hope – Communio

Our hope is Christ

At the annual Rimini Meeting in Italy there were 4 witnesses to hope in impossible situations. One of the persons interviewed was the Trappistine superior, Mother Marta Luisa Fagnani. Mother is the superior of a small Trappistine monastery in Azer, Syria.

The video of Mother Marta Luisa, OCSO begins at 33:40.

The witness of Mother Marta Luisa is critical for us Oblates to attend to at this time. Our hope is Christ.

KEEPING HOPE ALIVE WHEN EVERYTHING SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE. TESTIMONIES FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD

Hopefulness, openness to God, living in joy: three simple attitudes for us to have

Three paragraphs excerpted from the Pope’s homily earlier today bear our reflection if we desire to be true disciples of the Lord Jesus. He sets up for us a structure of holiness that unites a totality of life: faith, work, learning, culture. Francis’ homily is clearly Jesuit and clearly marked by an integrated spiritual life. He echoes what we’ve come to appreciate about the guidance in the spiritual life through the Servant of God Father Luigi Giussani. Of course, you can say Francis is showing us anew what the Church believes to be true. Consider His Holiness’ three points:

1. Hopefulness. The second reading of the Mass presents a dramatic scene: a woman – an image of Mary and the Church – is being pursued by a Dragon – the devil – who wants to devour her child. But the scene is not one of death but of life, because God intervenes and saves the child (cf. Rev 12:13a, 15-16a). How many difficulties are present in the life of every individual, among our people, in our communities; yet as great as these may seem, God never allows us to be overwhelmed by them. In the face of those moments of discouragement we experience in life, in our efforts to evangelize or to embody our faith as parents within the family, I would like to say forcefully: Always know in your heart that God is by your side; he never abandons you! Let us never lose hope! Let us never allow it to die in our hearts! The “dragon”, evil, is present in our history, but it does not have the upper hand. The one with the upper hand is God, and God is our hope! It is true that nowadays, to some extent, everyone, including our young people, feels attracted by the many idols which take the place of God and appear to offer hope: money, success, power, pleasure. Often a growing sense of loneliness and emptiness in the hearts of many people leads them to seek satisfaction in these ephemeral idols. Dear brothers and sisters, let us be lights of hope! Let us maintain a positive outlook on reality. Let us encourage the generosity which is typical of the young and help them to work actively in building a better world. Young people are a powerful engine for the Church and for society. They do not need material things alone; also and above all, they need to have held up to them those non-material values which are the spiritual heart of a people, the memory of a people. In this Shrine, which is part of the memory of Brazil, we can almost read those values: spirituality, generosity, solidarity, perseverance, fraternity, joy; they are values whose deepest root is in the Christian faith.

2. The second attitude: openness to being surprised by God. Anyone who is a man or a woman of hope – the great hope which faith gives us – knows that even in the midst of difficulties God acts and he surprises us. The history of this Shrine is a good example: three fishermen, after a day of catching no fish, found something unexpected in the waters of the Parnaíba River: an image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. Whoever would have thought that the site of a fruitless fishing expedition would become the place where all Brazilians can feel that they are children of one Mother? God always surprises us, like the new wine in the Gospel we have just heard. God always saves the best for us. But he asks us to let ourselves be surprised by his love, to accept his surprises. Let us trust God! Cut off from him, the wine of joy, the wine of hope, runs out. If we draw near to him, if we stay with him, what seems to be cold water, difficulty, sin, is changed into the new wine of friendship with him.

3. The third attitude: living in joy. Dear friends, if we walk in hope, allowing ourselves to be surprised by the new wine which Jesus offers us, we have joy in our hearts and we cannot fail to be witnesses of this joy. Christians are joyful, they are never gloomy. God is at our side. We have a Mother who always intercedes for the life of her children, for us, as Queen Esther did in the first reading (cf Est 5:3). Jesus has shown us that the face of God is that of a loving Father. Sin and death have been defeated. Christians cannot be pessimists! They do not look like someone in constant mourning. If we are truly in love with Christ and if we sense how much he loves us, our heart will “light up” with a joy that spreads to everyone around us. As Benedict XVI said here, in this Shrine: “the disciple knows that without Christ, there is no light, no hope, no love, no future” (Inaugural Address, Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean, Aparecida, 13 May 2007, 3).

Pope Francis
The Shrine of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Aparecida
24 July 2013

“Giving a Reason for the Hope that Is in Us” by Fr Robert P. Imbelli

Last week, the Benedictine monks and nuns of St Mary’s Monastery (monks) and St Scholastica Priory (nuns) (Petersham, MA) hosted a public conference, “Giving a Reason for the Hope that Is in Us,” by Father Robert P. Imbelli for the Year of Faith given on April 20, 2013.

Father Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and is a Professor of Theology at Boston College. He studied in New York, Rome and is a graduate of Yale University.

St Mary’s Monastery (Petersham) hosts Fr Robert Imbelli for a Year of Faith presentation on Hope

Benedict XVI’s Year’s end Vespers homily

The Pope’s homily for Vespers at the Vatican basilica follows below. He sets out a very clear direction for Christian living and pastoral activity. Are we going to listen? The Pope preached:

I thank all of
you who have chosen to participate in this liturgy of the last hour of the year
of the Lord 2012. This “hour” bears a particular intensity and becomes, in a
sense, a synthesis of all the hours of the year that is about to come to an
end. I cordially greet the Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, consecrated persons and
lay faithful, and especially the many people from the ecclesial community of
Rome. In a special way I greet the Authorities present, beginning with the
Mayor of the City, and thank them for choosing to share with us this moment of prayer
and thanksgiving to God.

Continue reading Benedict XVI’s Year’s end Vespers homily

Advent’s First Sunday

At the Sunday Angelus today, the Holy Father notes some crucial points about our Christian faith that can’t go unheard and need to be savored deeply in the heart. Notice, please, that Benedict doesn’t talk about expectation but he does speak of the Lord’s coming and presence; his death and resurrection and our final destiny (that is, love) and doesn’t mention the Christ Child as the exclusive image of Advent. The Cross, resurrection and ascension is our only Hope. Pope Benedict addressed the faithful with the following:

Today the Church begins a new liturgical year, a path that is further enriched by the Year of Faith, 50 years since the opening of the Second Vatican Council. The first Time of this journey is Advent, composed, in the Roman Rite, of the four weeks that precede the Birth of the Lord, that is, the mystery of the Incarnation. The word “Advent” means “coming” or “presence.” In the ancient world, it signified the coming of the king or the emperor into one of the provinces; in the language of Christians, it referred to the coming of God, to His presence in the world; a mystery that involves the whole of the cosmos and of history, but that recognises two culminating moments: the first and the second coming of Jesus Christ. The first is the Incarnation itself; the second is the glorious return at the end of time. These two moments, chronologically distant – and it is not given to us to know how far apart they are – touch us deeply, because by His death and resurrection Jesus has already accomplished that transformation of humanity and of the cosmos that is the final goal of creation. But before that end, it is necessary that the Gospel be proclaimed to all nations, as Jesus says in the Gospel of Saint Mark. The coming of Christ is continuous; the world must be infused by His presence. This permanent coming of the Lord in the proclamation of the Gospel requires our continual collaboration; and the Church, which is like the Betrothed, the promised Bride of the crucified and risen Lamb of God (cfr. Rev. 21,9), in communion with her Lord collaborates in this coming of the Lord, in which His glorious return is already begun.

It is to this that the Word of God recalls us today, tracing out a line of conduct to pursue in order to be ready for the coming of the Lord. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says to the disciples: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life . . . Be vigilant at all times and pray.” So: simplicity and prayer. And the apostle Paul adds the invitation to “increase and abound in love” among ourselves and towards everyone, to strengthen our hearts and to be blameless in holiness (cfr. 1 Thess 3, 12-13). In the midst of the turmoil of the world, or the desert of indifference and materialism, Christians accept the salvation of God and witness to it by a different way of life, as a city set on a hill. “In those days,” the prophet Jeremiah proclaims, “Jerusalem shall dwell safely; this is the name they shall call her: ‘The Lord our justice'” (Jer 33,16). The community of believers is a sign of the love of God, of His justice that is already present and working in history, but not yet fully realised, and that therefore should always be awaited, invoked, and sought after with patience and courage.

The Virgin Mary perfectly embodies the spirit of Advent, which consists of listening to God, a profound desire to do His will, and joyful service to others. Let us be guided by her, so that God who is coming may not find us closed or distracted, but might extend to each of us a small part of His kingdom of love, of justice, and of peace.

The cross reveals God’s face of love giving us a sure hope of eternal life

The Pope celebrated Mass for the bishops and cardinals who died in the past year on Wednesday. In his homily he addressed what I believe –and the Church has consistently taught– are central themes of our Catholic faith which are too often misunderstood or not understood enough. The last line of this post is THE most important thought for us to contemplate on today. From the Vatican’s Press Office we read:

The Pope remind his congregation that “eternal life” designates
“the divine gift granted to humankind; i.e., communion with God in this
world and its fullness in the next. Eternal life was opened to us by Christ’s
Paschal Mystery and faith is the way to attain it”. Referring then to
Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, as recounted in today’s Gospel, the Pope
explained how in this exchange Jesus “reveals the most profound meaning of
the event of salvation: … The Son of man must be raised on the wood of the
cross so that those who believe in Him might have life. … The cross,
paradoxically, from being a sign of condemnation, death and failure, becomes a
sign of redemption, life and victory in which, with the eyes of faith, we can
see the fruits of salvation.”

The salvific significance of the cross
“consists in the immense love of God and in the gift of His only-begotten
Son. … The verbs ‘to love’ and ‘to give’ indicate a decisive and definitive
action expressing the radical way in which God approached man in love, even
unto the total giving of self, … lowering Himself into the abyss of our utter
abandonment, and crossing the portal of death. The object and beneficiary of
divine Love is the world, in other words humanity. This completely cancels the
idea of a distant God divorced from man’s journey, and reveals His true
face.” God “loves without measure. He does not show His omnipotence
in punishment, but in mercy and forgiveness.”

Benedictine sisters meet to discuss the virtue of hope

This week in
Rome the Communio Internationalis Benedictinarum (CIB) for a congress, their
6th, on “Hope in Benedictine Spirituality.”

Benedictine nuns and sisters
from Europe, Africa and America are attending the meeting. The CIB is meeting
on the Aventine Hill at the Primatial Abbey of Saint Anselm (known in Italian
as Sant’Anselmo), home to the Abbot Primate , Notker Wolf (pictured left) who heads the confederation of
Benedictine monks and nuns, the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, the Mabillion
Institute and the college for theological studies for those preparing for
ordination, earning degrees in theology and monastic studies (the general link for all these institutes for higher learning is here).

Zenit ran an
interview today with Sister Maricarmen Bracamontes de Torreon, a Benedictine
sister from Mexico who talked to aspects of hope and how understanding this
virtue is key in Benedictine spirituality, and thus for all Christians. Sacred
Scripture instructs us to look at how God works with us, that is, He gazes on
us with faithfulness, compassion and mercifully. Looking to the holy Rule,
Saint Benedict tells us “not to despair of God’s mercy” (4.74).
Sister Maricarmen said the participants are keenly aware that there is “only
one Benedictine heart beats at the bottom of our universal diversity, and on
the other, there is no doubt that we are going through a historical moment of
darkness and we need a light, precisely like St. Benedict, which shines on high
and gives us clarity in the midst of darkness.”

Two questions of the interview
are worth thinking about here on the Communio blog:

ZENIT: Can we then speak of
a reflection from a holistic-rational perspective?

Sister Bracamontes: The
Benedictine way leads to a process of integration that embraces the different
dimensions of the human conscience: cognitive (the mind), affective (the
heart), ethics and morals (the will and all its capacities), religious (the
soul).

This integration enables us to love in a unified way and it is the
condition to advance on the path of conversion. “However, the workshop
where we must practice all these things diligently is the enclosure of the
monastery and stability in the community” (Rule of Benedict, 4.78). The
monastic dynamic animates the processes of integration in those who live in the
“monastery,” which is the place where we ask God with the most
insistent prayers to bring to completion the divine work of our lives: that
they all may be one.

If we persevere, trying to live in the
“conversatio,” the experience of God’s unconditional love gradually
integrates all the dimensions of our being, and thus we become unified in
ourselves and in the diversity and plurality that characterizes us. The result
of all this is that we live with transparency and consistency, that we do not
separate our judgments from our feelings, or our conduct from our belief. In
this way, our integrity and social and personal responsibility will not allow
us “to say one thing and do another,” or to establish ourselves in a
life of contradictions and inconsistencies.

ZENIT: At present the Church is
facing difficult moments. Does it call for hope?

Sister Bracamontes: Obviously.
I think that some sectors of the Church have slipped up in the dialogue with
the signs of the times that was so encouraged by the Second Vatican Council.

Those
signs have revealed that for centuries, both in the society as well as the
Church, efforts were dedicated to contain diversity and plurality, so
characteristic of humanity. There are many human groups, with different views
of reality; they are arriving on the first plane and ask that they be
recognized, respected and integrated. The new methods of understanding and of
discovery of humanity leave antiquated the old systems of relationship based on
dominion, submission and marginalization. These systems of the past considered
some human beings superior to others, based on race, gender, social class,
ideology, religion, etc.

In face of a clearer awareness of the common dignity
of all human beings, the absence of dialogue between those who are open to the
signs of the times and those who continue to adhere to visions of the past and
close their mind and heart to the historic change that we are experiencing,
calls for hope.

From a perspective of faith, we are conscious and are convinced
that the whole of humanity, with its differences, has been created with equal
dignity in the divine image and likeness. We are children of God and sisters
and brothers among ourselves in Christ, who is our peace (Ephesians 2:14), and
in him all discrimination and marginalization is overcome (Galatians 3:26-28).
From this awareness we hear the call and we open ourselves with wisdom and
maturity to our world with its urgent need to recognize diversity, to promote
integration and to encourage dialogue and participation. Hence, many challenges
arise.

“Garry & Harry” the story of twin brothers and priests: a story of hope in the face of Alzheimer’s

Fathers Garry and Harry Giroux are twin brothers, both Roman Catholic priests in a small town in upstate New York. In 2004, Father Harry was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, and his brother Father Garry has been his caregiver ever since. “Garry and Harry” explores this fascinating story and the relationship of these brothers as they deal with their faith, family, and hope in the face of tragedy.

This film is the work of Steven Madeja, a freelance filmmaker and film festival director in Potsdam, NY. Madeja received a Bachelor’s with honors degree in Film from Vassar College in 2008.

Watch “Garry and Harry“

Thanks to my friend Rachel for sharing this video.

Reasons for Hope: the New York Encounter

This weekend the National Diaconia of the Fraternity of Community & Liberation (an ecclesial movement in the Church) will be meeting in New Jersey with some events across the Hudson River in NYC. More than 200 people from the USA, Canada and Italy will be present. Father Julián Carrón, the President of the Fraternity will be giving several lessons and he will be a part of panel introducing a book recently published, Is It Possible to Live This Way: Hope. This book comprises talks the late Msgr. Luigi Giussani gave to the consecrated lay members of CL known as Memores Domini. Some of you may remember we had a similar event last year for the first volume by a similar title as the one being present this weekend, Is It Possible to Live This Way: Faith. The third and final volume in this series on Love will be released next year.

Over the next few days there are a series of events organized by the Communion and Liberation movement and the Crossroad Cultural Center in New York City. In addition to Fr. Julián Carrón, the other panelists include John Allen, National Catholic Reporter Correspondnet; Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete, noted theologian and author; and Edward Nelson, Princeton professor of mathematics. The presentationis open to the public, will be held at the Jack H. Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at New York University, 566 LaGuardia Place at Washington Square South, New York. A free ticket is required for admission, and they will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis beginning at 2:00 pm.

More info on the New York Encounter

You should also subscribe to Traces, the monthly magazine of CL which is faithful to the objectivity of the Church.