On Orthodox chant

Great piece on liturgical music, specifically Orthodox chant. Yes! The music is not sacred- it's the words! She gets it.

Here's a nice video.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: This weekend of Easter Sunday for Western Christians, we have a profile coming up of an inspiring Christian musician. We also have a “Belief and Practice” segment on chanting in Eastern Orthodox churches where this is Palm Sunday. Because of differing church calendars, Eastern Orthodox Easter— Pascha — is next week.

Our guide to Orthodox chanting was Emily Lowe, a member of the choir at the Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church in Linthicum, Maryland. She told us not only about chanting, but also about her personal experience as a singer of the Eastern Orthodox conviction that worship brings change.

EMILY LOWE (Choir, Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church, singing): Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.

The Orthodox Church is unique in modern times, having a completely-sung liturgy. Everything is sung from the very beginning to the end.

In Orthodoxy, the music is not sacred. The words are sacred. The music is really meant to fit the text. So when we talk about heaven, the voice goes up. And when you talk about hell or Hades or sin, it goes down. For instance, (singing), “The company of the angels was amazed when they beheld the number among the dead.”

During the time of the Ottoman Empire, the Greek chants took on sort of a very Middle Eastern character and that’s when you hear this sort of dissonant, odd sounding things: (singing) Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, glory to thee oh God.” It sounds very foreign to western ears.

For instance, (singing) “rejoice o Bethany.” Rejoice O Bethany — it’s a beautiful hymn and it’s very dear to the heart of our Arabic parishioners — (singing) — “God came to thee; God came to thee.” That little flourish at the end, (singing “la la la la”), very unusual and very otherworldly sounding. And that’s kind of — that’s the impression that people get. They might hear 20 things when they walk into an Orthodox church. But that’s what they’re going to take away. They’re going to go, “Whoa, I remember that. That was really unusual.”

I converted about 12 years ago. I was 16. And my family converted together. It was initially my father’s decision. He said, “I think this is the place for us to be. This is where God’s calling us. And this is really the fullest expression of the Christian faith.”

One thing about Orthodoxy is that it really demands change — and expects change. It expects that you will grow spiritually, that you won’t just be the same person that you were the week before or the month before.

From a personal standpoint, I never had a very good voice before we became Orthodox. I believe that I found my voice in Orthodox music — that I didn’t have it in Protestant music or in secular music.

When people say, “Oh, you did such a wonderful job,” I feel like telling them it wasn’t me because it really wasn’t. It doesn’t feel like me when I chant. I’m thinking about God and expressing the words the best that I can.

Tony Blair... model of a Catholic convert (embarassing)

Thanks to Rod Dreher again:

Tony Blair has been Catholic for less than two years, and now takes it upon himself to tell the Pope that the old man is out of step with the times. I take it for granted that Blair is a very intelligent man, but his reasoning hardly rises to the level of freshman intro to philosophy class.

Anyway, I can understand -- though strongly disagree with -- people who were born into Catholicism and remain Catholic for cultural reasons, though rejecting the authoritative teaching of the Catholic Magisterium. I think they're wrong and that they're deluding themselves, but I understand the emotional reasons why they stay in the Catholic Church. But it takes a lot of chutzpah to embrace Catholicism with the full intent of picking and choosing which dogmatic beliefs you'll accept, and not only that but to give a public statement telling the Pope that he's wrong about something that the Catholic Church has taught since forever.

Nevertheless, you have to concede this point to the cheeky Blair:

"Look, there are many good and great things the Catholic Church does, and there are many fantastic things this pope stands for," Blair said.

"But I think what is interesting is that if you went into any Catholic church, particularly a well-attended one, on any Sunday here and did a poll of the congregation, you'd be surprised at how liberal-minded people were."

He's talking about UK Catholics, of course, but it's true of US Catholics too. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism triumphs.

Reckoning Day? An Abortionist's family dies...

This is certainly a heart wrenching tragedy, but it is also thought provoking too.

Family of Irving 'Bud' Feldkamp, Owner of the Nation's Largest Privately Owned Abortion Chain, Dies in Montana Plane Crash
Contact: Gingi Edmonds, www.gingiedmonds. com, 559-772-7911
MEDIA ADVISORY, Mar. 24 /Christian Newswire/ -- Some of you may have seen the major news story of the private plane that crashed into a Montana cemetery, killing 7 children and 7 adults.

But what the news sources fail to mention is that the Catholic Holy Cross Cemetery owned by Resurrection Cemetery Association in Butte - contains a memorial for local residents to pray the rosary, at the 'Tomb of the Unborn'. This memorial, located a short distance west of the church, was erected as a dedication to all babies who have died because of abortion.

What else is the mainstream news not telling you? The family who died in the crash near the location of the abortion victim's memorial, is the family of Irving 'Bud' Feldkamp, owner of the largest for-profit abortion chain in the nation.

Family Planning Associates was purchased four years ago by Irving Moore "Bud" Feldkamp III, owner of Allcare and Hospitality Dental Associates and CEO of Glen Helen Raceway Park in San Bernardino. The 17 California Family Planning clinics perform more abortions in the state than any other abortion provider - Planned Parenthood included - and they perform abortions through the first five months of pregnancy.

Although Feldkamp is not an abortionist, he reaps profits of blood money from the tens of thousands of babies that are killed through abortions performed every year at the clinics he owns. His business in the abortion industry was what enabled him to afford the private plane that was carrying his family to their week-long vacation at The Yellowstone Club, a millionaires- only ski resort.

The plane went down on Sunday, killing two of Feldkamp's daughters, two sons-in-law and five grandchildren along with the pilot and four family friends.. The plane, a single-engine turboprop flown by Bud Summerfield of Highland, crashed into the Catholic cemetery and burst into flames, only 500 ft. from its landing destination. All aboard were killed.

The cause of the crash is a mystery. The pilot, who was a former military flier who logged over 2,000 miles, gave no indication to air traffic controllers that the aircraft was experiencing difficulty when he asked to divert to an airport in Butte. Witnesses report that the plane suddenly nosedived toward the ground with no apparent signs of a struggle. There was neither a cockpit voice recorder nor a flight data recorder onboard, and no radar clues into the planes final moments because the Butte airport is not equipped with a radar facility. Some speculate that the crash was due to ice on the wings, but this particular plane model has been tested for icy weather and experts have stated that ice being the cause is unlikely.

In my time working for Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, I helped organize and conduct a weekly campaign where youth activists stood outside of Feldkamp's mini-mansion in Redlands holding fetal development signs and raising community awareness regarding Feldkamp's dealings in child murder for profit. Every Thursday afternoon we called upon Bud and his wife Pam to repent, seek God's blessing and separate themselves from the practice of child killing.

We warned him, for his children's sake, to wash his hands of the innocent blood he assisted in spilling because, as Scripture warns, if "you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you". (Ezekiel 35:6)

A news source states that Bud Feldkamp visited the site of the crash with his wife and their two surviving children on Monday. As they stood near the twisted and charred debris talking with investigators, light snow fell on the tarps that covered the remains of their children.

I don't want to turn this tragic event into some creepy spiritual 'I told you so' moment, but I think of the time spent outside of Feldkamp's - Pam Feldkamp laughing at the fetal development signs, Bud Feldkamp trying not to make eye contact as he got into his car with a small child in tow - and I think of the haunting words, 'Think of your children.' I wonder if those words were haunting Feldkamp as well as he stood in the snow among the remains of loved ones, just feet from the 'Tomb of the Unborn'?

I only hope and pray that in the face of this tragedy, Feldkamp recognizes his need for repentance and reformation. I pray that God will use this unfortunate catastrophe to soften the hearts of Bud and Pam and that they will draw close to the Lord and wash their hands of the blood of thousands of innocent children, each as precious and irreplaceable as their own.

"I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then." (Deut. 30:19)
Gingi Edmonds is a freelance pro-life activist, writer and photographer based out of Hanford, California. Gingi writes a bi-monthly ProLife Opinion Column and is available for pro-life presentations and speaking engagements. Visit www.gingiedmonds. com for more information.

A Person to Person movement?

There are some interesting ideas here; I am not totally convinced that the 'institution' aspect hurts the Church and that Constantine screwed it all up. At any rate, the following is thought-provoking:

From the following blog: "Ten Reasons: the observations of a seditious catechist"

In a fascinating, recently made-available interview with Mike Aquilina, historian and sociologist Rodney Stark shows what really made the early Church grow and thrive:

You also argue for steady growth by individual conversions rather than by mass conversions. Why?

RS: We don't have a single documented case of mass conversion. Yes, there's the passage in the Book of Acts, and I'm not one of these people who say, "Don't trust the Bible." But you've got to understand what people meant by numbers in those times. Numbers were rhetorical exercises. You'd say a million when you really meant a hundred. What you're really saying is "lots." In Acts, I think the numbers are meant to say, "Look, wonderful things are happening." If the historical demographers are right, Jerusalem had about 25,000 people in it at the time. So if you start talking about eight or ten thousand converts, that's a little bit out of scale.

What about forced conversions?

RS: There weren't any in the time I'm talking about. Constantine didn't cause the triumph of Christianity. He rode off it. In fact, I'll go so far as to say he had many harmful effects. I don't believe establishment is good for churches. It gets them involved in the worldly realm in ways that are unsuitable and corrupting. By the end of Constantine's reign, we see people competing madly to become bishops because of the money. After that, Christianity was no longer a person-to-person movement.

Emperor Constantine did not so much ensure Christianity's success as acknowledge it. Constantine's edict of toleration in 313 was overdue recognition that the Church had already won the empire.

You look at the spread of Christianity beyond the empire, and you see that it was almost entirely by treaty and by baptizing kings. I think one reason medieval church attendance was so bad in Scandinavia and Germany was that these people weren't really Christians. If it hadn't been for the establishment of the Church, they might have been. Their lands would have become Christian because many people would have gone door-to-door to make Christians out of them -- and then baptized the king. It was bad for the Church. I think the current pope would agree with me; I think most medieval popes would have me burned for saying this.

American Catholics can understand it, though. They know how good it was for the Church to have to fight for its life in the United States. The old Protestant story was that the priest met the boat, and you had another boatload of Catholics. But that's not true; those people weren't used to going to church or contributing money. They had to be turned into Catholics. It was a remarkable feat. Posed with a challenge, the Church rose to it very well, and the American Church became a very strong Church, compared to the Latin American Church.

The received tradition is that many Christians were martyred. Yet you say that blood witnesses were few.

RS: There's a consensus among historians that the numbers weren't large at all, and that we may know the name of just about every single martyr. The Romans decided to attack the movement from the top. This would have worked with other religions because there was no bottom to paganism. Paganism was really temples on a shopping mall, and people were very casual about which ones they patronized. If the Romans knocked off the chief priest and took away government subsidy, a pagan temple would fold up.

So the empire went after Christianity the same way, thinking, "If we butcher the bishops, things will take care of themselves." Of course, it didn't work because there were 92 guys waiting in line to be bishop. That's what you get with a mass movement.

What was true then -- and true centuries later on this continent -- is still true now: Christianity is fundamentally a person-to-person movement. Studies of converts bear this out as well. While they often cite core doctrines like the Eucharist, papal authority, or the defense of human life, converts just as often tell you it was because of a person that they became Catholic. One of the tragedies of Vatican II's flawed implementation is that it clericalized the laity, convincing them that their vocation was in and around the sanctuary, where they work amongst themselves and compete with the clergy, instead of out in the world, where they can evangelize and build a civilization of love. You can read Mike Aquilina's 36-page history of the early Church for the Knights of Columbus here.

Confession is back... when did it ever leave?

With comments by Father Z.

February 21, 2009
On Religion
In One Church, Confession Makes a Comeback
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

STAMFORD, Conn. — The day after Msgr. Stephen DiGiovanni was installed in June 1998 as the pastor of St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church here, he walked through the quiet sanctuary, appreciating the English Gothic grandeur and tallying all the repairs it required.

One particular sight seized him. The confessional at the rear of the pews had been nailed shut. The confessional in the front, nearer the altar, was filled with air-conditioning equipment. And these conditions, Monsignor DiGiovanni realized, reflected theology as much as finance. [Theology, yes! This gets it exactly right! The writer has hit this … ehem… nail on the head.]

In the wake of the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s, the Catholic Church began offering confession in “reconciliation rooms,” [I know these awful rooms are prevalent, but NOTHING in the documents of the Church required that. As a matter of fact I believe there are still some conditions for the construction of confessionals including a fixed grate, no? Am I wrong?] rather than the traditional booths. Even before the setting changed, habits had. The norm for American Catholics was to make confession once a year, generally in the penitential period of Lent leading up to Easter. [I think a lot of Catholics went to confession pretty regularly and not just once a year. Didn’t they?]

Monsignor DiGiovanni, though, soon noticed that there were lines for the St. John’s reconciliation room the only time it was open each week, for two hours on Saturday afternoon. So within his first month as pastor, he pried open the door to the rear confessional, wiped off the dust of decades and arranged for replacing the lights, drapes and tiles. [Well done!]

Then, in the fall of 1998, Monsignor DiGiovanni rolled back the clock of Catholic practice, having St. John’s priests hear confession in the booths before virtually every Mass. [This is NOT rolling back the clock. What sort of view is behind this? Again, I think it is a interpretive principle of rupture.] By now, as another Lent commences next week with Ash Wednesday, upwards of 450 people engage in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, as confession is formally known, during 15 time slots spread over all seven days of the week. Confessions are heard in English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese.

“As humans, we’re always deciding that we are God and breaking his commandments,” said Monsignor DiGiovanni, 58, during an interview this week in his rectory. “But God is savvy enough to know that. And God wants us to come back to Him if there’s a contrite heart. Salvation is not just a one-time deal.” [Did you get that, you Born-Agains?]

His message has stirred scores of consciences at St. John’s. And while the frequency of confession, and the return to booths from the reconciliation room, puts the pastor and the parish on the conservative end of the Catholic spectrum, [having a sense of sin and going to confession, hearing confessions, makes you "conservative".] St. John’s is a standard diocesan church with a varied congregation — corporate executives, Haitian and Hispanic immigrants, Stamford’s longtime Irish and Italian middle class. [Right… it’s just a Catholic parish.]

Rosa Marchetti, an events planner for a family-owned chain of restaurants, had grown up dreading the rite of confession. The reconciliation room, while intended to allow priest and penitent to meet in a reassuring face-to-face manner something like analyst and analysand, filled her with anxiety and shame. Six years ago, Ms. Marchetti began attending St. John’s, and these days she makes a confession at least twice a month. Speaking to an unseen priest through a screen seems to her a comfort. [As it is for the vast majority of people.]

“I’d always feared that the priests would know it was me, and I never wanted to think I’d done something wrong,” she recalled of her earlier experiences. “But at St. John’s, it was explained to me that I go to the doctor for my physical well being and I have to go to confession for my spiritual well being.”

Even so, she recognizes how the practice sets her apart from a national popular culture of celebrity magazines, talk shows, Facebook pages and Twitters that is relentlessly confessional and rarely contrite. [nice phrase: "relentlessly confessional and rarely contrite".]

“You turn on Oprah and you have women crying to her, confessing what they’ve gone through,” Ms. Marchetti said. “Everyone is so quick to tell the world their problems, but they won’t tell a priest.” [And they risk their souls as a result.]

In the hope of reversing those engines, the Catholic diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., has mounted what it calls a “Lenten Confession Campaign.” The diocese’s 87 churches, which include St. John’s, will be offering confession for two hours every Tuesday night in addition to the usual Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning periods. [EXCELLENT]

To promote the campaign, the Knights of Columbus is paying for highway billboards, bus placards and radio and TV commercials — all using a slogan drawn from Corinthians, “Be Reconciled to God” — as well as the printing and distribution of 100,000 pamphlets about confession.

It remains to be seen, of course, whether the multimedia effort can change behavior on a grand scale. Monsignor DiGiovanni has changed it within his parish through a theological version of retail politics: reaching individuals and families through a decade of homilies, conversations and columns in the church bulletin.

The movement to revive confession, using the traditional booth, no less, has plenty of skeptics within American Catholicism.

[Now which progressivist aging-hippe will the writer drag in for counterpoint?]

“Confession as we once knew it is pretty much a dead letter in Catholicism today,” the Rev. Richard P. McBrien, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, wrote in an e-mail message. [Yah… you knew it had to be one of these defeatists.]

Father McBrien, whose support of female ordination and married priest puts him on the theological left wing of the Catholic Church, added in a subsequent e-mail message that “the practice at the Stamford parish is an anomaly, not a sign of anything else” and at best “part of a small minority” of churches. [What would you bet he is happy that it is an anomaly?]

Majority or minority, the congregants at St. John’s firmly believe they are onto something. John F. X. Leydon, Jr., a lawyer in Stamford, has increased his pace of confession from once a year to once a month. The eldest of his four children, Mary, will be making her first confession this spring.

“The explanation we’ve given as parents is that none of us is perfect,” said Mr. Leydon, speaking also for his wife, Stacey. “However, we have to aspire to be perfect. And that should be a lifelong pursuit.”

Vatican Clarification on Lefebvrites, Holocaust

"The Holy Father Asks Accompaniment in Prayer"

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 4, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of a note issued today by the Vatican Secretariat of State regarding last month's lifting of the excommunication of four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X.

* * *

In the wake of the reactions elicited by the recent decree from the Congregation for Bishops, with which the excommunication of four prelates of the Fraternity of St. Pius X were lifted, and in relation to negationist or reductionist declarations on the Shoah from Bishop Williamson of that same fraternity, it is considered opportune to clarify certain aspects of the issue.

1. Remission of the excommunication.

As has already been published previously, the decree of the Congregation for Bishops, dated Jan. 21, 2009, was an act by which the Holy Father graciously took in the reiterated petitions from the superior-general of the Fraternity of St. Pius X.

His Holiness wished to remove an impediment that adversely affected the opening of a door to dialogue. Now he expects that the same willingness be expressed by the four bishops, in total adhesion to the doctrine and discipline of the Church.

The most grave penalty of excommunication latae sententiae, which these bishops incurred June 30, 1988, afterward declared formally on July 1 of the same year, was a consequence of their illegitimate ordination by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

The lifting of the excommunication has freed the four bishops from a most grave canonical penalty, but it has not changed in any way the juridical situation of the Fraternity of St. Pius X, which for the moment does not enjoy any canonical recognition in the Catholic Church. Neither do the four bishops, though liberated from the excommunication, have a canonical function in the Church and they do not licitly exercise a ministry in it.

2. Tradition, doctrine and the Second Vatican Council.

For a future recognition of the Fraternity of St. Pius X, the full recognition of the Second Vatican Council and the magisterium of Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI himself is an indispensable condition.

As has already been affirmed in the decree of Jan. 21, 2009, the Holy See will not cease, in the ways in which it judges opportune, to go deeper with the interested parties in the questions that remain open, in such a way that a full and satisfactory solution to the problems that have given rise to this painful fracture can be reached.

3. Declaration on the Shoah.

The viewpoints of Bishop Williamson on the Shoah are absolutely unacceptable and firmly rejected by the Holy Father, as he himself noted last Jan. 28, when, referring to that savage genocide, he reaffirmed his full and indisputable solidarity with our brother recipients of the First Covenant, and affirmed that the memory of that terrible genocide should induce "humanity to reflect on the unpredictable power of evil when it conquers the human heart," adding that the Shoah remains "for everyone a warning against forgetting, against negating or reductionism, because violence committed against even one human being is violence against all."

Bishop Williamson, to be admitted to episcopal functions in the Church, must also distance himself in an absolutely unmistakable and public way from his position on the Shoah, which was unknown to the Holy Father in the moment of the lifting of the excommunication.

The Holy Father asks accompaniment in prayer from all the faithful, that the Lord may enlighten the path of the Church. May there be an increase in the determination of the pastors and all the faithful in support of the delicate and heavy mission of the Successor of the Apostle Peter as "guardian of the unity" of the Church.

From the Vatican, February 4, 2009

The SSPX fiasco continues to boil....

... unreasonably, of course.

The crazy reaction of some secular leaders, as well as the blatant, unfaithful and pusillanimous statements of bishops within the Church has made this one big tempest in a teapot.

So much for moving toward mercy and forgiveness, the chief tenants of the Catholic faith. So much for understanding and contextualizing truth. So much for level headed dialogue within and without the Church.

Well, finally there is a very clear article about what is going on here, and who really is to blame for this 'scandal'. A NY rabbi speaks on behalf of the pope, and quite well, in fact.

Jewish Reaction to Pope Disproportionate

[Father Z. comments]

The official Jewish response to Pope Benedict XVI recent decision to reach out to the St. Pious [sic] X Society and to revoke the excommunication (though not yet determining the status) of four bishops says a great deal about the psycho-social state of American Jewish leadership or at least the leadership that claims to speak for American Jews. [nicely phrased]

The admittedly unnerving if not hurtful Holocaust denying views of one of those bishops, British born Richard Williamson, an obscure, irrelevant, cranky old man, offered on Swedish television, evoked the wrath of no less than the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the B’nai B’rith International, the International Jewish Commission on Interreligious Consultations and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. "The decision undermines the strong relationship between Catholics and Jews", they protested. "We are stunned that the Vatican has ignored our concerns", they proclaimed.

This will have "serious implications for Catholic-Jewish relations" and there will be a "political cost for the Vatican" they threatened. And from Israel, the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, one of the most corrupt religious establishments in Western democracies, [wow] entered the fray calling into doubt the Pope’s impending visit to Israel. All this hubbub and anxious lashing out about an internal Church matter regarding the sort of crabby, crotchety, trivial, unknown sort of jerk – the ratty uncle who embarrasses you every time he is in public—who we all recognize exists in our communities. [Okay… so that’s a "no" vote for Williamson, I think.]

As an eighth generation rabbi and someone who lost much family in the Holocaust, it could just be me, but this official Jewish response seems outrageously over the top. [!] Do millions of American Jews sufficiently care that the Pope revoked the excommunication of this unheard of bishop such that major Jewish organizations should devote so much energy and attention to this and turn it into a cause célèbre worthy of front page attention? And is this the way we speak to each other after decades of successful interfaith work on improving our relationship? [Unless those who are going over the top really don’t want good relations….?]

How is it that the view of some cranky bishop who has no power evokes calls of a crisis in Catholic – Jewish relations despite the revolutionary changes in Church teachings regarding Jews since Vatican II? Where is the "proportionality", [Isn’t that tern usually used in responses to acts of terror, etc?] where is the giving the benefit of the doubt – a central religious and spiritual imperative – in response to something that is admittedly upsetting but in the scheme of things is less than trivial especially given this Pope’s historic visit to Auschwitz in which he unambiguously recognized the evil perpetrated upon Jews in the Holocaust and in his way "repented" for any contribution distorted Church teachings made to create the ground for such evil to erupt.

Something is off-kilter here. Is it possible that the leadership of Jewish defense agencies, people with the best of motivation who have historically done critical work in fighting anti-Semitism, have become so possessed by their roles as monitors of anti-Semitism, so haunted by unresolved fears, guilt, and even shame regarding the Holocaust, and perhaps so unconsciously driven by how these issues literally keep their institutions afloat, that they have become incapable of distinguishing between a bishop’s ridiculous, loopy, discredited views about the Holocaust and a Church from the Pope down which has clearly and repeatedly recognized the evil done to Jews in the Holocaust and called for that evil to never be forgotten. [!]

Perhaps, this called for a little understanding of what it must be like to actually run a 1.2 billion person spiritual community (one with which I disagree on many issues) and to be trying to create some sense of unity from right to left, from extreme liberalism to extreme traditionalism – sort of like the liberal Barack Obama inviting Rick Warren, despite his hurtful [?] views on homosexuality, to give the invocation at the inauguration. How about cutting a Pope, who we know along with the previous Pope is probably amongst the most historically sensitive Popes to the issues of anti-Semitism, Holocaust, and the relationship to Judaism and Jews, a little slack given how he is trying to heal his own community. And is it possible that the Pope’s desire/hope/need to reintegrate the Church (he has also reached out to Liberal theologian Hans Kung) may be of more importance both to the Church and actually to religion on this planet [!] than whether we Jews are upset about the lifting of excommunication of one irrelevant bishop. [well said]

Would we Jews like to be judged by the crankiest, most outlandish, hurtful, and stupid thing any rabbi in the world said about Catholics or Christians? We Jews are no longer organized to excommunicate and a rabbi can’t be defrocked the way the Church does with its clergy but surely there are individual rabbi’s who say things so abhorrent about the "other" that though we still call the person rabbi we would not want to be taken to task for doing so.

And isn’t it possible that bringing Richard Williamson back inside the Church may actually influence him to see how wrong he is on this issue given how clear the Church is regarding the Holocaust and its commitment to Catholic Jewish relations? After all the Pope himself said, "I hope my gesture is followed by the hoped for commitment on their part to take the further steps necessary to realize full communion with the Church, thus witnessing true fidelity, and true recognition of the magisterium and the authority of the pope and of the Second Vatican Council." There is no way to read this other than to conclude that to be fully reinstated in the Catholic Church, all those who have passed the first test must now clear the big hurdle: either accept what the Catholic Church teaches or remain on the sidelines. And what the Church teaches, among other things, is the necessity of respecting Jews.

Moreover, shouldn’t the Jewish defense agency leadership, which to its credit is probably the most effective at its work of any ethnic and religious group in this country, try to understand the inner categories of the other, [good] especially after decades of inter-faith and inter-group work? In this case, that there is a difference between heresy – an accusation from which the Pope is trying to heal part of his community- and stupidity. And what is the cost of not seeing the difference between heresy and stupidity? [Very well put!]

Finally, when the Pope as well as key Vatican officials said within a day that Williamson’s views are "absolutely indefensible" and that in the Pope’s own words, the Church feels "full and indispensable solidarity with Jews against any Holocaust denial" where was a little humility in response? Wouldn’t it have been interesting, yet alone ethically compelling, for those who initially lashed out to have acknowledged that perhaps they did overreact and that they do know that the Church and specifically this Pope are very sensitive to these issues. But that we ask the Pope and church hierarchy to please understand that, whether fully justified or not, we are still very very raw and very vulnerable regarding the Holocaust and so we are sorry if we did over react and we are deeply grateful for the Pope’s unambiguous reiteration of that which we do know is his view and is contemporary Catholic teachings.

Rome & Traditional Anglicans get ready for union

Wednesday, 28 January 2009

History may be in the making. It appears Rome is on the brink of welcoming close to half a million members of the Traditional Anglican Communion into membership of the Roman Catholic Church, writes Anthony Barich. Such a move would be the most historic development in Anglican-Catholic relations in the last 500 years. But it may also be a prelude to a much greater influx of Anglicans waiting on the sidelines, pushed too far by the controversy surrounding the consecration of practising homosexual bishops, women clergy and a host of other issues.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to recommend the Traditional Anglican Communion be accorded a personal prelature akin to Opus Dei, if talks between the TAC and the Vatican aimed at unity succeed, it is understood.
The TAC is a growing global community of approximately 400,000 members that took the historic step in 2007 of seeking full corporate and sacramental communion with the Catholic Church – a move that, if fulfilled, will be the biggest development in Catholic-Anglican relations since the English Reformation under King Henry VIII.
TAC members split from the Canterbury-based Anglican Communion headed by Archbishop Rowan Williams over issues such as its ordination of women priests and episcopal consecrations of women and practising homosexuals.
The TAC’s case appeared to take a significant step forwards in October 2008 when it is understood that the CDF decided not to recommend the creation of a distinct Anglican rite within the Roman Catholic Church – as is the case with the Eastern Catholic Churches - but a personal prelature, a semi-autonomous group with its own clergy and laity.
Opus Dei was the first organisation in the Catholic Church to be recognised as a personal prelature, a new juridical form in the life of the Church. A personal prelature is something like a global diocese without boundaries, headed by its own bishop and with its own membership and clergy.
Because no such juridical form of life in the Church had existed before, the development and recognition of a personal prelature took Opus Dei and Church officials decades to achieve.
An announcement could be made soon after Easter this year. It is understood that Pope Benedict XVI, who has taken a personal interest in the matter, has linked the issue to the year of St Paul, the greatest missionary in the history of the Church.
The Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls could feature prominently in such an announcement for its traditional and historical links to Anglicanism. Prior to the English Reformation it was the official Church of the Knights of the Garter.
The TAC’s Primate, Adelaide-based Archbishop John Hepworth, told The Record he has also informed the Holy See he wants to bring all the TAC’s bishops to Rome for the beatification of Cardinal Henry Newman, also an Anglican convert to the Catholic Church, as a celebration of Anglican-Catholic unity.
Although Cardinal Newman’s beatification is considered to be likely by many, the Church has made no announcement that Cardinal Newman will be beatified.
Archbishop Hepworth personally wrote to Pope Benedict in April 2007 indicating that the TAC planned a meeting of its world bishops, where it was anticipated they would unanimously agree to sign the Catechism of the Catholic Church and to seek full union with the Catholic Church.
This took place at a meeting of the TAC in the United Kingdom. TAC bishops placed the signed Catechism on the altar of the most historical Anglican and Catholic Marian shrine in the UK, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk, before posting it up in the main street in an effort to gather public support.
Archbishop Hepworth, together with TAC bishops Robert Mercer and Peter Wilkinson, presented the signed items personally to Fr Augustine Di Noia OP, the CDF’s senior ecumenical theologian, on October 11, 2007, in a meeting organised by CDF secretary Archbishop Angelo Amato.
Bishop Mercer, a monk who is now retired and living in England, is the former Anglican Bishop of Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. Bishop Wilkinson is the TAC’s diocesan bishop in Canada.
TAC’s Canadian Bishop Peter Wilkinson has close ties to the Catholic hierarchy in British Columbia, which has also met the CDF on the issue. He has already briefed Vancouver archdiocesan priests.
One potential problem for the Holy See would be the TAC’s bishops, most of whom are married. Neither the Roman Catholic nor Eastern Catholic churches permit married bishops.
Before he became Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger discussed the issue of married bishops in the 1990s during meetings of the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission exploring unity, before the Anglican Church’s ordination of women priests derailed it.
One former Anglican priest who became a Catholic priest told The Record that the ideal end for the TAC would be to become the 28th Rite within the Catholic Church, along with the Eastern Churches, which have the same sacraments and are recognised by Rome.
The TAC’s request is the closest any section of the Anglican Church has ever come to full communion with Rome because the TAC has set no preconditions. Instead it has explicitly submitted itself entirely to the Holy See’s decisions.
Six days prior to the October 11 meeting between TAC bishops and the Holy See – on October 5 – the TAC’s bishops, vicars-general of dioceses without bishops, and theological advisers who assisted in a plenary meeting signed a declaration of belief in the truth of the whole Catechism of the Catholic Church.
The declaration said, in part: “We accept that the most complete and authentic expression and application of the Catholic faith in this moment of time is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium, which we have signed, together with this letter as attesting to the faith we aspire to teach and hold.”
Statements about the seriousness of the division between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church caused by issues such as the ordination of women priests were emphasised at the wordwide Lambeth Conference held in the UK in 2008.
At the conference, three Catholic cardinals – Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, the Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and the Prefect for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, Ivan Dias, the Pope’s personal envoy, all addressed the issue.
Cardinal Dias, who favours welcoming traditionalist Anglicans into the Catholic Church, bluntly told the Anglican Communion’s 650 bishops that they are heading towards “spiritual Alzheimer’s” and “ecclesial Parkinson’s”.
“By analogy, (Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s) symptoms can, at times, be found even in our own Christian communities. For example, when we live myopically in the fleeting present, oblivious of our past heritage and apostolic traditions, we could well be suffering from spiritual Alzheimer’s. And when we behave in a disorderly manner, going whimsically our own way without any co-ordination with the head or the other members of our community, it could be ecclesial Parkinson’s.”
Cardinal Kasper warned Anglican bishops that Rome would turn to smaller ecumenical communities if the Anglican Communion at large proved unapproachable ecumenically.
This is bad news for the Anglican Communion, but good news for the TAC.

Neuhaus on Death (Feb. 2000)

I'm still thinking about Neuhaus' death and how important a figure in the American Catholic Church that he was and remains. He brushed shoulders with death once, and he was prompted to write the following reflection.

Read the rest of this First Things piece.

We are born to die. Not that death is the purpose of our being born, but we are born toward death, and in each of our lives the work of dying is already underway. The work of dying well is, in largest part, the work of living well. Most of us are at ease in discussing what makes for a good life, but we typically become tongue-tied and nervous when the discussion turns to a good death. As children of a culture radically, even religiously, devoted to youth and health, many find it incomprehensible, indeed offensive, that the word "good" should in any way be associated with death. Death, it is thought, is an unmitigated evil, the very antithesis of all that is good.

Death is to be warded off by exercise, by healthy habits, by medical advances. What cannot be halted can be delayed, and what cannot forever be delayed can be denied. But all our progress and all our protest notwithstanding, the mortality rate holds steady at 100 percent.

Death is the most everyday of everyday things. It is not simply that thousands of people die every day, that thousands will die this day, although that too is true. Death is the warp and woof of existence in the ordinary, the quotidian, the way things are. It is the horizon against which we get up in the morning and go to bed at night, and the next morning we awake to find the horizon has drawn closer. From the twelfth-century Enchiridion Leonis comes the nighttime prayer of children of all ages: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord my soul to take." Every going to sleep is a little death, a rehearsal for the real thing.

Such is the generality, the warp and woof of everyday existence with which the wise have learned to live. But then our wisdom is shattered, not by a sudden awareness of the generality but by the singularity of a death-by the death of someone we love with a love inseparable from life. Or it is shattered by the imminent prospect of our own dying. With the cultivated complacency of the mass murderer that he was, Josef Stalin observed, "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." The generality is a buffer against both guilt and sorrow. It is death in the singular that shatters all we thought we knew about death. It is death in the singular that turns the problem of death into the catastrophe of death. Thus the lamentation of Dietrich von Hildebrand: "I am filled with disgust and emptiness over the rhythm of everyday life that goes relentlessly on-as though nothing had changed, as though I had not lost my precious beloved!"

On Baptism... (by BXVI)

On Baptism and the World Family Meeting

"You Are My Sons and Daughters, My Beloved"

VATICAN CITY, JAN. 11, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Benedict XVI delivered today before praying the Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.
* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

On this Sunday, which follows the solemnity of the Epiphany, we celebrate the baptism of the Lord. This was the first act of his public life and all four Gospels give an account of it. At the age of 30, Jesus left Nazareth and traveled to the Jordan River and, along with many other people, had himself baptized by John. The evangelist Mark writes: "On coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon him" (Mark 1:10-11). In these words: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased," the nature of eternal life is revealed: It is the filial relationship with God, as Jesus lived, revealed, and gave it to us.

This morning, following tradition, in the Sistine Chapel, I administered the sacrament of baptism to three newborn children. To the parents, the godfather and the godmother, the celebrant customarily asks: "What do you ask of the Church of God for your children?" They answer "baptism," and the celebrant replies: "And what does Baptism give us?" They answer: "Eternal life." This is a stupendous thing: Through Baptism the human person is brought into Jesus' unique and singular relationship with the Father, in such a way that the words that are spoken from heaven about the only-begotten Son become true for every man and woman who is reborn from the water of the Holy Spirit: You are my sons and daughters, my beloved.

Dear friends, how great is the gift of baptism! If we make ourselves fully aware of it, our life will become a continual "grace." What a joy for Christian parents, who have seen a new creature blossom from their love, who have brought this child to the baptismal font and seen the child be reborn in the womb of the Church, for a life that will never end! Gift, joy, but also responsibility! The parents, in fact, together with the godparents, must bring up their children according to the Gospel.

This brings to mind the theme of the 6th World Meeting of Families in Mexico City, which will take place next week, "The Family as Educator in Human and Christian Values." This great meeting of families, organized by the Pontifical Council for the Family, will unfold in three parts: first the theological and pastoral congress, in which the theme will be explored and in which there will also be a sharing of significant experiences; then there will be a moment of celebration and testimony, which will bring to light the beauty of the meeting of families from every part of the world, united by the same faith and by the same commitment; and finally the solemn Eucharistic celebration, as a thanksgiving to the Lord for the gifts of marriage, the family and life.

I have asked Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone to represent me, but I myself will also follow the extraordinary event with lively participation, accompanying it with prayer and through a televised talk.

Until then, dear brothers and sisters, I invite you to implore an abundance of divine grace for this important international meeting of families. Let us do so invoking the maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary, Queen of the Family.

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

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

To all the English-speaking visitors and pilgrims here today, I extend affectionate greetings. On this feast of the Lord's Baptism, Jesus descends into the waters of the Jordan, taking on himself the weight of our sins. When he rises from the water, the Spirit comes down upon him and the Father's voice declares: "This is my beloved Son". Let us rejoice that the Son of God came to share our human condition, so that we might rise with him to everlasting life. Upon all who are here today, and upon your families and loved ones at home, I invoke God's abundant blessings.

Papal Homily for Mass With Baptisms

"We Restore to God That Which Has Come From Him"
VATICAN CITY, JAN. 11, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is the homily Benedict XVI gave today when he celebrated Mass and administered the sacrament of baptism in the Sistine Chapel.
* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The words that the Evangelist Mark recounts at the beginning of his Gospel: "You are my Son, my beloved: in you I am well pleased" (1:11) bring us to the heart of today's feast of the baptism of the Lord, with which the Christmas season concludes. The cycle of Christmas solemnities brings us to meditate on the birth of Jesus announced by the angels suffused with the luminous splendor of God; Christmas time speaks to us of the star that guided the magi from the east to the house of Bethlehem, and it invites us to look to the heavens opened above the Jordan as the voice of God resounds.

They are all signs through which the Lord does not tire of repeating to us: "Yes, I am here. I know you. I love you. There is a road that leads from me to you. And there is a road that leads from you to me." In Jesus, the Creator assumed the dimensions of a Child, of a human being like us, who we may see and touch. At the same time, in making himself small, God made the light of his greatness shine -- because, by lowering himself to the defenseless impotence of love, he shows the nature of true greatness, indeed, what it means to be God.

The meaning of Christmas, and more generally the meaning of the liturgical year, is precisely that of us drawing near to these divine signs, to recognize in them the events of every day, so that our hearts will open to the love of God. And if Christmas and Epiphany serve above all to make us capable of seeing, to opening our eyes and hearts to the mystery of a God who comes to be with us, the feast of the baptism of Jesus introduces us, we could say, to the everydayness of a personal relationship with him. In fact, through the immersion in the waters of the Jordan, Jesus united himself to us.

Baptism is, so to speak, the bridge that he has built between him and us, the road by which he is accessible to us; it is the divine rainbow over our life, the promise of the great yes of God, the gateway to hope and, at the same time, the sign that indicates the road we must take in an active and joyous way to meet him and feel loved by him.

Dear friends, I am truly happy that this year too, on this feast day, I have been given the opportunity to baptize children. Today God's pleasure is upon them. From the time that the only-begotten Son of the Father was baptized, heaven has truly opened and continues to open itself, and we can entrust every new life that blossoms to the hands of God, who is stronger than the dark powers of evil. This in effect leads to baptism: We restore to God that which has come from him. The child is not the parents' property, but is rather entrusted by the Creator to their responsibility, freely and in an ever new way, so that they help him to be a free child of God.

Only if the parents cultivate such an awareness will they succeed in finding the right balance between the pretence of being able to dispose of their own children as if they were a private possession, forming them according to their own ideas and desires, and the liberal attitude that expresses itself in giving them total freedom, satisfying all their desires and aspirations, seeing that as the right way to develop their personality.

If, with this sacrament, the newly baptized infant becomes an adoptive child of God, object of his infinite love that safeguards and defends him, then he must be taught to recognize God as his Father and to know how to relate to him with a filial attitude. For this reason, when, following the Christian tradition, as we do today, we baptize children, bringing them into God's light and his teachings, we are not doing violence to them; rather we are giving them the wealth of divine life in which true freedom is rooted, which is that of being children of God; a freedom that must be educated and formed with the passing of years, so that it become capable of responsible personal choices.

Dear parents, dear godfathers and godmothers, I greet you with affection and I share your joy over these little ones that today are reborn into eternal life. You are conscious of the gift that has been received and you do not cease to thank the Lord who, with today's sacrament, introduces your children into a new family, greater and more stable, more open and numerous than your own: I am talking about the family of believers, the Church, a family that has God for Father and in which all gather as brothers in Jesus Christ.

Today, therefore, you entrust your children to the goodness of God, who is power of light and love; and they, though they will face difficulties in life, will never feel abandoned if they remain united with him. Concern yourselves with educating them in the faith, with teaching them to pray and to grow as Jesus did and with his help, "in wisdom, age and grace before God and men" (cf. Luke 2:52).

Turning now to the Gospel passage, we will try to understand still further that which is happening today. St. Mark says that, while John the Baptist preached on the shores of the Jordan, proclaiming the urgency of conversion in view of the coming of the Messiah who is now drawing near, Jesus, mixed in with the crowds, presents himself to be baptized.

John's baptism of repentance is certainly quite different from the one Jesus will institute. Nevertheless, at that moment, the mission of the Redeemer is glimpsed, for, when he comes out of the water, a voice from heaven resounds and the Holy Spirit descends upon him (cf. Mark 1:10). The heavenly Father proclaims him his beloved Son and publicly bears witness to his universal mission of salvation, which he will fully accomplish with his death on the cross and his resurrection. Only then, with the Paschal sacrifice, will the remission of sins be made universal and total.

With baptism we do not merely immerse ourselves in the waters of the Jordan to proclaim our commitment to conversion, but there is poured out upon us the redemptive blood of Christ that purifies us and saves us. It is the beloved Son of the Father, in whom he is well pleased, which reacquires for us the dignity and the joy of calling ourselves and truly being "children" of God.

Soon we will relive this mystery evoked by today's solemnity; the signs and symbols of the sacrament of baptism will help us to understand that which the Lord works in the hearts of these little ones of ours, making them "his" forever, a dwelling place chosen by his Spirit and "living stones" for the building up of the spiritual edifice which is the Church.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, beloved Son of God, keep watch over them and their families, always be with them, so that they may realize the project of salvation that baptism accomplishes in their lives.

And we, dear brothers and sisters, let us accompany them with our prayer; let us pray for the parents, godfathers and godmothers and for their relatives, that they help them to grow in the faith; let us pray for all of us here present that, devotedly participating in this celebration, we will renew the promises of our baptism and give thanks to the Lord for his constant help. Amen!

[Translation by Joseph G. Trabbic]

Fr. Neuhaus on his conversion

Here it as at First Things.

This story of conversion is simply mind-blowing

St. Thomas Aquinas, ora pro nobis!

Madrid, Nov 12, 2008 / 09:21 pm (CNA).- The Spanish daily “La Razon” has published an article on the pro-life conversion of a former “champion of abortion.” Stojan Adasevic, who performed 48,000 abortions, sometimes up to 35 per day, is now the most important pro-life leader in Serbia, after 26 years as the most renowned abortion doctor in the country.

“The medical textbooks of the Communist regime said abortion was simply the removal of a blob of tissue,” the newspaper reported. “Ultrasounds allowing the fetus to be seen did not arrive until the 80s, but they did not change his opinion. Nevertheless, he began to have nightmares.”

In describing his conversion, Adasevic “dreamed about a beautiful field full of children and young people who were playing and laughing, from 4 to 24 years of age, but who ran away from him in fear. A man dressed in a black and white habit stared at him in silence. The dream was repeated each night and he would wake up in a cold sweat. One night he asked the man in black and white who he was. ‘My name is Thomas Aquinas,’ the man in his dream responded. Adasevic, educated in communist schools, had never heard of the Dominican genius saint. He didn’t recognize the name” [woah....]

“Why don’t you ask me who these children are?” St. Thomas asked Adasevic in his dream.

“They are the ones you killed with your abortions,’ St. Thomas told him.

“Adasevic awoke in amazement and decided not to perform any more abortions,” the article stated.

“That same day a cousin came to the hospital with his four months-pregnant girlfriend, who wanted to get her ninth abortion—something quite frequent in the countries of the Soviet bloc. The doctor agreed. Instead of removing the fetus piece by piece, he decided to chop it up and remove it as a mass. However, the baby’s heart came out still beating. Adasevic realized then that he had killed a human being,” [Good Lord. How terrible, but how wonderfully the Holy Ghost indicted this man and converted him.]

After this experience, Adasevic “told the hospital he would no longer perform abortions. Never before had a doctor in Communist Yugoslavia refused to do so. They cut his salary in half, fired his daughter from her job, and did not allow his son to enter the university.” [bastards]

After years of pressure and on the verge of giving up, he had another dream about St. Thomas.

“You are my good friend, keep going,’ the man in black and white told him. Adasevic became involved in the pro-life movement and was able to get Yugoslav television to air the film ‘The Silent Scream,’ by Doctor Bernard Nathanson, two times.”

Adasevic has told his story in magazines and newspapers throughout Eastern Europe. He has returned to the Orthodox faith of his childhood and has studied the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.

“Influenced by Aristotle, Thomas wrote that human life begins forty days after fertilization,” Adasevic wrote in one article. La Razon commented that Adasevic “suggests that perhaps the saint wanted to make amends for that error.” Today the Serbian doctor continues to fight for the lives of the unborn.

Anne Rice goes from vampires to Jesus biographer

Growing respect for Anne Rice...

I was pretty skeptical, I must admit, about an author, formerly known for vampire novels, writing a life of Christ. It seems I was quite wrong about her. "Christ the Lord out of Egypt" was a solid effort. This is the latest on her conversion bio out today...

It certainly wasn't bad liturgy that brought her back to the Church.

Anne Rice goes from vampires to Jesus biographer

NEW ORLEANS – It's Halloween, and Anne Rice has a new book — a memoir in fact — that's climbing best-seller lists. Everything is normal, then.

Normal if it were 1994 — the height of Rice's megaselling fame as a queen of Southern Gothic pulp.

For those who haven't been paying attention lately to vampire lit, America's most famous chronicler of bloodsuckers doesn't live in New Orleans anymore — and hasn't since before Hurricane Katrina hit — and she's riding new waves of enthusiasm: the memoir and Christian lit.

Her memoir, "Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession," is the latest piece of evidence that Rice is reinventing herself in an attempt to build a reputation as a serious Christian writer.

In the memoir, the 67-year-old writer doesn't disavow the two decades she spent churning out books on vampires, demons and witches — with a batch of S&M erotica thrown in — following the breakout success of her first novel in 1976, "Interview With the Vampire."

But she's clearly moved on.

In a telephone interview from her mountain home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., Rice laid out her goal:

"To be able to take the tools, the apprenticeship, whatever I learned from being a vampire writer, or whatever I was — to be able to take those tools now and put them in the service of God is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful opportunity," she said. "And I hope I can redeem myself in that way. I hope that the Lord will accept the books I am writing now."

The memoir follows the release of two books in a planned four-part, first-person chronicle of the life of Jesus.

And in this new 245-page memoir, Rice presents her former life as vampire writer as that of a soul-searching wanderer in the deserts of atheism; as someone akin to her most famous literary creations — Lestat, her "dark search engine," Louis the aristocrat-turned-vampire and Egyptian Queen Akasha, "the mother of all vampires."

"I do think that those dark books were always talking about religion in their own way. They were talking about the grief for a lost faith," she said.

In 2002, Rice broke away completely from atheism — nearly four decades after she gave up her Roman Catholic faith as the 1960s started. It happened when she went off to college and found her peers talking about existentialism — Martin Heidegger, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre. Religion, she writes, was too restrictive to the young Rice. Too out of step.

Yet, religion had to come back into her life, she writes. For her, it was something she'd have to face up to again like an absent parent or a long-lost love child or Banquo the ghost in Macbeth.

By the late 1990s, when she went back to Mass, Rice — the author whose books sold in the tens of millions and who had recharged Hollywood's appetite for vampire-inspired horror — had fallen on hard times.

Her husband, poet and artist Stan Rice, died of a brain tumor in 2002. And she had become victim to diabetes.

Always over-the-top and beyond the rational, she writes that her return of faith was preceded by a series of epiphanies — many while on travels to Europe's cathedrals, Israel and Brazil. In one episode, when she visited the giant Jesus statue above Rio de Janeiro, she writes that she felt "delirium" as the clouds broke and revealed the statue.

Her professed revelations recall the religious intoxication she describes of her childhood.

When she was 12, she had her father turn a room on the back porch of the family's Uptown home in New Orleans into an oratory modeled after St. Rose of Lima — the saint Catholics believe turned roses into floating crosses. She wanted to be a saint, she writes.

In the memoir, Rice describes a familiar Catholic upbringing imbued with opulence and mystery. The incense. The statuary. The stained glass. The darkness. She learned the world, she writes, through her senses, through a "preliterate" understanding of the world. She writes that she possessed "an internal gallery of pictorial images" that, lamentably, was replaced "by the alphabetic letters" she learned later.

"You might call it the Mozart effect, but it was the Catholic effect on me," she said.

In a sense, the memoir also is a confessional about her struggle as a writer to be a reader, a thinker and an author with a distinct literary style. Her stories often are reveries with no end in sight — and all too often ugly with pedantic unwinding, numbing in detail and overly simplistic, a pastiche of cliches.

Her turn in direction — from vampire fiction to Christian musings — still isn't winning the critics over.

In The New York Times, Christopher Buckley slammed Rice's memoir as "a crashing, mind-numbing bore. This is the literary equivalent of waterboarding." [The Times... Hell's Daily Press]

And the bar is high when it comes to writing about Jesus.

"The best may be Nikos Kazantzakis' 'The Last Temptation of Christ,'" said Jason Berry, a novelist and journalist who has written extensively on the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal. "But also (G.K.) Chesterton, Norman Mailer. ... A lot of narrative artists in both literature and film have taken on Jesus, so to speak."

Rice isn't out to impress the critics, though.

"My objective is simple: It's to write books about our Lord living on Earth that make him real to people who don't believe in him; or people who have never really tried to believe in him," she said.

She pressed the point: "I mean, I've made vampires believable to grown women. Now, if I can do that, I can make our Lord Jesus Christ believable to people who've never believed in him. I hope and pray."

For her devotees, whatever she writes invariably goes down like a smooth bloodbath, that favorite Goth beverage sometimes made with raspberry liqueur, red wine and cranberry juice.

"There are so many people dedicated to her. They want her to write more vampire books," said Marta Acosta, author of the popular "Casa Dracula" series, a "comedy of manners" that plays on vampire themes. She also runs the Vampire Wire, a book blog for fans of gore and the undead.

As for her, Acosta couldn't care less if Rice sinks back into the vampire vein.

"People think it's sexual, but it's not. It's suppressed stuff. Southern Gothic," Acosta said. "How many centuries is Louis (played by Brad Pitt in the movie 'Interview With the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles') going to whine?"

Never again, it seems.

Rice is busy writing about Jesus as a minister. And that's a tall order, Rice said.

Has America Lost Its Way? A bishop reflects...

From Zenit.org.

Bishop Aquila on Returning to Nation's Foundations

FARGO, North Dakota, OCT. 24, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is an excerpt of the homily given Sunday by Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo at the Cathedral of St. Mary.
* * *

Today, Catholic politicians and individual voters on both sides of the aisle have lost the sense of this fundamental principle that underlies every just and enduring society. Most especially, they have lost the sense of the inalienable right to life for the unborn child. Even without considering God in the equation, human life, for every human being, begins at the moment of conception. That is when human life begins. That is when your life began. And that is when Rep. Pelosi’s life began. That is when Sen. Biden’s life began. That is when Sen. Obama’s life began and Sen. McCain’s life began.

Sadly, the dignity of human life from the moment of conception is lost today. The truth nonetheless exists. Our forefathers recognized it but present day politicians and voters do not.

Furthermore, we have lost too this fundamental principle in what it means to pursue happiness. We see the attempted pursuit of happiness without God and the collapse of this pursuit in Wall Street and the economics of today. Greed has guided the hearts of men and women, in which a 40 million dollar bonus is not enough in one year. When you take God out of the equation and life is lived as if he did not exist, the only thing left to pursue is materialism, because there is no life after death, there is no judgment. And so greed guides the hearts of men and women when we lose that basic essential understanding of the presence of God.

We see that abandonment of God’s presence, too, in the area of human sexuality. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. Women are treated as sexual toys and objects. People proclaim a “good” in same sex unions, living promiscuously, and moving from one intimate relationship to the next.

Once we lose God in the pursuit of happiness, and once we lose the sense of the dignity of the human person and the God in whose image and likeness we are truly created, then we lose all sense of any moral compass or any moral standard. Without God, can there be any morality at all? Or is it set by the thinking of the day that can change from generation to generation, rooted in no truths that are valid for every person in every generation?

We as a nation stand at a crossroads. There is a fork in the road between the culture of life and the culture of death. The culture of death made great inroads with activist judges in the 1973 court that created a so-called right to abortion. They, like the pharisees and the Herodians, hid behind lies, they hid behind deceit, they hid behind a lack of reason and the majority said, “It is okay to destroy human life in all nine months of pregnancy.”

Judges, politicians and voters who went so far as to state that human life may be destroyed at the beginning are now attacking human life at its end by support for assisted suicide. The next step will be to deny healthcare for the elderly and handicapped because they are no more of any use to society. Once the right to life is no longer understood as a gift from God, but attributed to people by the state, the road to further atrocities against human life is a spiral downward quite rapidly.

What many Catholic politicians and citizens have done by their actions and votes today is to sell their souls, because what they have done is to say, “We will be created in the image and likeness, not of God, but of a Democratic platform, of a Republican platform -- that’s whose image and likeness we will embrace.” There is neither reason nor logic in their statements, but anything to gain power and this compromise leads only to blindness and darkness.

My sisters and brothers, you and I are not created in the image and likeness of Obama or McCain or a political party. We are created in the image and likeness of God. We must, as our forefathers did, place the God-given inalienable rights first, beginning with the right to life from the moment of conception until natural death. As bad as the economy is, as bad as the war is, the destruction of innocent human life, especially in the womb, is a greater evil, and correction of this grave evil must take place. Each of us has a role in making this correction in our duties as citizens. To say that “the battle is lost” is to condone an intrinsic evil that will only lead to further evils.

A hundred years from now, this election will just be a moment in history. A hundred years from now all of us, or certainly most of us, will be dead. But I assure you, a hundred years from now, if we continue as a society on the course that we are on, embracing a culture of death, our society will no longer exist, because tyranny will have its way, as will atheism.

When there is no recognition of the primacy of God and human beings decide what is good and what is evil, anything can be justified. All we have to do is look at history and the atheism of China, the atheism of Russia, the atheism of Cambodia, and the atheism of Nazi Germany. Countries that embrace atheism reveal the truth -- that is, if we do not embrace, as our forefathers did, the laws of nature and nature’s God, we will eventually collapse as a society.

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.
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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."

Pope contrasts: Money, career, success... OR the word of God

Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen (R), Chief Rabbi of Haifa, shakes hand with Pope Benedict XVI at the 2008 Synod of Bishops.

Yahoo news gets this story correct...

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI says the global financial crisis show the futility of money and ambition.

Benedict says that "now with the collapse of big banks we see that money disappears, is nothing and all these things that appear real are in fact of secondary importance." He urges those who build their lives "only on things that are visible, such as success, career, money" to keep that in mind.

The pontiff was speaking Monday as he opened the works of a meeting of 253 bishops at the Vatican.

Benedict says "the only solid reality is the word of God."

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.