The Human Experience goes to Madrid, coming to New Haven

Human Experience.jpgIf you’ve not seen the Grassroots film documenting 2 young men’s interrogation of life in the film “The Human Experience,” then I would say you’ve missed a great opportunity to think about the reality with which we are confronted with daily.

This is not a Catholic film. It is a film about one’s humanity. The Human Experience is nothing if not full of humanity. The film takes seriously human desire, friendship, love, search, man and woman’s dignity, sacrifice, suffering, faith, relationship, disappointment, victory. The brothers bring us to the streets of NYC, to orphans in Peru, lepers in Ghana, and to an encounter with self.

H2O News followed the Brooklyn, NY based Grassroots film team to Madrid where they introduced Spanish citizens to the film in part as a way to prepare for the 2011 World Youth Day. Watch the video clip of the Madrid experience.
By the way, “The Human Experience” is slated to come to New Haven, CT soon. Stay tuned.

Catholics killed by Al Qaeda Muslims

Catholics in Our
Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad were held hostage and some killed and
wounded by a group of Al Qaeda militants. The siege tragically ended in death
when Iraqi security forces raided the church in order to free the faithful
being held inside.

During his All Saints Angelus address today in Rome, Pope
Benedict said, “Last night, in a very serious attack on the Syrian Catholic
Cathedral in Baghdad, dozens of people were killed and wounded, including two
priests and a group of faithful gathered for Sunday Mass.”

Benedict continued, “I
pray for the victims of this senseless violence, all the more ferocious as it
affected defenseless civilians, this closeness to the martyred Christian
community, targeted yet again by terrorists, and encouraged all pastors and
faithful to be strong and firm in hope.”

“Faced with the brutal violence that
continues to tear the peoples of the Middle East apart,” Pope Benedict ended the Angelus talk by saying: “I renew
my appeal for peace: it is God’s gift, but it is also the result of the efforts
of men of good will, national and international institutions. We must all join
forces to ensure an end to all violence!”

All Saints

Today is the day since the time of Pope Gregory III that the Church has observed a day for all the saints ever recognized officially, and for those who are in the process of becoming listed saints in the martyrology, and certainly all those holy men and women who ever lived. Looking at the Roman Martyrology, the book that contains all the saints of the Church, but it doesn’t list the all the Baptized. Hence, our feast day. There is a great dynamic of love that we observe today, but it should be a dynamic that we live every day of our lives. How many people, holy men and women have we known who touched out lives in great and small ways. I think of the various priests, and laity who promised to pray for me.

During his September visit to England, Pope Benedict boldly asked the young (indeed, all of us) to consider becoming saints and not to settle for something less than what we are made for. The value here, if you want to speak in this way, is that holiness is not for plastic people, people who have no sense of relationships, no concept of community, no understanding of the value of good friends. Holiness means taking ourselves seriously as loved people and worthy of friendship with the Lord and with another person; holiness is means setting aside distractions, sinful tendencies and the lack of attentiveness of God and what Jesus did for us. That is, Jesus’ death and resurrection for love of us personally. It’s taken me a long time to understand this point, and what the Pope has invited to, but there is solid, reliable truth in that God alone satisfies me. Which means, other things and mediocre relationships do not. Here is a portion of his homily:

Saints Buoninsegna.jpg

What God wants
most of all for each one of you is that you should become holy. He loves you
much more than you could ever begin to imagine, and he wants the very best for
you. And by far the best thing for you is to grow in holiness.

Perhaps some of
you have never thought about this before. Perhaps some of you think being a
saint is not for you. Let me explain what I mean. When we are young, we can
usually think of people that we look up to, people we admire, people we want to
be like. It could be someone we meet in our daily lives that we hold in great
esteem. Or it could be someone famous. We live in a celebrity culture, and
young people are often encouraged to model themselves on figures from the world
of sport or entertainment. My question for you is this: what are the qualities
you see in others that you would most like to have yourselves? What kind of
person would you really like to be?

When I invite you to become saints, I am
asking you not to be content with second best. I am asking you not to pursue
one limited goal and ignore all the others. Having money makes it possible to
be generous and to do good in the world, but on its own, it is not enough to
make us happy. Being highly skilled in some activity or profession is good, but
it will not satisfy us unless we aim for something greater still. It might make
us famous, but it will not make us happy. Happiness is something we all want,
but one of the great tragedies in this world is that so many people never find
it, because they look for it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple
– true happiness is to be found in God. We need to have the courage to place
our deepest hopes in God alone, not in money, in a career, in worldly success,
or in our relationships with others, but in God. Only he can satisfy the
deepest needs of our hearts.

Pope Benedict XVI

Greeting to Catholic Pupils of
the United Kingdom

St Mary’s College, Twickenham

17 September 2010

Pope Benedict XVI’s monthly prayer intentions for November 2010

B16 kisses child Oct 27 2010.jpgYou & me, all Christians and people of good will ought to have a habit of prayer, of turning to God because prayer has the effect of naturalizing and lifting the soul beyond the temporal. Join me in praying for these two intentions given by the Pope to us when we turn to God.



The general intention

That through the support of the Christian community,
all victims of addiction may find in the power of our saving God strength for a
radical life change.


The missionary intention

That the Latin American Churches may move forward with the
continent-wide mission proposed by their bishops, assuming their share of the
universal missionary task of God’s people.

7 killed, many more wounded in Syrian Catholic Church, Baghdad

The Church in Baghdad has faced another crisis with the murder of 7 and wounding of many more during the Divine Liturgy in Baghdad today. Reports seem to conflict: as many as 47 are reported dead including 2 priests.

Zacchaeus had the opportunity of a lifetime

Zacchaeus in the sycamore.jpg

When the Lord gazes upon you, looks up you with mercy, love, and interest, are you going to grumble and run away? Or, will you invite the Lord into your home with joy?

The gaze of the Lord is nothing less than THE miracle of a lifetime. God excludes no one, his salvation is give to all people. The lost are sought after by God and offers the chance for conversion. The Lord answers our human need with Himself. His Presence, the same as His Eucharistic Presence does today. His Presence is what we all long for.
The opportunity shared in was likely once in a lifetime … the Lord came to his home.

Spouses are to help each other follow a path of sanctity, Pope Benedict teaches

St Bridget of Sweden.JPGOn Wednesday, October 27, Pope Benedict XVI noted that in
the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the Venerable Servant of God John Paul II
proclaimed Saint Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373), co-patroness of the whole of
Europe. It’s the hope of all of us, as Benedict indicated, that Saint Bridget
“…can intercede effectively before God, to obtain the much-awaited grace of the
full unity of all Christians. We want to pray … for this same intention, which
we consider so important, so that Europe will be able to be nourished from its
own Christian roots, invoking the powerful intercession of St. Bridget of
Sweden, faithful disciple of God, co-patroness of Europe.”


In his address the
Pope noted something that I think is quite interesting, perhaps quite bold to
say, even if it is the teaching of the Church, that married couples are to help
each other get to heaven: “to advance in the Christian life.” Our Catholic
teaching on marriage is that man and woman are to form a “conjugal
spirituality” that is “follow a path of sanctity.” The two pertinent paragraphs
of a longer address are here:

“Bridget, spiritually guided by a learned
religious who initiated her in the study of the Scriptures, exercised a very
positive influence on her own family that, thanks to her presence, became a
true “domestic church.” Together with her husband, she adopted the
Rule of the Franciscan Tertiaries. She practiced works of charity towards the
indigent with generosity; she also founded a hospital. Together with his wife,
Ulf learned to improve his character and to advance in the Christian life. On
returning from a long pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, taken in 1341 with
other members of the family, the spouses matured the plan to live in
continence, but shortly after, in the peace of a monastery to which he had
retired, Ulf concluded his earthly life.

Cristina & Renzo Oct 24 2010.jpg

The first period of Bridget’s life
helps us to appreciate what today we could define an authentic “conjugal
spirituality”: Together, Christian spouses can follow a path of sanctity,
supported by the grace of the sacrament of Marriage. Not infrequently, as
happened in the lives of St. Bridget and Ulf, it is the wife who with her
religious sensibility, with delicacy and gentleness, is able to make the
husband follow a path of faith. I am thinking, with recognition, of so many
women who, day in day out, still today illumine their families with their
testimony of Christian life. May the Spirit of the Lord fuel the sanctity of
Christian spouses, to show the world the beauty of marriage lived according to
the values of the Gospel: love, tenderness, mutual help, fecundity in
generating and educating children, openness and solidarity to the world,
participation in the life of the Church.”

When was the last time you heard a priest speak of marriage in such a beautiful way? That husband and wife not only love each other, raise children, and are active members of the Church but also see to it that the other spouse intimately know the person of Jesus Christ. How important it is to realize that we have to help each other see God face-to-face!!! When we learn the lesson that indeed heart to speaks to heart in marriage in Christ, then will the renewal of the Church happen.

Understanding Catholic faith & public life, no split necessary

Come to Jesus. There is no sensible reason why there has to be split in thinking and acting  when it comes to saying you believe in Christ and follow His Church and being a serious voter or a politician. Today we hear politicians and sadly some clergymen, are not steadfast to the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. They are often working out of a pretext of religion without the substance of the Faith.

For years we’ve heard the bi-polar reasoning that has produced nothing but bonk, fuzzy thinking and inconsistent acting when comes to making the claim of being a “good Catholic” and yet introducing and sustaining legislation that’s contrary to Catholic belief. You can’t support principles contrary to Christ and say that you are a follower of Christ. It doesn’t make sense because there needs to be a clear conformity to sacred Scripture and sacred Tradition. What we do in our private lives must be coherent in our public lives. Belief in Christ is reasonable, that is, true faith doesn’t conflict in any way with reason. It all has to hang together.

RL Burke.jpg

Catholic Action for Faith and Family has produced a video conversation with Archbishop Raymond Leo Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, Rome (the high court of the Church). By now you know that the Holy Father announced his intention to create Archbishop Burke a cardinal of the Holy Roman Church on November 20.
Watch the video: it is clear and helpful…no fuzzy thinking.
Catholics have a moral obligation in voting and to vote for candidates who uphold the moral law, the moral good. If you say you believe in Christ, that you want to stick closely to Him in this life, with the hope of being with Him in the next, then close adherence to Him in everything is required. There is no splitting the vote. 
If you say you believe in Jesus Christ you can’t betray Jesus Christ for any reason while claiming to be a Christian, even if we think that we may offend another because they don’t believe in Jesus as God’s Son and the Savior of humanity. Hence, we say that following an informed conscience is primary, with the emphasis on the word “informed.” Adhering to Christ equals adhering to the Catholic Church, Christ’s Church. It is the teaching authority of the Church continues in time the teaching of Christ which informs body, mind and spirit. We know in conscience, in our heart, that Abortion is always wrong. Taking a life for any reason is not right, it offends the dignity of the human person who is yet to be born. Euthanasia is always wrong. Embryonic stem cell research is always wrong. Destroying the environment is always wrong. And then there is our relationship with the elderly, the children, the poor, the homeless and the immigrant?
Do you follow, that is, do you truly hold the premises of the Golden and Silver Rules as taught by Christ? And the Church doesn’t teach this or that truth but is the truth-telling thing.
In case you are looking for more of Burke’s thinking on the subject of being a Christian and activity in civic life, then I’d recommend reading his 2004 pastoral letter, “A pastoral letter to Christ’s faithful of the Archdiocese of St. Louis On Our Civic Responsibility for the Common Good.”
So, as we prepare ourselves to vote on November 2, do so as an informed person according to Catholic principles.

Abortion and breast cancer: a race to the truth

A few weeks ago I posted a brief piece on Komen Foundation giving funds to Planned Parenthood. Today, Zenit.org ran an article “Race for the Truth About the Susan G. Komen Foundation: Is Abortion and Hormonal Contraception a Prescription for Breast Cancer?” by Jenn Giroux, the executive director of Human Life International in America. Sometimes I wonder when the truth will be revealed!