Paul Zalonski – Page 308

World AIDS Day and Pope Benedict

Today’s known as World AIDS Day. The focus of the day is “an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died. World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day and the first one was held in 1988.” This dreadful disease has claimed many millions of people world-wide –and sex is not always to blame. AND condom use is the answer.

With all the advances in medicine, there are still gaping holes in education and prevention in the fields of medicine, pharmacology, spirituality and society. The recent trip of Pope Benedict to Benin highlighted yet again the need before us. Specifically Benedict called for a holistic response to the AIDS pandemic.

Pope Benedict stated:

The problem of AIDS,in particular,clearly calls for a medical and pharmaceutical response. This is not enough, however: the problem goes deeper. Above all, it is an ethical problem. The change of behavior that it requires -for example, sexual abstinence, rejection of sexual promiscuity, fidelity within marriage- ultimately involves the question of integral development,which demands a global approach and a global response from the Church. For if it is to be effective, the prevention of AIDS must be based on a sex education that is itself grounded in an anthropology anchored in the natural law and enlightened by the word of God and the Church’s teaching.

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Pope Benedict’s prayer intentions for December 2011

“In our prayer also, we must learn increasingly to enter into this history of salvation whose summit is Jesus; [we must learn] to renew before God our personal decision to open ourselves to His Will, and to ask Him for the strength to conform our will to His — in every aspect of our lives — in obedience to His plan of love for us” (Benedict XVI, November 30, 2011)

The general intention

That all peoples may grow in harmony and peace through mutual understanding and respect.

The missionary intention

That children and young people may be messengers of the Gospel and that they may be respected and preserved from all violence and exploitation.

Saint Andrew: brought Peter to the Lord

Let us pray that Saint Andrew, first-called, will bring us to the Lord as he brought Saint Peter and countless others to the Lord to experience salvation.

Let us pray for concrete unity among Christians, particularly Orthodox Christians with the See of Rome.

The Church prays~

We humbly implore your majesty, O Lord, that, just as the blessed Apostle Andrew was for your Church a preacher and pastor, so he may be for us a constant intercessor before you.

Lectio Divina as the springtime of the Church

Here are Pope Benedict’s 5 reasons for Christians doing lectio divina, because as he sees it, lectio is the new springtime of the Church.

Lectio Divina is of course central to Benedictine spirituality –but not limited to those who are “professional religious people– with several hours a day of prayerful reading of Scripture and other spiritual texts required of monks in the Rule.

And it is also one of the central themes of Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Exhortation Verbum Domini. Scattered through the document are the reasons why lectio is so crucial. Here is my summation of the reasons he sets out for why we should do lectio divina.

1. To please God by listening to him. Pope quotes Origen: “Do your reading with the intent of believing in and pleasing God.”

2. To build the Church as a community. “While it is a word addressed to each of us personally, it is also a word which builds community, which builds the Church…The reading of the word of God… enables us to deepen our sense of belonging to the Church, and helps us to grow in familiarity with God.”

3. To nourish and sustain us ‘on our journey of penance and conversion’: through it, we grow in love and truth.

4. In order to discern God’s will for us, and convert us: “Contemplation aims at creating within us a truly wise and discerning vision of reality, as God sees it, and at forming within us “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).

The Pope particularly recommends lectio divina to seminarians because: “It is in the light and strength of God’s word that one’s specific vocation can be discerned and appreciated, loved and followed, and one’s proper mission carried out…” Lay people to should be trained, he urges, “to discern God’s will through a familiarity with his word, read and studied in the Church under the guidance of her legitimate pastors.”

He goes on: “Saint Paul tells us: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect ” (12:2). The word of God appears here as a criterion for discernment: it is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12).”, and “….by nourishing the heart with thoughts of God, so that faith, as our response to the word, may become a new criterion for judging and evaluation persons and things, events and issues”….”

5. For the spiritual benefit of others. First, to equip us to fulfill the duty of all Christians to evangelize, contributing to the Churches mission to convert the whole world to Christ. And secondly to aid the souls in purgatory through the Church’s offer of indulgences for Scripture reading and certain Scripturally based prayers (such as the Office), which teach us that “to whatever degree we are united in Christ, we are united to one another, and the supernatural life of each one can be useful for the others.”

Archbishop Wenski: Protect rights of conscience, Mr. President

In today’s editorial piece, Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski personally addressed the US President Barack Obama on matters pertaining to conscience and religious freedom. Conscience is more than a policy; conscience is a basic human right given by God Himself. It is good piece for all to read –especially Catholics– as it outlines recent history lest we forget. Wenski is right to bring to light the transgressions on conscience by this Administration. Our thanks to the Archbishop for teaching the faith. Thoughts?

In May 2009, President Obama gave the commencement address at Notre Dame University and received an honorary degree. That Notre Dame would confer an honorary degree on an elected official who advances abortion rights in contradiction to Catholic teaching caused no small controversy among many Catholics throughout the United States.

Those who supported Notre Dame felt vindicated, however, when in his speech the President promised to “honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion,” stating that his Administration would provide “sensible” protections for those who wanted no involvement in the procedure. This would presumably include health-care providers, social-service providers, and consumers who might otherwise have to pay through their health-care plans for other people’s abortions. Obama later reiterated this position to Catholic newspaper editors, stating that he would make such protections “robust.”

Continue reading Archbishop Wenski: Protect rights of conscience, Mr. President

Male religious life revives

A recent article in the National Catholic Register by Trent Beattie, “Surprising Revival for Men in Religious Life” notes that tide may be turning for some religious orders of men, especially those who remain faithful to prayer, orthodox theological reflection as proposed by the Church, a common life and work and the wearing of a religious habit. Beattie highlights the Texas Carmelites, Connecticut’s Franciscan Brothers of the Eucharist and the Oklahoma Benedictines of the Creak Creek abbey. All of the groups are beautiful expressions of the work of the Holy Spirit today.

Our Lady of the Way, pray for us.

Benedict on music and Liturgy

Two central interests in the ministry of Pope Benedict are music and the sacred Liturgy; other interests you might say are evangelization, theology and culture. At recent gatherings with the Pope he spoke about music as a concert given by a group of Spanish musicians and then to the bishops of New York State making their pilgrimage to Rome to pray and speak with the Pope about their work. Below are two interesting sets of ideas worthy of reflection:

On music

“…the magic
worked by music, the universal language which can overcome all barriers and
allow us to enter the world of others, of a nation or a culture, at the same
time enabling us to turn our mind and hearts … to the world of God.”

Pope
Benedict XVI to musicians

November 26, 2011

On the sacred Liturgy

“A weakened sense of the meaning and importance of Christian
worship can only lead to a weakened sense of the specific and essential
vocation of the laity to imbue the temporal order with the spirit of the
Gospel. America has a proud tradition of respect for the Sabbath; this legacy
needs to be consolidated as a summons to the service of God’s Kingdom and the
renewal of the social fabric in accordance with its unchanging truth.”

Nuns on parade in the Hung Hoa Diocese

First Sunday of Advent

Therefore we are called to be vigilant because we do not know the ‘precise moment’ when the master will return to the house. The ‘house’ can be seen as an image of the Christian community which prepares itself with vigilance through prayer and works, to welcome the master. The ‘house’ can also be thought of as the spiritual dwelling of each of us that needs to be built daily.

Everyone must also take care to complete the work that God has entrusted to them, watching that they will not find themselves unprepared for the Lord when he comes. The season of Advent calls us to strengthen our spirit of prayer, carefully fighting the negligence and the weakness that makes us yield to sin.

Blessed John Henry Newman wrote in his spiritual diary that to be vigilant with Christ is to look ahead without forgetting the past. It is not to forget that He has suffered for us, it is to lose ourselves in contemplation of the grandeur of redemption. It is to continually renew the passion and agony of Christ – to cover with joy that mantle of affliction that Christ wore first and then left behind when he ascended into heaven. It is separation from this sensible world to join the life beyond the senses. This is how Christ will come, and come in the way he has said. (J. H. Newman, Diario spirituale e meditazione, 93).

Excerpts of a Letter for the First Sunday of Advent from the Congregation of Clergy

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal

Today we celebrate the Feast Day of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. On this day, November 27th, in 1830, the Immaculate Virgin Mary appeared to Saint Catherine Laboure in the chapel of the motherhouse of the Daughters of Charity in Paris.

At one point during the apparition Catherine saw Our Lady standing on a globe, with dazzling rays of light streaming from her outstretched hands. Framing the figure was an inscription: O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Mary spoke to Catherine: “Have a medal struck upon this model. Those who wear it will receive great graces.” The Medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary, popularly known as the Miraculous Medal, was approved by Pope Leo XIII on July 23, 1894.

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