Save the monastery & liturgy, save the world!

Save the monaster & liturgy, save the world!

The Clear Creek Monastery list just sent text of a wonderful Russ Hittinger profile of the congregation of Benedectine monks in Fontgombault, who at the time it was written (1999) was starting to plant a daughter house in eastern Oklahoma. I know this is my kind of thing, but I tell you, when I got to the end of Russ's piece, I got a chill of excitement. This really has to be the year I make a pilgrimage to Clear Creek. It really does. If you have any interest in monasticism and/or Catholicism, read past the jump. God bless these holy monks and their efforts at renewal!

Crisis Magazine
November 1999
Solesmes Monks Coming to Tulsa
by RUSSELL HITTINGER
The establishment of a new Benedictine monastery at Clear Creek, Oklahoma is the occasion for this account of the recent history of monasticism in Europe and the remarkable story behind the new foundation.

In January 1999, as the pope was preparing to fly from Mexico City to St. Louis, a rumor rippled through Cherokee County, Oklahoma. Perched in the foothills of the Ozarks, Cherokee County is the capital of the Cherokee Nation; here ended the 1839 Trail of Tears, the 1,000-mile forced march of the Cherokees from Georgia to Oklahoma. The local grammar school at Lost City had received a fax from a monastery in France. Someone reckoned that the fax was in Italian, and by the time this report reached the local feed store and therefore to cell phones and CB radios country-wide, the rumor was in full orbit.

The pope was headed for Lost City -- specifically, to a 1,200-acre tract of land at one time owned by Cleo Epps, a notorious bootlegger, but recently purchased by French Benedictine monks of the Congregation of Solesmes. That very week, the Lost City school was visited by two black-hooded monks, one wearing a pectoral cross. Someone overheard a remark about the monks meeting with the pope. There were too many coincidences. It was clear, the pope would be touching down enroute to St. Louis.

The monk with the pectoral cross was Dom Antoine Forgeot, abbot of Notre-Dame de Fontgombault, an eleventh-century Benedictine monastery east of Poitiers. His companion was Father Philip Anderson, prior of Notre-Dame de Triors, a daughterhouse of Fontgombault, founded south of Lyon in 1984. And they were indeed going to meet the pope in St. Louis to ask for the Holy Father's blessing on the new monastery outside of Lost City to be christened Our Lady of the Annunciation at Clear Creek. This fall, 13 monks -- two Canadian, three Frenchmen, and eight American -- arrived from France to build their monastery.

Contemplative life in modern Tulsa

Compared with other end-of-the-millennium events, the founding of the new Benedictine monastery at Clear Creek is a rather quiet and certainly unassuming affair. But what these black-hooded monks propose to do in the foothills of the Ozarks is significant, for Clear Creek is the first foundation (for men) of the Congregation of Solesmes in the United States. The most famous Benedictine congregation in Europe, at least in modern times, is planting itself in a place where Catholics constitute little more than 2 percent of the population, during a time of unprecedented American prosperity and power. An hour away in Tulsa, the parking lots of malls, high schools, and mega-churches are packed deep with Lexus SUVs and Land Rovers. Where oil wells once defined the American century in these parts, ten-story cell phone transmission towers now encircle the city, symbolizing the new digitalized Sunbelt. From a worldly perspective, this is a strange time and place to sow the seeds of contemplation.

But more than 150 years ago, Benedictine monasticism was revived at Solesmes under conditions that would have seemed even more unusual. During the late 18th and 19th centuries, from Lisbon to Vienna, European civil authorities declared war on monasticism. As Rousseau said, "Wherever the Clergy constitutes a body it is the master and lawgiver in its realm." Religious orders constituted such a "body" par excellence. Deriving their authority from Rome, they enjoyed independence from the local church and from civil powers. Such imperium in imperio was unacceptable to the new European regimes. Monastic institutions were an affront not only to the state but also to the new civic culture of republicanism. Garat l'Aine declared in the Assemblée Nationale in 1790 that the religious vow "is a civil suicide." Monks, he alleged, detach their affections from things of the world without giving anything back to society in the form of schools, hospitals, or orphanages. In a word, he said, monks are "useless."

The new constitutional democracies in Europe used every means at their disposal to eliminate monasticism. Within one generation, only 30 of 1,500 Benedictine abbeys survived in Europe. Cluny, the capital of medieval monasticism in the West, was closed and auctioned off to the highest bidder. Citeaux and Clairvaux likewise were confiscated and turned into state prisons. At La Trappe, the Trappists were rounded up for chain gangs, and some of the monks were sent to the penal colony of Conenama in French Guiana. By 1803, every one of the 68 Carthusian houses in France and the 18 in Germany had vanished under the legal and extralegal policies of the new regimes. Augustinian Hermits disappeared forever from Portugal, where they once had 50 monasteries. At the end of the 19th century, 500 Dominican houses had dwindled to 80, and the total number of friars plummeted from 25,000 to about 3,000. The consecrated life of religious was over, or so it seemed.

In the 1830s, a secular priest named Prosper Guéranger received permission from Pope Gregory XVI, a Camaldolese monk, to refound Benedictine monasticism at the abandoned priory of Solesmes, not far from Le Mans. Though he had never been a novice or a monk, Guéranger was made an abbot overnight. He rebuilt the Benedictine life by virtue of an extraordinary ability to imagine what monasticism once was and what it is supposed to be. This was the era of Romanticism, when many intellectuals and artists indulged a sympathy for things medieval. Guéranger, however, understood how to revive the older institutions and traditions as living realities, not as a mere exercise in nostalgia.

His multi-volume works, L'Année liturgique and Institutions liturgiques, were devoted not only to the revival of monastic chant but more broadly to exploring the historical and theological grounds for a recovery of the Roman liturgy. He insisted that liturgy and apostolic authority are intertwined, for Christ gave his apostles power to dispense the mysteries; Christ bestowed liturgical power. This simple but profound point was quite contrary to the spirit of the age, which wanted Catholicism reduced to national churches and connected to Rome only by extrinsic authority. Rather than seeing the papacy as a power external to the temporal state, Guéranger saw it as an authority internal to culture, a culture supernaturalized through the "great and mighty river" of liturgical life.

To the liberals of his time, Guéranger seemed to be an ultramontanist, and he was, for he worked behind the scenes writing briefs for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and Pastor Aeternus, the Vatican I document on papal authority. From the right, he seemed to be a dangerous liberal because he believed that efforts to restore political unity between throne and altar distracted from the renewal of the Church's interior landscapes. If permitted civil freedoms, he argued, the Roman Church had sufficient spiritual resources to restore religion and culture. Thus Guéranger anticipated some of the most important issues that would come into view a century later at Vatican II: religious liberty vis-à-vis the state, the role of Rome in evangelizing culture across national boundaries, recovery of patristic theology, and the renewal of the Roman liturgy.

Despite being expelled from France three times (in November 1880, the monks were forcibly removed from their choir stalls while chanting the divine office), the Congregation of Solesmes not only endured but flourished. Today, there are some 29 monasteries and convents, and about 1,000 monks and nuns.. They have continued to resist taking on "useful" apostolates that would distract from the contemplative life and the priority of choir. Many Catholics in the United States have heard of Solesmes, for almost all Gregorian chant by choirs or on recordings -- or even better, at a Catholic liturgy -- is derived from the restoration of chant undertaken by the monks of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes. Today the very word Solesmes evokes the image of serenity, beauty, and liturgical refinement.

The road to Oklahoma

The new foundation in Oklahoma derives from Fontgombault and three of its daughterhouses in the Solesmes system. Monasticism at Fontgombault dates back to 1091, when hermits living in caves on the banks of the Creuse River, east of Poitiers, united under the Rule of St. Benedict. Its history is not atypical of French monasticism. It thrived in the Middle Ages but slowly declined under the force of religious wars, absentee abbots, and finally the French Revolution.

Monasticism first returned to Fontgombault with the Trappists in 1849. The French government permitted the Trappists to reclaim the monastery provided the monks did something "useful" -- in this case, they ran a reform school for boys. Charles de Foucauld visited the Trappists there before becoming a hermit in the Sahara. They were evicted in 1903. In The Waters of Siloe, Thomas Merton recounts how some of the Fontgombault Trappists took refuge at Gethsemani in Kentucky; when Merton entered Gethsemani in 1941, one of the Fontgombault monks was still alive.

After World War II, Solesmes established a daughterhouse at Fontgombault, which became an Abbey in 1953. Plentiful vocations have enabled it, in turn, to found three more monasteries at Randol (1971), Triors (1984), and Gaussan (1994). The average of monks at each of these monasteries is about 40. Randol, on top of a mountain just outside Clermont-Ferrand, is the first contemplative foundation in the Auvergne region of France since 1789. All of these monasteries, including the new priory at Clear Creek, celebrate the traditional Roman liturgy at the Conventual Mass after tierce each morning.

In addition to being the first Solesmes foundation for men (in 1981 a convent was founded in Vermont) in the United States, the new priory at Clear Creek represents yet another first. It is the first time Europeans have sent Americans to spearhead the founding of a contemplative house in America. And this is perhaps the most interesting part of the story.

The connection with America goes back almost 30 years, when there was a remarkable influx of Yanks to Fontgombault. Strangely enough, this movement of Americans across the Atlantic was indirectly aided and abetted by the United States government, which, in 1970, gave University of Kansas (KU) professors John Senior, Dennis Quinn, and Frank Nelick a grant for an experimental program in "Tradition." The Pearson College Integrated Humanities Program provided courses in Western civilization, which in its time and place had just enough countercultural edge to attract a surprising number of students. The program included no overt training in theology or Catholic catechism.

In 1972 two students set out on a field trip to Europe to study village life. They also expressed a desire to hear Gregorian chant. A Trappist monk of Gethsemani who happened to be passing through KU recommended that they visit Fontgombault. Before the boys left for Europe, Professor Senior quipped, "bring back an abbot." As providence had it, the students ended up at the porter's gate of Fontgombault in July 1972. The abbot at that time, Dom Jean Roy, was absent. Upon his return, the master of novices informed him that two Americans in the guest house had requested permission to stay for several months. Dom Roy agreed. Later, he mentioned he had been thinking of the United States all that day and, in fact, had thought of founding a monastery there a few years before.

Despite their parents' incomprehension and even threats of being pursued by cult-deprogrammers, more than 100 KU students followed the first group to Fontgombault. In 1976, 60 American students arrived during Lent. It is said that many of them eventually became Catholics, including three who took monastic vows and four who became secular priests. Meanwhile, back at KU, French professors protested these field trips on the grounds that France belonged exclusively to the French Department. More serious, though unproven, allegations of religious proselytizing and brainwashing were brought against the faculty. The Humanities Program was closed after the 1977-1978 academic year. Evidently, the reality of Kansas Jayhawks exchanging hooded frat sweatshirts for hooded habits could not be tolerated by state and university officials. (An editorial cartoon in the March 31, 1977, Kansas City Times depicted an evolutionary scheme, beginning with a college hippie who evolves into a businessman, before evolving into a monk.)

In any event, 3,000 miles away, Fontgombault now had a significant contingent of Americans and three Canadians who found their way to Fontgombault completely apart from the Kansas program. By the early 1990s, according to Dom Forgeot, "it just did not seem possible to wait any longer before restoring to America the considerable number of vocations that we have received from her." Exploratory trips were made to several dioceses in search for the right combination of factors, such as suitably remote land and episcopal approval of a group of monk who bring no active apostolate.

The right combination was found in the diocese of Tulsa. Bishop Edward Slattery had been to France in 1997 to ordain, in the Carthusian house of Sélignac, a Tulsan who had once tested a vocation at Fontgombault. Three other Tulsans -- a priest, a librarian, and a public school teacher -- had also tested vocations at Fontgombault. Yet another, the daughter of a professor at Oral Roberts University, had become a nun at Jouques, a traditional Benedictine convent in the south of France. Though it might seem like a strange episode in a Catholic X-Files, there was a spiritual chord reverberating between eastern Oklahoma and France.

On the Feast of the Assumption in 1998, on the 50th anniversary of the return of Benedictine monasticism to Fontgombault, Bishop Slattery and Dom Forgeot signed an ecclesiastical charter, Ad Dei Gloriam. The diocese formally recognized the purely contemplative vocation of the new foundation, while the monks promised to be a ministry of prayer and retreats. Bishop Slattery returned to Fontgombault again this year on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul to celebrate Mass and to give some last-minute encouragement to the monks who, after more than 20 years in a French cloister, would be making a trip back to the New World.

Planting seeds in fresh soil

More than 25 years after the Kansas professor made the quip about the boys bringing back an abbot, the Americans are back, along with three Frenchmen and two Canadians. I was so struck by the story of American students from the late 1960s bringing what is essentially Carolingian monasticism to the New World that I decided last spring to visit the three French monasteries at Triors, Randol, and Fontgombault before the monks departed for Oklahoma.

My high expectations for the liturgical ritual were more than fulfilled. There is a kind of Romano-Gallic beauty, at once earthy and refined, that pervades these houses. The Roman rituals never appeared or sounded so good. I felt as if I had happened upon them for the first time. Even a tourist like me could easily catch a glimpse of the impression it must have made on those Kansas students a quarter-century ago. The question I wanted answered is whether this kind of monasticism is transplantable to Lost City, that is, to the United States. After all, this is not a golden or even bronze era of contemplative life in North America.

For his part, the abbot of Fontgombault insisted that it would be a mistake to believe that even the external refinements of the Solesmes Benedictine tradition are merely French, or for that matter merely Old World European. The beauty of the externalities, he explained -- what makes them refulgent even to the casual observer -- derives from St. Benedict's teaching on the degrees of humility. From interior humility, which is a supernatural gift, the body is induced to share in a certain order and beauty. The abbot said, "We do not for a moment forget this beauty, but by the same token we cannot forget its source, which is supernatural." It is not French, and it is not American -- it is the monastic appropriation of Gospel. There is no reason why this cannot be taught to Americans who live in varying degrees of proximity to Lost City.

One monk, an American, took a rather different approach to my question. The French soul, he explained, is old soil for monasticism. It has been tilled and turned for centuries, and even in its exhaustion, it can still produce a sturdy plant. Contemporary France is a jaded, secular culture in which anticlericalism is a democratic sport, but even so, there are 79 Benedictine monasteries in France. The American soul, on the other hand, has not been tilled to this end. (Incidentally, several of the monks, especially the French, expressed great admiration for Thomas Merton and the American Trappists of the era.) The American religious genius has been given to other, more active ends. But once this soil is cultivated for the seeds of contemplation, it will be so fresh that it will produce dramatic results.

Perhaps these monks are right. It is an issue of timing that defies worldly predictions. American Catholics are the most religiously free and prosperous people on earth. Once a church of immigrants who had something to prove to themselves and to their surrounding culture, Catholicism is today the last mainline church; it is the last church that consistently speaks in the voice of Christian tradition on those moral and spiritual issues recognizable to anyone's grandparents, Catholic or Protestant. The Catholic Church in America really doesn't have anything left to prove to the political and economic culture. The question now is how to use and direct her own freedom and generosity. Perhaps the nobility of what St. Therese called her "little way," the hidden life that once created such far-reaching results for Western culture is the next American frontier, the challenge for a truly free people. Perhaps this is to be the next chapter in "How the West Was Won."

"The Invisible Mom"

Father Z. posted this, and it is stupendous.

"The Invisible Mom"
[comments and emphasis from the web site where I copied it]
by Anonymous

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be taken to the store.

Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’ Obviously not; no one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all.

I’m invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more: Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this? Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock to ask, ‘What time is it?’ I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is the Disney Channel?’ I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30, please.’

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history and the mind that graduated summa cum laude – but now they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She’s going, she’s going, she’s gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England .. Janice had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when Janice turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you this.’ It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe .

I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription: ‘To Charlotte , with admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’

In the days ahead I would read – no, devour – the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: No one can say who built the great cathedrals we have no record of their names.

[1] These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. [2] They made great sacrifices and [3] expected no credit. [4] The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A legendary story in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, ‘Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof? No one will ever see it.’ And the workman replied, ‘Because God sees.’

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place.. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you, Charlotte. I see the sacrifices you make everyday, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.’

At times, my invisibility feels like an affliction But it is not a disease that is erasing my life. It is the cure for the disease of my own self-centeredness. It is the antidote to my strong, stubborn pride.. I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.

The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree. [!]

When I really think about it, I don’t want my child to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for three hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a shrine or a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, to add, ‘You’re gonna love it there.’

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible women.

7 Things Teenage Boys Most Need

Interview With Spiritual Director of Adolescents

WASHINGTON, D.C., JAN. 13, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Being the parent of an adolescent boy is legendary for its difficulty. But according to one priest who acts as a spiritual director and confessor for high school boys, just keeping in mind seven points can make for a better relationship with adolescent sons.

Legionary of Christ Father Michael Sliney suggests the following seven necessities for parents of adolescent boys:

1. Clear guidelines with reasonable consequences from a unified front; cutting slack but also holding boys accountable for their actions.
2. Reasonable explanations for the criteria, guidelines and decisions made by parents.
3. Avoiding hyper-analysis of boys' emotions and states of mind: avoiding "taking their temperature" too often.
4. Unconditional love with an emphasis on character and effort more than outcome: Encourage boys to live up to their potential while having reasonable expectations. To love them regardless of whether they make it into Harvard or become a star quarterback.
5. Authenticity, faith and fidelity should be reflected in parent's lifestyles.
6. Qualities of a dad: Manliness, temperance, making significant time for family, putting aside work, and being a reliable source of guidance.
7. Qualities of a mom: Emotional stability, selflessness, loving service and extreme patience.

In this interview with ZENIT, Father Sliney takes a deeper look at the seven points.

Q: What are some of the particular characteristics of this age group that parents and educators need to bear in mind?

Father Sliney: Well, one of the first and most important points is to recognize that they are no longer kids. Up to age 12, they are still kids. But from 13 onward, puberty kicks in and there is a lot more sensitivity; they are more easily irritated and they want to be treated like a teen, not like a kid.

At this age, teenage boys are discovering their identities and going through a lot of turmoil. It's a very sensitive time, and we need to pray for them and dedicate time to them, show personal interest, try to understand what they're thinking.

Q: How can a parent find the balance between being clear, firm and yet flexible?

Father Sliney: Explain to your son in advance: These are the guidelines and these are the consequences. The consequences must be reasonable. Every parent has an atomic bomb he or she can pull out -- taking away the Internet, the cell phone, or the driver's license, or keeping their bedroom door open -- but everything needs to be done in a fair way, in due proportion. You can't surprise a kid with a negative punishment that doesn't correspond to what he did.

Don't let the kids feel like there is no hope or that they have totally lost your trust. Striking the balance between being firm and cutting them some slack is important.

Also, it is better to be emotionless and rational when you reprimand them or make a point. Don't throw salt in the wound by making a punishment into an emotional ordeal. If you're going to ground your kid, do it in a rational, non-emotional way. Be brief. In the end, boys respect it more.

Q: How can parents motivate their kids to do the right thing?

Father Sliney: Don't explain it so much in terms of "right" and "wrong," but in terms of "wise" and "wrong." Explain the reasons behind why something is wrong or right and frame your motivations in a positive way.

For example, instead of telling your son, "Don't become a drug addict," help him to see how resisting the temptation is a great way to forge his character. When the issue of premarital sex comes up, flip it around: Instead of saying, "It's a mortal sin" or "You might get a disease," help him to look forward to his future wife, and to think of what a great gift he could offer her if he waits for her.

Q: Why should parents avoid probing into their sons' emotional life?

Father Sliney: Boys don't like to be analyzed under a microscope. Sometimes the worst possible question a parent can ask is: "How are you doing today? How are you feeling? You look a little sad." Don't analyze their emotions and state of mind. Girls might like to talk about their feelings and emotions, but most boys don't. If they had a bad day, they don't want to talk about it because it makes them feel vulnerable and weak.

Q: Do teenage boys really feel a lot of pressure to perform up to their parents' standards?

Father Sliney: Yes, they do feel a lot of pressure and they are very sensitive when they feel judged by how they perform instead of by who they are. They need the love and esteem of their parents. Parents should put the emphasis on their kids' characters and on the effort they make, not necessarily on the result that comes out. If a kid is honest, generous, prayerful, trying hard in school, and is still a B student, he's doing his best, and he should be encouraged. It's important for parents to have reasonable expectations and to encourage each boy to live up to his potential.

Q: How important is the good example of the parents?

Father Sliney: It is extremely important. We all hyper-analyze our parents and observe the example they set in all areas: If they are practicing what they preach, if they are faithful to each other, etc. High school is a very tumultuous, unstable time for boys. If these qualities of fidelity and authenticity are not there, and if there is not a stable, happy marriage, it's chaos. Troubled kids generally come from dysfunctional or broken families. Here we see the importance of a great marriage: If that's in place, you've got a pretty good chance of a teenager getting through in good shape. There are not too many cases of parents who've got it together having dysfunctional kids.

Q: Can you expand on the importance of the dad's role in relation to his son?

Father Sliney: Kids, especially in high school, need to spend time with their dad, doing things together. This time together creates a space for him to open up and talk if he wants to. Take him out to breakfast or out to a game. Look for ways that he would want to do something with you. Dads need to get personally involved with their sons and dedicate time especially to their more difficult kids. Making little gestures of kindness is so important. My dad used to stop in every night before going to bed. He showed me he cared by asking how I was doing with my homework, how things were going. It was just a quick gesture but it was very helpful.

We're living in a very feminized culture, so dads need to teach their sons what true masculinity is all about. Being masculine doesn't mean being a tough football player and lifting weights. Manliness means strong character, self-control, quiet strength, and getting through adversity without whining. Kids need to see the example of what it means to be a man in their dad. It's about having an internal toughness, not complaining, and not letting others tell you what to do. You're the man of the house, you think about things, and you have things under control.

If you're living an authentic life, it comes across. One time when I was a kid, we got a pretty serious tornado warning while we were out in the yard, cleaning up. My dad went to each one of us: He was calm, in control, and he knew what needed to be done. Once we were all in the basement, he was at peace, having a good conversation with us. He was a calming force, full of confidence and authenticity.

And dads need to be a reliable source of guidance because high school kids are looking for words of wisdom. Kids are looking for advice from the one they love. Dads need to be available, but also offer. Kids shouldn't be intimidated or afraid to approach their dad for advice.

Read the rest here.

Fr. Neuhaus on his conversion

Here it as at First Things.

Fr. Neuhaus - Requiescat in Pace

Father Richard John Neuhaus Dead at 72
First Things Founder Suffered From Cancer

NEW YORK, JAN. 8, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Father Richard John Neuhaus, prominent Catholic priest and founder of the religion magazine First Things, died today after a short battle with cancer. He was 72.

According to a note sent out by Joseph Bottum, editor of First Things, Father Neuhaus died shortly before 10 a.m. at Manhattan's Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

In a post on the First Things blog after Christmas, Bottum reported that Father Neuhaus was diagnosed with serious cancer over Thanksgiving. At the time he said the long-term prognosis was not good, but that the priest would be undergoing outpatient chemotherapy treatment.

The day after Christmas, however, Father Neuhaus was admitted into the hospital after suffering a systemic infection caused by side effects from the cancer.

Bottom reported that Father Neuhaus never recovered from the infection, and on Tuesday evening he "lost consciousness ... after a collapse in his heart rate, and the next day, in the company of friends, he died." Father George Rutler had administered the sacrament of last rights just after midnight on Tuesday.

"My tears are not for him," wrote Bottum, "for he knew, all his life, that his Redeemer lives, and he has now been gathered by the Lord in whom he trusted. I weep, rather for all the rest of us.

"As a priest, as a writer, as a public leader in so many struggles, and as a friend, no one can take his place. The fabric of life has been torn by his death, and it will not be repaired, for those of us who knew him, until that time when everything is mended and all our tears are wiped away."

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

Storming the gates

Father Neuhaus publicly announced his battle with cancer at the end of his First Things column on Dec. 5. He wrote: "I cannot begin to respond to the deluge of assurances of prayer and concern about my health. Please be assured that I am grateful and count mightily on being remembered by you before the Throne of Grace. Or, as Catholics are wont to say, on your storming the gates of heaven.

"The nature of the cancer is beginning to come into clearer focus, and I hope to have more details in short order. Meanwhile, I will, please God, continue to be as engaged as possible in the work of First Things and other apostolates, even as I am compelled by grace to know more deeply our solidarity within the Body of Christ."

Richard John Neuhaus was born May 14, 1936, in Pembroke, Ontario. He was one of eight children, and his father was a Lutheran minister.

Neuhaus himself was ordained a minister around 1960. Later, he moved to the United States where he became a naturalized citizen.

In 1990, Neuhaus founded First Things, a journal published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life.

He was received into the Catholic Church on Sept. 8, 1990. A year later Cardinal John O'Connor (1920-2000), the then archbishop of New York, ordained him as a priest.

Father Neuhaus authored several books, including "The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America" (1984), "The Catholic Moment: The Paradox of the Church in the Postmodern World" (1987), and "Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth" (2006).

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From the New York Times obituary section:

Father Neuhaus’s last book was “American Babylon,” to be published in March by Basic Books. In it, he depicts America as a nation defined by consumerism and decadence and argues that Christians must learn to live there as if they are in exile from the promised land.

So it will be published!

= = = = = = =

Neuhaus' own summary:

The argument, in short, is that God is not indifferent to the American experiment, and therefore we who are called to think about God and His ways through time dare not be indifferent to the American experiment. America is not uniquely Babylon, but it is our time and place in Babylon. We seek its peace in which we find our peace as we yearn for and eucharistically anticipate the New Jerusalem that is our pilgrim goal. It is time to think again—to think deeply, to think theologically—about the story of America and its place in the story of the world. Again, the words of Augustine: “It is beyond anything incredible that God should have willed the kingdoms of men, their dominations and their servitudes, to be outside the range of the laws of his providence.”

God bless you, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.

= = == = = = = = =
More....

Bush Saddened at Death of Father Neuhaus
Funeral Set for Tuesday in New York

By Karna Swanson

NEW YORK, JAN. 9, 2009 (Zenit.org).- In a message sent on the occasion of the death of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, President George Bush called the founder of the religion magazine First Things an "inspirational leader" and a "dear friend."
Father Neuhaus, a prominent theologian and prolific writer, died Thursday in New York of complications from cancer. He was 72.

Bush said in his message that he and his wife Laura were both "saddened" by the death of Father Neuhaus. The president called him "an inspirational leader, admired theologian, and accomplished author who devoted his life to the service of the Almighty and to the betterment of our world."

"He was also a dear friend, and I have treasured his wise counsel and guidance," Bush added.

Many Catholic leaders, especially those working to promote the dignity of life, echoed the president's comments.

Christ Slattery, president of Expectant Mother Care and leading pro-life activist, called Father Neuhaus "the most influential Roman Catholic in the United States."

"He was a profound thinker and writer and spokesman for the truths of the Catholic faith," Slattery said in comments to ZENIT. "He was a long-standing civil rights leader, intellectual, and a fierce pro-life advocate who cannot be replaced and will be sorely missed.

A loss for all

Carl Anderson, the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, called the death of Father Neuhaus “a great loss for people of every faith.”

“Father Neuhaus was a passionate and effective advocate for preserving an honored place for religion in the life of the nation, and one of the most accomplished Catholic intellectuals of our time,” Anderson said on the Web page of the Knights of Columbus.

He added, “Few men have made as great a contribution at a pivotal time our history as Father Richard John Neuhaus."

William May, senior fellow of the Culture of Life Foundation, praised Father Neuhaus for his "profoundly Christian" writings.

"Long before he became a Catholic I learned much from his writings, so profoundly Christian in nature and challenging philosophically and theologically," said May. "He thoroughly knew the modern, post-Christian mind and the tragic capitulation of many Christian theologians, Protestant and Catholic both, to a secularized Christianity that had lost its bearings."

"His courage and brilliance in showing the relevance to authentic Christian thought in the market place inspired many," he added.

Burial

Joseph Bottum, the editor of First Things, announced that a funeral Mass for Father Neuhaus will be celebrated at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in New York on Tuesday at 10 a.m.

A Christian wake service in the form of a Vigil for the Deceased will be celebrated at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Monday evening at 7:30 p.m.

Richard John Neuhaus was born May 14, 1936, in Pembroke, Ontario. He was one of eight children, and his father was a Lutheran minister.

Neuhaus himself was ordained a minister around 1960. Later, he moved to the United States where he became a naturalized citizen.

In 1990, Neuhaus founded First Things, a journal published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life.

He was received into the Catholic Church on Sept. 8, 1990. A year later Cardinal John O'Connor (1920-2000), the then archbishop of New York, ordained him as a priest.

Father Neuhaus authored several books, including "The Naked Public Square: Religion and Democracy in America" (1984), "The Catholic Moment: The Paradox of the Church in the Postmodern World" (1987), and "Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth" (2006).

New Year's Eve 2009 at the Vatican

Thanks to Father Z.

Some bullet points of the Roman Pontiff’s sermon pronounced in Italian:

* 1st Vespers of the Marian feast.
* O admirabile commercium, the antiphon for the first psalm. "Wondrous exchange". In the Te Deum we sing "Tu, ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum"
* Tonight we are invited to gaze at Mary who received Christ in her heart and brought Him to the light of the world.
* Theotokos. Mary is known as Mother of God from antiquity. The Church affirms this belief.
* Thanksgiving for the year placed in the hands of Mary. This is shared with those present, from city and ecclesiastical government and the faithful present.
* Ask forgiveness for our poor use of time.
* We must know how to give thanks every day, for only in Christ is the light of the mystery of man. (Gaudium et spes 22).
* Christ’s presence is a gift to be shared by all. Initiatives of charity. Educate people in hope.
* The uncertainty of our day. Mary leads us to Christ. Vocations of parents.
* Concern for the city of Rome, a hedonistic mentality. There is a growing need for evangelization.
* Young people: don’t be afraid! Don’t fear the task the Lord has entrusted to you. The Holy Spirit will help you bear witness to the joy of faith and the beauty of being Christian.
* "The world falls into ruin and everyone is thinking of himself."
* The maternal presence of Mary assures us that God will never abandon us.

Cardinal Dulles - Requiescat in Pace

Cardinal Dulles Dead at 90
Scholar Suffered From Post-Polio Syndrome

NEW YORK, DEC. 12, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The New York Province of the Society of Jesus reported that renowned theologian and prolific author Cardinal Avery Dulles died this morning at 90.

Avery Dulles was born Aug. 24, 1918, in Auburn, New York. He was the son of John Foster Dulles, who later served as U.S. Secretary of State under President Dwight Eisenhower.

Dulles converted to Catholicism in 1940 while studying at Harvard University. After graduation he continued at Harvard studying law, but after a year and a half he left the university to join the Navy during World War II, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant.

He entered the Jesuits in 1946 and was ordained 10 years later. He earned a doctorate from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1960.

Father Dulles taught theology at Woodstock College from 1960 to 1974 and at the Catholic University of America from 1974 to 1988.

He served as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University from 1988 until April of this year.

He was created a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 2001, making him the first American-born theologian not a bishop to receive this honor.

A respected theologian, he served as president of both the Catholic Theological Society of America and the American Theological Society. He authored over 750 articles on theological topics, and dozens of books, the latest including "The History of Apologetics," (revised edition, 2005), and "Magisterium: Teacher and Guardian of the Faith" (2007).

The cardinal had been suffering of complications of post-polio syndrome, which he contracted as a Naval officer. Confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak, the cardinal continued to read and communicated by slowing typing on a computer keyboard or writing on a pad of paper.

Upon stepping down as the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society at Fordham University in April, he wrote: "Well into my 90th year I have been able to work productively. As I become increasingly paralyzed and unable to speak, I can identify with the many paralytics and mute persons in the Gospels, grateful for the loving and skillful care I receive and for the hope of everlasting life in Christ. If the Lord now calls me to a period of weakness, I know well that his power can be made perfect in infirmity. 'Blessed be the name of the Lord!'"

During Benedict XVI's visit to the United States last April, the Pontiff and Cardinal Dulles met for a private meeting.

Great theologian

Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago and president of the U.S. episcopal conference, said the death of Cardinal Dulles "brings home to God a great theologian and a totally dedicated servant of the Church."

"His wise counsel will be missed; his personal witness to the pursuit of holiness of life as a priest, a Jesuit and a cardinal of the Church will be remembered and will encourage the Church to remain ever faithful to her Lord and his mission," he added.

Cardinal Edward Egan, the archbishop of New York, said in a statement this afternoon that he learned of the death of Cardinal Dulles with "deep sadness."

"Cardinal Dulles was an eminent theologian and professor of theology in seminaries and universities throughout the nation," said Cardinal Egan. "All of us here in the archdiocese are very much indebted to him for his wisdom and priestly example."

Father James Massa, executive director of the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at the episcopal conference and a student of Cardinal Dulles, said the cardinal was "for a generation of priests, scholars and faithful [...], a reliable and faithful interpreter of the Second Vatican Council. A number of his books have become classics in theological education."

"In some ways," the priest added, "his life bears comparison with another great cardinal-theologian, John Henry Newman, on whose birthday, 200 years later, Avery Dulles was created a cardinal of the Catholic Church."

BXVI on the parable of the 'talents'

On Investing Our Talents
"The Mistaken Attitude Is That of Fear"

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 16, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Benedict XVI delivered today before reciting the Angelus together with the crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The Word of God this Sunday -- the penultimate of the liturgical year -- invites us to be vigilant and active, in awaiting the return of the Lord Jesus at the end of time. The Gospel passage tells the parable of the talents, reported by St. Matthew (25:14-30). The "talent" was an ancient Roman coin of great value and precisely on account of the popularity of this parable it has become synonymous with personal gifts, which everyone is called to develop.

In reality, the text speaks of "a man who, going abroad, called his servants and handed over his goods to them" (Matthew 25:14). The man in the parable represents Christ himself, the servants are his disciples and the talents are the gifts that Jesus gives them. For this reason such gifts, apart from natural qualities, represent the riches that the Lord Jesus has left us as a legacy, so that we bear fruit with them: his Word, deposited in the holy Gospel; baptism, which renews us in the Holy Spirit; prayer -- the "Our Father" -- that we address to God as sons united in the Son; his forgiveness, which he commanded to be brought to all; the sacrament of his immolated Body and his Blood that he poured out. In a word: the Kingdom of God, which is Christ himself, present and living among us.

This is the treasure that Jesus has entrusted to his friends, at the end of his brief life on earth. Today's parable considers the interior attitude with which this gift is accepted and valued. The mistaken attitude is that of fear: The servant who fears his master and fears his return, hides the coin in the ground and it does not produce any fruit. This happens, for example, to those who, having received baptism, Communion, and confirmation bury such gifts beneath prejudices, a false image of God that paralyzes faith and works, so as to betray the Lord's expectations.

But the parable puts greater emphasis on the good fruits born by the disciples who, happy at the gift received, did not hide it with fear and jealously, but made it fruitful, sharing it, participating in it. Indeed, what Christ gives us is multiplied when we give it away! It is a treasure that is made to be spent, invested, shared with all, as the Apostle Paul, that great administrator of Jesus' talents, has taught us.

The Gospel teaching, which the liturgy offers us today, has even entered into the historical and social sphere, promoting an active mentality among Christian populations. But the central message regards the spirit of responsibility with which the Kingdom of God is to be accepted: responsibility toward God and toward humanity. This attitude is perfectly incarnated in the heart of the Virgin Mary who, receiving the most precious of gifts, Jesus himself, offered him to the world with great love. Let us ask her to help us to be "good and faithful servants," so that one day we can take part "in the joy of our Lord."

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

[After praying the Angelus, the Holy Father greeted the crowds in several languages. In English, he said:]

I extend warm greetings to all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today's Angelus. May your time in Rome be filled with divine blessings of joy and peace. On this third Sunday of November, we remember in a special way all those who have died as a result of traffic accidents. We pray for their eternal rest and for the consolation of their families who grieve their loss. Dear brothers and sisters, I implore everyone - drivers, passengers and pedestrians - to heed carefully the words of Saint Paul in the Liturgy of the Word today: "stay sober and alert". Our behavior on the roads should be characterized by responsibility, consideration and a respect for others. May the Virgin Mary lead us safely along streets and highways throughout the world.

Advertisements supporting adultery???!!

Bishops Speak Out Against Adultery Ads
Internet Site Promotes Dating Service for Married People

BOSTON, Massachusetts, NOV. 14, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The bishops of Massachusetts are defending the institution of marriage in the face of advertising in the state that promotes adultery.

The bishops said they were "compelled to speak in support of marriage" after seeing advertisements of an Internet dating site for married people looking for adulterous relationships.

The statement was published today and signed by Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston, Bishop Timothy McDonnell of Springfield, Bishop George Coleman of Fall River and Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester.

"This wrongful enterprise threatens not only the oldest and most foundational of human institutions but also the common good of all," the bishops said. "Marriage requires honesty, loyalty, trust, self-sacrifice, personal responsibility, respect, and commitment.

"Marriage is a vocation that benefits all of society by building and strengthening human relationships within the family home and beyond with relatives, neighbors and one’s community. Marriage is the basis for the family, the fundamental human society. A healthy committed marriage helps to insure the well-being of children, create social stability and improve the quality of life for all citizens."

The prelates said the advertising "will not benefit families and the ads send the wrong message to our young."

"The ad campaign will further erode the unique and important role that marriage has in contributing to the common good," they said. "Where marriage is weakened the social cost is enormous."

Commending the media outlets that refused the ads, the bishops asked more to do the same.

"We honor and support those couples who have committed themselves to each other in the vocation of marriage," they added, "and offer prayers that they remain strong in the face of increasing social pressures to abandon their promise of fidelity."

Weigel: There Is No Match for Theology of Body

Contrasts It With View of "Sex as Sport"

By Robert F. Conkling
BALTIMORE, Maryland, OCT. 20, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The teachings of John Paul II's theology of the body offer a healing vision of human sexuality that the dominant culture simply can't match, says Catholic thinker and author George Weigel.

Weigel said this during the opening keynote address at the Catholic Medical Association's 77th Annual Education Conference on the applications of Pope John Paul II's theology of the body to the practice of medicine.

Some 306 physicians and 18 medical students gathered Oct. 9-12 in Baltimore, Maryland, to reflect on "Theology of the Body: Modern Challenges to Health, Conscience, and Human Dignity."

The annual conference, held under the patronage of wife, mother and Catholic physician St. Gianna Beretta Molla, opened with a Mass presided over by Cardinal William Keeler, the retired archbishop of Baltimore. Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, who currently leads the see of Baltimore, presided over the closing Mass.

Weigel, author of Pope John Paul II's biography "Witness to Hope," said the 21st century is characterized by the question of being or nothingness: “We are witnessing a new Gnosticism, where the belief exists that the material world, including the human body, is utterly malleable, and changeable.”

He said that this new Gnosticism affirms that “anything that can be changed should be changed," and that this trend is especially noticeable in the realm of human sexuality.

When nothing in the realm of human sexuality is taken as a given, this leads to a “dictatorship of relativism,” the author said, quoting Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's address to the conclave that led to his election as Benedict XVI.

Truth collision

Whenever "my truth and your truth collide,” stated Weigel, these irreconcilable truths are being resolved through the coercive power of the state.

He contrasted this view of “sexuality turned contact sport” to the teaching of John Paul II in his theology of the body, which the late Pope was already working on during the conclaves that eventually resulted in his election to the papacy.

The Christian response to this new Gnosticism is found in the “theology of the body,” stated Weigel, as it offers an expanded insight into the biblical story found in the Book of Genesis.

He explained that John Paul II looked back to the beginning when God brought into being the first man, then the first woman. John Paul II discovered that before original sin, there was the original solitude of the first man (Adam), the original unity of the man with the woman (Eve), and both with God, and the original nakedness without shame.

Together they discovered God’s love through a free gift of self, and openness to the gift of fertility, the author explained. John Paul II considers that the original unity of Adam with Eve -- and both with God -- was ruptured when Adam and Eve used each other rather than freely giving themselves to each other.

The giving of themselves in holy marriage, fully open to each other's body, is an icon of the love of God, Weigel affirmed.

According to the author, this new teaching that is now available to the entire Catholic Church, from the original writings of John Paul II to publications by other authors, offers the dominant culture that sees sex as sport, a healing vision unmatched by anything the culture itself has to offer.

Pius XII - Servant of God

Pope Pius XII
by Rev. George W. Rutler
10/14/08

In dire days of the last dark world war, one man said after a papal audience: "Pius XII judges everything from a perspective that surpasses human beings, their undertakings and their quarrels. . . . Pious, compassionate, political -- such does this pontiff and sovereign appear to me because of the respect that he inspires in me." That was the assessment of General Charles de Gaulle, who was thrifty in his praise of men. To the outrage of the Vichy government, the pope had received him as head of the new provisional government in June of 1944, even before the liberation of France.

As a child, Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was moved when an uncle told him of a missionary who been crucified. He said that he wanted to be a martyr but "without the nails." The man the child became learned that there are different kinds of crucifixions and various sorts of nails, and he suffered in untold ways in a tortured world, bearing witness to the words of the Prince of the Apostles:

Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God, than for doing evil (1 Pet 3:15-17).

His crucifixion without nails began when the mannerly diplomat met face-to-face with Evil, who has two faces and hides one. Through trials Pacelli learned that the strengths of diplomacy can weaken the apostle, which is why the only one of the Twelve to destroy himself was all diplomat and no apostle. Forged in earnestness by Pius XI, who was no friend to subtlety, Pacelli constantly mortified his aesthetic desire to imagine things that should be as if they were.

He was consecrated a bishop on the day the Mother of God first appeared at Fatima with her prediction of calamities. He knew that optimism as a wish is not hope as a virtue, and that the spiritual combat is not without paradoxes. While his papal coat of arms showed a dove with an olive branch, he instructed the halberded Swiss Guard during the Nazi occupation of Rome to carry machine guns. With bags packed should he be dragged away in a venerable tradition from Maximinus to Napoleon, he marked the line between bravery and bravado and martialed prudence to save lives when impetuousness would have cost more. The Chief Rabbi of Romania said in the exhausted year of 1945: "The Catholic Church saved more Jewish lives during the war than all other churches, religious institutions and rescue organizations put together. Its record stands in startling contrast to the International Red Cross and the Western Democracies . . . ."

The faulty architecture of human history is postwar and prewar at the same time. Pius XII never doubted that, after a hot war, a cold war would be long. Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty was a symbol of the affliction of a new darkness, and the pope defended him with an uncompromising zeal that sustained the cardinal in later years when he felt bereft. The pope was satisfied that tyrants should die and closely followed attempts on the life of Hitler. As an incarnation of the tradition of immutable natural law, he concisely explained capital punishment: "Even in the case of the death penalty the State does not dispose of the individual's right to life. Rather, public authority limits itself to depriving the offender of the good of life in expiation for his guilt, after he, through his crime, deprived himself of his own right to life." His simultaneous impulse of mercy could be startling, as when he twice pleaded for clemency for the convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg -- and, in an unprecedented act, published his appeals to President Eisenhower in L'Osservatore Romano.

It is dangerous to play Monday-morning quarterback when taking the measure of a man's soul. In American-Indian lore, you can only know a man if you have walked in his moccasins. With a pope, this means walking in the Shoes of the Fisherman, and only a pope can do that. His was a rare voice in a world of immoral silence. Today that silence is deafening in those same institutions that, in those war years, ignored the progress of evil: the universities, the media, and the courts. No one who lives is subhuman: no baby, however young, and no invalid, however old. To say that in our generation is to indict the academics, journalists, and jurists who stammer when the voice of God calls out, as in Eden: "Where are you?"

Rev. George W. Rutler is the pastor of the Church of our Saviour in New York City. His latest book, Coincidentally: Unserious Reflections on Trivial Connections, is available from Crossroads Publishing.

In troubled times, let's remember what's important...

Baby Thomas hours after his very premature birth.


Baby Thomas in a recent photo; keep fighting, little fella!

For instance, this little life. I believe I have posted on him before; his name is Thomas, and he's been fighting for his life since day #1. Check out Thomas' parents' blog for his inspiring story; thousands of people have visited the site. One could say that Thomas has evangelized more people than some of us at this point in our adult lives. Please continue to pray for him.

A Bible reading marathon... on Italian TV

Cardinal Bertone Closes Bible Marathon
Urges an Opening to Scripture

ROME, OCT. 12, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A Bible-reading marathon on Italian television, which was kicked off by Benedict XVI, drew to a close with his secretary of state reading the final passages of Revelation.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone read the last chapter of Revelation on "Bibbia Giorno e Notte" (Bible Day and Night), a program broadcast by RAI where the Bible was read from beginning to end in various languages by nearly 1,200 readers. The Pope called the event "a fitting accompaniment to the synod of bishops on the Word of God."

The marathon began Sunday, Oct. 5, and ended Saturday evening. The site of the reading was the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusaleme in Rome

Readers included, among others, 40 participants in the 12th Ordinary General Assembly of the synod of bishops on "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church," underway in Rome through Oct. 26.
.
In a final address, Cardinal Bertone called upon everyone to "open yourselves to the Bible, which will carry you beyond yourselves."

The project was called the longest public television broadcast in history, at 139 hours. Readers came from 64 countries; almost 4 million viewers watched the first hour of reading last Sunday; 122,000 people followed the daily readings in the basilica.

The event was ecumenical and interreligious: Among the readers, 30 were from Protestant communities, 17 were Jewish, six were Muslim, and there were representatives of the Orthodox Churches.

Only two of the readings were pre-recorded: Benedict XVI's from the Vatican and Cardinal Carlo Martini's from Gallarate.

Among the readers were three former presidents of Italy.

Speaking to Vatican Radio, the abbot of the basilica, Cistercian Father Simone Fioraso, spoke about the experience of a "rediscovery" of the Word of God, saying it immersed the basilica in an atmosphere of deep spirituality.

"It was also very beautiful to meet many readers who before or after reading the Word of God asked to go to confession and reconcile with God," he said. "A young Muslim woman came who wanted to read and she had not registered, so there was nothing. [...] And a woman who teaches catechism here told her: ‘We'll read together.'

"And it was wonderful to see how they read the Word together, putting the Word at the center of their life. I believe that from this Word a friendship was born between them, which had its beginnings here. [...]

"Perhaps the Word that divided in times past will today become and remain the Word that, as always, unites all hearts and all men."

Chesterton Academy - getting it right

Counter-cultural education in a one-room school
by Katherine Kersten (Star Tribune)

Remember the old one-room schoolhouse? We've moved far beyond it with our multimillion-dollar school facilities and our high-tech computer labs, right?

If so, why are John DeJak and Dale Ahlquist back in a one-room school, aiming to start an education revolution in St. Louis Park with 11 students?

DeJak, of Richfield, puts it simply: "We realized that our kids are being robbed."

So began Chesterton Academy -- a school that may point the way to an educational renaissance to match the Renaissance man whose name it bears.

The academy, which opened in September, is a private high school that will expand from ninth and 10th to 12th grade in the next two years. It is named after G.K. Chesterton, an English social commentator, theologian and man of letters who was one of the 20th century's greatest minds and most prolific authors.

Chesterton Academy's "countercultural" identity doesn't spring from theories found in the latest education journals. Nor is the school breaking new ground in Chinese immersion pedagogy or robotics.

Instead, this place exemplifies the real avant-garde.

The bright room in Eliot Community Center is hung with icons and medieval art, and lined with such books as Cicero's "Orations" and Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales." Students sit around a table, engrossed in Latin verbs. One wall displays calligraphy exercises, which include this revealing Chesterton quote: "A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."

In future years, the kids will study calculus and chemistry, and immerse themselves in great thinkers from Homer to T.S. Eliot. They will also explore once-celebrated arts such as oil painting and Gregorian chant, which few pursue today.

The educational "robbery" that Chesterton Academy is striving to halt has two components, says DeJak, the school's headmaster.

Read the whole story here.

All are children of God

The following is a Zenit.org analysis of the abortion of down syndrome children; there is increased interest in the topic since the news of Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy, and her taking to full term her down syndrome child, Trig.

Unlikely to Survive
Few Down Syndrome Babies Making It to Birth

By Father John Flynn, LC

ROME, SEPT. 21, 2008, (Zenit.org).- One of the consequences of the nomination of Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican party's vice-presidential candidate is renewed attention to Down syndrome.

On April 18, Palin gave birth to Trig Paxon Van Palin, having been told by doctors the previous December that he suffered from Down syndrome, reported the Associated Press on May 3.

An article in the Washington Post on Sept. 10 by opinion columnist Michael Gerson noted that when tests reveal Down syndrome in an unborn child, around 90% are aborted.

The numbers of Down syndrome children being aborted could well rise if last year's recommendation by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is heeded, he added. The college urged universal, early testing for Down syndrome for all expectant mothers, not just those who are older and therefore have a higher chance of a child affected by the condition.

Gerson argued, however, that children born with Down syndrome "are generally not experienced by their parents as a curse but as a complex blessing." Many doctors and counselors, nevertheless, urge mothers to have an abortion instead of going ahead with a Down syndrome pregnancy, he noted.

This practice of ending "imperfect" lives, Gerson continued, cannot be separated from how we regard and treat all people who have disabilities. "And this feeds a social Darwinism in which the stronger are regarded as better, the dependent are viewed as less valuable, and the weak must occasionally be culled," he concluded.

Revealing truths

In spite of the difficulties in raising a child with Down syndrome, a number of newspapers have published stories highlighting the positive experiences of parents with such children.

Raising a child with Down syndrome can reveal many profound truths about parents and their children, reported the Washington Post on Sept 14.

The article described the situation of Adrianne Pedlikin, a mother of three, including a 10-year-old son with Down syndrome. The article acknowledged the difficulties and trials of looking after a boy with Down syndrome, but it described how at the same time, both Adrianne and her husband Philip declared their love for their son and said his birth has changed their worldviews in a positive way.

The article also referred to the experiences of other families, who frequently run into opposition from educational institutions in seeking to have their children with Down syndrome allowed into schools. They also often find that other parents tend to shut them out and that their children don't receive invitations to play with other kids.

Another personal testimony on the positive experience of being a parent of a Down syndrome child was published June 2 in the U.K. newspaper, the Guardian. Annie Rey described how when she was growing up she was terrified by people with disabilities. Then in her early 40s she became pregnant and discovered her child had Down syndrome.

"During the pregnancy I lurched from optimism to despair: optimism that the child, who at 20 weeks we discovered to be a boy, wouldn't have Down's, and despair that he would," she wrote.

Her son Paddy is now 2 years old, and she has now accepted the idea of having a child with Down. She said she realizes that "he is not a diagnosis" but a child with many qualities.

"I truly believe that if my precious boy did not exist, our world, and probably the world at large, would be a poorer place," she concluded.

Joyous

From Canada, the Shaw family recounted their experience of a Down syndrome child in an article published March 2 in the Ottawa Citizen. Michael and Lesley Shaw would have aborted if they had known their daughter, Sydney, had Down syndrome, they told the newspaper.

Now that Sydney is 9 years old, her father declared that they have changed their minds and now consider their daughter as "a wonderful, joyous child."

"She has enriched my life to a degree I didn't think was possible," said Michael Shaw. "She changed my whole focus on life, on what has value and what doesn't have value, and what we consider valuable."

Michael Shaw is also on the board of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society, an advocacy group concerned about the coming of broader prenatal testing in Canada and what it will mean for Down syndrome children.

In February 2007, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada issued new guidelines recommending that every woman, regardless of age, be offered noninvasive prenatal genetic screening.

According to the Ottawa Citizen about 80%-90% of Canadian women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis choose to have an abortion.

Read the rest here.

Sandro Magister on the pope's World Youth Day talks...

Visit Magister's site.

Download some of Benedict's talks:
Closing sermon
Sermon in St. Mary's Cathedral
Address to youth during the Vigil



Also, check here; view "Evening Vigil- part 3" where Benedict talks with the youth.
Very moving talk.

ROMA, July 22, 2008 – During Benedict XVI's trip to Australia for World Youth Day, what stood out in the worldwide media was his arrival by sea in the bay of Sydney, the dances of the aborigines, the scenes of the Via Crucis, the myriads of torch flames among the young people during the night, the sorrowful condemnation of sexual abuse committed by priests, and the meeting with four of their victims.

On this page, instead, there is an anthology of the salient passages from the words spoken by Benedict XVI during his voyage.

The selection made here inevitably sacrifices other selections that are no less important from the speeches and homilies of the pope. For example, it would be obligatory to reread in its entirety the catechesis on the Holy Spirit presented to the young people at the nighttime vigil on Saturday, July 19: and in doing so, one would understand why, in presenting it, "L'Osservatore Romano" called it "one of the most beautiful texts of the pontificate."

But in any case, one unmistakable characteristic of Benedict XVI can be gathered from this anthology: his being a pope theologian. Who, like St. Augustine – quoted extensively during his visit to Australia – wants to preach to everyone, including the humble and the simple, the marvels of God, not dumbed down or watered down, but in their complete and sometimes difficult essentiality. And in their mysterious historical reverberations.

In their content and style, the passages presented here are also the ones most easily attributed to Joseph Ratzinger personally, to his mind into his pen, rather than to the Vatican offices charged with preparing and supplementing the pontifical addresses.

For those who want to read the rest, the complete texts of all the speeches, messages, and homilies are available on this page of the Holy See's website, in multiple languages:

> Apostolic Journey to Sydney, July 12-21, 2008

Here, then, is our anthology:


1. When God is eclipsed, even the maternal womb becomes a place of unutterable violence


Arrival discourse, Barangaroo, Sydney Harbour, Thursday, July 17, 2008

Dear young people, [...] the views afforded of our planet from the air were truly wondrous. The sparkle of the Mediterranean, the grandeur of the north African desert, the lushness of Asia’s forestation, the vastness of the Pacific Ocean, the horizon upon which the sun rose and set, and the majestic splendour of Australia’s natural beauty [...]; these all evoke a profound sense of awe. It is as though one catches glimpses of the Genesis creation story – light and darkness, the sun and the moon, the waters, the earth, and living creatures; all of which are “good” in God’s eyes (cf. Gen 1:1 – 2:4). Immersed in such beauty, who could not echo the words of the Psalmist in praise of the Creator: “how majestic is your name in all the earth?” (Ps 8:1).

And there is more [...] men and women, made in nothing less than God’s own image and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26). At the heart of the marvel of creation are you and I, the human family “crowned with glory and honour” (Ps 8:5). How astounding! With the Psalmist we whisper: “what is man that you are mindful of him?” (Ps 8:4). And drawn into silence, into a spirit of thanksgiving, into the power of holiness, we ponder.

What do we discover? [...] That not only the natural but also the social environment – the habitat we fashion for ourselves – has its scars, [...] a poison which threatens to corrode what is good, reshape who we are, and distort the purpose for which we have been created. [...] There is also something sinister which stems from the fact that freedom and tolerance are so often separated from truth. This is fuelled by the notion, widely held today, that there are no absolute truths to guide our lives. Relativism, by indiscriminately giving value to practically everything, has made “experience” all-important. Yet, experiences, detached from any consideration of what is good or true, can lead, not to genuine freedom, but to moral or intellectual confusion, to a lowering of standards, to a loss of self-respect, and even to despair.

Dear friends, life is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose (cf. Gen 1:28)! Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy. Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.

Christ offers more! Indeed he offers everything! Only he who is the Truth can be the Way and hence also the Life. Thus the “way” which the Apostles brought to the ends of the earth is life in Christ. This is the life of the Church. And the entrance to this life, to the Christian way, is Baptism. [...]

There are many today who claim that God should be left on the sidelines, and that religion and faith, while fine for individuals, should either be excluded from the public forum altogether or included only in the pursuit of limited pragmatic goals. This secularist vision seeks to explain human life and shape society with little or no reference to the Creator. It presents itself as neutral, impartial and inclusive of everyone. But in reality, like every ideology, secularism imposes a world-view. If God is irrelevant to public life, then society will be shaped in a godless image. When God is eclipsed, our ability to recognize the natural order, purpose, and the “good” begins to wane. [...]

But what of our social environment? [...] Do we recognize that the innate dignity of every individual rests on his or her deepest identity – as image of the Creator – and therefore that human rights are universal, based on the natural law, and not something dependent upon negotiation or patronage, let alone compromise? And so we are led to reflect on what place the poor and the elderly, immigrants and the voiceless, have in our societies. How can it be that domestic violence torments so many mothers and children? How can it be that the most wondrous and sacred human space – the womb – has become a place of unutterable violence?

My dear friends, God’s creation is one and it is good. The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection upon the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable.


2. The "critical juncture" that the ecumenical movement has reached

From the address to representatives of the other Christian confessions, Sydney, Crypt of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Friday, July 18, 2008


Dear friends in Christ, I think you would agree that the ecumenical movement has reached a critical juncture. To move forward, we must continually ask God to renew our minds with the Holy Spirit (cf. Rom 12:2), who speaks to us through the scriptures and guides us into all truth (cf. 2 Pet 1:20-21; Jn 16:13). We must guard against any temptation to view doctrine as divisive and hence an impediment to the seemingly more pressing and immediate task of improving the world in which we live. In fact, the history of the Church demonstrates that praxis is not only inseparable from, but actually flows out of didache or teaching.


3. But the Alpha and the Omega is only Jesus

From the address to representatives of the other religions, Sydney, Chapter Hall of St. Mary's Cathedral, Friday, July 18, 2008


Dear friends, [...] the Church approaches dialogue believing that the true source of freedom is found in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe it is he who fully discloses the human potential for virtue and goodness, and he who liberates us from sin and darkness. The universality of human experience, which transcends all geographical boundaries and cultural limitations, makes it possible for followers of religions to engage in dialogue so as to grapple with the mystery of life’s joys and sufferings. In this regard, the Church eagerly seeks opportunities to listen to the spiritual experience of other religions. We could say that all religions aim to penetrate the profound meaning of human existence by linking it to an origin or principle outside itself. Religions offer an attempt to understand the cosmos as coming from and returning to this origin or principle. Christians believe that God has revealed this origin and principle in Jesus, whom the Bible refers to as the “Alpha and Omega” (cf. Rev 1:8; 22:1).


4. Be "signs of contradiction" in the world

From the homily of the Mass with the bishops, priests, seminarians, and novices, Sydney, Saint Mary's Cathedral, July 19, 2008


Dear brothers and sisters, [...] in today’s liturgy the Church reminds us that, like this altar, we too have been consecrated, set “apart” for the service of God and the building up of his Kingdom. All too often, however, we find ourselves immersed in a world that would set God “aside”. In the name of human freedom and autonomy, God’s name is passed over in silence, religion is reduced to private devotion, and faith is shunned in the public square. At times this mentality, so completely at odds with the core of the Gospel, can even cloud our own understanding of the Church and her mission. We too can be tempted to make the life of faith a matter of mere sentiment, thus blunting its power to inspire a consistent vision of the world and a rigorous dialogue with the many other visions competing for the minds and hearts of our contemporaries. [...]

Here I would like [...] to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country. Indeed, I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured, and I assure them that, as their Pastor, I too share in their suffering. These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation. They have caused great pain and have damaged the Church’s witness. I ask all of you to support and assist your Bishops, and to work together with them in combating this evil. Victims should receive compassion and care, and those responsible for these evils must be brought to justice. [...]

I wish now to turn to the seminarians and young religious in our midst, with a special word of affection and encouragement. [...] Make the daily celebration of the Eucharist the centre of your life. At each Mass, when the Lord’s Body and Blood are lifted up at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, lift up your own hearts and lives, through Christ, with him and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, as a loving sacrifice to God our Father.

In this way, dear young seminarians and religious, you yourselves will become living altars, where Christ’s sacrificial love is made present as an inspiration and a source of spiritual nourishment to everyone you meet. By embracing the Lord’s call to follow him in chastity, poverty and obedience, you have begun a journey of radical discipleship which will make you “signs of contradiction” (cf. Lk 2:34) to many of your contemporaries. Model your lives daily on the Lord’s own loving self-oblation in obedience to the will of the Father. You will then discover the freedom and joy which can draw others to the Love which lies beyond all other loves as their source and their ultimate fulfilment. Never forget that celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom means embracing a life completely devoted to love, a love that enables you to commit yourselves fully to God’s service and to be totally present to your brothers and sisters, especially those in need.


5. The Holy Spirit, the "forgotten Person" of the Most Holy Trinity

From the address to the young people at the nighttime vigil, Sydney, Randwick Racecourse, Saturday, July 19, 2008


Dear young people, [...] unity and reconciliation cannot be achieved through our efforts alone. God has made us for one another (cf. Gen 2:24) and only in God and his Church can we find the unity we seek. Yet, in the face of imperfections and disappointments – both individual and institutional – we are sometimes tempted to construct artificially a “perfect” community. That temptation is not new. The history of the Church includes many examples of attempts to bypass or override human weaknesses or failures in order to create a perfect unity, a spiritual utopia.

Such attempts to construct unity in fact undermine it! To separate the Holy Spirit from Christ present in the Church’s institutional structure would compromise the unity of the Christian community, which is precisely the Spirit’s gift! It would betray the nature of the Church as the living temple of the Holy Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 3:16). It is the Spirit, in fact, who guides the Church in the way of all truth and unifies her in communion and in the works of ministry (cf. Lumen Gentium, 4). Unfortunately the temptation to “go it alone” persists. Some today portray their local community as somehow separate from the so-called institutional Church, by speaking of the former as flexible and open to the Spirit and the latter as rigid and devoid of the Spirit. [...]

There are times when we might be tempted to seek a certain fulfilment apart from God. Jesus himself asked the Twelve: “do you also wish to go away?” Such drifting away perhaps offers the illusion of freedom. But where does it lead? To whom would we go? For in our hearts we know that it is the Lord who has “the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:67-68). To turn away from him is only a futile attempt to escape from ourselves (cf. Saint Augustine, Confessions VIII, 7). God is with us in the reality of life, not the fantasy! It is embrace, not escape, that we seek! So the Holy Spirit gently but surely steers us back to what is real, what is lasting, what is true. It is the Spirit who leads us back into the communion of the Blessed Trinity!

The Holy Spirit has been in some ways the neglected person of the Blessed Trinity. A clear understanding of the Spirit almost seems beyond our reach. Yet, when I was a small boy, my parents, like yours, taught me the Sign of the Cross. So, I soon came to realize that there is one God in three Persons, and that the Trinity is the centre of our Christian faith and life. While I grew up to have some understanding of God the Father and the Son – the names already conveyed much – my understanding of the third person of the Trinity remained incomplete. So, as a young priest teaching theology, I decided to study the outstanding witnesses to the Spirit in the Church’s history. It was on this journey that I found myself reading, among others, the great Saint Augustine.

Augustine’s understanding of the Holy Spirit evolved gradually; it was a struggle. As a young man he had followed Manichaeism – one of those attempts I mentioned earlier, to create a spiritual utopia by radically separating the things of the spirit from the things of the flesh. Hence he was at first suspicious of the Christian teaching that God had become man. Yet his experience of the love of God present in the Church led him to investigate its source in the life of the Triune God. This led him to three particular insights about the Holy Spirit as the bond of unity within the Blessed Trinity: unity as communion, unity as abiding love, and unity as giving and gift. These three insights are not just theoretical. They help explain how the Spirit works. In a world where both individuals and communities often suffer from an absence of unity or cohesion, these insights help us remain attuned to the Spirit and to extend and clarify the scope of our witness. [...]

What constitutes our faith is not primarily what we do but what we receive. After all, many generous people who are not Christian may well achieve far more than we do. Friends, do you accept being drawn into God’s Trinitarian life? Do you accept being drawn into his communion of love?

The Spirit’s gifts working within us give direction and definition to our witness. Directed to unity, the gifts of the Spirit bind us more closely to the whole Body of Christ (cf. Lumen Gentium, 11), equipping us better to build up the Church in order to serve the world (cf. Eph 4:13). They call us to active and joyful participation in the life of the Church: in parishes and ecclesial movements, in religious education classes, in university chaplaincies and other catholic organizations. Yes, the Church must grow in unity, must be strengthened in holiness, must be rejuvenated, must be constantly renewed (cf. Lumen Gentium, 4). But according to whose standard? The Holy Spirit’s! Turn to him, dear young people, and you will find the true meaning of renewal.


6. A "new age" to renew the world and the Church

From the homily of the Mass with the young people, Sydney, Randwick Racecourse, Sunday, July 20, 2008


Dear friends, [...] “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you”. These words of the Risen Lord have a special meaning for those young people who will be confirmed, sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, at today’s Mass. But they are also addressed to each of us – to all those who have received the Spirit’s gift of reconciliation and new life at Baptism, who have welcomed him into their hearts as their helper and guide at Confirmation, and who daily grow in his gifts of grace through the Holy Eucharist. At each Mass, in fact, the Holy Spirit descends anew, invoked by the solemn prayer of the Church, not only to transform our gifts of bread and wine into the Lord’s body and blood, but also to transform our lives, to make us, in his power, “one body, one spirit in Christ”.

But what is this “power” of the Holy Spirit? It is the power of God’s life! It is the power of the same Spirit who hovered over the waters at the dawn of creation and who, in the fullness of time, raised Jesus from the dead. It is the power which points us, and our world, towards the coming of the Kingdom of God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims that a new age has begun, in which the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon all humanity (cf. Lk 4:21). He himself, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin May, came among us to bring us that Spirit. As the source of our new life in Christ, the Holy Spirit is also, in a very real way, the soul of the Church, the love which binds us to the Lord and one another, and the light which opens our eyes to see all around us the wonders of God’s grace. [...]

Yet this power, the grace of the Spirit, is not something we can merit or achieve, but only receive as pure gift. God’s love can only unleash its power when it is allowed to change us from within. We have to let it break through the hard crust of our indifference, our spiritual weariness, our blind conformity to the spirit of this age. Only then can we let it ignite our imagination and shape our deepest desires. That is why prayer is so important: daily prayer, private prayer in the quiet of our hearts and before the Blessed Sacrament, and liturgical prayer in the heart of the Church. Prayer is pure receptivity to God’s grace, love in action, communion with the Spirit who dwells within us, leading us, through Jesus, in the Church, to our heavenly Father. In the power of his Spirit, Jesus is always present in our hearts, quietly waiting for us to be still with him, to hear his voice, to abide in his love, and to receive “power from on high”, enabling us to be salt and light for our world. [...]

The power of the Holy Spirit does not only enlighten and console us. It also points us to the future, to the coming of God’s Kingdom. What a magnificent vision of a humanity redeemed and renewed we see in the new age promised by today’s Gospel! Saint Luke tells us that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of all God’s promises, the Messiah who fully possesses the Holy Spirit in order to bestow that gift upon all mankind. The outpouring of Christ’s Spirit upon humanity is a pledge of hope and deliverance from everything that impoverishes us. It gives the blind new sight; it sets the downtrodden free, and it creates unity in and through diversity (cf. Lk 4:18-19; Is 61:1-2). This power can create a new world: it can “renew the face of the earth” (cf. Ps 104:30)!

Empowered by the Spirit, and drawing upon faith’s rich vision, a new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God’s gift of life is welcomed, respected and cherished – not rejected, feared as a threat and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty. A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy and self-absorption which deaden our souls and poison our relationships. Dear young friends, the Lord is asking you to be prophets of this new age, messengers of his love, drawing people to the Father and building a future of hope for all humanity.

The world needs this renewal! In so many of our societies, side by side with material prosperity, a spiritual desert is spreading: an interior emptiness, an unnamed fear, a quiet sense of despair. How many of our contemporaries have built broken and empty cisterns (cf. Jer 2:13) in a desperate search for meaning – the ultimate meaning that only love can give? This is the great and liberating gift which the Gospel brings: it reveals our dignity as men and women created in the image and likeness of God. It reveals humanity’s sublime calling, which is to find fulfilment in love. It discloses the truth about man and the truth about life.

The Church also needs this renewal! She needs your faith, your idealism and your generosity, so that she can always be young in the Spirit (cf. Lumen Gentium, 4)! In today’s second reading, the Apostle Paul reminds us that each and every Christian has received a gift meant for building up the Body of Christ.


7. The "yes" that changes history

From the Angelus at the end of the Mass with the young people, Sydney, Randwick Racecourse, Sunday, July 20, 2008

Dear young friends, [...] during the Old Testament, God revealed himself partially, gradually, as we all do in our personal relationships. It took time for the chosen people to develop their relationship with God. The Covenant with Israel was like a period of courtship, a long engagement. Then came the definitive moment, the moment of marriage, the establishment of a new and everlasting covenant. As Mary stood before the Lord, she represented the whole of humanity. In the angel’s message, it was as if God made a marriage proposal to the human race. And in our name, Mary said yes.

In fairy tales, the story ends there, and all “live happily ever after”. In real life it is not so simple. For Mary there were many struggles ahead, as she lived out the consequences of the “yes” that she had given to the Lord. Simeon prophesied that a sword would pierce her heart. When Jesus was twelve years old, she experienced every parent’s worst nightmare when, for three days, the child went missing. And after his public ministry, she suffered the agony of witnessing his crucifixion and death. Throughout her trials she remained faithful to her promise, sustained by the Spirit of fortitude. And she was gloriously rewarded.

Dear young people, we too must remain faithful to the “yes” that we have given to the Lord’s offer of friendship. We know that he will never abandon us. We know that he will always sustain us through the gifts of the Spirit. Mary accepted the Lord’s “proposal” in our name. [...] She is our example and our inspiration, she intercedes for us with her Son, and with a mother’s love she shields us from harm.