Author: Paul Zalonski

Labor Day: “the Church has been and is on the side of the worker”

Pope Leo XIII small pic.jpgWhen Pope XIII published Rerum Novarum (On the Condition of Labour) in 1892, it was considered a brilliant piece of  thinking on the Church walking closely with the average man and woman because it demonstrated that in reality, once again, the Church situated herself in the reality of human existence: in the social, political and economic spheres with a keen recognition of human dignity; the protection of basic economic and political rights, including the right to a just wage and to organize associations or unions to defend just claims; the right to private property; the rights of labor over capital; the just organizations of society for the common good.

 

Pope Leo rejected not only a communistic philosophy but he did not ignore the basis of its appeal to workers and condemned the exploitative nature of the liberal-capitalist alternative. He wanted the Church on all levels to be engaged with the social order which slowly took shape in the later years of the 19th century and then in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Continue reading Labor Day: “the Church has been and is on the side of the worker”

Saint Moses

St Moses.jpgToday is the feast of Saint Moses. Indeed, the very same Moses who gave us the Ten Commandments and led the Israelites to the Promised Land. In the Mass and Divine Office we currently pray, that is the Ordinary Form, Moses is not commemorated in the sacred Liturgy. But he is remember in the liturgical anamnesis.


The Roman Martyrology tells us: 

Commemoratio sancti Moysis, prophetae, quem Deus elegit, ut populum in Aegypto oppressum liberaret et in terram promissionis adduceret; cui etiam in monte Sina sese revelavit dicens: “Ego sum qui sum”, atque legem proposuit, quae vitam populi electi regeret.  Ille servus Dei in monte Nebo terrae Moab coram terra promissionis plenus dierum obiit.

Artistic expression is part of that “way of beauty” that leads to God

Pope Benedict gave the following teaching on beauty –a subject near to his heart– on August 31. Some of the paragraphs are here (the entire address is here). Isn’t what the Pope says true???? The beautiful expressed in food, music, art, architecture, the human body, the poerty and friendship is the extroversion of the Holy Spirit.

 

Today, I would like to consider briefly one of these channels that can lead us to God and also be helpful in our encounter with Him: It is the way of artistic expression, part of that “via pulchritudinis” — “way of beauty” — which I have spoken about on many occasions, and which modern man should recover in its most profound meaning. 

 

Perhaps it has happened to you at one time or another — before a sculpture, a painting, a few verses of poetry or a piece of music — to have experienced deep emotion, a sense of joy, to have perceived clearly, that is, that before you there stood not only matter — a piece of marble or bronze, a painted canvas, an ensemble of letters or a combination of sounds — but something far greater, something that “speaks,” something capable of touching the heart, of communicating a message, of elevating the soul. 

 

Wells cathedral.jpgA work of art is the fruit of the creative capacity of the human person who stands in wonder before the visible reality, who seeks to discover the depths of its meaning and to communicate it through the language of forms, colors and sounds. Art is capable of expressing, and of making visible, man’s need to go beyond what he sees; it reveals his thirst and his search for the infinite. Indeed, it is like a door opened to the infinite, [opened] to a beauty and a truth beyond the every day. And a work of art can open the eyes of the mind and heart, urging us upward.

 

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Saint Gregory the Great

Gregory the Great Matthew Aldreman.jpgFor Gregory the Great, a hinge figure between the ancient world — the Senate of Rome last met while Gregory was the city’s bishop — a hinge between the ancient world and the grand experiment called Christendom, for Gregory this awareness that to look upon the face of Christ brought knowledge of God inspired an extensive exploration of Scripture to discern how God would have us live, how the Church and its leaders could best serve those seeking to know Christ Jesus and the Father. Since rightful authority comes from God, Gregory reasoned, its exercise must ever include a pastoral intent.

 

 

Father James Flint, OSB

Saint Procopius Abbey

3 September 2011

 

 

 

 

Let us pray for the Benedictine monks of Portsmouth Abbey, Portsmouth, Rhode Island, on this their abbey’s patronal feast day. May God prosper the work of their hands!

 

You may also be interested in the 2010 blog post that has a hymn to Saint Gregory the Great by J. Michael Thompson. 

Saint Joshua

St Joshua.jpgThe Roman Martyrology notes Saint Joshua’s feast day today. You remember him, Joshua, son of Nun, servant of the Lord, who became inspired by the Holy Spirit after Moses laid hands on him and who led the Israelites into the Promised Land. The Righteous Joshua is said to have lived for a 110 years reposing c. 1440 BC.

Pope Benedict XVI’s monthly prayer intentions for September 2011


Pope blesses crowd August 31 2011.jpgThe papal prayer intentions for September bring to mind the ministry of teaching and proclaiming the Gospel in Asia. Let’s join Pope Benedict and the Church in asking God to bestow His grace on these two intentions.




The general intention

That all teachers may know how
to communicate the love of truth and instill authentic moral and spiritual
values.


The missionary intention

That the Christian communities in Asia may
proclaim the Gospel with fervor, witnessing to its beauty with the joy of
faith.