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Jul
28
Co-Workers of the Truth 7/28
Filed Under Co-Workers of the Truth, Pope Benedict XVI | Leave a Comment
The Church - as we have seen - is a reality that surpasses mysteriously and infinitely, the sum of her members. In fact, in order to obtain Christ’s forgiveness, my sin was set over against the faith of his Church. Today this seems to have been forgotten by many theologians, priest, and laymen. It is not only the change from the I to the We, from personal to collective responsibility. One even gets the impression taht some, although unconsciously, may reverse the prayer by understanding it in this way: “Look not upon the sins of the Church but upon my faith…” Should this really happen, the consequences will be grave: the faults of individuals become the faults of the Church, and faith is reduced to a personal event, to my way of understanding and of accepting God and his demands.
I really fear that today this is a widespread manner of feeling and thinking. It is another sign of how greatly in many places the common Catholic consciousness has distanced itself from an authentic conception of the Church. “We must go back to saying to the Lord: “We sin, but the Church that is yours and the bearer of faith does not sin.” Faith is the answer of the Church to Christ. It is Church in the measure that it is an act of faith. This faith is not an individual, solitary act, a response of the individual. Faith means to believe together, with all the Church. We must always bear in mind that the Church is not ours but his.
Hence, the “reform”, the “renewals” - necessary as they may be - cannot exhaust themselves in structures. The most that can come from a work of this kind is a Church that is “ours”, to our measure, which might indeed be interesting but which, by itself, is nevertheless not the true Church, that which sustains us with faith and gives us life with the sacrament. I mean to say that what we can is infinitely inferior to him who does.
Hence, true “reform” does not mean to take great pains to erect new facades (contrary to what certain ecclesiologies think). Real “reform” is to strive to let what is ours disappear as much as possible so what belongs to Christ may become more visible. It is a truth well known to the saints. Saints, in fact, reformed the Church in depth, not by working up plans for new structures, but by reforming themselves. What the Church needs in order to respond to the needs of man in every age is holiness, not management.
From: The Ratzinger Report, pp. 52-53
Jul
28
Matthew 13: 31 - 35
Filed Under Today's Gospel | Leave a Comment
31 Another parable he put before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field;
32 it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”
33 He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
34 All this Jesus said to the crowds in parables; indeed he said nothing to them without a parable.
35 This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet: “I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.”
Jul
28
St. Peter Julian Eymard
Filed Under The Wisdom of the Saints | Leave a Comment
As the result of sin, the virtues have become painful to us; we shrink from them because they mean humiliation and suffering. ” You do not want to be humiliated?” Humilation is an honor, suffering a joy, because Jesus Christ has placed in them true honor and true joy.
– St. Peter Julian Eymard
Jul
26
Matthew 13:16-17
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16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
17 Truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.
Jul
26
Co-Workers of the Truth 7/26
Filed Under Co-Workers of the Truth, Pope Benedict XVI | Leave a Comment
Journalism is meaningful only when it helps us to learn the truth. It can be a genuine calling only when there is a truth that is good. Then it is right and necessary to help this truth to find its proper expression. The fundamental certainty that Good does exist and that we are created for it is not an obstacle to the work of the journalist, but rather makes it possible. It must be the first pillar of genuine journalistic ethics. Non-Christians, too, can find this fundamental certainty. We must admit, to our shame, that today it is often more alive and less impaired among non-Christians than in nations that were formerly Christian. But it finds its deepest foundation and its greatest affirmation in the Person of Jesus Christ. It is he who gives us a certainty. God loves us so much that he himself became one of us.
The ecce homo, which today shows primarily the dregs of humanity, receives from him its true meaning. Ecce homo- today, for the most part, that means: Behold, here is yet another specimen of this miserable humanity. Even Pilate, the sceptic, wanted to say something of this kind. But without intending it, he revealed to us something quite different: man is such that God’s presence among us shines always in this disfigured countenance. Hence we must always try to see humanity, not through the eyes of Pilate, but through the eyes of Jesus himself. Then we serve truth. Then we serve humanity, the humanness of man as such. Granted, we always stand in need of the courage to criticize abuses openly in order that they may be remedied. But today we have almost more need of the courage to make visible the goodness that resides in humanity and in the world. Only in that way can we restore to humanity the courage to be itself, the courage to exist, without which all other courage falls into a vacuum.
From: L’Osservatore Romano 14, no.6 (1984), p. 5
Jul
26
St Alphonsus Liguori
Filed Under The Wisdom of the Saints | Leave a Comment
We must mortify our tongue. An impure word spoken in jest may prove a scandal to others, and sometimes a word of double meaning, said in a witty way, does more harm than a word openly impure.
– St Alphonsus Liguori
Jul
25
Co-Workers of the Truth 7/25
Filed Under Co-Workers of the Truth, Pope Benedict XVI | Leave a Comment
There is no such thing as a purely objective news report. Even photography, in which the possibility of pure objectivity was apparently found in the exclusion of every trace of a representational subject, contains a modicum of interpretation even if we leave out of consideration the manifold opportunitites it offers for manipulation. It is always, in one way or another, an arrangement of objects, a choice, an excerpt, an elucidation, and consequently an iterpretation.
Our reporting always means a selecting. Therefore every report is an interpretation, even if only because of what is not reported, what is not said. But this means that the technology of reporting without the ethics of reporting is inhuman and we must ask ourselves if we have not become on the one hand, giants of technology, but on the other hand infants in the matter of ethics in general and of the ethics of reporting in particular.
It is precisely in this context, I think, that the particular task of the Catholic news agency becomes clear. Not only does it bring the vast realm of Church news into contact with the realm of human debate and make it comprehensible, but it exists precisely to develop and put into practice the ethics of reporting.
From: Ordinariatskorrespondenz, 11/15/1977
Jul
25
Apostolist Events
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| July 27, 2008 | ||
| 6:15 pm | ||
| August 9, 2008 | ||
| 2:00 pm | ||
| August 24, 2008 | ||
| 6:30 pm | ||
| September 7, 2008 | ||
| 6:30 pm |
Jul
25
Matthew 20: 20 - 28
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20 Then the mother of the sons of Zeb’edee came up to him, with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something.
21 And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Command that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”
22 But Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.”
23 He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
24 And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers.
25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.
26 It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant,
27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave;
28 even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Jul
25
St. Augustine
Filed Under The Wisdom of the Saints | Leave a Comment
If you should ask me what is the way of God, I would tell you that it is humility. Not that there are no other precepts to give, but if humility does not precede all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.
— St. Augustine
