I read a news item by an Italian journalist bringing to light a recent letter of the Most Reverend Socrates Villegas, VP of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines where he sternly criticized the practice of priests charging for the administration of sacraments and sacramentals. Villegas said, in part,
My dear brother priests, the sacraments are not to be celebrated in exchange for money. The trafficking for money in spiritual things is simony. It is a sin.
An ad on the back cover of the Catholic New York sparks me to draw the attention of Communio readers and others to the good work of The Gianna Center and the founders, Dr. Anne Nolte and Dr. Kyle Beiter.
Continue reading Gianna Center –Keeping hope alive for infertile couples
A friend of
mine, a Melkite priest, in fact, alerted his friends that a cousin of his in
Aleppo was abducted by terrorists and days later released. A tense time no
doubt. We are grateful to the Lord the young man’s return.
Of concern, too, is the assassination of a Greek Orthodox priest near
Damascus. Father Fadi Jamil Haddad, 43, pastor of St. Elias Church in Qatana,
outside Damascus, found slain on October 26, shot in head, in the Jaramana district
of the capital. Vatican news people report that an “unidentified armed group” was responsible. $715,000 was
demanded. Further details are really unclear.
Of the Christian minority in
Syria, the Greek Orthodox is known as the largest; Christians represent perhaps
10% of the population. Make no mistake, Christians have long been resident in
Syria now a majority Muslim.
An Orthodox friend of mine posted this prayer and icon in light of the weather storm Sandy coming our way, and I am reposting. State government predictions are sounding exaggerated right now, but one can really tell. In Connecticut, along the waterfront, it is predicted that four high tide cycles will be exceptional, and rough weather–high winds and rain– over 36-48 hours. In category four areas more than 362 thousand people expect some inconvenience. Let’s not tempt fate. In charity, let’s pray to the Divine Master, “A Prayer at the
Threat from Malevolent Winds and Sea Storms.”
O Master, Lord our God, Who by Thy
Consubstantial and Un-originate Word, and Thy Life-Giving Spirit Who is equal in
honor, hast brought all things out of nothingness into being; Who hast
established the sand as bounds to the sea, and weighed the mountains and the
valleys in a balance; Who hast measured the skies and holdest the water in the
palm of Thy hand; Who hast given to this visible world of the senses its laws
and rules, its harmony and order; Who hast appointed changes to the weather and
variations in the orbit of the sun; Who, through the mingling of the elements,
holdest all things together by Thine inexpressible power, and keepest them free
from harm and intact: Do Thou Thyself, O All-Good King, extending to us Thine
innate and customary love and goodness, visit the work of Thy hands. Do not
deprive us of Thy mercies and Thy compassion, and do not destroy Thine
inheritance, for Thou hast ineffably created us in Thine own image.
Continue reading Prayer at the Threat from Malevolent Winds and Sea Storm
The Pope’s homily at the close of the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization.
The miracle of
the healing of blind Bartimaeus comes at a significant point in the structure
of Saint Mark’s Gospel. It is situated at the end of the section on the
“journey to Jerusalem”, that is, Jesus’ last pilgrimage to the Holy City, for
the Passover, in which he knows that his passion, death and resurrection await
him. In order to ascend to Jerusalem from the Jordan valley, Jesus passes
through Jericho, and the meeting with Bartimaeus occurs as he leaves the city –
in the evangelist’s words, “as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a
great multitude” (10:46). This is the multitude that soon afterwards would
acclaim Jesus as Messiah on his entry into Jerusalem. Sitting and begging by
the side of the road was Bartimaeus, whose name means “son of Timaeus”, as the
evangelist tells us. The whole of Mark’s Gospel is a journey of faith, which
develops gradually under Jesus’ tutelage. The disciples are the first actors on
this journey of discovery, but there are also other characters who play an
important role, and Bartimaeus is one of them. His is the last miraculous
healing that Jesus performs before his passion, and it is no accident that it
should be that of a blind person, someone whose eyes have lost the light. We
know from other texts too that the state of blindness has great significance in
the Gospels. It represents man who needs God’s light, the light of faith, if he
is to know reality truly and to walk the path of life. It is essential to
acknowledge one’s blindness, one’s need for this light, otherwise one could
remain blind for ever (cf. Jn 9:39-41).
Continue reading Work to regain the light of faith lost, or weakened, Pope preaches
The head of the US bishops and archbishop of New York, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, just finished with many others, work at the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization in Rome. The Synod called by the Pope is tasked to advise him on questions that concern him in his pastoral leadership of the Church.
In a surprise given to the Church this morning, Pope Benedict announced his intention to name new cardinals in November. One of them is an American, Archbishop James Michael Harvey of Milwaukee who has been serving at the Apostolic Household as its Prefect for the last several years. These new cardinals lifts the numbers eligible to vote in a conclave to 122.
In announcing
the intention to create new cardinals, the Pope said: “The Cardinals have
the task of helping the Successor of Peter in the performance of his ministry
of confirming the brethren in the faith, and that of being the principle and
foundation of unity and communion of the Church … fulfill their ministry in the
service of the Holy See or as fathers and pastors of particular Churches in
various parts of the world.”
The proposed list of new cardinals are
The
consistory will take place on November 24.
The Rhode Island Benedictine Portsmouth Abbey School welcomed Dominican Father Nicanor Austriaco to
deliver the Dom Luke Childs Lecture on October 15,
2012. He is an Associate Professor of Biology at Providence College. Father’s address was titled, “What Can Human Genomics Tell Us About Adam and Eve?“
Watch the presentation, it is very good and informative.
The Dom Luke Childs Lecture honors the popular Benedictine monk who taught at Portsmouth and died unexpectedly in 1976. The Lecture topics cover a wide range of intellectual and culture pursuits.
Continue reading Human Genomics help us to understand Adam and Eve, Father Nicanor Austriaco says