px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">Jesus falls for the third time</span></div><span><div style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: red; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 18px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;">V/.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"> </span><i>Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi.</i></div></span><span style="color: red; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 18px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;">R/.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"> </span><i>Quia per sanctam crucem tuam redemisti mundum.</i></div></span><div style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: 18px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">From the Book of Lamentations. 3:27-32</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: 18px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when he has laid it on him; let him put his mouth in the dust - there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not cast off for ever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion, according to the abundance of his steadfast love.</span></div></span></span></span><p></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"><br /></span></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"><b><u>MEDITATION</u></b></span></span></div><p></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></p><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 18px;">by Joseph Ratzinger</span></div><span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: times; font-size: 18px;"><div style="text-align: justify;">What can the third fall of Jesus under the Cross say to us?</div></span></span><p></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church?</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts!</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there!</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">How often is his Word twisted and misused!</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words!</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">How much pride, how much self-complacency!</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall!</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">All this is present in his Passion. His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: <i>Kyrie eleison</i> Lord, save us (cf. Mt 8: 25).</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></div><span><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 18px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"><b><u>PRAYER</u></b></span></div><span><div style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: 18px;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side.</span></div></span></span></span><p></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">In your field we see more weeds than wheat.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"> </p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 18px;">Cardinal Ratzinger, Via Crucis, </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 18px;">25 March 2005, Rome.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-48126681098158079082023-01-01T10:15:00.006-08:002023-01-01T10:40:30.963-08:00The Spiritual Testament of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTB-okhY-ndFO1_ZKrTkJkZC0wbewIO-nO4rRc76NCVPHaaqhh65POe6XG2D_DLLnUYTEVNCLxJtC3OhWDZBKMHCDYYBsSzEUNzAtg8rJRonvx6CEjqSgSnEn0piqTF1J3KMbyu1Hv6NPI-xMaOT0VyoGBcwdKBxTt6IPexsD9zeDkYzeELYxsXQ/s2048/322396654_698561291778401_8602615292582743400_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTB-okhY-ndFO1_ZKrTkJkZC0wbewIO-nO4rRc76NCVPHaaqhh65POe6XG2D_DLLnUYTEVNCLxJtC3OhWDZBKMHCDYYBsSzEUNzAtg8rJRonvx6CEjqSgSnEn0piqTF1J3KMbyu1Hv6NPI-xMaOT0VyoGBcwdKBxTt6IPexsD9zeDkYzeELYxsXQ/w524-h297/322396654_698561291778401_8602615292582743400_n.jpg" width="524" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span face=""Museo Sans Cyrl", Verdana, sans-serif">The Holy See releases the Spiritual Testament of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, dated 29 August 2006.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Museo Sans Cyrl"; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Museo Sans Cyrl"; font-size: x-large;">My spiritual testament</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">When, at this late hour of my life, I look back on the decades I have wandered through, I see first of all how much reason I have to give thanks. Above all, I thank God Himself, the giver of all good gifts, who has given me life and guided me through all kinds of confusion; who has always picked me up when I began to slip, who has always given me anew the light of his countenance. In retrospect, I see and understand that even the dark and arduous stretches of this path were for my salvation and that He guided me well in those very stretches.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">I thank my parents, who gave me life in difficult times and prepared a wonderful home for me with their love, which shines through all my days as a bright light until today. My father's clear-sighted faith taught us brothers and sisters to believe and stood firm as a guide in the midst of all my scientific knowledge; my mother's heartfelt piety and great kindness remain a legacy for which I cannot thank her enough. My sister has served me selflessly and full of kind concern for decades; my brother has always paved the way for me with the clear-sightedness of his judgements, with his powerful determination, and with the cheerfulness of his heart; without this ever-new going ahead and going along, I would not have been able to find the right path.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">I thank God from the bottom of my heart for the many friends, men and women, whom He has always placed at my side; for the co-workers at all stages of my path; for the teachers and students He has given me. I gratefully entrust them all to His goodness. And I would like to thank the Lord for my beautiful home in the Bavarian foothills of the Alps, in which I was able to see the splendour of the Creator Himself shining through time and again. I thank the people of my homeland for allowing me to experience the beauty of faith time and again. I pray that our country will remain a country of faith and I ask you, dear compatriots, not to let your faith be distracted. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Finally, I thank God for all the beauty I was able to experience during the various stages of my journey, but especially in Rome and in Italy, which has become my second home.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">I ask for forgiveness from the bottom of my heart from all those whom I have wronged in some way.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">What I said earlier of my compatriots, I now say to all who were entrusted to my service in the Church: Stand firm in the faith! Do not be confused! Often it seems as if science - on the one hand, the natural sciences; on the other, historical research (especially the exegesis of the Holy Scriptures) - has irrefutable insights to offer that are contrary to the Catholic faith. I have witnessed from times long past the changes in natural science and have seen how apparent certainties against the faith vanished, proving themselves not to be science but philosophical interpretations only apparently belonging to science - just as, moreover, it is in dialogue with the natural sciences that faith has learned to understand the limits of the scope of its affirmations and thus its own specificity. For 60 years now, I have accompanied the path of theology, especially biblical studies, and have seen seemingly unshakeable theses collapse with the changing generations, which turned out to be mere hypotheses: the liberal generation (Harnack, Jülicher, etc.), the existentialist generation (Bultmann, etc.), the Marxist generation. I have seen, and see, how, out of the tangle of hypotheses, the reasonableness of faith has emerged and is emerging anew. Jesus Christ is truly the Way, the Truth, and the Life - and the Church, in all her shortcomings, is truly His Body.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Finally, I humbly ask: pray for me, so that the Lord may admit me to the eternal dwellings, despite all my sins and shortcomings. For all those entrusted to me, my heartfelt prayer goes out day after day.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right;"><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: large;">Benedictus PP XVI</span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSP90LGKGMdGx1yf4-el2YErnHWvJSdu9Xc63Pz033EEU28xK6Dgvpx52KvKHAeYAoV8gZxKRju1MchadYVX51IySj9Lz--dYDE82JAAmDhMOQWMbW_u467sjSBb7sr2kx9Dp9zY7QWA9eWJAbey3cSAyyrTEHi1uVgb--kMBVQJSGpTkjBuP2xA/s592/323421568_495475079385811_6474141477701844609_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="395" data-original-width="592" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSP90LGKGMdGx1yf4-el2YErnHWvJSdu9Xc63Pz033EEU28xK6Dgvpx52KvKHAeYAoV8gZxKRju1MchadYVX51IySj9Lz--dYDE82JAAmDhMOQWMbW_u467sjSBb7sr2kx9Dp9zY7QWA9eWJAbey3cSAyyrTEHi1uVgb--kMBVQJSGpTkjBuP2xA/w483-h275/323421568_495475079385811_6474141477701844609_n.jpg" width="483" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-32438050099938020252022-08-27T23:31:00.003-07:002022-08-27T23:31:46.788-07:00Cardinal Ratzinger on Papal primacy<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEif_xrFn8u9o01RzevRdBZojVfqZqqqUL6uZr96c-RzpJ0onSIqtPwP-n3bndnWEuQdGdVN-dt2OClV8inzQ5lgmEUhBMdsYyMO7M-tVPYZx13w2sUvl6m2f4ibAN6TcRrwUNOblndBkz7WbAdzvptIPq81-CkIihDO1eejhABwsDtMOQHHHWABkg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="351" data-original-width="463" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEif_xrFn8u9o01RzevRdBZojVfqZqqqUL6uZr96c-RzpJ0onSIqtPwP-n3bndnWEuQdGdVN-dt2OClV8inzQ5lgmEUhBMdsYyMO7M-tVPYZx13w2sUvl6m2f4ibAN6TcRrwUNOblndBkz7WbAdzvptIPq81-CkIihDO1eejhABwsDtMOQHHHWABkg=w406-h307" width="406" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">"Although it is not given us to halt the flight of history, to change the course of centuries, we may say, nevertheless, that what was possible for a thousand years is not impossible for Christians today.... In other words, </span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium</span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">. </span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">When the Patriarch Athenagoras</span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">, on 25 July 1967, on the occasion of the Pope's visit to Phanar, </span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">designated him</span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;"> as the successor of St. Peter, as the most esteemed among us, </span><span style="background-color: #fefefe; box-sizing: border-box; color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;">as one also presides in charity, this great Church leader was expressing the essential content of the doctrine of primacy as it was known in the first millennium. Rome need not ask for more.</span></span></div><p></p><span style="background-color: #fefefe; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #141414; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Fira Sans", "Droid Sans", sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Reunion could take place in this context if</span>, on the one hand, the East would cease to oppose as heretical the developments that took place in the West in the second millennium and <span style="box-sizing: border-box;">would accept the Catholic Church as legitimate and orthodox in the form she had acquired in the course of that development, while, on the other hand, the West would recognize the Church of the East as orthodox and legitimate in the form she has always had."</span></div></span></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-45823944489883364172022-05-14T05:24:00.000-07:002022-05-14T05:24:54.171-07:00Report: Cardinal Ratzinger Admitted Third Secret Not Fully Revealed<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMg-bURWImah8v6VaL6WHhGsVrtHtWYgWvU_eFM_ckG244EYoxmDv_bDR0nyTr1j7fQ7QX_jzG79XKuQY9buR-h_eoNSgBUv6E_uH3KxnVHCIlCYqFRzS7qKDjoawmtP9D_wrWlV0doE10ji-kK8MR9uDHx3ve__jCqKcds0jZ2Q1s4TDK0GRyvw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="700" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMg-bURWImah8v6VaL6WHhGsVrtHtWYgWvU_eFM_ckG244EYoxmDv_bDR0nyTr1j7fQ7QX_jzG79XKuQY9buR-h_eoNSgBUv6E_uH3KxnVHCIlCYqFRzS7qKDjoawmtP9D_wrWlV0doE10ji-kK8MR9uDHx3ve__jCqKcds0jZ2Q1s4TDK0GRyvw=w400-h250" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><h2 style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; padding: 10px; text-align: center;">Report: Cardinal Ratzinger Admitted<br />Third Secret Not Fully Revealed</h2><h3 style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;">Secret Warns of "Bad Council and Bad Mass"</h3><h5 style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; padding-right: 15px; text-align: right;">by John Vennari<br /></h5><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Father Ingo Dollinger is an elderly German priest, professor of theology in Brazil, and a personal friend of former Pope Benedict XVI.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Father Dollinger stated on more than one occasion that Cardinal Ratzinger admitted to him the full Third Secret is not yet revealed, and the Secret warns against a “bad Council and a bad Mass.”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><em>The Fatima Crusader</em> reported this on a number of occasions, most pointedly in 2009. This news regarding the Third Secret was recently re-confirmed by <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/http://www.onepeterfive.com/cardinal-ratzinger-not-published-whole-third-secret-fatima/" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><u>Dr. Maike Hickson</u></a> on May 15.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Dr. Hickson, who knows Father Dollinger, telephoned the priest on Pentecost Sunday, and he gave her permission to publicly report the following facts:</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><strong>“Not long after the June 2000 publication of the Third Secret of Fatima by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger told Father Dollinger during an in-person conversation that there is still part of the Third Secret that they have not published! <em>‘There is more than what we published,’</em> Ratzinger said. He also told Dollinger that the published part of the Secret is authentic and that the unpublished part of the Secret speaks about ‘a bad council and a bad Mass’ that was to come in the near future.”</strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">This statement by Father Dollinger was formerly related in the <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr92/cr92pg7.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><u>May 2009</u></a> issue of <em>The Fatima Crusader</em> by Father Paul Kramer.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">According to Father Kramer’s account, Cardinal Ratzinger revealed to Father Dollinger as far back as the early 1990s that the Secret warned against a bad Council and against changes in the Mass.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Yet the text published by the Vatican on June 26, 2000 makes no mention of these specific warnings.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Father Kramer explained: “The elderly German priest, Ratingzer’s long-time personal friend, took note of the fact that when the vision of the Third Secret was published it did not contain those things, those elements of the Third Secret that Cardinal Razinger had revealed to him nearly ten years earlier. The German priest – Father Dollinger – told me that this question was burning in his mind.”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Father Kramer continues, “Father Dollinger said to me, ‘I confronted Cardinal Ratzinger to his face: ‘How can this be the entire Third Secret? Remember what you told me before?''”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Cardinal Ratzinger replied, “<em>Really, there is something more there,</em>” meaning there is more in the Third Secret than what the Vatican revealed.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Father Nicholas Gruner referred to this episode from Father Dollinger on more than one occasion, including a speech published in <em>The Fatima Crusader</em> in <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/http://www.fatimacrusader.com/cr93/cr93pg3.pdf" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><u>Autumn, 2009</u></a>.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><strong>Crisis of Faith</strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Even if one wants to question whether the Third Secret actually mentions the Mass and the Council, there appears to be no doubt that the missing part of the Secret speaks of "dangers threatening the Faith." For years prior to the Year 2000 release of the vision of the Secret, Father Gruner’s Fatima Center repeatedly published testimony from Fatima experts and witnesses who relate that the Third Secret predicts a great crisis of Faith in the Church. Here are but a few examples:</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><strong>Father Alonso</strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Father Joaquim Alonso, who was the official archivist of Fatima and had many conversations with Sister Lucia, said the following prior to his death in 1981:</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">“It is therefore completely probable that the text makes concrete references to the crisis of faith within the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves [and the] internal struggles in the very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence of the upper hierarchy.”<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/https://fatima.org/news/newsviews/2016/newsviews0517.asp#_edn1" id="_ednref1" name="_ednref1" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" title=""><u><sup>1</sup></u></a></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">And further,</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">“Does the unpublished text speak of concrete circumstances? It is very possible that it speaks not only of a real crisis of faith in the Church during this in-between period [that is, prior to the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary], but like the secret of La Salette, for example, there are more concrete references to the internal struggles of the Catholics or to the fall of priests and religious. Perhaps it even refers to the failures of the upper hierarchy of the Church. For that matter, none of this is foreign to communications Sister Lucia has had on this subject.”<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/https://fatima.org/news/newsviews/2016/newsviews0517.asp#_edn2" id="_ednref2" name="_ednref2" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" title=""><u><sup>2</sup></u></a></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><strong>Cardinal Ratzinger</strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Cardinal Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, gave an interview in <em>Jesus</em> magazine on November 11, 1984. In this famous exchange, titled “Here is Why the Faith was in Crisis,” Cardinal Ratzinger spoke of the crisis of faith and of the Third Secret. Here he revealed that the Secret refers to “dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian and therefore [the life] of the world.”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">The Cardinal further noted that “the things contained in this ‘Third Secret’ correspond to what has been announced in Scripture and what has been said again and again in many other Marian apparitions…”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><strong>Bishop Amaral</strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Bishop Amaral – the third Bishop of Fatima – likewise relates that the Secret warns of dangers to the Faith. In a speech in Vienna, Austria, on September 10, 1984, the bishop said,</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">“Its contents concern only our faith. To identity the [Third] Secret with catastrophic announcements or with a nuclear holocaust is to deform the meaning of the message. <em>The loss of faith of a continent is worse than the annihilation of nations</em>; and it is true that the faith is continually diminishing in Europe.”<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/https://fatima.org/news/newsviews/2016/newsviews0517.asp#_edn3" id="_ednref3" name="_ednref3" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" title=""><u><sup>3</sup></u></a> [emphasis added]</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><strong>Cardinal Oddi</strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Silvio Cardinal Oddi gave the following testimony to Italian journalist Lucio Brunelli on March 17, 1990, for the journal <em>Il Sabato</em>:</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">“It [the Third Secret] has nothing to do with Gorbachev. The Blessed Virgin was alerting us against the apostasy in the Church.”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><strong>Cardinal Ciappi</strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Then there is the oft-quoted testimony of Cardinal Mario Luigi Ciappi, who was personal papal theologians to five popes – Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II. The Cardinal wrote the following in a personal communication to Professor Baumgartner in Salzburg:</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">“In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top.”<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/https://fatima.org/news/newsviews/2016/newsviews0517.asp#_edn4" id="_ednref4" name="_ednref4" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" title=""><u><sup>4</sup></u></a></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><strong>Warnings from Sister Lucia</strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">We close with some quick observations from Sister Lucia, where she warns of the diabolic disorientation of members of the upper hierarchy, and she calls upon Catholics to “stand up against it.”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">The full Secret, Sister Lucia had told us, was supposed to be revealed at the time of her death or in 1960, whichever came first.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">In 1960, however, the Secret was not released, and Sister Lucy was silenced. She was not allowed to speak about anything not yet published on the Message of Fatima without prior authorization of the Vatican.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Yet, in 1957, and in the late 60s and early 70s, the years “bracketing” 1960 wherein the Secret should have been released, Sister Lucy seemed to indicate what the Secret contained. In these statements, Sister Lucy speaks of the devil gaining power over priests and consecrated souls. She speaks of the diabolic disorientation infecting the upper hierarchy.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">In her 1957 conversation with Father Fuentes, her last public interview that was not pre-approved by the Vatican, Sister Lucy said: “The devil is about to wage a decisive battle with the Blessed Virgin, as he knows what it is that offends God the most, and which in a short space of time will gain for him the greatest number of souls. Thus the devil does everything to overcome souls consecrated to God, because in this way he will succeed in leaving the souls of the faithful abandoned by their leaders, thereby the more easily will he seize them.”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">More than a decade later, Sister Lucy denounced the progressivist forces in the Church seeking to downplay and suppress the Rosary. “This campaign is diabolical,” she wrote in 1969 to one of her priest-nephews, “do not let yourself be deceived.” This is from the 1973 book, <em>Uma Vida ao Serviço de Fátima</em>, Chapter 6, “Um Pequeno Tratado, da Vidente, sobre a Natureza e Recitação do Terço”, containing excerpts from letters of Sister Lucy written between 1969-1971.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">In these letters, she also voiced strong words about the leadership in the Church following Vatican II. She wrote in 1970 to Mother Martins, a former companion in the Dorothean Sisters: “It is painful to see such a great disorientation in so many who occupy places of responsibility ... the devil has succeeded in infiltrating evil under cover of good, and the blind are beginning to guide others, as the Lord tells us in His Gospel, and souls are letting themselves be deceived.”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">It is noteworthy that in 1957, Sister Lucy said the devil was <em>about</em> to wage a decisive battle. By 1971, she says the devil <em>has begun</em> to succeed.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">“Gladly,” Sister Lucy continued, “I sacrifice myself and offer my life to God for peace in His Church, for priests and for all consecrated souls, especially for those who are so deceived and misled ... he (the devil) has succeeded in leading into error and deceiving souls having a heavy responsibility through the place which they occupy ... They are blind men guiding other blind men.”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><strong>“Stand up to it”</strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">It is no mystery why Sister Lucy was silenced. A voice as powerful as hers making such statements, a voice loved and respected as Our Lady’s chosen vessel, would threaten the entire post-Conciliar <em>aggiornamento</em>.</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">The contemplative Carmelite accepted her imposition of silence. She understood it as Heaven’s chosen path for her. “I must remain in silence, in prayer and in penance,” Sister Lucy said in a 1970 letter to her friend Dona Maria Theresa da Cunha. “In this way, I can and must help you the most ... such is the part the Lord has chosen for me: to pray and sacrifice myself for those who struggle to work in the Lord’s vineyard and for the extension of His Kingdom.”</p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Those of us outside the Carmel, however, she exhorted to battle: <strong><em>“This is a diabolic disorientation invading the world and misleading souls! It is necessary to stand up to it …”</em></strong></p><p style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;">Sister Lucia’s marching orders reconfirm our duty as Catholics. We keep the true Faith, the true Mass, the daily Rosary, and publicly resist the destructive Conciliar <em>aggiornamento</em> in any legitimate manner we can.</p><div style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #3f4f55; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><div id="edn1"><p style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/https://fatima.org/news/newsviews/2016/newsviews0517.asp#_ednref1" id="_edn1" name="_edn1" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" title=""><sup>1</sup></a> <em>The Whole Truth About Fatima</em>, Vol. III, p. 704.</p></div><div id="edn2"><p style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/https://fatima.org/news/newsviews/2016/newsviews0517.asp#_ednref2" id="_edn2" name="_edn2" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" title=""><sup>2</sup></a> Ibid, p. 705.</p></div><div id="edn3"><p style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/https://fatima.org/news/newsviews/2016/newsviews0517.asp#_ednref3" id="_edn3" name="_edn3" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" title=""><sup>3</sup></a> <em>Fatima, Tragedy and Triumph,</em> pp. 243-244.</p></div><div id="edn4"><p style="font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px;"><a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170422030357/https://fatima.org/news/newsviews/2016/newsviews0517.asp#_ednref4" id="_edn4" name="_edn4" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: none;" title=""><sup>4</sup></a> Referenced from <em>The Devil’s Final Battle</em> [Second Edition, 2010], p. 36.</p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-58414564900227670472021-04-24T23:19:00.000-07:002021-04-24T23:19:04.278-07:00Ratzinger on Purgatory<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 6pt 0cm 6pt 38.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; color: #202122; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sbBa1kLupgo/YIUJZ83_PoI/AAAAAAAAAfU/DgF-eypDj6wx3N0tQud4spR0FC0NiFvyQCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="255" data-original-width="198" height="299" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sbBa1kLupgo/YIUJZ83_PoI/AAAAAAAAAfU/DgF-eypDj6wx3N0tQud4spR0FC0NiFvyQCLcBGAsYHQ/w232-h299/image.png" width="232" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">"Purgatory
is not, as Tertullian</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> thought,
some kind of supra-worldly concentration camp where man is forced to undergo
punishment in a more or less arbitrary fashion. Rather it is the inwardly
necessary process of transformation in which a person becomes capable of
Christ, capable of God, and thus capable of unity with the whole communion of
saints".</span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 6pt 0cm 6pt 38.4pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 107%;">Joseph Ratzinger,<i> </i></span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 107%;">Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life,</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 107%;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 107%;">CUA Press, p. 230. </span></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-4648994989577247382021-04-18T22:10:00.000-07:002021-04-18T22:10:12.385-07:00 Frequency of receiving the Eucharist - earliest reference?<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OV6R6qbarHE/YH0Ps13xfMI/AAAAAAAAAes/5yMLcEY2pIA3gDuXXmZY5XRYkn4OhQy3wCLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1319" height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OV6R6qbarHE/YH0Ps13xfMI/AAAAAAAAAes/5yMLcEY2pIA3gDuXXmZY5XRYkn4OhQy3wCLcBGAsYHQ/w330-h400/image.png" width="330" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: medium; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><br />"And on the day which is called the day of the sun there is an assembly of all who live in the towns or in the country; and the memoirs of the
Apostles or the writings of the Prophets are read, as long as time permits.
Then the reader ceases, and the president <i>[i.e., the bishop or his
designate] </i>speaks, admonishing us and exhorting us to imitate these
excellent examples. Then we arise all together and offer
prayers; and, as we said before, when we have concluded our prayer, bread is
brought, and wine and water, and the president in like manner offers up prayers
and thanksgivings with all his might; and the people assent with
"Amen"; and there is the distribution and partaking by all of
the Eucharistic elements; and to them that are not present they are sent by the
hand of the deacons."</span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;">St. Justin Martyr, <i>First Apology </i></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"></p><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">
</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-29112069614565505262021-04-14T21:33:00.004-07:002021-04-14T21:33:29.836-07:00Orthodox Church and Purgatory<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;"><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-NYRoGHs2v2w/YHfB8Uq9y7I/AAAAAAAAAec/zbrO3fLAsxU2DyW1YeXciWQfa8Ue4ZccACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="365" height="330" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-NYRoGHs2v2w/YHfB8Uq9y7I/AAAAAAAAAec/zbrO3fLAsxU2DyW1YeXciWQfa8Ue4ZccACLcBGAsYHQ/w241-h330/image.png" width="241" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />The Orthodox Church does not believe in purgatory (a place of purging), that is, the inter-mediate state after death in which the souls of the saved (those who have not received temporal punishment for their sins) are purified of all taint preparatory to entering into Heaven, where every soul is perfect and fit to see God.</span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #202122;">Also, the Orthodox Church does not believe in indulgences as remissions from purgatorial punishment. Both purgatory and indulgences are inter-correlated theories, and according to the Orthodox, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church. However, the below decree does seem to indicate that the Orthodox position - if not the same - </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;"> seems similar to Purgatory.</span></span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red; font-family: arial;"><b><u>Orthodox Council of Jerusalem 1672</u></b></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Decree 18</b></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>We believe that the souls of those that have fallen asleep are either at rest or in torment, according to what each has done; — for when they are separated from their bodies, they depart immediately either to joy, or to sorrow and lamentation; though confessedly neither their enjoyment nor condemnation are complete. For after the common resurrection, when the soul shall be united with the body, with which it had behaved itself well or ill, each shall receive the completion of either enjoyment or of condemnation.</b></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>And the souls of those involved in mortal sins, who have not departed in despair but while still living in the body, though without bringing forth any fruits of repentance, have repented — by pouring forth tears, by kneeling while watching in prayers, by afflicting themselves, by relieving the poor, and finally by showing forth by their works their love towards God and their neighbor, and which the Catholic Church has from the beginning rightly called satisfaction — [their souls] depart into Hades, and there endure the punishment due to the sins they have committed. But they are aware of their future release from there, and are delivered by the Supreme Goodness, through the prayers of the Priests, and the good works which the relatives of each do for their Departed; especially the unbloody Sacrifice benefiting the most; which each offers particularly for his relatives that have fallen asleep, and which the Catholic and Apostolic Church offers daily for all alike. Of course, it is understood that we do not know the time of their release. We know and believe that there is deliverance for such from their direful condition, and that before the common resurrection and judgment, but when we know not.</b></span></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-31680681696960799362021-04-08T21:55:00.002-07:002021-04-08T21:55:37.131-07:00Eastern Christianity liturgy according to Saint John Paul II <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R3_Ay0m9o-0/YG_bsdL7dRI/AAAAAAAAAeA/HefrVkP7ymw69-QTkH4YkFED90a-KnjWACLcBGAsYHQ/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="589" height="402" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R3_Ay0m9o-0/YG_bsdL7dRI/AAAAAAAAAeA/HefrVkP7ymw69-QTkH4YkFED90a-KnjWACLcBGAsYHQ/w429-h402/image.png" width="429" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">In Venice, before the representatives of the ecclesiastical world, who
held a rather narrow idea of the Church and were opposed to this vision, Saint
Cyril defended it with courage. He showed that many peoples had already in the
past introduced and now possessed a liturgy written and celebrated in their own
language, such as " the Armenians, the Persians, the Abasgians, the
Georgians, the Sogdians, the Goths, the Avars, the Tirsians, the Khazars, the
Arabs, the Copts, the Syrians and many others".</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Reminding them that God causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on
all people without exception, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">he said: "Do not all breathe
the air in the same way? And you are not ashamed to decree only three languages
(Hebrew, Greek and Latin), deciding that all other peoples and races should
remain blind and deaf! Tell me: do you hold this because you consider God is so
weak that he cannot grant it, or so envious that he does not wish it?". </span><a name="-V"></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">To the historical and logical
arguments which they brought against him Cyril replied by referring to the
inspired basis of Sacred Scripture: "Let every tongue confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father";</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"> "All the earth worships you;
they sing praises to you, sing praises to your name";</span><span style="color: #663300; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"> </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">"Praise the Lord, all
nations! Extol him, all peoples!".</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 13.3333px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">...</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">Furthermore, the translation of the sacred books, carried out by Cyril
and Methodius together with their pupils, conferred a capacity and cultural
dignity upon the Old Slavonic liturgical language, which became for many
hundreds of years not only the ecclesiastical but also the official and
literary language, and even the common language of the more educated classes of
the greater part of the Slav nations, and in particular of all the Slavs of the
Eastern Rite. It was also used in the Church of the Holy Cross in Cracow, where
the Slav Benedictines had established themselves. Here were published the first
liturgical books printed in this language. Up to the present day this is the
language used in the Byzantine liturgy of the Slavonic Eastern Churches of the
Rite of Constantinople, both Catholic and Orthodox, in Eastern and South
Eastern Europe, as well as in various countries of Western Europe. It is also
used in the Roman liturgy of the Catholics of Croatia.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">22. In the historical development of the Slavs of Eastern Rite, this
language played a role equal to that of the Latin language in the West. It also
lasted longer than Latin in part until the nineteenth century-and exercised a
much more direct influence on the formation of the local literary languages,
thanks to its close kinship with them. These merits </span><span style="font-family: arial;"><em>vis</em>-<em>à</em>-<em>vis</em> </span><span style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;">the culture of
all the Slav peoples and nations make the work of evangelization carried out by
Saints Cyril and Methodius in a certain sense constantly present in the history
and in the life of these peoples and nations.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">John Paul II, Encyclical <em style="background-color: transparent;">Slavorum</em><span style="background-color: transparent;"><i> Apostoli</i> about two saintly brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius (</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><span style="line-height: 107%;">2 June 1985).</span></span></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="mso-bookmark: -Y;"><sup><br /></sup></span></p><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-6295084213864384122019-12-10T00:00:00.000-08:002019-12-10T00:17:40.235-08:00Benedict XVI on the Holy Family of Nazareth<div align="center" style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px;">
<span style="color: #663300; font-family: "times new roman";"><a data-cthref="/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiwr-CptaDkAhURaBoKHUSlCgAQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffatherfladerblog.com%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fthe-holy-family-model-of-all-families%2F&psig=AOvVaw3222o4tQdQxtPv5IIh9HZZ&ust=1566904772959944" data-ved="2ahUKEwiwr-CptaDkAhURaBoKHUSlCgAQjRx6BAgBEAQ" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiwr-CptaDkAhURaBoKHUSlCgAQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Ffatherfladerblog.com%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fthe-holy-family-model-of-all-families%2F&psig=AOvVaw3222o4tQdQxtPv5IIh9HZZ&ust=1566904772959944" id="irc_mil" jsaction="mousedown:irc.rl;focus:irc.rl;irc.il;" style="border-image: none; border: 0px currentColor;" target="_blank"><img alt="Image result for holy family" height="640" id="irc_mi" src="https://fatherfladerblog.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/holy-family-icon-e1546253106151.jpg" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px;" width="485" /></a></span><br />
<span style="color: #663300; font-family: "times new roman";"></span><br />
<div align="center" style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;"><b></b></span> </div>
<div align="left" style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px;">
<b><i></i></b> </div>
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
"Today’s meeting is taking place in the atmosphere of Christmas, imbued with deep joy at the Birth of the Saviour. We have just celebrated this Mystery whose echo ripples through the Liturgy of all these days. It is a Mystery of Light that all people in every era can relive with faith and prayer. It is through prayer itself that we become capable of drawing close to God with intimacy and depth.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
Therefore, bearing in mind the theme of prayer that I am developing in the Catecheses in this period, I would therefore like to invite you to reflect today on the way that prayer was part of the life of the Holy Family of Nazareth. Indeed, the house of Nazareth is a school of prayer where one learns to listen, meditate on and penetrate the profound meaning of the manifestation of the Son of God, following the example of Mary, Joseph and Jesus.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
The Discourse of the Servant of God Paul VI during his Visit to Nazareth is memorable. The Pope said that at the school of the Holy Family we “understand why we must maintain a spiritual discipline, if we wish to follow the teaching of the Gospel and become disciples of Christ”. He added: “In the first place it teaches us silence. Oh! If only esteem for silence, a wonderful and indispensable spiritual atmosphere, could be reborn within us! Whereas we are deafened by the din, the noise and discordant voices in the frenetic, turbulent life of our time. O silence of Nazareth! Teach us to be steadfast in good thoughts, attentive to our inner life, ready to hear God’s hidden inspiration clearly and the exhortations of true teachers” (<i>Discourse in Nazareth</i>, 5 January 1964).</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
We can draw various ideas for prayer and for the relationship with God and with the Holy Family from the Gospel narratives of the infancy of Jesus. We can begin with the episode of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. St Luke tells how “when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses”, Mary and Joseph “brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord” (2:22). Like every Jewish family that observed the law, Jesus’ parents went to the Temple to consecrate their first-born son to God and to make the sacrificial offering. Motivated by their fidelity to the precepts of the Law, they set out from Bethlehem and went to Jerusalem with Jesus who was only 40 days old. Instead of a year-old lamb they presented the offering of simple families, namely, two turtle doves. The Holy Family’s pilgrimage was one of faith, of the offering of gifts — a symbol of prayer — and of the encounter with the Lord whom Mary and Joseph already perceived in their Son Jesus.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
Mary was a peerless model of contemplation of Christ. The face of the Son belonged to her in a special way because he had been knit together in her womb and had taken a human likeness from her. No one has contemplated Jesus as diligently as Mary. The gaze of her heart was already focused on him at the moment of the Annunciation, when she conceived him through the action of the Holy Spirit; in the following months she gradually became aware of his presence, until, on the day of his birth, her eyes could look with motherly tenderness upon the face of her son as she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in the manger.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
Memories of Jesus, imprinted on her mind and on her heart, marked every instant of Mary’s existence. She lived with her eyes fixed on Christ and cherished his every word. St Luke says: “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (2:19) and thus describes Mary’s approach to the Mystery of the Incarnation which was to extend throughout her life: keeping these things, pondering on them in her heart. Luke is the Evangelist who acquaints us with Mary’s heart, with her faith (cf. 1:45), her hope and her obedience (cf. 1:38) and, especially, with her interiority and prayer (cf. 1:46-56), her free adherence to Christ (cf. 1:55).</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
And all this proceeded from the gift of the Holy Spirit who overshadowed her (cf. 1:35), as he was to come down on the Apostles in accordance with Christ’s promise (cf. Acts 1:8). This image of Mary which St Luke gives us presents Our Lady as a model for every believer who cherishes and compares Jesus’ words with his actions, a comparison which is always progress in the knowledge of Jesus. After Bl. Pope John Paul II’s example (cf. Apostolic Letter <i>Rosarium Virginis Mariae</i>) we can say that the prayer of the Rosary is modelled precisely on Mary, because it consists in contemplating the mysteries of Christ in spiritual union with the Mother of the Lord.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
Mary’s ability to live by God’s gaze, is so to speak, contagious. The first to experience this was St Joseph. His humble and sincere love for his betrothed and his decision to join his life to Mary’s attracted and introduced him, “a just man”, (Mt 1:19), to a special intimacy with God. Indeed, with Mary and later, especially, with Jesus, he began a new way of relating to God, accepting him in his life, entering his project of salvation and doing his will. After trustfully complying with the Angel’s instructions “Do not fear to take Mary your wife” (Mt 1:20) — he took Mary to him and shared his life with her; he truly gave the whole of himself to Mary and to Jesus and this led him to perfect his response to the vocation he had received.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
As we know, the Gospel has not recorded any of Joseph’s words: his is a silent and faithful, patient and hard-working presence. We may imagine that he too, like his wife and in close harmony with her, lived the years of Jesus’ childhood and adolescence savouring, as it were, his presence in their family.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
Joseph fulfilled every aspect of his paternal role. He must certainly have taught Jesus to pray, together with Mary. In particular Joseph himself must have taken Jesus to the Synagogue for the rites of the Sabbath, as well as to Jerusalem for the great feasts of the people of Israel. Joseph, in accordance with the Jewish tradition, would have led the prayers at home both every day — in the morning, in the evening, at meals — and on the principal religious feasts. In the rhythm of the days he spent at Nazareth, in the simple home and in Joseph’s workshop, Jesus learned to alternate prayer and work, as well as to offer God his labour in earning the bread the family needed.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
And lastly, there is another episode that sees the Holy Family of Nazareth gathered together in an event of prayer. When Jesus was 12 years old, as we have heard, he went with his parents to the Temple of Jerusalem. This episode fits into the context of pilgrimage, as St Luke stresses: “His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom” (2:41-42).</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
Pilgrimage is an expression of religious devotion that is nourished by and at the same time nourishes prayer. Here, it is the Passover pilgrimage, and the Evangelist points out to us that the family of Jesus made this pilgrimage every year in order to take part in the rites in the Holy City. Jewish families, like Christian families, pray in the intimacy of the home but they also pray together with the community, recognizing that they belong to the People of God, journeying on; and the pilgrimage expresses exactly this state of the People of God on the move. Easter is the centre and culmination of all this and involves both the family dimension and that of liturgical and public worship.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
In the episode of the 12-year-old Jesus, the first words of Jesus are also recorded: “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (2:49). After three days spent looking for him his parents found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions (cf. 2:46). His answer to the question of why he had done this to his father and mother was that he had only done what the Son should do, that is, to be with his Father.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
Thus he showed who is the true Father, what is the true home, and that he had done nothing unusual or disobedient. He had stayed where the Son ought to be, that is, with the Father, and he stressed who his Father was.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
The term “Father” therefore dominates the tone of this answer and the Christological mystery appears in its entirety. Hence, this word unlocks the mystery, it is the key to the Mystery of Christ, who is the Son, and also the key to our mystery as Christians who are sons and daughters in the Son. At the same time Jesus teaches us to be children by being with the Father in prayer. The Christological mystery, the mystery of Christian existence, is closely linked to, founded on, prayer. Jesus was one day to teach his disciples to pray, telling them: when you pray say “Father”. And, naturally, do not just say the word say it with your life, learn to say it meaningfully with your life. “Father”; and in this way you will be true sons in the Son, true Christians.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
It is important at this point, when Jesus was still fully integrated in the life of the Family of Nazareth, to note the resonance that hearing this word “Father” on Jesus’ lips must have had in the hearts of Mary and Joseph. It is also important to reveal, to emphasize, who the Father is, and, with his awareness, to hear this word on the lips of the Only-Begotten Son who, for this very reason, chose to stay on for three days in the Temple, which is the “Father’s house”.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
We may imagine that from this time the life of the Holy Family must have been even fuller of prayer since from the heart of Jesus the boy — then an adolescent and a young man — this deep meaning of the relationship with God the Father would not cease to spread and to be echoed in the hearts of Mary and Joseph.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
This episode shows us the real situation, the atmosphere of being with the Father. So it was that the Family of Nazareth became the first model of the Church in which, around the presence of Jesus and through his mediation, everyone experiences the filial relationship with God the Father which also transforms interpersonal, human relationships.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
Dear friends, because of these different aspects that I have outlined briefly in the light of the Gospel, the Holy Family is the icon of the domestic Church, called to pray together. The family is the domestic Church and must be the first school of prayer. It is in the family that children, from the tenderest age, can learn to perceive the meaning of God, also thanks to the teaching and example of their parents: to live in an atmosphere marked by God’s presence. An authentically Christian education cannot dispense with the experience of prayer. If one does not learn how to pray in the family it will later be difficult to bridge this gap. And so I would like to address to you the invitation to pray together as a family at the school of the Holy Family of Nazareth and thereby really to become of one heart and soul, a true family. Many thanks." </div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px; text-align: justify;">
Benedict XVI, General Audience (Paul VI Audience Hall), 28 December 2011</div>
<div align="left" style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px;">
</div>
<div align="left" style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px;">
<div align="center" style="background-color: white; font-family: "tahoma" , "verdana" , "segoe" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.66px;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;"><b></b></span> </div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-91116090335680751762019-09-18T03:14:00.004-07:002019-09-18T03:14:57.106-07:00Benedict XVI on Saint Ambrose of Milan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img alt="Image result for saint ambrose" src="https://www.wantedinmilan.com/i/preview/storage/uploads/2017/12/ambrosius_denies_entrance_to_emperor_Peter_Paul_Rubens_139.jpg" /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Holy Bishop Ambrose - about whom I shall speak to you today - died in Milan in the night between 3 and 4 April 397. It was dawn on Holy Saturday. The day before, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, he had settled down to pray, lying on his bed with his arms wide open in the form of a cross. Thus, he took part in the solemn Easter Triduum, in the death and Resurrection of the Lord. <i>"We saw his lips moving"</i>, said Paulinus, the faithful deacon who wrote his <i>Life </i>at St Augustine's suggestion, "but we could not hear his voice". The situation suddenly became dramatic. Honoratus, Bishop of Vercelli, who was assisting Ambrose and was sleeping on the upper floor, was awoken by a voice saying again and again, "Get up quickly! Ambrose is dying...". "Honoratus hurried downstairs", Paulinus continues, "and offered the Saint the Body of the Lord. As soon as he had received and swallowed it, Ambrose gave up his spirit, taking the good Viaticum with him. His soul, thus refreshed by the virtue of that food, now enjoys the company of Angels" (<i>Life,</i> 47). On that Holy Friday 397, the wide open arms of the dying Ambrose expressed his mystical participation in the death and Resurrection of the Lord. This was his last catechesis: in the silence of the words, he continued to speak with the witness of his life. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Ambrose was not old when he died. He had not even reached the age of 60, since he was born in about 340 A.D. in Treves, where his father was Prefect of the Gauls. His family was Christian. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Upon his father's death while he was still a boy, his mother took him to Rome and educated him for a civil career, assuring him a sound instruction in rhetoric and jurisprudence. In about 370 he was sent to govern the Provinces of Emilia and Liguria, with headquarters in Milan. It was precisely there that the struggle between orthodox and Arians was raging and became particularly heated after the death of the Arian Bishop Auxentius. Ambrose intervened to pacify the members of the two opposing factions; his authority was such that although he was merely a catechumen, the people acclaimed him Bishop of Milan. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Until that moment, Ambrose had been the most senior magistrate of the Empire in northern Italy. Culturally well-educated but at the same time ignorant of the Scriptures, the new Bishop briskly began to study them. From the works of Origen, the indisputable master of the "Alexandrian School", he learned to know and to comment on the Bible. Thus, Ambrose transferred to the Latin environment the meditation on the Scriptures which Origen had begun, introducing in the West the practice of <i>lectio divina</i>. The method of <i>lectio</i> served to guide all of Ambrose's preaching and writings, which stemmed precisely from <i>prayerful listening </i>to the Word of God. The famous introduction of an Ambrosian catechesis shows clearly how the holy Bishop applied the Old Testament to Christian life: "Every day, when we were reading about the lives of the Patriarchs and the maxims of the Proverbs, we addressed morality", the Bishop of Milan said to his catechumens and neophytes, "so that formed and instructed by them you may become accustomed to taking the path of the Fathers and to following the route of obedience to the divine precepts" (<i>On the Mysteries</i> 1, 1). In other words, the neophytes and catechumens, in accordance with the Bishop's decision, after having learned the art of a well-ordered life, could henceforth consider themselves prepared for Christ's great mysteries. Thus, Ambrose's preaching - which constitutes the structural nucleus of his immense literary opus - starts with the reading of the Sacred Books ("the Patriarchs" or the historical Books and "Proverbs", or in other words, the Wisdom Books) in order to live in conformity with divine Revelation. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It is obvious that the preacher's personal testimony and the level of exemplarity of the Christian community condition the effectiveness of the preaching. In this perspective, a passage from St Augustine's <i>Confessions</i> is relevant. He had come to Milan as a teacher of rhetoric; he was a sceptic and not Christian. He was seeking the Christian truth but was not capable of truly finding it. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
What moved the heart of the young African rhetorician, sceptic and downhearted, and what impelled him to definitive conversion was not above all Ambrose's splendid homilies (although he deeply appreciated them). It was rather the testimony of the Bishop and his Milanese Church that prayed and sang as one intact body. It was a Church that could resist the tyrannical ploys of the Emperor and his mother, who in early 386 again demanded a church building for the Arians' celebrations. In the building that was to be requisitioned, Augustine relates, "the devout people watched, ready to die with their Bishop". This testimony of the <i>Confessions</i> is precious because it points out that something was moving in Augustine, who continues: "We too, although spiritually tepid, shared in the excitement of the whole people" (<i>Confessions </i>9, 7). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Augustine learned from the life and example of Bishop Ambrose to believe and to preach. We can refer to a famous sermon of the African, which centuries later merited citation in the conciliar Constitution on Divine Revelation, <i>Dei Verbum:</i> "Therefore, all clerics, particularly priests of Christ and others who, as deacons or catechists, are officially engaged in the ministry of the Word", <i>Dei Verbum</i> recommends, "should immerse themselves in the Scriptures by constant sacred reading and diligent study. For it must not happen that anyone becomes" - and this is Augustine's citation - ""an empty preacher of the Word of God to others, not being a hearer of the Word in his own heart'" (n. 25). Augustine had learned precisely from Ambrose how to "hear in his own heart" this perseverance in reading Sacred Scripture with a prayerful approach, so as truly to absorb and assimilate the Word of God in one's heart. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Dear brothers and sisters, I would like further to propose to you a sort of "patristic icon", which, interpreted in the light of what we have said, effectively represents "the heart" of Ambrosian doctrine. In the sixth book of the <i>Confessions, </i>Augustine tells of his meeting with Ambrose, an encounter that was indisputably of great importance in the history of the Church. He writes in his text that whenever he went to see the Bishop of Milan, he would regularly find him taken up with <i>catervae</i> of people full of problems for whose needs he did his utmost. There was always a long queue waiting to talk to Ambrose, seeking in him consolation and hope. When Ambrose was not with them, with the people (and this happened for the space of the briefest of moments), he was either restoring his body with the necessary food or nourishing his spirit with reading. Here Augustine marvels because Ambrose read the Scriptures with his mouth shut, only with his eyes (cf. <i>Confessions, </i>6, 3). Indeed, in the early Christian centuries reading was conceived of strictly for proclamation, and reading aloud also facilitated the reader's understanding. That Ambrose could scan the pages with his eyes alone suggested to the admiring Augustine a rare ability for reading and familiarity with the Scriptures. Well, in that "reading under one's breath", where the heart is committed to achieving knowledge of the Word of God - this is the "icon" to which we are referring -, one can glimpse the method of Ambrosian catechesis; it is Scripture itself, intimately assimilated, which suggests the content to proclaim that will lead to the conversion of hearts. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thus, with regard to the magisterium of Ambrose and of Augustine, catechesis is inseparable from witness of life. What I wrote on the theologian in the <i>Introduction to Christianity</i> might also be useful to the catechist. An educator in the faith cannot risk appearing like a sort of clown who recites a part "by profession". Rather - to use an image dear to Origen, a writer who was particularly appreciated by Ambrose -, he must be like the beloved disciple who rested his head against his Master's heart and there learned the way to think, speak and act. The true disciple is ultimately the one whose proclamation of the Gospel is the most credible and effective. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Like the Apostle John, Bishop Ambrose - who never tired of saying: "<i>Omnia Christus est nobis! </i>To us Christ is all!" - continues to be a genuine witness of the Lord. Let us thus conclude our Catechesis with his same words, full of love for Jesus: "<i>Omnia Christus est nobis! </i>If you have a wound to heal, he is the doctor; if you are parched by fever, he is the spring; if you are oppressed by injustice, he is justice; if you are in need of help, he is strength; if you fear death, he is life; if you desire Heaven, he is the way; if you are in the darkness, he is light.... Taste and see how good is the Lord: blessed is the man who hopes in him!" (<i>De Virginitate, </i>16, 99). Let us also hope in Christ. We shall thus be blessed and shall live in peace." - Benedict XVI, General Audience, St. Peter's Square, 24 October 2007</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-8526839560159856772019-08-26T04:19:00.001-07:002019-08-26T04:19:08.378-07:00Benedict XVI on Sts. Timothy and Titus <div align="center">
</div>
<div align="center">
<img alt="" class="alignright wp-image-59569" height="390" scale="0" sizes="(max-width: 388px) 100vw, 388px" src="http://www.acatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/Saint-Timothy-and-Saint-Titus-500x306.jpg" srcset="http://www.acatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/Saint-Timothy-and-Saint-Titus-500x306.jpg 500w, http://www.acatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/Saint-Timothy-and-Saint-Titus.jpg 527w" width="640" /> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i></i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Having spoken at length on the great Apostle Paul, today let us look at his two closest collaborators: Timothy and Titus. Three Letters traditionally attributed to Paul are addressed to them, two to Timothy and one to Titus. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Timothy</i> is a Greek name which means "one who honours God". Whereas Luke mentions him six times in the Acts, Paul in his Letters refers to him at least 17 times (and his name occurs once in the Letter to the Hebrews). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
One may deduce from this that Paul held him in high esteem, even if Luke did not consider it worth telling us all about him. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Indeed, the Apostle entrusted Timothy with important missions and saw him almost as an <i>alter ego</i>, as is evident from his great praise of him in his Letter to the Philippians. "I have no one like him <i>(isópsychon) </i>who will be genuinely anxious for your welfare" (2: 20). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Timothy was born at Lystra (about 200 kilometres northwest of Tarsus) of a Jewish mother and a Gentile father (cf. Acts 16: 1). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The fact that his mother had contracted a mixed-marriage and did not have her son circumcised suggests that Timothy grew up in a family that was not strictly observant, although it was said that he was acquainted with the Scriptures from childhood (cf. II Tm 3: 15). The name of his mother, Eunice, has been handed down to us, as well as that of his grandmother, Lois (cf. II Tm 1: 5). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When Paul was passing through Lystra at the beginning of his second missionary journey, he chose Timothy to be his companion because "he was well spoken of by the brethren at Lystra and Iconium" (Acts 16: 2), but he had him circumcised "because of the Jews that were in those places" (Acts 16: 3). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Together with Paul and Silas, Timothy crossed Asia Minor as far as Troy, from where he entered Macedonia. We are informed further that at Philippi, where Paul and Silas were falsely accused of disturbing public order and thrown into prison for having exposed the exploitation of a young girl who was a soothsayer by several unscrupulous individuals (cf. Acts 16: 16-40), Timothy was spared. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When Paul was then obliged to proceed to Athens, Timothy joined him in that city and from it was sent out to the young Church of Thessalonica to obtain news about her and to strengthen her in the faith (cf. I Thes 3: 1-2). He then met up with the Apostle in Corinth, bringing him good news about the Thessalonians and working with him to evangelize that city (cf. II Cor 1: 19). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We find Timothy at Ephesus during Paul's third missionary journey. It was probably from there that the Apostle wrote to Philemon and to the Philippians; he sent both Letters jointly with Timothy (cf. Phlm 1; Phil 1: 1). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From Ephesus, Paul sent Timothy to Macedonia, together with a certain Erastus (cf. Acts 19: 22), and then also to Corinth with the mission of taking a letter to the Corinthians, in which he recommended that they welcome him warmly (cf. I Cor 4: 17; 16: 10-11). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We encounter him again as the joint sender of the Second Letter to the Corinthians, and when Paul wrote the Letter to the Romans from Corinth he added Timothy's greetings as well as the greetings of the others (cf. Rom 16: 21). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From Corinth, the disciple left for Troy on the Asian coast of the Aegean See and there awaited the Apostle who was bound for Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey (cf. Acts 20: 4). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From that moment in Timothy's biography, the ancient sources mention nothing further to us, except for a reference in the Letter to the Hebrews which says: "You should understand that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon" (13: 23). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To conclude, we can say that the figure of Timothy stands out as a very important pastor.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
According to the later <i>Storia Ecclesiastica </i>by Eusebius, Timothy was the first Bishop of Ephesus (cf. 3, 4). Some of his relics, brought from Constantinople, were found in Italy in 1239 in the Cathedral of Termoli in the Molise. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Then, as regards the figure of <i>Titus, </i>whose name is of Latin origin, we know that he was Greek by birth, that is, a pagan (cf. Gal 2: 3). Paul took Titus with him to Jerusalem for the so-called Apostolic Council, where the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles that freed them from the constraints of Mosaic Law was solemnly accepted. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the Letter addressed to Titus, the Apostle praised him and described him as his "true child in a common faith" (Ti 1: 4). After Timothy's departure from Corinth, Paul sent Titus there with the task of bringing that unmanageable community to obedience. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Titus restored peace between the Church of Corinth and the Apostle, who wrote to this Church in these terms: "But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus, and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me.... And besides our own comfort we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his mind has been set at rest by you all" (II Cor 7: 6-7, 13). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
From Corinth, Titus was again sent out by Paul - who called him "my partner and fellow worker in your service" (II Cor 8: 23) - to organize the final collections for the Christians of Jerusalem (cf. II Cor 8: 6). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Further information from the <i>Pastoral Letters</i> describes him as Bishop of Crete (cf. Ti 1: 5), from which, at Paul's invitation, he joined the Apostle at Nicopolis in Epirus (cf. Ti 3: 12). Later, he also went to Dalmatia (cf. II Tm 4: 10). We lack any further information on the subsequent movements of Titus or on his death. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
To conclude, if we consider together the two figures of Timothy and Titus, we are aware of certain very significant facts. The most important one is that in carrying out his missions, Paul availed himself of collaborators. He certainly remains the Apostle par excellence, founder and pastor of many Churches. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Yet it clearly appears that he did not do everything on his own but relied on trustworthy people who shared in his endeavours and responsibilities. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Another observation concerns the willingness of these collaborators. The sources concerning Timothy and Titus highlight their readiness to take on various offices that also often consisted in representing Paul in circumstances far from easy. In a word, they teach us to serve the Gospel with generosity, realizing that this also entails a service to the Church herself. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Lastly, let us follow the recommendation that the Apostle Paul makes to Titus in the Letter addressed to him: "I desire you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to apply themselves to good deeds; these are excellent and profitable to men" (Ti 3: 8). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Through our commitment in practice we can and must discover the truth of these words, and precisely in this Season of Advent, we too can be rich in good deeds and thus open the doors of the world to Christ, our Saviour." </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Benedict XVI, General Audience, Paul VI Audience Hall, 13 December 2006</div>
<div align="center">
</div>
<div align="center">
<span style="color: #663300;"><i></i></span> </div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-8582419816316673452019-08-12T04:10:00.001-07:002019-08-12T04:10:49.534-07:00Benedict XVI on Saint John Bosco<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; float: left; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;">
<img alt="Image result for giovanni bosco" src="http://radiobau.it/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/d_don_bosco.jpg" style="background-color: transparent;" /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; margin-bottom: 3pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Andalus, serif; font-size: 18pt;">“This morning we celebrate the feast day of St. John Bosco, a priest and educator. I urge the youth to see him as an authentic teacher of life. To my ill brothers and sisters, I urge you to learn from his spirituality, so you many always trust in Christ. And you, dear newlyweds, seek his intercession, so you may fulfill your spousal role, with generosity.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; margin-bottom: 3pt; text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="font-family: Andalus, serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; margin-bottom: 3pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Andalus, serif; font-size: 18pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14.85px; margin-bottom: 3pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Andalus, serif; font-size: 18pt;">Benedict XVI, General Audience, Saint Peter's Square, 31 January 2013 </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-25277130231672022142019-07-15T05:08:00.002-07:002019-07-15T05:08:43.681-07:00Benedict XVI on the Vatican Museums<img alt="Image result for vatican museum" class="irc_mi" data-iml="1563192296681" height="360" src="https://www.wantedinrome.com/i/preview/storage/uploads/2018/09/Musei_vaticani_di_Notte.jpg" style="margin-top: 67px;" width="640" /><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"For many people a visit to the Vatican Museums during their stay in Rome represents their deepest and sometimes only contact with the Holy See. Therefore, is it a good opportunity to learn about the Christian message. We could say that the artistic heritage of Vatican City constitutes a kind of great 'parable' through which the Pope speaks to men and women from all over the world - and therefore from many cultural and religious backgrounds - people who perchance never read a papal address or homily. ... The language of art is a language of parables, possessing a special kind of universal openness. The 'Via Pulchtitudinis' can open people’s minds and hearts to the eternal, raising them to the heights of God.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I greatly appreciated the fact that the film makes repeated reference to the efforts of Roman Pontiffs to conserve and cherish artistic heritage, and to their efforts in modern times to renew the Church’s dialogue with artists. The collection of modern religious art in the Vatican Museums is living proof of the fruitfulness of that dialogue. Indeed, ... the entire great structure of the Vatican Museums ... possesses a dimension which we could define as 'evangelising'."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Benedict XVI, 25 October 2012</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-28432234214967314132019-02-28T01:00:00.002-08:002019-02-28T01:00:23.216-08:00Benedict XVI on the Year of Faith<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Pope John XXIII riding in procession to St Peter’s Basilica, at start of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Photograph: Paul Schutzer/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images" class="responsive-img" data-desktop="box_620_330" data-mobile="box_300_160" data-tablet="box_620_330" height="330" src="https://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2446076.1448630250!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/box_620_330/image.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Pope John XXIII riding in procession to St Peter’s Basilica, at start of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Photograph: Paul Schutzer/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images" width="620" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pope John XXIII riding in procession to St Peter’s Basilica, at the start of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The Year of Faith which we launch today is linked harmoniously with the Church’s whole path over the last fifty years: from the Council, through the Magisterium of the Servant of God Paul VI, who proclaimed a Year of Faith in 1967, up to the Great Jubilee of the year 2000, with which Blessed John Paul II re-proposed to all humanity Jesus Christ as the one Saviour, yesterday, today and forever. Between these two Popes, Paul VI and John Paul II, there was a deep and profound convergence, precisely upon Christ as the centre of the cosmos and of history, and upon the apostolic eagerness to announce Him to the world. Jesus is the centre of the Christian faith. The Christian believes in God Whose face was revealed by Jesus Christ. He is the fulfilment of the Scriptures and their definitive interpreter".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus Christ, consecrated by the Father in the Holy Spirit, is the true and perennial subject of evangelisation. ... This mission of Christ, this movement of His continues in space and time, over centuries and continents. It is a movement which starts with the Father and, in the power of the Spirit, goes forth to bring the good news to the poor, in both a material and a spiritual sense. The Church is the first and necessary instrument of this work of Christ because it is united to Him as a body to its head".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Vatican Council II did not wish to deal with the theme of faith in one specific document. It was, however, animated by a desire, as it were, to immerse itself anew in the Christian mystery so as to re-propose it fruitfully to contemporary man. ... In his opening speech Blessed John XXIII presented the principal purpose of the Council in this way: “What above all concerns the Ecumenical Council is this: that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine be safeguarded and taught more effectively. … Therefore, the principal purpose of this Council is not the discussion of this or that doctrinal theme, a Council is not required for that, ... [but] this certain and immutable doctrine, which is to be faithfully respected, needs to be explored and presented in a way which responds to the needs of our time”.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"In the light of these words, we can understand what I myself felt at the time: during the Council there was an emotional tension as we faced the common task of making the truth and beauty of the faith shine out in our time, without sacrificing it to the demands of the present or leaving it tied to the past: the eternal presence of God resounds in the faith, transcending time, yet it can only be welcomed by us in our own unrepeatable today. Therefore I believe that the most important thing ... is to revive in the whole Church that positive tension, that yearning to announce Christ again to contemporary man. But, so that this interior thrust towards the new evangelisation neither remain just an idea nor be lost in confusion, ... I have often insisted on the need to return, as it were, to the “letter” of the Council - that is to its texts - also to draw from them its authentic spirit, and why I have repeated that the true legacy of Vatican II is to be found in them".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The Council did not formulate anything new in matters of faith, nor did it wish to replace what was ancient. Rather, it concerned itself with seeing that the same faith might continue to be lived in the present day, that it might remain a living faith in a world of change. ... The Council Fathers wished to present the faith in a meaningful way; and if they opened themselves trustingly to dialogue with the modern world it is because they were certain of their faith, of the solid rock on which they stood. In the years following, however, many embraced uncritically the dominant mentality, placing in doubt the very foundations of the deposit of faith, which they sadly no longer felt able to accept as truths."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"If today the Church proposes a new Year of Faith and a new evangelisation, it is not to honour an anniversary, but because there is more need of it, even more than there was fifty years ago! ... Even the initiative to create a pontifical council for the promotion of the new evangelisation ... is to be understood in this context. Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual “desertification”. In the Council’s time it was already possible from a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked like, but now we see it every day around us. ... But it is in starting from the experience of this desert ... that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life. And in the desert people of faith are needed who, with their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope alive. Living faith opens the heart to the grace of God which frees us from pessimism. Today, more than ever, evangelising means witnessing to the new life, transformed by God, and thus showing the path".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"The journey is a metaphor for life, and the wise wayfarer is one who has learned the art of living, and can share it with his brethren - as happens to pilgrims along the Way of St. James or similar routes which, not by chance, have again become popular in recent years. How come so many people today feel the need to make these journeys? Is it not because they find there, or at least intuit, the meaning of our existence in the world? This, then, is how we can picture the Year of Faith: a pilgrimage in the deserts of today’s world, taking with us only what is necessary: ... the Gospel and the faith of the Church, of which the Council documents are a luminous expression, as is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published twenty years ago."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Venerable and dear brothers, 11 October 1962 was the Feast of Mary Most Holy, Mother of God. Let us entrust to her the Year of Faith, as I did last week when I went on pilgrimage to Loreto. May the Virgin Mary always shine out as a star along the way of the new evangelisation".</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Extracts from a homily by Pope Benedict XVI during the course of a Mass celebrated in St. Peter's Square on 11 October 2012.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-9127040043533049792019-02-22T03:48:00.001-08:002019-02-22T03:48:47.441-08:00Benedict XVI on Pope Pius XII<br />
<br />
<img id="fullResImage" src="https://catholicnewstt.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Pius-XII-1024x706.jpg" style="height: 479px; width: 694px;" /><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Here in this place, how could we not remember the Roman Jews who were snatched from their homes, before these very walls, and who with tremendous brutality were killed at Auschwitz? How could one ever forge<span class="yiv7838245368text_exposed_show">t their faces, their names, their tears, the desperation faced by these men, women and children? The extermination of the people of the Covenant of Moses, at first announced, then systematically programmed and put into practice in Europe under the Nazi regime, on that day tragically reached as far as Rome. Unfortunately, many remained indifferent, but many, including Italian Catholics, sustained by their faith and by Christian teaching, reacted with courage, often at risk of their lives, opening their arms to assist the Jewish fugitives who were being hunted down, and earning perennial gratitude. The Apostolic See (<em>the Holy See under Pius XII helped the Jews)</em> itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way".</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="yiv7838245368text_exposed_show"></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="yiv7838245368text_exposed_show">Pope Benedict XVI d<span class="yiv7838245368text_exposed_show">uring his visit to the Roman Synagogue on 17 January 2010.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-90557856273409627102019-01-22T23:41:00.003-08:002019-01-22T23:41:29.573-08:00John Paul II on salvation in Jesus Christ - 2<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><a data-cthref="/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjS5eb83vbfAhUQ-qQKHUBGAJwQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.papalartifacts.com%2Fon-the-feast-of-the-holy-family-a-prayer-from-saint-john-paul-ii%2F&psig=AOvVaw2cNzrmHsVIyM9wpKb_IrPX&ust=1547880383932207" data-ved="2ahUKEwjS5eb83vbfAhUQ-qQKHUBGAJwQjRx6BAgBEAU" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjS5eb83vbfAhUQ-qQKHUBGAJwQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.papalartifacts.com%2Fon-the-feast-of-the-holy-family-a-prayer-from-saint-john-paul-ii%2F&psig=AOvVaw2cNzrmHsVIyM9wpKb_IrPX&ust=1547880383932207" id="irc_mil" jsaction="mousedown:irc.rl;focus:irc.rl;irc.il;" style="border-image: none; border: 0px currentColor;"><img alt="Image result for john paul 2" height="581" id="irc_mi" src="https://www.papalartifacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/1280282624_john-paul-ii-2.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="700" /></a><a data-cthref="/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjgqM_a3vbfAhXE-aQKHYThBrYQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fdbellingerxo%2Fsaint-pope-john-paul-ii%2F&psig=AOvVaw2cNzrmHsVIyM9wpKb_IrPX&ust=1547880383932207" data-ved="2ahUKEwjgqM_a3vbfAhXE-aQKHYThBrYQjRx6BAgBEAU" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjgqM_a3vbfAhXE-aQKHYThBrYQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fdbellingerxo%2Fsaint-pope-john-paul-ii%2F&psig=AOvVaw2cNzrmHsVIyM9wpKb_IrPX&ust=1547880383932207" id="irc_mil" jsaction="mousedown:irc.rl;focus:irc.rl;irc.il;" style="border-image: none; border: 0px currentColor;"></a></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.5pt; line-height: 107%;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.5pt; line-height: 107%;">"For those, however, who have not received the Gospel proclamation, as I
wrote in the Encyclical <em>Redemptoris Missio,</em> salvation is accessible in
mysterious ways, inasmuch as divine grace is granted to them by virtue of
Christ's redeeming sacrifice, without external membership in the Church, but
nonetheless always in relation to her (cf. RM 10). It is a mysterious
relationship. It is mysterious for those who receive the grace, because they do
not know the Church and sometimes even outwardly reject her." </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><br />
</span><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.5pt; line-height: 107%;">John Paul II, General
Audience, 31 May 1995</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-25392559920854756432019-01-17T22:49:00.000-08:002019-01-17T22:49:25.258-08:00John Paul II on salvation in Jesus Christ<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><a data-cthref="/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwizqfWA3vbfAhUK_KQKHb-sC64QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thepublicdiscourse.com%2F2015%2F03%2F14694%2F&psig=AOvVaw2cNzrmHsVIyM9wpKb_IrPX&ust=1547880383932207" data-ved="2ahUKEwizqfWA3vbfAhUK_KQKHb-sC64QjRx6BAgBEAU" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwizqfWA3vbfAhUK_KQKHb-sC64QjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thepublicdiscourse.com%2F2015%2F03%2F14694%2F&psig=AOvVaw2cNzrmHsVIyM9wpKb_IrPX&ust=1547880383932207" id="irc_mil" jsaction="mousedown:irc.rl;focus:irc.rl;irc.il;" style="border-image: none; border: 0px currentColor;"><img alt="Image result for john paul 2" height="319" id="irc_mi" src="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/jpii1.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="640" /></a></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.5pt; line-height: 107%;">"Normally, it will be in the sincere practice of what is good in their
own religious traditions and by following the dictates of their own conscience
that the members of other religions respond positively to God’s invitation and
receive salvation in Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or
acknowledge him as their Saviour." - <span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 15.5pt; line-height: 107%;">John Paul II, <em>The Seeds of the Word in the Religions of the World</em>,
9 September, 1998 </span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-65782079066184079022018-09-02T23:57:00.005-07:002023-01-14T09:21:54.975-08:00Ratzinger on the Church of the Future<br /><br />
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURxhGcMZdQ9m7OYXgwF8Qa_4oDiND1uOAI0hwR2a_zFXhtgzqeG8CGk4TuP2UMXim_dfy6DdlYDVqBQSb9DcsRXH9YIBmXGduXDGmmTA3EnYP0VC24IMu2086ZKOpGOIEvOzN1m31m8nTTQYyQ7JiAI1gmyvvE2U0zspK58WZxfWXMhBCrOEOsA/s1000/shutterstock_158678678.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="1000" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURxhGcMZdQ9m7OYXgwF8Qa_4oDiND1uOAI0hwR2a_zFXhtgzqeG8CGk4TuP2UMXim_dfy6DdlYDVqBQSb9DcsRXH9YIBmXGduXDGmmTA3EnYP0VC24IMu2086ZKOpGOIEvOzN1m31m8nTTQYyQ7JiAI1gmyvvE2U0zspK58WZxfWXMhBCrOEOsA/w489-h238/shutterstock_158678678.jpg" width="489" /></a></div></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">"From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">As
the number of her adherents diminishes, so will she lose many of her
social privileges. In contrast to an earlier age, she will be seen much
more as a voluntary society, entered only by free decision.<br /><br />
As a small society, she will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Undoubtedly
she will discover new forms of ministry and will ordain to the
priesthood approved Christians who pursue some profession. In many
smaller congregations or in self-contained social groups, pastoral care
will normally be provided in this fashion. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Alongside this, the full-time ministry of the priesthood will be indispensable as formerly.<br /><br />
But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will
find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was
always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son
of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the
world. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">In
faith and prayer she will again recognize her true center and
experience the sacraments again as the worship of God and not as a
subject for liturgical scholarship.<br /><br />
The Church will be a more spiritual Church, not presuming upon a
political mandate, flirting as little with the Left as with the Right. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystalization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek.<br /><br />
The process will be all the more arduous, for sectarian narrow-mindedness as well as pompous self-will will have to be shed. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">One
may predict that all of this will take time. The process will be long
and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism of the eve of
the French Revolution—when a bishop might be thought smart if he made
fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no
means certain—to the renewal of the nineteenth century.<br /><br />
But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church.<br /><br />
Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely.
If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole
horror of their poverty. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.<br /><br />
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">The real crisis has scarcely begun. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">We will have to count on terrific upheavals. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">But
I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church
of the political cult, which is dead already with Gobel, but the Church
of faith. </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
</div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">She
may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she
was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as
man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death."</span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Father Joseph Ratzinger,</span></span> <em>Faith and the Future</em>, (published originally in German in 1970 as <em>Glaube und Zukunft</em>), republished by the Vatican Press in 2006.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-54355986162755563922018-06-25T06:04:00.003-07:002018-06-25T06:04:32.481-07:00Pope Benedict XVI on Education<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a class="irc_mil i3597" data-ctbtn="2" data-cthref="/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi30IqV8O7bAhUuMuwKHUHfAHUQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholicnewsagency.com%2Fnews%2Fpope_explores_st._pauls_teaching_on_the_church_as_bride_of_christ&psig=AOvVaw00IdRcpGbHTe4IqSlHUkIB&ust=1530018211783594" data-noload="" data-ved="2ahUKEwi30IqV8O7bAhUuMuwKHUHfAHUQjRx6BAgBEAU" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi30IqV8O7bAhUuMuwKHUHfAHUQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholicnewsagency.com%2Fnews%2Fpope_explores_st._pauls_teaching_on_the_church_as_bride_of_christ&psig=AOvVaw00IdRcpGbHTe4IqSlHUkIB&ust=1530018211783594" jsaction="mousedown:irc.rl;keydown:irc.rlk" rel="noopener" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-image: none; border: 0px rgb(26, 13, 171); color: #1a0dab; cursor: pointer; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; orphans: 2; outline: 0px; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" tabindex="0" target="_blank"><img alt="Image result for benedict xvi teaching" class="irc_mi" height="396" src="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/images/ppbxvi140109.jpg?w=760" style="background-color: white; background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(45deg, rgb(239, 239, 239) 25%, transparent 25%, transparent 75%, rgb(239, 239, 239) 75%, rgb(239, 239, 239)), -webkit-linear-gradient(45deg, rgb(239, 239, 239) 25%, transparent 25%, transparent 75%, rgb(239, 239, 239) 75%, rgb(239, 239, 239)); background-position: 0px 0px, 10px 10px; background-size: 21px 21px; border-image: none; border: 0px rgb(26, 13, 171); box-shadow: 0px 5px 35px rgba(0,0,0,0.65); margin-top: 0px;" width="499" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">“Every educational setting can be a place of openness to the transcendent and to others a place of dialogue, cohesiveness and attentive listening, where young people feel appreciated for their personal abilities and inner riches, and can learn to esteem their brothers and sisters. May young people be taught to savour the joy which comes from the daily exercise of charity and compassion towards others and from taking an active part in the building of a more humane and fraternal society”. </span></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-5761498260187317812018-05-03T01:46:00.001-07:002018-05-03T01:46:28.967-07:00Ratzinger on Kneeling<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img alt="benedict_kneeling.jpg" src="http://www.torchofthefaith.com/e107_images/newspost_images/benedict_kneeling.jpg" style="border-image: none; border: 0px solid black; height: 326px; width: 490px;" /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="fontstyle0">It may well be that kneeling is alien to modern culture—insofar as it is a culture,<br />for this culture has turned away from the faith and no longer knows the One<br />before whom kneeling is the right, indeed the intrinsically necessary gesture.<br />The man who learns to believe learns also to kneel, and a faith or a liturgy no<br />longer familiar with kneeling would be sick at the core. Where it has been lost,<br />kneeling must be rediscovered, so that, in our prayer, we remain in fellowship<br />with the apostles and martyrs, in fellowship with the whole cosmos, indeed in<br />union with Jesus Christ Himself.</span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span class="fontstyle0">Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger, </span><span class="fontstyle2"><em>The Spirit of the Liturgy </em></span><span class="fontstyle0">(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), p. 194.</span>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-7782990779998229532018-01-19T06:57:00.001-08:002018-01-19T06:57:21.603-08:00Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer to the Holy Face<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img height="400" src="http://staticapp.icpsc.com/icp/loadimage.php/mogile/305005/9a419d284912a0fdfb4dd673a4279c58/image/jpeg" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); margin: 0px;" width="367" />
</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 0; padding: 0;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"> "Lord Jesus,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
As the first apostles,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Whom you asked: “What do you seek?”,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Accepted your invitation to: “Come and see,”</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Recognizing you as the Son of God,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
The Promised Messiah for the world’s redemption,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
We too, your disciples in this difficult time</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Want to follow you and be your friends,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Drawn by the brilliance of your face much desired yet hidden.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Show us, we pray you, your face ever new,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
That mirror, mystery laden, of God’s infinite mercy.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Grant that we may contemplate it</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
With the eyes of our mind and our hearts:</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
The Son’s face, radiance of the Father’s glory</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
And the imprint of his Nature (cf. Hb 1,3),</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
The human face of God that has burst into history</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
To reveal the horizons of eternity.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
The silent face of Jesus suffering and risen,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
When loved and accepted changes the heart and life.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
“Your face, Lord, do I seek,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Do not hide your face from me” (Ps. 27, 8ff).</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
How many times through the centuries and millenia has not resounded</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
The ardent invocation of the Psalmist among the faithful!</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Lord, with faith, we too repeat the same invocation:</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
“Man of suffering, as one from whom others hide their faces” (Is. 53, 3),</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Do not hide your face from us!</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
We want to draw from your eyes,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
That look on us with tenderness and compassion.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
The force of love and peace which shows us the way of life,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
And the courage to follow you without fear or compromise,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
So as to be witnesses of your Gospel,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
With concrete signs of acceptance, love and forgiveness.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
O Holy Face of Christ,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Light that enlightens the darkness of doubt and sadness,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Life that has defeated forever the force of evil and death,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
O inscrutable gaze</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
That never ceases to watch over men and people,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Face concealed in the Eucharistic signs</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
And in the faces of those that live with us,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Make us God’s pilgrims in this world,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Longing for the Infinite and ready for the final encounter,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
When we shall see you, Lord, “face to face”(1 Cor. 13, 12),</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
And be able to contemplate you forever in heavenly Glory.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Mary, Mother of the Holy Face,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Help us have “hands innocent and a heart pure,”</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Hands illumined by the truth of love</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
And hearts enraptured by divine beauty,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
That transformed by the encounter with Christ,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
We may gift ourselves to the poor and the suffering,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Whose faces reflect the hidden presence</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Of your Son Jesus,</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">
Who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen!"</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"><strong><em> </em></strong></span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;">Benedict
XVI, Rome, 1 September 2007, written and sent to the Guardian of the
Basilica of the Holy Face in Manoppello (Italy) in memory of his
pilgrimage to the Sanctuary a year before, on 1 September 2006.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4987133227182764877.post-21868997174465342812017-04-16T02:40:00.001-07:002017-04-16T02:40:45.429-07:00Benedict XVI on Easter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
<img alt="Image result for "benedict xvi easter"" class="irc_mi" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vdh6Gy1dyRM/TbNzgmexvBI/AAAAAAAAAFA/a9cexliIENg/s1600/bxvieastervigil.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="596" /></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="padding-left: 30px; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">“In the
resurrection of Jesus, love has been shown to be stronger than death,
stronger than evil. Love made Christ descend, and love is also the power
by which he ascends. The power by which he brings us with him. In union
with his love, borne aloft on the wings of love, as persons of love,
let us descend with him into the world’s darkness, knowing that in this
way we will also rise up with him. On this night, then, let us pray:
Lord, show us that love is stronger than hatred, that love is stronger
than death. Descend into the darkness and the abyss of our modern age,
and take by the hand those who await you. Bring them to the light! In my
own dark nights, be with me to bring me forth! Help me, help all of us,
to descend with you into the darkness of all those people who are still
waiting for you, who out of the depths cry unto you! Help us to bring
them your light! Help us to say the “yes” of love, the love that makes
us descend with you and, in so doing, also to rise with you. Alleluia.
Amen!” - Benedict XVI, St. Peter's Basilica, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">2007 Easter Vigil.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0