Communio – Page 547 – …bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Pope addresses Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations

Pope Benedict received members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations today. Speaking English, the Pope recalled his visit to a synagogue in Cologne, Germany in August 2005, and to the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2006. His Holiness said,

As I walked through the entrance to that place of horror, the scene of such untold suffering I meditated on the countless number of prisoners, so many of them Jews, who had trodden that same path into captivity at Auschwitz and in all the other prison camps. How can we begin to grasp the enormity of what took place in those infamous prisons? The entire human race feels deep shame at the savage brutality shown to your people at that time.

The Church is profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism and to continue to build good and lasting relations between our two communities. If there is one particular image which encapsulates this commitment, it is the moment when my beloved predecessor Pope John Paul II stood at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, pleading for God’s forgiveness after all the injustice that the Jewish people have had to suffer

The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity. … It is beyond question that any denial or minimisation of this terrible crime is intolerable and altogether unacceptable.

This terrible chapter in our history must never be forgotten. Remembrance – it is rightly said – is ‘memoria futuri’, a warning to us for the future, and a summons to strive for reconciliation. To remember is to do everything in our power to prevent any recurrence of such a catastrophe within the human family by building bridges of lasting friendship.

It is my fervent prayer that the memory of this appalling crime will strengthen our determination to heal the wounds that for too long have sullied relations between Christians and Jews. It is my heartfelt desire that the friendship we now enjoy will grow ever stronger, so that the Church’s irrevocable commitment to respectful and harmonious relations with the people of the Covenant will bear fruit in abundance.

See the Pope speak about the Shoah.

Are we clear? Are there any questions about where the Church (and the Pope) stand on this matter?

Where is your attention focused?

Animals focus their attention on their prey. Human beings focus their attention within and, turning towards God, who descends into their being, flee from the world, ceasing to be attached to external objects.

For what they are trying to do is not to lose their concentration amongst the variety of objective things. Prayer is that spiritual means which forbids thought to become dissipated and remain attached to scattered objects.

The images produced by the rational faculty keep us tied to objective things. Prayer liberates us from their gravitational pull, without, however, abolishing them. Humanity reaches out to God and God responds.

Like a Pelican in the Wilderness
Stelios Ramfos

Vatican City State at 80

Today marks 80th anniversary of the establishment of Vatican City State by the signing of the Lateran Pacts of 1929 by Benito Mussolini and Pietro Cardinal Gasparri.

This Pact establishes Vatican City as an independent state, restoring the civil sovereignty of the Pope, compensated the Holy See for loss of the papal states and outline the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church’s and Italy. On 25 March 1985, the Italian Parliament ratified a signed agreement (18 February 1984) which modifies the Lateran Pact.

The temporal government of the Church is technically under the pope as head of state but he appoints a president for the temporal affairs of state. Currently, the President of Vatican City State is Giovanni Cardinal Lajolo; the cardinal has legislative and executive authority regarding the temporalities (i.e., persons, policies & properties).

Understanding Man: Darwin, biology and God

A press conference at the Vatican yesterday, considered the forthcoming conference on Darwin & theology. The presentation can be viewed at the Vatican’s YouTube site. Here’s the H2O News report.

The March 3-7 conference will take place in Rome on “Biological Evolution, Facts and Theories” and was presented by Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of that pontifical council. The conference will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his “Origin of the Species.” The University of Notre Dame, the Gregorian University and the Pontifical Council for Culture are co-sponsoring the event on faith and reason (science) to demonstrate that faith and reason are complementary NOT at odds with each other as is commonly thought.

Jesuit Father Marc Leclerc said: “It’s not in the least about a celebration in honor of the English scientist; it’s simply about analyzing an event that marked for all time the history of science and that has influenced the way of understanding our very humanity.”

The organizers said on the website: There will be nine sessions where academics will treat the “idea that science, on the one hand, and theology, on the other, represent different fields of analysis and interpretation, though often they are incorrectly overlapped, causing confusion and ideological controversies.”

More information on Biological Evolution, Facts and Theories: www.evolution-rome2009.net.

Communion & Liberation observes 27 years of Church approval

On this date in 1982, Pope John Paul II officially recognized (approved) Communion and Liberation as an authentic charism in the Church. The recognition of this fact for the Church means the work of Father Luigi Giussani and so many others was really born of the Holy Spirit. What follows are few items about the movement which come from the CL archives.

The Fraternity of Communion and Liberation

This is the eminent group among those born from the movement, whose origins and aims it shares. It was recognized as a Lay Association of Pontifical Right on February 11, 1982. The decree of approval of the Fraternity’s request for recognition reads that the Holy Father himself was “benevolently pleased to encourage the Pontifical Council for the Laity” that the recognition procedure might have a positive outcome. The letter accompanying the decree, signed by the then Cardinal Opilio Rossi, recognizes that the Fraternity of CL’s contribution to the Church in her work of evangelization is “of outstanding importance and pastoral urgency,” especially in “distant” de-Christianized areas where “the basic principles of human life and social interchange are at stake.” The ecclesial nature of the Association, the letter concludes, makes obvious its “full cooperation and communion with the Bishops, headed by the supreme Pastor of the Church,” down to the pastoral life of the diocese, to which it offers “its experience and contribution.”

This recognition from the Pontifical Council for the Laity amounted to de facto approval of the educational experience of CL.

The first “Fraternity” groups were formed around the mid-1970s at the initiative of some former university students who wanted to go more deeply into what it means to belong to the Church, also within the conditions of adult life and the responsibilities it brings, in communion with others.

Today the Fraternity’s groups host 50,000 people who have made the decision to commit themselves to a way of life that supports the path to holiness, acknowledged as the true aim of existence. The life of the Fraternity normally takes place through the free formation of groups who consider that commitment to be the reason for their friendship and sharing.
Belonging to the Fraternity calls for a minimal rule of personal ascesis, daily moments of prayer, participation in encounters of spiritual formation including an annual retreat, and commitment to the support, financial and otherwise, of the charitable, missionary, and cultural initiatives promoted or sustained by the Fraternity.

Recent years have witnessed also in Italy and abroad the rise of Fraternity groups formed by diocesan priests (the first of these took the name of Studium Christi) who in this way intend to help each other pursue more deeply their vocation and the accomplishment of their mission.

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the pontifical recognition of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation, John Paul II writes Fr Giussani a long autograph letter.

Subsequently, Fr Giussani writes all the members of the Fraternity to call attention to the great value of the Pope’s letter and to the importance of the indications conveyed.

What is Communion & Liberation?

Communion and Liberation is an ecclesial movement whose purpose is the education to Christian maturity of its adherents and collaboration in the mission of the Church in all the spheres of contemporary life.

It began in Italy in 1954 when Fr Luigi Giussani established a Christian presence in Berchet high school in Milan with a group called Gioventù Studentesca (Student Youth), GS for short. The current name of the movement, Communion and Liberation (CL), appeared for the first time in 1969. It synthesizes the conviction that the Christian event, lived in communion, is the foundation of the authentic liberation of man. Communion and Liberation is today present in about seventy countries throughout the world.

There is no type of membership card, but only the free participation of persons. The basic instrument for the formation of adherents is weekly catechesis, called “School of Community.”

The official magazine of the Movement is the international monthly, Traces – Litterae Communionis

*email Kim for a subscription ($30.00 per year): traces@clhac.com

This Traces article is worth your review: A New Movement: A Story of a Beginning

Our Lady of Lourdes & World Day of the Sick

Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; that you may suck and be satisfied with her consoling breasts; that you may drink deeply with delight from the abundance of her glory.

God of mercy, we celebrate the feast of Mary, the sinless mother of God. May her prayers help us to rise above our human weakness.

At Sunday’s Angelus the Pope spoke to the following address to the gathered people:

Today [Febraury 8, 2009] the Gospel (cf. Mark 1:29-39) — in direct continuation with last Sunday — presents us with Jesus, who after having preached on the Sabbath in the synagogue of Capernaum, cured many ill people, beginning with Simon’s mother-in-law. Entering his house, he found her in bed with a fever and immediately, taking her by the hand, he healed her and had her get up. After sunset, he healed a multitude of people afflicted with all sorts of ills.

The experience of the healing of the sick occupies a good portion of the public mission of Christ and it invites us once again to reflect on the meaning and value of illness in every situation in which the human being can find himself. This opportunity comes also because of the World Day of the Sick, which we will celebrate next Wednesday, Feb. 11, liturgical memorial of the Virgin Mary of Lourdes.

Despite the fact that illness is part of human existence, we never manage to get used to it, not only because sometimes it comes to be burdensome and grave, but essentially because we are made for life, for complete life. Precisely our “internal instinct” makes us think of God as plenitude of life, and even more, as eternal and perfect Life. When we are tested by sickness and our prayers seem in vain, doubt wells up in us and, filled with anguish, we ask ourselves: What is God’s will?

It is precisely to this question that we find an answer in the Gospel. For example, in the passage of today we read: “He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons, not permitting them to speak because they knew him” (Mark 1:34). In another passage from St. Matthew, it says: “He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people” (Matthew 4:23).

Jesus does not leave room for doubt: God — whose face he himself has revealed — is the God of life, who frees us from all evil. The signs of this, his power of love are the healings that he carries out: He thus shows that the Kingdom of God is near, restoring men and women to their full integrity in spirit and body. I refer to these healings as signs: They guide toward the message of Christ, they guide us toward God and make us understand that man’s truest and deepest illness is the absence of God, who is the fount of truth and love. And only reconciliation with God can give us true healing, true life, because a life without love and without truth would not be a true life. The Kingdom of God is precisely the presence of truth and love, and thus it is healing in the depths of our being.

Thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit, the work of Jesus is prolonged in the mission of the Church. Through the sacraments, it is Christ who communicates his life to the multitude of brothers and sisters, as he cures and comforts innumerable sick people through so many activities of health care service that Christian communities promote with fraternal charity, thereby showing the face of God, his love. It is true: How many Christians all over the world — priests, religious and laypeople — have given and continue giving their hands, eyes and hearts to Christ, true physician of bodies and souls!

Let us pray for all the ill, especially for those who are most grave, and who can in no way take care of themselves, but depend entirely on the care of others; may every one of them be able to experience, in the solicitude of those who are near to them, the power of the love of God and the richness of his grace that saves us. Mary, health of the sick, pray for us.

Community of spirit in Saint Benedict, Don Luigi Giussani & Pope Benedict XVI

On this the feast of the great Saint Scholastica, the twin sister of Saint Benedict, I thought it would be appropriate to hear a few words about the significant connection between the Benedictines (Sts Benedict & Scholastica and Pope Benedict) and Father Luigi Giussani.

Signs of spiritual friendship

by Don Giacomo Tantardini (In 30 Days, May 2005)

…The hundredfold is not the outcome of a project, of a program. My real program of government is that of not doing my own will, of not following my own ideas, but of setting myself to listen, with the whole Church, to the word and will of the Lord and let myself be led by Him, so that it is He Himself who leads the Church in this hour of our history, Benedict XVI said again in the sermon of the mass opening his ministry. The hundredfold here below, like the eternal life, has a beginning, a “permanent” source (each word from the first appearance of Benedict XVI in St Peter’s Square, that was packed with Romans hurrying to see the new Pope, remains in the memory: Trusting in his permanent help). The permanent beginning is Jesus Christ, the Lord risen.

The Church is living because Christ is living, because he is truly risen (Easter Sunday 24 April). And on Sunday 1 May, when, addressing the Churches of the East which were celebrating Easter, he repeated with force Christós anesti! Yes, Christ is risen, is truly risen!, the immediate applause that rose from the square packed with faithful up to that window was very fine.

Here the communion of mind and heart among Saint Benedict, Benedict XVI, Don Giussani and the most ordinary believer is luminous and total.

Don Giussani always kept the gaze of his life and heart fixed on Christ (Cardinal Ratzinger, in Milan Cathedral, at Don Guissani’s funeral). We need men who keep their eyes looking at God, learning from there true humanity (in Subiaco). And, again in Subiaco, Cardinal Ratzinger concluded his lecture by quoting the more beautiful phrase that Saint Benedict repeats twice in the Rule: Put absolutely nothing before Christ who can lead us all to eternal life. Here, chapter 72: Christo omnino nihil praeponant. In chapter 4: Nihil amori Christi praeponere/ put nothing before the love of Christ.

Saint Scholastica, twin sister of Saint Benedict

Set me as a seal upon Your heart, as a seal upon Your arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned. (Song of Solomon 8:6-7)

Lord, as we recall the memory of Saint Scholastica, we ask that by her example we may serve you with love and obtain perfect joy.

A miracle wrought by Saint Scholastica

Saint Scholastica: Finding Meaning in Her Story

The Monastic Taster Weekend

Are you ready for this? Try out the religious (monastic) life just for a weekend. If you like the experience, come back and stay. The best the English religious orders have to offer! I suppose when you have problems getting people to enter the religious life you have to create “fun” things to attract newbies. The BBC article reports: “In 1982, there were 217 novices in the Catholic Church in England and Wales but by 2007 that figure had dropped to 29.”

Anglo-Catholics flooding the Church of Rome?

Some days ago I mentioned here the possibility of a personal prelature for the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC). I also mentioned that there could be a possibility of a personal prelature for the SSPX crowd and that this might come to pass before the TAC gets their issues worked out. It still may happen but who really knows. Last week an official at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity was decrying the idea as one put forth by bloggers and overstepping journalists. Well, this could be the case. But I doubt it. It seems that a higher authority is thinking about a reasonable theological/ecclesiological solution. So, what does one do with the news reported by The Catholic Herald (of Britain) on February 6th stating that the pope himself is the person behind personal prelature notion for the TAC?

It is doubtful that you’ll see scores upon scores upon scores of Anglo-Catholics becoming Roman Catholic through a set up like a prelature devoted to matters Anglican. You’ll see some, but how many? Your guess. Say a prayer to the Virgin of Walsingham and ask for Cardinal Newman’s intercession.