Rimini Meeting 2009 get the diplomats thumbs up


meeting Rimini 2009 logo.jpg

The Meeting for Friendship Among the Peoples is about start in Rimini, Italy. Since 1980 there has been a meeting of friends and interested peoples gathered together to understand the various points of contact in knowledge, faith, culture and human experience. There’s been an average of 700,000 people attending this week long event. The Rimini Meeting is influenced by the thought of the founder of Communion and Liberation, Msgr. Luigi Giussani. 

The cultural and interreligious dialogue at the 2009 Rimini Meeting will be happening 23-29 August 2009. The theme for this year’s meeting is “Knowledge is Always an Event.”

Watch the video clip on the diplomats’ preview of the meeting.

The Crossroad Cultural Center did a Washington, DC presentation on this year’s Meeting. See the transcript of the event.

Various pieces of info on the work of the meeting:

+ 30 years of the meeting

+ The Rimini Meeting: 30 years of dialogue

+ The exhibitions at the meeting

Synod of Bishops on the Word of God was truly ecumenical

Last week you might remember a note on the secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, addressing the American Bible Society and friends in NYC on Tuesday, 28 July.

Here are two news clips about yesterday’s event and a forthcoming meeting at University of Notre Dame.
And…the archbishop looking at historic bibles.

Saints Martha, Mary & Lazarus

Martha Mary & Lazarus.jpgWith the Church we pray:

Heavenly Father, your son was received as an honored
and welcome guest in the home of Bethany. Keep us close to the Master in our prayer and work that, blameless in his sight, he may welcome us into our eternal home, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

(Today, the Roman Missal observes the feast of Saint Martha and the Benedictine Missal supplement observes together the memorial of all three saints, Martha, Mary & Lazarus. Since it’s the preference of this blog writer to follow a diversity of Missals, I am using the collect found in the Benedictine missal supplement because the collect there gives the feast a slightly different sense in our liturgical monastic sensibility today. Of prime concern is the remembrance of monastic hospitality and these saints are known to be hosts of the Lord. Our work today, then, is look at those areas in our life where hospitality exists and where it is unfortunately restrained or non-existent.)

Faith roots the relationship with God

Never a day goes by that I don’t ask the question about my faith and my life of faith. I doubt any serious Christian would go through life without asking the same: How does my faith impact my relationship with God and vice verse? Do I live in certain intimacy with the divine nature? Do others see God in me as I relate to them? How credible a witness am I of Jesus Christ and His Good News?


Without faith it is impossible to please God. (Hebrews
11:6). Faith is the foundation of our relations with God. For the man without
faith, God has no meaning, no value, no place in his life. On the contrary, the
more lively our faith is, the more God enters into our life, until finally he
becomes our all, the one great reality for; which we live, and the One for whom
we courageously face sorrow and death. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if
we die, we die to the Lord (Romans 14:8). Those who dedicate themselves to the
spiritual life do not lack faith; but often our faith is not alive and concrete
enough to make us always see God in everything, which would give us the sense
of his fundamental, transcendent and eternal reality that infinitely surpasses
all earthly realities. In practice we do not reflect sufficiently on the truth
that to be a believer is a pure gift of God, not due to any personal merit. God
is both the object of faith and the giver of faith; it is he who infuses into
us the desire to know him and to believe in him and who makes us capable of the
act of believing.

Divine Intimacy, Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, OCD

Love for Christ reawakened thru Luigi Giussani, Benedict XVI recalls

Luigi Giussani 1965 circa Raggio.jpgMy first thought goes — it’s obvious — to your
founder Monsignor Luigi Giussani, to whom many memories tie me, since he had
become a true friend to me. Our last meeting, as Father Carrón mentioned, took
place in Milan Cathedral two years ago, when our beloved Pope John Paul II sent
me to preside at his solemn funeral. 


Through him the Holy Spirit aroused in the
Church a movement — yours — that would witness the beauty of being Christians
in an epoch in which the opinion was spreading that Christianity was something
tiresome and oppressive to live. Father Giussani, then, set himself to reawaken
in the youth the love for Christ, the way, the truth and the life, repeating
that only he is the road toward the realization of the deepest desires of man’s
heart; and that Christ saves us not despite our humanity, but through it. 

Pope
Benedict XVI, address to Communion and Liberation, March 25, 2007

Medjugorje apparitions of Mary a hoax???

20090724-vlasic-letter.jpgA CNA article today announces the priest who identified the alleged apparitions of the BVM is now leaving the priesthood and his religious order. The authorized his defrocking in March. Also disturbing are the reports that some of the seers are living in wealthy conditions, presumably derived from monies given by pilgrims. See the brief Mail Online article. The Telegraph tells more…

The blog Te Deum laudamus has lots of pertinent information.

Capuchins reflect on their work in the Amazon

cap friar.jpgThe Capuchins in Italy are taking time to reflect on
the greatest God-given gift they’ve received: work of 100 years among the native Brasilian
peoples. What really struck me was the Provincial’s comment: “And we truly lived it as
a gift: participating in His mission, that is to say, the mission of Jesus
Christ.” 


Why is this info newsworthy? Last week the parishes of the Bridgeport Diocese had World Mission Sunday (early, I know) where all the parishes had missionary priests preach on their efforts to bring the Gospel to their respective people. Where I am we had Father Anand, a priest from India. Catholics think and act in an outward direction (or at least they’re supposed to) because of their Baptism in Christ and Saint Matthew saying: “Go make disciples of all nations.” All this got me thinking and remembering that Blessed Pope John XXIII asked religious orders to devote 10% of their membership to the missions. Even the US diocesan priests formed associations to work in mission countries trying to respond to the Holy Father’s request. So I ask myself: In what ways will I be a missionary? Are Catholics missionary today? Do we believe that the mission of Jesus Christ is our great gift? How do we intend to collaborate with Jesus and the Church (& the Capuchins)?


Watch the news clip from H2O News here.


Also worth noting is the statement that Franciscan mysticism (a deeper form of spirituality) engages the person affectively. The spiritual life is not an intellectual exercise!!!!!   I wish we can here more about this topic.

Note, too, the Capuchin commitment to technology for the sharing of the faith!!! This is taking Saint Paul seriously. I look forward to seeing the good work in Assisi.

Business and Ignatian Spirituality

You won’t see me giving space to the “good work” of the Nat’l Catholic Reporter on this blog very often (almost never except for John Allen’s work) because of the NCRs frequent loyal opposition to the Church, but a recent article on the intersection of business and Ignatian Spirituality is worth noting. Read it here.

I highlight this article because I like the work of Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer, the president emeritus of Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. Father Spitzer is a philosopher with significant grounding in faith and reason (science). He has hosted  a few programs on EWTN that are very worthwhile.