Communio – Page 224 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Prayer to Saint Benedict

Detail - Glory of the New Born Christ in prese...

Detail – Glory of the New Born Christ in presence of God Father and the Holy Spirit (Annakirche, Vienna). Adam and Eve are represented below Jesus Christ Ceiling painting made by Daniel Gran (1694-1757).

Father, you revealed in Benedict your desire to live and die in grace that transcends all earthly cares; listen to our supplications as we strive toward salvation.

Benedict, blessed in name and grace, lived a holy life; may we follow worthily in his footsteps by praying and working to glorify you.

Holy father Benedict, pray for us.

Benedict, desiring to please you alone, left home and patrimony to found his religious family; may we live in peace in his family to add luster to your monastic way of life.

Holy father Benedict, pray for us.

Benedict withdrew from the world, knowingly unacquainted with its ways, and wisely unlearned in its wisdom; may we learn your wisdom, and guide our actions by it.

Holy father Benedict, pray for us.

Benedict, filled with the spirit of all the just, left us a rule of life in Christ; may we remain faithful to his teaching and come to prefer nothing whatsoever to Christ.

Holy father Benedict, pray for us.

Benedict, the patron of a happy death, showed us how to live in order to die in you; may he obtain this reward from you for each of us.

Holy father Benedict, pray for us.

Through Christ our Lord.

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Pope Francis meets with ecumenical partners and representatives of world religions

The Pope met today with Orthodox leaders, Byzantine and Oriental Orthodox, the Anglicans, other ecclesial communities and leaders of various other religions. Of particular interest is the personal meeting of Francis and Bartholomew; the Pope also met with Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Rome Reports has a review of this important ecumenical meeting.

First of all, heartfelt thanks for what my Brother Andrew told us. Thank you so much! Thank you so much!

It is a source of particular joy to meet you today, delegates of the Orthodox Churches, the Oriental Orthodox Churches and Ecclesial Communities of the West. Thank you for wanting to take part in the celebration that marked the beginning of my ministry as Bishop of Rome and Successor of Peter.

Yesterday morning, during the Mass, through you , I recognized the communities you represent. In this manifestation of faith, I had the feeling of taking part in an even more urgent fashion the prayer for the unity of all believers in Christ, and together to see somehow prefigured the full realization of full unity which depends on God’s plan and on our own loyal collaboration.

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What will Benedict XVIs legacy be in the years ahead?

Português: Cerimônia de canonização do frade b...

The answer to this question will not be in its final form for a long time. The papacy only ended a few weeks ago. Historians will have to look at several things before they will be able to reflect back with greater precision that a video or a blog commentary can provide in 2013. There are several things that Pope Benedict’s 8 year reign that give good indicators as to what we engage with in the years ahead. Many more intelligent than I have thought this question through, but Father Robert Barron of the Archdiocese of Chicago has made a good first attempt when he posits that Benedict will be remembered for:

1. being able to give a more authentic interpretative key to the Second Vatican Council; that is, naming the true mission of the Church;

2. being able to present the objective truth of the faith as taught by the Church these 2 thousand years with the clear awareness that the truth is about the Divine Love lived in joy; this is often called affirmative orthodoxy: the big ‘yes’ vs. the fat ‘no’;

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Novena of Prayer to Saint Benedict, Day 9

The order of prayer

San Benedetto2.jpg

Let us rejoice in the Lord, celebrating the memory of the holy abbot, Benedict. (antiphon)

Pray Psalm 9

The prayer of petition to Saint Benedict may be found here, and then pray the following prayer.

Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, You freed the man of God, Benedict, from the prison of the flesh and bore him up to heaven to enjoy the vision of Your glory. Grant us, through his merits, the spirit of penance, forgiveness of our sins, so that we may one day share the joys of eternal life with him and all the saints. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

St Dominic’s Monastery: A Life of Faithfulness

Some time ago I mentioned here on Communio the monastery in Linden, Virginia which getting a jim-start on living the monastic life according to the Dominican charism. St Dominic’s Monastery is an exceptional place.

Why is St Dominic’s a place to support? There are many reasons, not the least is the fact the nuns are very serious about the monastic life demonstrated by their observance of communal liturgical and personal prayer, their sacrifice of time and generous giving of self, the witness of the full habit, and commitment to the ideals of Saint Dominic and his successors. The nuns follow the path charted by Christ and the saints.

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A focus on mission, Pope Francis points to direction

Pope Francis met with media

Pope Francis met with media

I don’t think Pope Francis will be too different from the last several Roman Pontiffs. As bishop of Rome he will preach and teach, govern and sanctify.The Pope’s un-programatic homily is in fact programatic if you can read the details. In some ways Francis’s homily is an Aesopian creature.

First, style is substance. Second, the liturgical preaching thus far indicates a trajectory. Third, focus on the Pope’s connection with people of belief and unbelief because this connection ought to be assessed for the facts and and not cliché. What the Pope said and what he’s done matters. Who’s present, and who’s not. (And this data is not to be reduced to politics.) All this is to say that you can’t miss “a trick” if you really want to know what and who Pope Francis is, and why he is doing what he’s doing and with whom.

We are living nothing different from what Blessed John Paul and Pope Benedict did in their pontificates. Three things to pray for daily: conversion, vocation and mission.

A “news” man and priest whom I respect very much is the editor-in-chief for AsiaNews.it, Bernardo Cervellera. Tonight, his article, “Like Benedict, mission is Pope Francis’s focus,” captures what I am indicating and what I am urging you to attend.

Want to be informed about Christianity, and the global Church of Christ, read AsiaNews.it.

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Novena of Prayer to Saint Benedict, Day 8

The order of prayer

St Benedict and bread.jpg

Those who offered him food for his body received from his lips the Word of God, the food of life. (antiphon)

Pray Psalm 19: 1-7

The prayer of petition to Saint Benedict may be found here, and then pray the following prayer.

Let us pray.

Lord God, it is Your will that the whole world look to You for salvation and deliverance from the slavery of sin. Grant us a sense of mission, such as Saint Benedict had, and fill us with an apostolic spirit that we may, by the example of our life, help to draw others to You. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Metropolitan Hilarion on the offensive

It’s not been a week into the exercise of the Petrine ministry of Pope Francis and members of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy are “expressing hope” about the Bishop of Rome will or will not do with regard to the so-called “expansion” of the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church. Really, they are setting conditions for dialogue and fraternal cooperation.

Recognizable is the fact that Russians want to be the dominant Church body in Eastern Europe and they want no “competition” from anyone else. They believe that to be Russian, or Ukrainian, for that matter, is to be Orthodox. They will not accept the possibility of a person’s freedom in choosing which Church to belong and that historically the Byzantine and Latin Catholics have been part of the cultural makeup of the Christian East. As a condition for good relations Metropolitan Hilarion and other Orthodox leaders want to pressure the Bishop of Rome not to work with the Byzantine Ukrainian Church in any way. Pope Francis, and the entire Roman Church wants good and fruitful relationships with the Orthodox Church worldwide, and in Russia. It will not be the case that we turn our back on the Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk and Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Synod. Lingering disagreements are not resolved by pressure and being agenda-driven.

You would never know that Metropolitan Hilarion was educated at Oxford and that he’s spent much of his youthful days enjoying certain freedom of education and culture in the West with ignorant comments such as he’s made about the Jesuits. His suspicion is greatly exaggerated and offensive. It betrays another level of insecurity of his person and his Church. His comments about the Jesuits, and therefore, Pope Francis, show yet example of that he is not a serious churchman. One only has to recall that it’s been the Jesuits in the 20th and 21st centuries who have provided rigorous educational opportunities at the Pontifical Oriental Institute (PIO) in Rome for the service to the Churches. And an education, I might add, to plenty of Orthodox priests, bishops and laity at the expense of the PIO. An anti-Jesuit stance in this case is clichéd and will bear no fruit.

May the great Mother of God bless the Churches.

Saint Joseph, Husband of Mary

O Glorious Patriarch Saint Joseph, protector of the Holy Family and its consoler in adversity, I recommend to your pastoral care the Universal Church, and in a more especial manner the sons and daughters of Saint Benedict.

Obtain for the spiritual family of Saint Benedict his virtues of obedience, humility and self-denial. Infuse into their hearts his spirit of prayer and of holy joy, his love of solitude and of labor, his zeal for the salvation of souls, his tender and childlike devotion to the Queen of the Rosary.

Obtain for them O Great Saint Joseph, the gift above all gifts, a true knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, so that like you they may merit the happiness of bearing him in their arms by their labors for his glory. Obtain for them the grace to resign in their hearts unreservedly to his keeping, and to strive earnestly and prudently to make him known to the world as its merciful and loving Savior.

On the feast of Saint Joseph there’s a horizon of hope, horizon of God, Petrine ministry of Francis inaugurated

HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS

INAUGURATION OF THE

PETRINE MINISTRY

ST PETER’S SQUARE

19 March 2013

Dear Brothers and Sisters, I thank the Lord that I can celebrate this Holy Mass for the inauguration of my Petrine ministry on the solemnity of Saint Joseph, the spouse of the Virgin Mary and the patron of the universal Church. It is a significant coincidence, and it is also the name-day of my venerable predecessor: we are close to him with our prayers, full of affection and gratitude.

I offer a warm greeting to my brother cardinals and bishops, the priests, deacons, men and women religious, and all the lay faithful. I thank the representatives of the other Churches and ecclesial Communities, as well as the representatives of the Jewish community and the other religious communities, for their presence. My cordial greetings go to the Heads of State and Government, the members of the official Delegations from many countries throughout the world, and the Diplomatic Corps.

In the Gospel we heard that “Joseph did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife” (Mt 1:24). These words already point to the mission which God entrusts to Joseph: he is to be the custos, the protector. The protector of whom? Of Mary and Jesus; but this protection is then extended to the Church, as Blessed John Paul II pointed out: “Just as Saint Joseph took loving care of Mary and gladly dedicated himself to Jesus Christ’s upbringing, he likewise watches over and protects Christ’s Mystical Body, the Church, of which the Virgin Mary is the exemplar and model” (Redemptoris Custos, 1).

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