Today's Messages (off)
| Unanswered Messages (on)
| Forum: Liturgical Renewal and the Reforms of Vatican II |
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| Topic: Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion B |
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| | Topic: "Subjectivism" and "Relativism" |
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| "Subjectivism" and "Relativism" |
Sun, 29 March 2009 14:45 |
 M Anon
Messages: 1251
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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In the papal preacher's homily he decries a tendency toward subjectivism (appointing oneself the ultimate authority? is that a reasonable definition?)
The Pop [correction:pope,] often speaks of an unfortunate "relativism" in our time, (the error that all opinions, even when contradictory can be equally true -- is that a reasonable but succinct way to define that?)
Do you think these two errors, these two heresies, are related?
[Updated on: Sun, 29 March 2009 14:58]
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| | Topic: Fr Federico Lombardi |
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| Fr Federico Lombardi |
Sun, 29 March 2009 09:29 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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The Pope's communications problem is not Fr Lombardi
Posted at: 2009-03-29 11:45:50.0 America blog
Author: Austen Ivereigh
There are rumours on a German traditionalist blog that Fr Federico Lombardi, the Pope's communications chief, will stand down after the Pope's Holy Land trip in May. I have no idea if they are true. But I do know that, whatever the Jesuit's limitations, the Pope's communications problem is not Fr Lombardi.
The key problem under Pope Benedict XVI is that Fr Lombardi is not part of his decision-making cabinet. The exact opposite prevailed under John Paul II: former comms director Joaquin Navarro-Valls was one of the key papal advisers -- to the constant annoyance of the Secretariat of State.
With Benedict XVI's election and the retirement of Navarro-Valls, the notoriously clunky and out-of-touch State -- which best exemplifies the managerial culture panned by George Weigel in an interesting new essay, 'The Pope versus the Vatican', in Standpoint - moved to reassert its traditional role as executor of the papal will. With Communications relegated to a technical, transmission-belt function, the consequences, time after time, have been disastrous, as curial departments have marched the Pope into the PR disaster zone and left him there, leaving Fr Lombardi to arrive on the scene late and out of breath.
As Weigel notes:
"Fr Federico Lombardi SJ, Navarro-Valls's successor, was sadly unprepared for the informal press briefing he gave the day the story [about Bishop Williamson] broke, because he hadn't been brought into whatever deliberations there had been about lifting the Lefebvrist excommunications."
I met Fr Lombardi in 2007, and he was clearly struggling back then to have a voice in the decision-making process. I have grown more and more sorry for him since. Communications is not what you do with the policy. In the Church, above all, it IS the policy; and in Pope Benedict, who is a brilliant conceptual communicator, it is also the man.
If -- after Regensburg, Maciel, Bishop Williamson and countless other eruptions great and small -- Pope Benedict does not realise by now that communications must be part of his decision-making, then he is not as innocent of these disasters as Weigel claims. If he does realise, and is unable to do anything about it, then he is a prisoner of the Vatican.
If neither of these statements is true, Fr Lombardi will soon be brought into the papal decision-making process -- and Catholics can stop apologising for their Church's communications disasters. But if the blogs are right, and Fr Lombardi is to stand down, then I fear he is being scapegoated for ills which lie deep in the heart of the Vatican Curia. We shall see.
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| | Topic: A Prayer for Holy Thursday |
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| A Prayer for Holy Thursday |
Sun, 29 March 2009 08:08 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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We know that we come together for the Lord's Supper in a world where one is hungry and another is drunk;
where we ourselves are well-fed, secure, and articulate;
where success and wealth are worshiped, and the cross of Christ is folly and a scandal;
where there are divisions we recognize and those we still fail to see.
Let us wait for one another before we eat and drink, and bring these divisions with us.
Let us wait for the hungry and the dispossessed,remembering those we have met, and in whom we have seen the face of God.
Let us wait for those who, in their struggle for justice, have challenged us and and changed us.
Let us wait for those who, with nothing to give, have greeted us as guests and shown us the generosity of God.
Let us wait for those whom we oppose, who actively undermine the poor, or in their apathy support injustice.
Let us bring to this table those with whom we long to share, and those we disapprove of; and in or dividedness, let us proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Janet Morley
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| | Topic: Married Catholic priests gain acceptance |
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| | Topic: Boston Archdiocese new web site |
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| | Topic: Fourth Sunday of Lent |
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| | Topic: Happy St Patrick's Day!! |
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| | Topic: Mass for the sick |
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| Mass for the sick |
Mon, 16 March 2009 08:37 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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Do any of your parishes plan special liturgies for the sick and the home bound/shut-ins?
Do you schedule this at a normal Sunday mass?
If so do you use the votive mass for the sick or stick with readings etc for that Sunday?
Some parishioners are asking that we plan this. I have never been involved in such a plan and it all seems overwhelming given the transportation issues and health care issues involved.
What is your experience?
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| | Topic: Second Sunday of Lent year B |
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| Second Sunday of Lent year B |
Mon, 02 March 2009 15:27 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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March 8, 2009
http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/030809.shtml#reading2
It took me a long time to understand this first reading story. Why would God ask Abraham to sacrifice his son?
Here's what a friend told me about this ancient practice. In Abraham's day religious people believed in human sacrifice. People believed that with a sacrifice eventually life would be renewed. God tested Abraham who lived with such practices, and then gave him (and all of us) hope for the future. God would be providing the sacrifice.
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| | Topic: LENTEN FASTING |
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| LENTEN FASTING |
Mon, 02 March 2009 13:23 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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...is not the same thing in those lands
where people always eat well as is Lent among our Third
World peoples, undernourished as they are. They live in a
perpetual Lent, always fasting. For those who eat well,
Lent is a call to austerity, a call to give away in order to
share with those in need. But in poor lands, in homes
where there is hunger, Lent should be observed in order to
give to the sacrifice of the everyday the meaning of the
cross.
But it should not be taken out of a mistaken notion of
resignation. God does not want that. Rather, feeling in
one’s own flesh the consequences of sin and injustice, one
is stimulated to work for social justice and a genuine love
of the poor. Our Lent should awaken a sense of social
justice.
BISHOP OSCAR ROMERO
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| | Topic: Umbert |
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| Umbert |
Mon, 02 March 2009 06:58 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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Well, I'm all for Catholic social teaching and teaching that the unborn have value. This is just too weird for me though.
http://www.umberttheunborn.com/
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| | Topic: a new form of religious life |
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| a new form of religious life |
Sun, 01 March 2009 06:30 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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http://ncronline.org/news/women/we-have-given-birth-new-form -religious-life
"We are ministerial Religious. Ministry is integral to our identity and vocation. It arises from our baptism specified by profession, discerned with our Congregational leadership and effected according to the charism of our Congregation, not by delegation from the hierarchy."
"On the subject of the Stonehill "symposium" [held at Stonehill College, 2008, and very critical of LCWR-type Congregations] - it wasn't a symposium where people come together to share diverse views in the effort to reach greater truth. It was a pep rally for those convinced they are right and can only be right if people not like them are wrong. They were listening to themselves. That's fine -- provided they don't go after other people. We are not after them. This is a fake war being stirred up by the Vatican at the instigation of the frightened. Let's not get into it. Also, what is the worst thing that can happen from this investigation? They are surely not going to shut down 95 % of the Religious Congregatons in this country, even if they'd like to, any more than they closed all the seminaries that were not teaching 19th century moral theology or buying the official line that the clergy sex abuse scandal was caused, not by corrupt bishops protecting pedophile priests, but by homosexuals in seminaries."
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| | Topic: Let Us Pray to the Lord! |
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| Let Us Pray to the Lord! |
Wed, 25 February 2009 07:30 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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We could possibly keep this thread going all through Lent and the Triduum.
Let's pray for each other. Add prayers for our parishes, our ministries,families, the world etc. or if we wish, add our own personal needs. Reflections and comments are welcomed as well. If you think a post or comment needs to be discussed, maybe start a new thread.
I'll begin with:
ASH WEDNESDAY
Lord, help me to honor this day with the ashes
on my forehead. They help me remember where I have come from
and where I am going. May I acknowledge to you my sins
and my deep need for your loving forgiveness and grace.
I pray that this Lenten season will make me so much more aware
of how much I need your healing in my life.
[Updated on: Wed, 25 February 2009 08:59]
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| | Topic: 1st Sunday of Lent (B), Second Reading (1 Peter 3:18-22) |
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| 1st Sunday of Lent (B), Second Reading (1 Peter 3:18-22) |
Mon, 23 February 2009 09:34 |
japhy
Messages: 480
Registered: October 2008
Location: Princeton, NJ |
Senior Member |
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The Second Vatican Council, in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, had this to say of the renewal of the season of Lent:
| Sacrosanctum Concilium, 109 |
The season of Lent has a twofold character: primarily by recalling or preparing for baptism and by penance, it disposes the faithful, who more diligently hear the word of God and devote themselves to prayer, to celebrate the paschal mystery. This twofold character is to be brought into greater prominence both in the liturgy and by liturgical catechesis.
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The Second Reading from the First Sunday of Lent (Year B) is 1 Peter 3:18-22, in which the Prince of the Apostles relates the waters of baptism to the waters of the flood. Baptism, one of the foundational themes of Lent, is a major part of the Easter Vigil celebration. The Easter Vigil includes a lengthy prayer over the water to be used for baptism. Part of this prayer speaks of the waters of the flood:
| 1962 Missal |
Deus, qui
nocentis mundi crimina per aquas abluens,
regenerationis speciem
in ipsa diluvii effusione signasti:
ut, unius eiusdemque elementi mysterio,
et finis vitiis, et origo virtutibus.
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| 2002 Missal |
Deus, qui
regenerationis speciem
in ipsa diluvii effusione signasti,
ut unius eiusdemque elementi mysterio
et finis vitiis et origo virtutum.
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The texts of the prayer in the 1962 Missal (Extraordinary Form) and the 2002 Missal (Ordinary Form) are almost identical. The translation of this part of the prayer is: "O God, Who [ by water washed away the crimes of the guilty world, and ] by the pouring out of the deluge gave a figure of regeneration, that of one and the same element might be, by a mystery, an end to vices and a beginning to [ or: of ] virtues!
(Translation note: virtutibus means "to virtues", whereas virtutum means "of virtues".)
This prayer of the Easter Vigil glorifies God by remembering His many deeds wrought through water. The prayer (in both forms) calls to mind:
1. the waters "in the beginning" over which His Spirit moved,
2. the waters of the Flood through which Noah and his family were saved,
3. the waters of the Red Sea which destroyed Pharoah's army and through which the Israelites were delivered,
4. the waters of the Jordan in which our Lord was baptized,
5. the water and blood which poured forth from the side of our crucified Lord,
6. and the water in which our Lord commands us to be baptized.
The Extraordinary Form also recalls:
1. the four rivers flowing out of Eden,
2. the water from the rock in Exodus,
3. the water-made-wine at Cana,
4. and the waters upon which the Lord walked.
It is no wonder, then, that the Lord God chose water as the means by which we enter the covenant of Christ. God's plan to incorporate the material in His work of spiritual redemption is proper to our nature, being both flesh and spirit. The God Who is the "maker ... of all things, visible and invisible" (Nicene Creed) has reconciled and united both the visible (the physical) and the invisible (the spiritual) in the Church and her sacraments, just as His only-begotten Son reconciled and united Jew and Gentile in himself.
As we prepare to take up the cross of Lent so as to worthily celebrate the mystery of salvation at Easter, let us call to mind our baptism, and recommit ourselves to the life we were configured to when we "put on Christ" (Gal 3:27) in that wondrous "washing of water with the word" (Eph 5:26), the "washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5).
My Blogs: Praying The Mass and The Cross Reference
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| | Topic: The Kingdom of God |
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| The Kingdom of God |
Mon, 23 February 2009 05:33 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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re a comment on another thread that "The Kingdom of God is not of this world"...and re the question"...is the Church's duty, rather, to concern itself with preaching the Gospel, administering the Sacraments, and reminding us that more than anything else we should be laying up treasure in heaven?"
Vatican II taught us to have a broader understanding of just what the Kingdom is. The Kingdom of God is not fulfilled in this world but the Kingdom is present whenever and wherever we are doing God's work, obeying his will to love one another. The Kingdom of God is present whenever God's presence and love through us brings about reconciliation and healing.
The Kingdom is not only about our future in heaven. When we pray in the Lord's Prayer "Thy Kingdom come" we are asking God to be present to us in our daily lives. Jesus' life on earth was proof of the Kingdom through God's intervention into our life here on earth. "In Christ's word, in his works, and in his presence this Kingdom reveals itself to us....Before all things. . . the Kingdom is clearly visible in the very person of Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, who came 'to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many' (Mark 10:45)" (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, #5).
The Kingdom is past, present and future.
The Church's mission, in part, is revealing the Kingdom. One way of doing that is to speak out and act against oppression and promote human development on all levels.
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| | Topic: Revised Order of the Mass with Scriptural annotations |
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| | Topic: Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time |
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| | Topic: Our Lady of Lourdes 2/11 |
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| | Topic: search for unbaptized babies' grave |
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| | Topic: The Roman Curia |
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| | Topic: 'Deeply Offensive and Utterly False' |
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| | Topic: Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time year B |
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| Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time year B |
Tue, 03 February 2009 13:27 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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The psalm...Praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.
http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/020809.shtml#psalm
How does Jesus heal the brokenhearted?
Regular Eucharist, regular prayer with others, regular church meetings, and regular duties and responsibilities within a community or family not only nurture the soul, they keep us sane and steady. Private therapy can sometimes be helpful in supplementing this, but church life, with its regular rhythms and demands, can help provide a steadiness that’s not available on a therapist’s couch.
Fr. Ron Rolheiser
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| | Topic: Mickens on SSPX, James Martin, SJ |
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| Mickens on SSPX, James Martin, SJ |
Sat, 31 January 2009 05:06 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2& id=27F08DDE-1438-5036-4F8792220B462A90
Robert Mickens, the Rome correspondent for the London Tablet has a lengthy article on the SSPX saga in this week's Tablet here.
http://www.thetablet.co.uk/article/12612
Interesting comments by readers...
What if the Vatican II parish priests out there started speaking/acting up against these reactionary policies? Why wouldn't their parishioners support them? And really, what's the worst that could happen? Their scarcity of numbers gives them leverage -- it's not like the hierarchy can afford to 'fire' them, and being moved around can't stop them from continuing to speak out and act (rather, they can spread their message, and perhaps inspire others to join their ranks). Well?
I believe that is happening already. I know of only one parish in my area at which priests are rolling back the times. Everyone else is moving forward with the reform.
Posted By John Stangle, "I believe the substance of Vatican II is not dependent upon eliminating those who yearn for the liturgy of their youth;..." There is plenty of evidence that those who wish to return to the "good old days", are often (mostly?) younger persons, i.e. too young to have experienced the old ways. So, what do these young people mean when they speak of "the liturgy of their youth"? I am old enough to remember the old ways, and I don't yearn one bit to go back to the liturgy of my youth.
I asked my pastor just last week if anyone has asked for a Tridentine mass...not a single person.
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| | Topic: Today from John Allen |
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| | Topic: Israel's chief rabbinate severs Vatican ties |
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| Israel's chief rabbinate severs Vatican ties |
Wed, 28 January 2009 11:10 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090128/ap_on_re_mi_ea/eu_vatica n_jews
The Vatican and the rabbinate launched formal relations in 2000 when Pope John Paul II visited Jerusalem. Since then, delegates from the Holy See and the rabbinate have met twice a year to discuss religious issues. This is the first time ties have been severed.
And so it goes.....Statements from both the Vatican and SSPX were necessary and expected but can't fix things for a long time. The damage is done.
Rome, in an attempt to heal one division, has possibly caused a bigger one. Very disturbing.
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| | Topic: Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time |
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| | Topic: “the time has come to set aside childish things.” |
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| “the time has come to set aside childish things.” |
Wed, 21 January 2009 04:18 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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"We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."
...from Obama Inaugural Address
This site was updated immediately after the inauguration:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
We pray that God will help President Obama lead Americans on all sides of the issues.
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| | Topic: Martin Luther King Day |
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| Martin Luther King Day |
Mon, 19 January 2009 05:46 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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This year,the day before this historic presidential inauguration, the holiday has added significance. Maybe the realization of Dr King's dream is beginning.
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
[Updated on: Mon, 19 January 2009 10:49]
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| | Topic: Commonweal, Douglas Kmiec |
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| Commonweal, Douglas Kmiec |
Thu, 15 January 2009 06:00 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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melodramatic exaggeration? banal? Hardly...
January 16, 2009
A Tangled Web
The Election & the Blogosphere
Now the great and historic election is behind us, and America watches, amid an economy in free fall, as the president-elect assembles his team. By the strength of its appointments and the steadiness of its demeanor, the administration-in-waiting has demonstrated its readiness to govern. Such strength and steadiness helped boost Barack Obama’s remarkable victory in November, a victory that included capturing 54 percent of the Catholic vote.
Yet not everyone in America is cheered by this triumph. Indeed, within certain embittered precincts, the penalty for having supported Obama can be stiff. As the author of a book whose title asked Can a Catholic Support Him?-and whose contents answered with an enthusiastic “Yes, we can!”-I have felt the animosity of those with an insatiable desire for political payback.
A longtime Republican who served in the Reagan administration, I nonetheless endorsed Obama last spring. Ever since, I’ve been subjected to unrelenting personal attacks launched from right-wing Catholic keyboards-blogs (and bloggers) so coarse and uncivil they make the insults of talk radio sound like actual journalism. Further, the lack of civility that rules the right-wing Catholic blogosphere has infected mainstream Catholic journalism as well. In a syndicated assessment of the 2008 election, one usually thoughtful conservative columnist employed the following descriptions of Catholic Obama supporters: “decadent,” “tribal,” “immoral,” “certainly stupid,” “mindless,” and in need of basic “adult education.” And those were all in a single paragraph! Such highly concentrated rhetorical venom is not calculated to invite discussion.
Of course, bloggers deny there is anything “personal” in such attacks. My online tormentors like to claim that their beef with me is my alleged abandonment of the prolife cause or willful misstatement of church teaching. Neither charge is true. I remain unabashedly prolife and I have never consciously misstated the doctrine of the church; indeed, I’ve publicly said that were the Holy Father to tell me I had contradicted the magisterium on any given page of my Obama book, I would tear out that page.
No, the real problem with the blogospheric reaction to Obama lay in the responses themselves, which all too often mixed the smallest dollop of substance into a big steaming stew of personal contempt. As the vilification of Catholic Obama supporters progressed over the months, it became something of a bloggers’ sport to conjure up ridiculous explanations for what was wrongly described as my “apostasy.” Bloggers asserted I was angling for a judicial spot (strange, when I had already declined appointment to the appellate bench twice); another imagined me distressed over some apparent snub by George W. Bush or John McCain (not true, unless it be distress that one governed badly and the other promised to “stay the course”). One online source even speculated that I had suffered a stroke.
Noting my continued good health, the editors of Commonweal invited this essay which I submit even as I acknowledge the wisdom of Sr. Pius’s eighth-grade counsel: “Douglas, just offer it up!” That was good advice; and indeed I have at times considered the blog calumnies hurled at me as penance for occasions when I have put on a bit of a false front. We all want to be perceived as intelligent, kindly, and well considered, and we all occasionally speak too glibly for our own good-as I did, for example, representing Obama on the campaign trail while chastising him for his criticism of Justice Clarence Thomas; or suggesting, out loud and even on camera, that his one-time pledge of support for the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) during the primary was “boneheaded.” These are not politic statements, but unlike most blog entries, they represent honest, substantive dissent illustrating how it is possible for a person to be capable of admiring both Barack Obama and Clarence Thomas, and of supporting Obama while rejecting legislation that would in any way limit religious freedom or insult the church. (My message to President Obama on FOCA, by the way, will remain what it was to candidate Obama: FOCA runs contrary to the pursuit of the common good.)
This essay is not about abortion, but at least this much must be said: blog lies to the contrary, there is no real legislative interest in FOCA. The attempt to use FOCA to drive a wedge between the church and the incoming administration is unjustified. The bishops, having stated clearly their opposition to FOCA-and rightly so-should not allow the right wing to obscure what Obama shares with the church: concern for the poor; support for the average family; a commitment to ending an unjust war; and respect for our environment. Unless the sore losers of November 4 manage to poison the well, the Holy See and the Obama administration should be working more closely together in service to others than any administration in modern memory.
Having drawn the blogs’ Machiavellian FOCA gambit into the open, I am certain now to be called, yet again, a “useful idiot” (or worse) in service to the new president. Such a prospect returns me to the subject of blog caricature and its consequences. While I may have felt personally wounded in the free-for-all that followed my endorsement of Obama, I never thought it was mainly about me. The scurrilous remarks of conservative bloggers missed the point, which was that I and millions of others who voted for Obama did so not despite our Catholic faith but because of it. When, in a meeting of faith leaders in Chicago, Obama told me that his community work years before, helping the displaced and the unemployed, left him empty until he knelt before the Cross, I believed him. As a Catholic, I understood that it is our faith that explains us to ourselves. No politics or philosophy or relationship is launched well when faith is missing; and I did not (and do not) doubt the genuineness of Obama’s Christian faith commitment.
The president-elect’s alluring gift of inspiration has been noted by many, and while conservative bloggers demean it as “mere rhetoric” or “drinking the Kool-Aid,” others of us prize it as a talent that has been sorely absent for eight years or more. From Berlin to Denver’s Mile High Stadium to Grant Park, Obama does big campaign rallies exceptionally well. At these vast assemblies, his message of working together on common ground draws deeply on the nobility of other, past leaders who called us to reach beyond ourselves. Lingering beneath his cadences are the charitable and prophetic words of Lincoln. One also hears FDR’s instruction to stand forthright against fear, and John F. Kennedy’s call to service, reminding us that “here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own.” Finally, there is the tearful remorse of RFK following Dr. King’s assassination (and not long before his own), reminding us of the senselessness of violence and hate.
A hate-filled blogosphere, on the other hand, feeds a politics of odium, misleading people of faith and good will, diminishing and at times obliterating our ability to know one another. Our faith urges us to presume the stranger is kind, and to seek out opportunities to manifest love of neighbor. Sadly, neighbor-love is not what has overwhelmed my in-box since my Obama endorsement. Instead, right-wing blogs and their readers have launched missiles of hate, delivering ad hominem invective of an astonishing vehemence and crassness. I am “an embarrassing shill,” “hysterical,” and “pathetic”; also “a fool,” “an Obama shill of such mystifying obtuseness that one suspects a head injury,” “a slimeball,” “an unfaithful, cowardly betrayer”; just “another so-called Christian who flashes a Bible and looks righteous to the pagans,” and so on. “I hear,” wrote one Catholic blogger, cutely summoning the gospel, “that Sen. Obama will be FedExing thirty pieces of silver to Doug Kmiec.”
Beyond mere personal affronts, the politics of odium has more tangible consequences. Last fall I had the privilege of speaking at a beautiful Catholic college, Seton Hill, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Acting on blog misinformation, the well-meaning local bishop sought to bar my appearance, placing a letter to that effect on his Web site. As it turned out, I didn’t know this until after the event-a wonderful afternoon of community and classroom discussion with well- prepared students eager to discuss how to live their faith in the light of Catholic social teaching. Only hours afterward, seated on an airplane about to take off, did I learn (through a telephone call) of the bishop’s Web post. Immediately I dialed the chancery. The bishop, surprised by the call, listened, and I believe he heard both the sincerity of my faith and the depth of my respect for the magisterium. He gracefully removed his Web posting within the hour.
Of course, by then the letter was already beginning to circulate virally, spread by the venomous right-wing blogs. To be remade by a hateful blogosphere has its price, I’ve learned. I worry that such invitations to speak at Catholic colleges, and the fruitful exchanges these invitations make possible, will be fewer. When I do speak, contingents of demonstrators often appear, carrying preprinted signs, part of an orchestrated pressure to disinvite me. In response, it is my practice to invite the protesters to join us, and they usually do. Yet civil discourse can be difficult with those misinformed by blog propaganda that you are a proponent of evil-or worse, its very embodiment. Such attitudes are not limited to placard- carrying demonstrators. One member of the U.S. hierarchy whom I greatly admire has renounced our past association, writing, “We are not friends, professor,” and answering my invocation of Christian brotherhood with a curt retort: “I do see you as a brother in Christ-a brother who is serving an evil end.” The greatest personal price I have paid is the loss of old-and the preemption of new-friendships.
The vituperation propagated in the Catholic blogging world is remarkable for its reach and speed. When a writer for America recently speculated that the Obama administration might name me as ambassador to the Holy See, I was flattered. And while I would never want my presidential endorsement months earlier to be understood as anything other than what it always was-freely given without expectation of quid pro quo-the writer’s suggestion did prompt me to seek God’s will through prayer. Might this be an invitation to be of greater service to the church? Neither God nor the president-elect had an opportunity to answer before the blogs were recycling their various calumnies, and adding now an anonymous voice allegedly saying “it would never happen.” And why not? Well, according to “anonymous,” now sounding suspiciously partisan, the Vatican would view me as a “traitor,” with my appointment being the equivalent of naming a homosexual-presumably meaning that as an insult, notwithstanding its own insensitivity and disregard of church efforts at inclusion. Facing down such ugliness can be daunting. A writer for the National Catholic Reporter threw up his hands, editorializing that “it might be less complicated to name” a non-Catholic. With all due respect, that would be the ultimate “heckler’s veto,” and it is far from the stand many Catholics took in speaking the truth of the gospel to the power of an American president over the unjustified and tragically costly occupation of Iraq.
All of the world’s overheated overstatement cannot be blamed on the blogs, of course, but the blogosphere’s megaphone quality magnifies unfortunate remarks best left in more limited, and usually more nuanced, contexts. During the election campaign, Archbishop Raymond Burke called the Democratic Party “the party of death,” an expression deeply hurtful to my octogenarian father and millions of other lifelong Democrats who still see the Democratic Party as Leo XIII saw it-the “working man’s” party. The situation worsened when bloggers exported from the student newspaper a classroom remark of Cardinal Francis Stafford at The Catholic University of America describing some of the policies of the president-elect as “aggressive, disruptive, and apocalyptic.” With admirable restraint, the Obama administration has kept its puzzlement and disappointment with these blog-spread commentaries to itself.
Of course, faith calls upon us all to “turn the other cheek” to ridicule and hatred, and like the president-elect, I am resolved to do so as well. In 1920, Benedict XV put the instruction this way in Pacem, Dei munus pulcherrimum: “We are to...forgive all our enemies who knowingly or unknowingly have heaped and are still heaping on our person and our work every sort of vituperation, and we embrace all in our charity and benevolence, and neglect no opportunity to do them all the good in our power.” That, said Benedict XV, “is what makes Christians worthy of the name.” It is also the central precept of international relations, and whoever takes up the diplomatic post, whether me or someone else, is well advised to be guided by it if the world is ever to be at peace.
In a September campaign appearance on Meet the Press, Joe Biden explained that while he believed life begins at conception, he couldn’t impose that belief on others. Biden likely thought himself right with the church (though having been present for Mario Cuomo’s similar pronouncement at Notre Dame in 1984, I could have told him otherwise). Probably thinking he would at least get a holy card for his faith-based answer, he instead got his hand slapped, and was subsequently told by the archbishop of Denver not to bother showing up for Communion when in town for the Democratic convention. I know from experience the pain of being refused the Eucharist, having been denied Communion at a Mass preceding an invited lecture before a group of Catholic business people. The priest had apparently bought the blogosphere’s cynical distortion of my pro-Obama position. Cardinal Roger Mahony would later find the priest’s action to be “shameful and indefensible.”
Cardinals Mahony, Theodore McCarrick, and others have warned against using Communion as a weapon, for good reason. Indeed, even the mere threat of Eucharist denial aimed at Biden unleashed a wave of giddy right-wing blog invective, precisely when-and where-it should have invited discussion. The invective supplies no answer to those of other faiths who do not see themselves as bound by the magisterium, or who are unwilling to accept the move from a biological fact (that the human zygote formed at conception is a unique life) to a broader ethical conclusion (that we should use the force of law to protect it). These points of difference are regularly missed by bloggers who freely hurl the label “baby killer” at anyone who does not readily concede the equivalence of zygote destruction and infanticide.
Putting the ill consequence of blog name-calling aside, in a post-Holocaust world, you have to admire the Catholic faith for insisting on that equivalence, and thereby recognizing the need for absolute truth to exist. Politically, though, there remains one big difficulty: the American Constitution is not linked to a concession of absolute truth. It is the Declaration of Independence that is anchored upon self-evident truth, and the relation between the two documents is virtually unexplored in the Supreme Court. Indeed, only Justice Thomas has really thought about it seriously, hence my admiration.
Does Barack Obama believe in the truth of the human person? Not surprisingly, he values the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence-even as he argues that the deliberative democracy established by our Constitution casts suspicion upon a claim of absolute truth. The founders, Obama observes, uniformly rejected all forms of absolute authority, whether that of the monarch, the high priest, or the majority. And yet, as John Paul II told us, democracy detached from absolute truth can be little more than another form of totalitarianism. Obama has similarly observed that absolutists can be correct-as the blunt wrong of slavery illustrates. “Sometimes,” Obama notes, “absolute truths may well be absolute.”
To reconcile the pragmatism of democracy with claims of truth requires that our minds be nourished by wide perspectives discussed freely and respectfully; it requires a heart full of grace, not anger. Within our own Catholic community, we need to bear in mind one further caution from our new president: that claiming public territory outside the church requires persuasion, not intimidation or force. Translating particularistic faith beliefs into rational argument is the stuff of democracy. “I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons,” Obama said during the campaign, “but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or [invoke] God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.”
Of course, that is the very reason Cardinal Justin Rigali and Bishop William Lori were so quick to remind candidate Biden of the scientific basis for the church’s life perspective. Indeed one might ask, with the church having brought forth its scientific claim in so forthright and objective a manner as it has in modern encyclicals, is it not proper for the burden of evidence now to shift to those who, for religious or nonreligious reasons, believe unfettered abortion ought to be permitted? It is a valid question; and were the right-wing Catholic blogs not so preoccupied with demonizing me and other brothers and sisters in Christ who backed our president-elect, perhaps the question would receive some competent discussion. As it is, however, right-wing Catholic bloggers, acting as a thinly disguised political front for the GOP, remain fixated on the goal of precipitating an unnecessary war between the Holy See and America’s next administration. It is dismaying to see a few American prelates and their “anonymous” Vatican commentators acting as witting or unwitting coconspirators in this divisive action.
It’s hard to know what understanding of the United States filters upward through the Vatican to reach the pope. What’s certain is that the statement of the Holy Father that came across the ocean just after the U.S. bishops met in Baltimore in November was warmly welcomed by those assembling the new Obama administration. Speaking movingly to a conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Assistance to Health Care Workers on the theme of “Pastoral Care of Sick Children,” Benedict XVI noted that every year some 4 million newborns around the world die within four weeks after birth, often because of poverty, poor health-care systems, and armed conflict. He called this a matter of “urgent” concern. “The church does not forget these smallest of her children,” the pope said. And neither does our president-elect, which is also why he believes that aiding expectant mothers in poverty, and not condemning them, will reduce the number of abortions.
The president-elect does not share our faith, and like many modern men, he can be skeptical about aspects of the divine that we, because of the sacraments and the magisterium, are blessed to accept. But the blogs have not closed the mind of the new president and, like Lincoln, he bears “malice toward none” and manifests “charity for all.”
Obama himself has written that the golden rule tells us that we “need to battle cruelty in all its forms, [with] the value of love and charity, humanity and grace.” Even spinning a pervasive web of falsehood, the right-wing Catholic blogosphere is no match for the self-evident truth of that golden rule-nor would its bloggers want to be, were they to indulge a microsecond of charitable thought before hitting the send button.
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| | Topic: Yahweh or No Way? |
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| | Topic: Words for Liturgical Ministers |
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| Words for Liturgical Ministers |
Sat, 10 January 2009 06:57 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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Pope Benedict XVI spoke to altar servers in August, 2006.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/audiences/200 6/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060802_en.html
These words from that address are appropriate for all those involved in liturgical ministries:
If you do not give into habit, if you put your innermost self into carrying out your service, then you will truly be his apostles and bear fruits of goodness and service in every context of your life: in the family, at school, in your free time.
Take to one and all that love which you receive in the Liturgy, especially to places where you realize that they lack love, where they do not receive goodness, where they suffer and are lonely.
With the power of the Holy Spirit, try to take Jesus to those very people who are outcast, who are not very popular or have problems. With the power of the Holy Spirit, it is precisely there that you must take Jesus.
In this way, the Bread you see broken upon the altar will be shared and multiplied even more, and you, like the Twelve Apostles, will help Jesus distribute it to the people of today in their different walks of life.
Long time liturgical ministers can fall into a routine of boredom.
Does your parish gather ministers together for times of reflection and prayer to 're-energize"? How often? What do you do in your community for Eucharistic ministers, lectors, music people, altar servers or others who may be involved with liturgy?
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| | Topic: Proclamation of the Date of Easter |
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| Proclamation of the Date of Easter |
Tue, 06 January 2009 10:59 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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Dear brothers and sisters,
The glory of the Lord has shone upon us,
and shall ever be manifest among us,
until the day of his return.
Through the rhythms of times and seasons
let us celebrate the mysteries of salvation.
Let us recall the year’s culmination, the Easter Triduum of the Lord:
his last supper, his crucifixion, his burial, and his rising,
celebrated between the evening of the ninth of April
and the evening of the twelfth of April.
Each Easter—as on each Sunday—
the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed
by which Christ has for ever conquered sin and death.
From Easter are reckoned all the days we keep holy.
Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent,
will occur on the twenty-fifth of February.
The Ascension of the Lord will be commemorated
on the twenty-fourth of May*.
Pentecost, the joyful conclusion of the season of Easter,
will be celebrated on the thirty-first of May.
And this year the First Sunday of Advent
will be on the twenty-ninth of November.
Likewise the pilgrim Church proclaims the Passover of Christ
in the feasts of the holy Mother of God,
in the feasts of the Apostles and Saints,
and in the commemoration of the faithful departed.
To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come,
Lord of time and history,
be endless praise, for ever and ever. Amen.
(normally proclaimed on the Feast of Epiphany....did your parish?)
*not everywhere
[Updated on: Tue, 06 January 2009 11:02]
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| | Topic: Happy New Year! |
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| Happy New Year! |
Wed, 31 December 2008 15:23 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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May 2009 bring a deepening of faith, an increase of hope in God's promise and trust in the knowledge that God is with us and in us.
The peace of Christ be with you all through out the year and always.
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| | Topic: Epiphany of the Lord |
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| Epiphany of the Lord |
Wed, 31 December 2008 08:17 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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January 4, 2009 Year B
http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/090104.shtml#reading2
"Epiphany" means something new and enlightening has been revealed. Maybe it's something that we are forced to face or deal with. It's most likely a life changing event. We all have "stars" to follow. Our faith and our trust in God help us to know and interpret these "stars".
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| | Topic: Attracting young adults to priesthood and religious life |
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| Attracting young adults to priesthood and religious life |
Tue, 30 December 2008 15:51 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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Making a Mark
By Richard G. Malloy
from America
Luke is a smart philosophy major who attended both a Jesuit high school and university. Good with people. Attends 10 p.m. Mass on Sundays. When I tell him he should really think about being a Jesuit, he is moved. “Honored” he says, stumbling as he strives to formulate a response. “Wow, Father. It’s really awesome that you’d even think of saying that to me. I’m really kind of amazed. There’s just one thing....” I’m thinking, celibacy? Poverty—an even bigger issue for young adults raised in a materialistic culture? Obedience? Luke goes on: “I don’t believe in God.”
Another young man, Matthew: a superlative Jesuit Volunteer, an Irishman filled not only with charm and blarney, but also with the virtues of hard work and persistence. He has put in a long year in an inner-city Catholic grade school; and the kids, teachers and staff all swear he can walk on water. He once stopped a food fight among the fourth graders by singing a song that made the kids laugh so hard they forgot why they were launching ketchup-dripping Tater Tots at one another. I ask him if he or any of his friends from the Jesuit college he attended had ever thought of being a Jesuit. “No,” Matt replies matter-of-factly, as if the answer is self-evident. I follow up, “Why wouldn’t a young man consider being a Jesuit today?” Matt: “I guess that as a priest you really can’t make your mark.”
To say we could use a few more priests, brothers and sisters is not meant to disparage lay people’s generosity and expertise in service of the Gospel. Thousands of young men and women are preparing for lay ministry in the church, and they may well be the model for future ministry. But vocations to the priesthood and religious life play a crucial symbolic and cultural role in the life of the people of God. In 1965 there were 299,349 priests, seminarians and religious for 46 million Catholics in the United States. In 2006, for 69 million Catholics, there were 120,938, and the vast majority of the priests and sisters were well into their 60s and 70s.
What can we do to foster in the imaginations of young adults the possibility that they could be priests or religious?
1. Engage young adults in the fascinating pursuit of God. We might assume that young adult Catholics know who St. Francis and St. Ignatius were. We do so at our peril. Few have ever heard of Catholic social teaching, let alone the Catholic intellectual or spiritual traditions. Contemporary young adults often know more about other faiths than they do about their “own” religious tradition.
And young adults, like many older Catholics, have difficulty grappling with the intellectual demands of our faith tradition. I tell undergrads that chemistry is easy compared with the intricacies of theological and biblical studies. Learning that Jesus may actually have been born in Nazareth, not Bethlehem, or that other ancient figures were “born of virgins” rocks the thinking of those who cannot understand the differences between the communicative truth of metaphor and literal truth. To suggest that the good Samaritan may have been a figure only of Jesus’ imagination confuses those who cannot think on the complex levels necessary to understand the ramifications of parables.
Still, Catholics in their 20s can be energized to pursue the joyful intellectual undertaking that understanding the faith actually is. How? Give a young adult Catholic a good book on the faith, like Elizabeth Johnson’s Quest for the Living God, James Martin’s A Jesuit Off-Broadway, or John Dear’s autobiography. Sit down with a young person and watch a movie that deals with religious issues (“Places in the Heart,” “The Mission,” “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Groundhog Day,” “Dogma” or oldies but goodies like “The Nun’s Story,” “The Cardinal,” “A Man for All Seasons” and “Chariots of Fire”). Further, engage young adults in what Tom Clancy, S.J., called the “conversational word of God.” Share with a young person what you believe and why. Accompany him or her to a good talk or workshop on the living of our faith and discuss it. Get them asking theological questions, and they may even rise up to read the Gospels, the catechism and Catholic social teaching on their own. We can even dare hope they engage Bernard Lonergan and Karl Rahner! Once they are turned on to the sheer wonder of good theological thinking, they will discover that reflecting on God is much more interesting than the mind-numbing hours they spend pushing the buttons of Halo 3 or Guitar Hero.
2. Service is often a way into conversations about how young adults will spend their lives. Vowed religious and diocesan priests should hang out where the young people are. Many years I spend a few weeks in August with J.V.C. volunteers as they prepare for their year of service. Chatting and hearing what is on young adults’ minds, one quickly realizes that latent in their year of service is often a deep desire to discover God’s will for their lives.
Those desires often need to be teased out and discerned, which is not an easy task for young adults who have lived in the blizzard of seemingly chaotic cultural changes. But conversations with such young men and women about their deepest, truest desires can transform imaginations. In such chats, we let the Matthews know that religious life is a way to allow God to help us “make a mark” on our world. The stories of our lives are filled with such marks.
3. Listen to stories and tell them. Culturally, we are the stories we listen to and tell. So pay attention to the tales that young adults consider important. Reading Harry Potter novels gives one common ground with millions of twentysomethings. “What’s your favorite movie?” is always a conversation starter. Young adults live in a media-filled world foreign to those of us who can remember when there were only three television channels. Do not decry and dismiss this virtual world of 30-second ads, Facebook, constantly texting cellphones and blinking video games. Rather, pay attention to what these cultural currents reveal about the young people immersed in them. God’s transformative loving grace pulsates in cyberspace. Those striving to seek God in all things must develop ways of conversing with the young adults who live there.
Listening to stories of people was the mission of those who carried the faith to lands where customs and languages differed from their home turf. Christians listened to people’s tales and told the story of “the Son of God [who] became one of us so that we might become God” (St. Athanasius).
Knowing that we are listening, young adults will eventually ask about, and listen to, the stories important to us. Just as we priests and religious men and women need to be ready to share our narratives, we need those who have had good experiences of brothers, sisters and priests in religious life to share with young adults the stories of how those people affected their lives. Parents, you can tell your son or daughter about the Jesuit who kept your life on track, or the Sister of St. Joseph who consoled you when your mother died. Aunts and uncles, you can tell your nephew or niece about the Sister of Mercy who serves the poor and homeless in your city, and how you support her work. Grandparents, you can tell your grandson or granddaughter about the nuns and priests who took your lower middle-class Irish or Italian or Polish immigrant community from poverty to comfortable lives by providing a thriving parish and school as the hub of neighborhood life. The young hunger for your history
4. Be upfront and frank about chastity and sex. Celibacy does not pose the obstacle it did in the midst of the 1960s sexual revolution. Young adults, although tempted by an easy culture of “hooking up,” also yearn for the meaning and deep peace that comes from the practice of sexual sanity and fidelity. Love commitments that are congruent with our nature as persons, whose relationships mirror and monitor our relationship with God, are perceived dimly by those who have been burnt by the murky meaning of “friends with benefits.”
Religious should speak openly and often of the joys of the vow of chastity and of its challenges. The church’s teaching that chastity is the integration of our sexual powers (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 2337) comes as good news to those oppressed by the “six-pack abs” and “body to die for” dictates of Maxim and Cosmopolitan. Celibate chastity grants one a freedom to be available and to love across a wide spectrum of friends and families that is less possible for those whose lives are lovingly focused on spouse and children. A celibate lifestyle also allows one to be present to others without the murky miscommunication inherent in lives lived at loose ends. When one is clear about who and what one is, others are better able to drop defenses and trust.
Most importantly, the embrace of celibacy’s gift of solitude opens one for commitment to the transformative practice of contemplative prayer. Someone who sleeps alone, whose nights will never be interrupted by a small child’s fear of monsters, has more time to pray every day. Prayer practiced regularly brings an abiding awareness of God in our lives. Prayer makes our desires and choices more easily and authentically attuned to God’s loving, leading guidance. Through prayer we learn who we deeply desire to be and what we truly want to do, revelations of who God wants us to be and what God needs us to do. Daily Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, Ignatian contemplation, centering prayer, the rosary—all such ways of prayer help us discover our true selves and thus to know God as companion and challenge.
We must also talk more openly about the challenges surrounding chastity and sexuality. Early in Jesuit life, celibacy was more of a front-burner issue for me. The thought of sleeping with a loving spouse could seem the solution to all life’s problems.
Today I listen to friends who are two or three decades into their marriages, and I am sure my life is no more challenging or difficult a path. Still, even though raising children can be demanding, the fact that no child of mine will ever live, play tee ball, or draw pictures for the refrigerator, tugs at my consciousness at times. One Jesuit I know said he did not really miss children, but he found himself missing the grandchildren he never had. For some, the peace and joy of solitude can become a real struggle with loneliness. Community life provides support and companionship, and as a Jesuit, I have been privileged to live with great men I would probably have never met otherwise. On the other hand, St. John Berchmans said he did no great penance: Jesuit community life was sufficient.
Christ calls us to live our lives heroically. Our sexual choices should make us admirable and authentic people, persons committed in love. Our faith is one of the signs and symbols pointing beyond the mere empirical realities they embody. In an overly sexualized culture, those who freely choose celibacy are indicators that there is much more to life than we can know or imagine. We are like fingers pointing to the mysterious moon, calling people to know that there is more to life than pleasure, possessions and power. Sexuality is part of who we are, but does not by itself determine who and what we become as persons. Relationships of all kinds, from family to friends to those we serve, much more make up the total reality of our lives.
We also have to speak openly and honestly of the “elephant in the living room,” or in the sacristy, as the case may be. In every diocese and religious community, there are gay men and women living and working as brothers, sisters and priests. In the wake of Donald Cozzens’s book The Changing Face of the Priesthood, and others’ reflections on homosexuals in the priesthood and religious life, many may think that religious life or priesthood is only for those who are homosexual. One young heterosexual man I know, on telling a friend he was entering a religious order, heard the reply, “Oh, I didn’t know you were gay.” This impression is troubling. If the perception is that religious life and priesthood are “just for gays,” many may never consider it as an option.
In my 30 years as a Jesuit, I have not found the issue of sexual orientation very discomfiting or stifling. Despite Jay Leno’s and Bill Maher’s jokes, religious life is not dominated by a gay subculture. In fact, in most cases I would not even know men in my community were gay unless they told me. Many heterosexual priests and religious have learned to be more appreciative and understanding of the gay men and women among us. Homosexuals are called and generously give their lives in service to a community where they are forever a minority. It is not an easy cross to bear. At times I have been challenged to learn and grow as a heterosexual called to a community where a number of my brothers in Christ were homosexual. But that has never been a major stumbling block or difficulty. Ultimately it does not matter whether one is gay or straight, as long as a person wants to live the vows, serve God’s people and proclaim the Gospel.
Furthermore, attitudes towards homosexuality and gays are radically different for those in their 20s than for those in their 60s. For the millennials, gays are an accepted, admired and liked part of their social and cultural lives. Gay characters are a staple on many popular television programs, and every college campus has a gay and straight club of some sort. Young adults are consequently much more interested in and able to handle these realities. It is our silence on such matters that is more likely to give them pause.
5. Be willing to talk about the hot-button issues honestly and creatively. More difficult to address, especially among college-educated Catholics, are the attitudes of some in the church concerning church teachings on birth control, homosexuality and women’s ordination. As a vocal minority of conservative Catholics trumpets its opposition to a “culture of death,” a large majority of young Catholics quietly walk away, unwilling to engage the self-righteous in debate on such matters. Many young Catholics see the gray in areas that a relatively small number of Catholics paint as black and white. The 30 million former Catholics in the United States, 10 percent of the country’s population, are often those who were never offered a subtle, intelligent and convincing presentation of the meaning of the faith. All they ever heard is what the church is against, never what the church is for.
As diocesan priests and religious, we support and accept the wisdom and guidance of the magisterium’s teachings on birth control, abortion, premarital sex and homosexuality, while pastorally dealing with the cultural situations the people we are sent to serve must confront. Sending a message that one can be just as pastoral and creative in applying the church’s teaching on these issues as we are on the teachings about social justice will attract many who, at this point, would not even consider a vocation to priesthood and religious life.
6. Five practical things we can do to help young people consider religious life or priesthood. (1) Pay for a young adult to go on a silent retreat. Religious life is at root a life of prayer. Many young people have never had an experience of the mysterious challenges and joys of silence. Giving them time and space for God to touch their consciousness is an invaluable gift. (2) Offer to help pay off college loans. Many never even consider priesthood or religious life because they come out of college carrying crippling debt. Give the gift of financial freedom to young adults, and see where God leads them. (3) Think about paying diocesan priests more. Salary in our culture is a measure of a person’s worth. Diocesan priests do not take a vow of poverty, so pay them what they are worth. (4) Lovingly confront issues of race and class in your dioceses and communities. The United States in the not too distant future will be a society without any one majority group. Our religious communities should reflect the economic, ethnic and racial diversity of our society. (5) Strive to make the priesthood and religious life truly distinctive forms of living. Young adults want to give their lives to great and radical responses to the issues of our age.
I have found being a Jesuit priest a fascinating and extremely satisfying way of responding to life and God. As a young Jesuit, I met Bill Byron, S.J., the author of many books who at that time was president of The Catholic University of America. In casual conversation during a coffee break at some Jesuit meeting he said something I never forgot, “This is a great life, if you’re called to it.” Religiously tone deaf, too many young adults are missing the opportunity of a lifetime.
[Updated on: Tue, 30 December 2008 15:52]
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| | Topic: Top 10 neglected Catholic stories of 2008 |
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| | Topic: The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph |
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| The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph |
Fri, 26 December 2008 06:50 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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Year B
December 28, 2008
http://www.usccb.org/nab/122808.shtml#reading2
Which readings will your parish proclaim since there is a choice this week?
Thought...Families can take on different forms in our modern age.
No matter who your family may be, we all need God's help.
Worshiping, praying together is important.
Our parish family used to be a place where everyone felt safe. For many, sadly that's not true anymore.
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| | Topic: Merry Christmas! |
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| Merry Christmas! |
Tue, 23 December 2008 13:05 |
Anne
Messages: 3816
Registered: April 2004 |
Senior Member |
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Posting may be light the next couple of days or so. Wishing a Happy, Holy and Blessed Christmas to all who post here,to those who have left the boards for reasons of their own,and to all who visit but do not wish to contribute to the discussions.
A Christmas Prayer for Liturgical Ministers
from 2009 Sourcebook for Sundays, Seasons and weekdays
Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth, peace!
Emmanuel, God-with-us,
as we serve your people today,
fill us with a spirit of wonder and reverence.
Help us to marvel anew
at the mystery we celebrate
in this Christmas season:
The Word is made flesh,
and lives among us!
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| | Topic: Restoring a 16th century Italian painting at the MFA |
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