-
-
Featured Article
Jul
31
Toy Box Battle
Filed Under Quotes & Excerpts | Leave a Comment
It’s a David vs. Goliath prospect for faith-based companies to even get the chance to compete in the big retail markets. Here’s the story of how one Catholic David conquered his Goliath … Wal-Mart.
BY TIM DRAKE, REGISTER SENIOR WRITER
August 5-11, 2007 Issue | Posted 7/31/07 at 11:50 AM | Source
LINDENHURST, N.Y. — Parents will have more wholesome toy options available to them beginning this month. Wal-Mart plans to start carrying a faith-based line of toys in time for back-to-school shopping. It’s a first for the mass-market retail industry as a whole.
Catholic mother of seven Mary Ellen Barrett knows how difficult it can be to find children’s toys in line with the virtues she teaches her children.
“It’s hard because they don’t promote the right values,” said Barrett. “Girls’ toys are trashy, and boys’ toys seem to be really dark.”
She might prefer Wal-Mart’s Tales of Glory faith-based dolls and figurine sets as a test. Read more
Jul
31
Source | July 30, 2007
“I guess Catholics just think they’re better than anybody else.” The Catholic woman was quoting a non-Catholic friend’s reaction to the new Vatican document affirming the uniqueness of the Catholic Church. Clearly, she sympathized with her friend’s sarcastic comment.
Many Catholics — to say nothing of non-Catholics — were rattled by “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church” (or, more likely, by secular media coverage of it). Yet nobody should really be surprised by this document, which was issued in early July by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
To begin with, “Responses” covers the same ground, in much the same way, as Dominus Iesus (The Lord Jesus), a widely discussed document published in 2000 by the same Vatican agency, which then was headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Cardinal Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI. You were expecting him to change his mind?
Dominus Iesus was said to have been prompted by speculations of some Asian theologians that seemed to place Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism on a par with Christianity. But the issues treated there and in the new CDF document undoubtedly exist in Europe and North America as well.
Practically speaking, the root of the problem is that too many Catholics naively take for granted the truth of the misinformation about the Catholic Church and ecumenism that they’ve been fed for many years. The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) embraced ecumenism, didn’t it? So how can we claim Catholics have a lock on truth? Read more
Jul
31
All Night Vigil
Filed Under Events | Leave a Comment
| August 3, 2007 9:00 pm | to | August 4, 2007 5:00 am |
Come let us adore Him…every First Friday. We will meet at 9:00 P.M. at Our Lady of Peace Church to spend time in prayer and adoration of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He is the reason we exist, and to Him we owe everything!
Church of Our Lady of Peace
237 E. 62nd St
New York, NY 10021 [ map & directions ]
Phone: 212-838-3189
Specific Location:
Sanctuary Entrance
This event is brought to you by Cathedral of St. Patrick Young Adults.
For Information About This Event, Please Contact:
Patrick Howley / (212) 753-2261 x295 / info@cspya.org
Jul
31
| August 1, 2007 | ||
| 7:00 pm |
The Theology of the Body Times Square discussion group meets the 1st and 3rd Wednesday of every month at 7:00 pm at St. Malachy’s Church, 239 West 49th Street.
During the summer months, when the weather is nice, we often meet outdoors at Worldwide Plaza, located on West 49th Street, between 8th & 9th Avenues.
For those who are able to join us early, we gather informally at the Cyber Cafe across the street from St. Malachy’s from 6:00 pm onwards (or in WorldWide Plaza on warm evenings).
New members of the group are always welcome. Please contact Peter McFadden for more information at (917) 846-3798 or at mcfadden@mac.com.
Read future reading assignments here.
Jul
31
Co-Workers of the Truth 7/31
Filed Under Co-Workers of the Truth, Pope Benedict XVI | Leave a Comment
Should we not once again realize and admit to one another that no age should be a cause of shame for us if we accept it interiorly and live it as it should be lived? Should we not, at this jucture of time past and time renewed, learn once again that to be what we should be we need the fullness of the time allotted to us from childhood to old age? Should we not - each of us - try to accept with better grace the entire span of our human ife and to find tolerance - no, recognition - for the time of life other people are experiencing because we know that all of us have something to give one another?
To state the matter more concretely, let us ask ourselves what a world and a Church would be like without the cheerful, guileless, and infeigned by a premature puberty as is so often the case today. What would a world and a Church be like without the urgent restlessness and questioning of young people as they strive toward their future? What would they be like without the strength and determination of those who are at the height of their powers? What would they be like without the mature experience, the quiet patience, and the resigned serenity of the elderly? And what would all of us be like without trust in one another, without the readiness to see and accept one another as we are?
At this time, when the future is our dominant concern and when, for that very reason, we would like to stop the clocks at a definite time, perhaps the most important thing we can do is, by far, to learn to say Yes to older people and to our own growing old and, in doing so, to accept time and the future.
From: Dogma und Verkungdigung, pp. 400-401
Jul
30
Introduction: The Church and Apostolic Succession
Our Lord Jesus, from the very beginning of His public ministry, called disciples to follow Him and, from those who became His disciples, He immediately chose the Apostles for an essential service within the community of all the disciples. Throughout His public ministry, He prepared the Apostles to receive a particular grace, the grace of the Sacrament of Holy Priesthood, by which they and their successors would act in His person as Head and Shepherd of the flock in every time and place. When His public ministry had reached its culmination, on the night when He entered upon His Passion and Death, our Lord Jesus instituted the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Priesthood which is indispensable for the offering of the Holy Eucharist.
The Apostles and their successors, the Bishops, with and under the headship of Saint Peter and his successor, the Bishop of Rome, — through the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, through their teaching and through their governance — , are “the visible source and foundation of unity” in the Church (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, “On the Church,” 21 November 1964, n. 23a). Through apostolic succession, effected by the laying-on of hands and the prayer of consecration in the Rite of Ordination, Christ remains faithfully and unceasingly the Head and Shepherd of the flock.
Tests of the Unity of the Church and Ecumenism
From the beginning, the unity of the Church has been severely tested by those who have wanted to form and lead the Church in a direction which suited their ideas and preferences but was not the mind of Christ. Recall, for instance, in the very first days of the Church, the controversy caused by those who insisted that new members of the Church who were not Jewish had to follow certain practices of the Jewish religious law. In order that the unity of the Church not be compromised, the Apostles gathered in Jerusalem, with Saint Peter as their head, and gave a definitive decision in the matter (Acts 15:1-21).
Throughout the Church’s history, her unity has suffered serious threats. Sometimes, most sadly, groups of the faithful have refused to accept the decisions of the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with him, and have broken communion with the Church. In some cases, the apostolic succession was broken and the groups of the faithful were left without the essential priestly service of the Apostles and their successors, and, therefore, without the true Holy Eucharist. Today, there are, for instance, hundreds of different Christian ecclesial Communities without apostolic succession. There are also communities separated from the Roman Catholic Church which have preserved apostolic succession and are thus Churches separated from the Roman Catholic Church.
From the time of the first break with the communion of the Church, the Church has necessarily declared her relationship with the other Churches (with apostolic succession) and the ecclesial Communities (without apostolic succession). At the same time, she is called to work for the restoration of the unity of the Body of Christ. During the years of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, there was a concerted effort to promote Christian unity in response to the prayer of our Lord before entering upon His Passion: “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:20). The teaching of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council continues to inspire the work of Christian unity or, as it is commonly called, the work of ecumenism. On the same day that the Fathers of the Council promulgated the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, “On the Church,” they also promulgated a document on ecumenism (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree Unitatis redintegratio, “On Ecumenism,” 21 November 1964). Read more
Jul
30
Co-Workers of the Truth 7/30
Filed Under Co-Workers of the Truth, Pope Benedict XVI | Leave a Comment
Men expect redmption from themselves, and they seem quite prepaired to provide it. Thus there is linked to the primacy of the future the primacy of practice, the primacy of human activity above all other activities. Theology, too, shows itself more and more open to this concept - orthopraxis replaces orthodoxy.
“Eschatopraxis” seems more important than eschatology. If in earlier days it was left to popular enlightenment to tell the lower class that artificial fertilizer was more effective than prayer, now, after a suitable interval, we can read similar commentaries in the kind of “religious” literature that strives to reflect the argument that under certain circumstances prayer itself will have to be “refunctioned”: it can hardly be considered any longer an appeal for divine assistance; on the contrary, it must be regarded as a period of quiet composure in preparation for the practice of human self-help.
Belief in progress, which has often been declared dead, has taken a new hold of life, and the optimistic confidence that the human race will eventually be able to build the city of man is finding new believers. The city of man - for many the words were the symbol of all their desires; for others, they have a melancholy sound. For along with hope, fear is also beginning to spread. The anxiety that seemed almost banished by the optimism of the post-war years is reappearing. When, for the first time, men set foot on the moon, no one could help feeling the excitement, the pride, the joy at this enormous achievement of mankind. Their success was regarded, not as the victory of one nation, but as a victory for the human race.
But there was felt as well, in the moment of victory, a deep sadness that the same men who were capable of such a magnificent feat were not able to prevent thousands, perhaps millions, of their fellow men from starving to death year after year; that they were not able to provide for other millions, lives characterized by human dignity; that they were not able to put an end to war or to stem the flow of crime. The way to the moon is easier to find than the way to the human heart and mind. Technical ability does not necessarily include the ability to deal with men. The ability to govern one’s self is quite clearly on a very different plane from that of technical achievement.
From: Glaube und Zukunft, pp. 100-101
Jul
29
Message for World Youth Day 2008
Filed Under Quotes & Excerpts | Leave a Comment
Message for World Youth Day 2008
by Pope Benedict XVI
My dear young friends!
1. The XXIII World Youth Day
I always remember with great joy the various occasions we spent together in Cologne in August 2005. At the end of that unforgettable manifestation of faith and enthusiasm that remains engraved on my spirit and on my heart, I made an appointment with you for the next gathering that will be held in Sydney in 2008. This will be the XXIII World Youth Day and the theme will be: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). The underlying theme of the spiritual preparation for our meeting in Sydney is the Holy Spirit and mission. In 2006 we focussed our attention on the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth. Now in 2007 we are seeking a deeper understanding of the Spirit of Love. We will continue our journey towards World Youth Day 2008 by reflecting on the Spirit of Fortitude and Witness that gives us the courage to live according to the Gospel and to proclaim it boldly. Therefore it is very important that each one of you young people - in your communities, and together with those responsible for your education - should be able to reflect on this Principal Agent of salvation history, namely the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Jesus. In this way you will be able to achieve the following lofty goals: to recognize the Spirit’s true identity, principally by listening to the Word of God in the Revelation of the Bible; to become clearly aware of his continuous, active presence in the life of the Church, especially as you rediscover that the Holy Spirit is the “soul”, the vital breath of Christian life itself, through the sacraments of Christian initiation - Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist; to grow thereby in an understanding of Jesus that becomes ever deeper and more joyful and, at the same time, to put the Gospel into practice at the dawn of the third millennium. In this message I gladly offer you an outline for meditation that you can explore during this year of preparation. In this way you can test the quality of your faith in the Holy Spirit, rediscover it if it is lost, strengthen it if it has become weak, savour it as fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, brought about by the indispensable working of the Holy Spirit. Never forget that the Church, in fact humanity itself, all the people around you now and those who await you in the future, expect much from you young people, because you have within you the supreme gift of the Father, the Spirit of Jesus.
2. The promise of the Holy Spirit in the Bible
Attentive listening to the Word of God concerning the mystery and action of the Holy Spirit opens us up to great and inspiring insights that I shall summarize in the following points.
Shortly before his Ascension, Jesus said to his disciples: “And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you” (Lk 24:49). This took place on the day of Pentecost when they were together in prayer in the Upper Room with the Virgin Mary. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the nascent Church was the fulfilment of a promise made much earlier by God, announced and prepared throughout the Old Testament.
In fact, right from its opening pages, the Bible presents the spirit of God as the wind that “was moving over the face of the waters” (cf. Gen 1:2). It says that God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life (cf. Gen 2:7), thereby infusing him with life itself. After original sin, the life-giving spirit of God is seen several times in the history of humankind, calling forth prophets to exhort the chosen people to return to God and to observe his commandments faithfully. In the well-known vision of the prophet Ezekiel, God, with his spirit, restores to life the people of Israel, represented by the “dry bones” (cf. 37:1-14). Joel prophesied an “outpouring of the spirit” over all the people, excluding no one. The sacred author wrote: “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh … Even upon the menservants and maidservants, in those days, I will pour out my spirit” (3:1-2). Read more
Jul
29
Co-Workers of the Truth 7/29
Filed Under Co-Workers of the Truth, Pope Benedict XVI | Leave a Comment
What are the qualifications of the Christian philosopher? the Christian scholar? James mentions several, of which I propose to discuss only the first two. he says that true wisdom - the wisdom that comes from above - is first of all “pure” (James 3:17), which can also be translated “chaste”, “immaculate”, “undefiled”. It is, consequently, also peacable and peacemaking… It need hardly be pointed out how aptly that relates to us today. It is natural and necessary for theologians to discuss. But when theological discussion ceases to be a striving for truth and becomes, instead, a struggle for power in the Church, then the nature of theology has been radically falsified; it introduces party politics into the Church and becomes the medium of party power; it divides the Church. Whenever theology generates theological parties and these parties become Church parties, it has become a false wisdom. It creates enmities and embitters people. I must admit that what schocks me most depply in many letters and publications is the rank hatred of the Church and her members that speaks through them. The role of true wisdom and hence of the authentic teacher of theology in the Church is to create peace, not strife, to create goodness and inner openness, not embitterment.
From: Chirstlicher Glaube und Europa, pp.104-5
Jul
28
U.S. priests’ prayers answered with release of missionary
Filed Under News & Current Events | Leave a Comment
By Michael Wojcik | The Beacon (www.patersondiocese.org) | 7/27/2007
WAYNE, N.J. (The Beacon) - Priests of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) here joined the chorus of countless other concerned people around the world who are rejoicing that their prayers were answered when “one of their own” - PIME Father Giancarlo Bossi - was freed by kidnappers in the southern Philippines after 39 days in captivity.
“We are very happy,” said a joyful Father Giancarlo Ghezzi, the PIME community’s rector and vocation director, who knew the freed Father Bossi, known affectionately in the Philippines as the “gentle giant,” when he served there from 1990 to 1997. The two priests saw each other for retreats, Father Ghezzi said.
Now Father Ghezzi intends to make good on his promise - to hold a Thanksgiving Mass when Father Bossi was released. It will be celebrated at 7:30 p.m., Monday, July 30 at Annunciation Church, Wayne. The liturgy will coincide with the anniversary of the PIME religious order, founded in 1851, he said.
The 57-year-old Father Bossi, who has faithfully served in the Philippines for 24 years, was released unharmed but quite thin, Catholic News Service (CNS) reported. The priest was released on the southern island of Mindanao, in the Ipil Prelature in the southern Philippines, where he ministers, after 14 government soldiers were killed searching for him.
“I am well,” he told AsiaNews, a Rome-based news agency sponsored by his order. “I’m happy because I just spoke to my family. Before returning to Italy, I would like to go and greet my parishioners in Payao (where he serves).”
Father Bossi said his captors claimed they had kidnapped him at gunpoint on behalf of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, which is believed to have ties to al-Qaida. The priest, whose release was announced on his mother’s 87th birthday, said he was told that the kidnappers were hoping for a large ransom.
“I never had the feeling they wanted to kill me,” he said. And he was never threatened with death “or violence of any kind.”
The priest said he lost about 15 pounds in the 39 days on a diet of rice and dried fish. On another positive note, Father Bossi said he quit smoking, after he had trouble catching his breath as his captors led him up a hill, CNS reported.
Father Bossi’s mission was disrupted when the Italian priest was abducted from Payao on the Mindanao Island while he was traveling to celebrate Sunday Mass. He was the second missionary priest kidnapped in the region in recent years.
- - -
This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of The Beacon (www.patersondiocese.org), official newspaper of the Diocese of Paterson, N.J.
