Topics: Thomas A'Kempis: For the Greater Glory of God and the Honor of The Blessed Virgin Mary....Arch-Bishop Fulton Sheen: Waste of Suffering....Test For a Reluctant Pope: Interestingly enough, written from the United Arab Emirates...I Tripped Over This: Randomness Off the Web.... Transcript of Benedict XVI's Q&A: Priests in Northern Italy....Swine Flu In Egypt: Coptic Christian Persecution?...The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria....St. Mary Orthodox Church: Mediterranean Festival, Good Eats!!!!!!!...SaintCast: Free Podcasts on Saints, News, Sermons and Entertainment....Pope Benedict XVI: Names Five New Saints
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Thomas A'Kempis
For the Greater Glory of God and the Honor of The Blessed Virgin Mary
Submitted by James Spencer
"If thou carry the cross willingly, it will carry thee, and bring thee to thy desired end, namely, to that place where there will be an end to suffering, though here there will be no end. If thou carry it unwillingly, thou makest it a burden to thee and loadest thyself the more, and nevertheless thou must bear it. If thou fling away one cross, without doubt thou wilt find another,and perhaps a heavier."
(This is part 5 of 14 from Book II, Chapter 12, "The Royal Road of the Holy Cross," of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A'Kenpis.)
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Arch-Bishop Fulton Sheen
Submitted by James Spencer
Many years ago Arch-Bishop Fulton Sheen lamented the widespread "waste of suffering." By this he did not mean that suffering as such is a waste, but that so many waste their sufferings by failing to offer them up to God as a prayer and a sacrifice. The surest way to avoid wasting one's sufferings is to make a the "morning offering" every day.
Here are two versions of that prayer.
Version #1
"O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer Thee all my prayers, works, joys, and sufferings of this day, for all the intentions of Thy Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, for the intentions of all our associates, and in particular for the intention recommended this month by our Holy Father, the Pope. I wish to gain all the indulgences attached to the prayers I shall say and the good works I shall perform this day."
Version #2
"O God, in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer Thee the Precious Blood of Jesus from the altars throughout the world, joining with it the offering of my every thought, word, and action of this day O my Jesus, I desire today to gain every indulgence and merit I can and I offer them together with myself to Mary Immaculate that she may best apply them in the interests of Thy Most Sacred Heart. Precious Blood of Jesus, save us."
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Test For a Reluctant Pope
by Damian Thompson
Courtesy The National
Interestingly enough, written from the United Arab Emirates
Benedict XVI will pay his first visit as Pope to the Holy Land on Friday. His itinerary will bring him into proximity to the sacred shrines of three religions in Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Those famous red shoes – not Prada, as legend has it – will be tiptoeing through a religious minefield.
This is a gruelling challenge for an 82-year-old theologian who, until 2005, was convinced that he was going to spend his retirement browsing happily in libraries and listening to his beloved Mozart.
And matters are not made easier by the fact that this Pope has upset both Muslim and Jewish communities in the past three years, by accident rather than design.
The world was surprised when the name of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who had been John Paul II’s doctrinal watchdog for many years, was proclaimed from the balcony of St Peter’s four years ago.
Many Catholics were dismayed. One of them was Ratzinger himself, who had assumed that, at 78, he was safely out of the running. When conservative cardinals put him forward as a candidate he tried to dissuade them. He was too old for the job, he felt – and perhaps too controversial.
On the morning after the election, The Daily Telegraph in London announced that the leadership of the world’s billion Catholics had gone to “God’s Rottweiler”. That was indeed Ratzinger’s nickname, acquired when he disciplined renegade theologians and approved documents reiterating the Catholic Church’s strict line on homosexuality.
Some liberal Catholics were beside themselves with rage and disappointment when they heard of Ratzinger’s election – one Vatican commentator, Robert Mickens, burst into tears on the spot.
They envisaged the Church being taken over by a hard-faced, ultraconservative Bavarian, stroking a white cat like a Bond villain as he fed Catholic lefties and gays to the Vatican piranhas.
The biog
April 16 1927 born Joseph Alois Ratzinger in Marktl am Inn, Bavaria, son of a police officer.
1941 enrolled in the Hitler Youth.
1943 called up to join the German anti-aircraft corps.
1945 placed in a prisoner of war camp by US troops and released at the end of the war.
June 29 1951 ordained with his brother in Freising.
1959 appointed professor at the University of Bonn.
1963 becomes Archbishop of Munich and Freising.
1966 takes up a chair in dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen.
1977 made a cardinal.
Nov 25 1981 named Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office, the historical Inquisition.
Sept 1991 suffers stroke, temporarily impairing his eyesight.
April 19 2005 elected the successor to Pope John Paul II by papal conclave.
Sept 12 2006 upsets Muslim world by quoting a medieval Byzantine emperor’s damning comments on Islam during an address at the University of Regensburg.
They soon changed their minds. These days, no one thinks that Benedict XVI is by nature a cruel enforcer. Now that his job no longer involves snapping at liberal heels, he has changed breed. As they say in Rome, the Rottweiler has revealed himself to be a German shepherd.
This does not mean, however, that Pope Benedict’s liberal opponents inside the Church have been won over to his policies. They realise that many of his instincts are profoundly, even radically, conservative.
They strongly disapprove of his attempts to revive the traditional Latin Mass (effectively outlawed in 1970 after the Second Vatican Council) and they scan the media eagerly, anxious to exploit any papal misjudgements. They have been having a field day in the last few months.
Until this year Pope Benedict was judged by world opinion to have made only one gaffe. In September 2006, addressing the University of Regensburg in Germany, he quoted a medieval Byzantine emperor’s damning opinion of Islam. He was not endorsing the opinion; the quotation formed part of a complex argument about faith and reason, but the clumsy translation of the Pope’s German text into English made matters worse.
Benedict’s speech was carefully nuanced and certainly not crudely anti-Islamic. Nevertheless, the pontiff and his advisers had failed to anticipate the predictable outrage of many Muslim commentators.
Suspicions that this exceptionally clever Pope lacked media skills were confirmed this year when, in a move designed to heal a tortuous dispute with the rebel traditional Catholics of the Society of St Pius X, he lifted the excommunications on four bishops, one of whom, an Englishman named Richard Williamson, was a Holocaust denier.
This was a crisis of the Vatican’s making: evidence of Williamson’s extreme views could be found all over the internet, yet apparently no one had warned Benedict that he was about to make a gesture that would outrage the worldwide Jewish community.
Likewise, when the Pope visited Africa in March he answered a question about Aids and condoms aboard the papal plane in a way that could be taken to imply that condoms spread, rather than contained, the disease.
In fact, neither the Pope nor the Church has made a definitive statement about the morality of using condoms against disease. The Vatican press office later tried to tinker with the transcript of the interview to make the comments less controversial, confirming Catholic anxieties that Pope Benedict was badly advised.
What went wrong? The answer lies in the remarkable fact that Joseph Ratzinger, despite working for nearly 30 years in the Vatican, is a loner. There are few visitors to the Apostolic Palace: the Pope wants to spend his spare time reading, writing and playing the piano (badly, alas). He does not possess, or want to possess, allies among the ambitious and gossipy monsignori of the Curia.
This gentle, cultivated Bavarian policeman’s son did not seek to become a bishop, let alone a cardinal or the supreme Pontiff. His personality bears the mark of the flowery piety of his childhood Bavaria and, in contrast, the dry rigour of the German universities where, as a young priest-professor, he made friends with Protestants and Catholic leftists.
Well into middle age he sometimes dressed in a suit and tie, just like the fashionable radical professors of the era. (These days, however, he proudly wears beautiful antique vestment, much to the horror of liberal puritans.)
Ratzinger’s compulsory membership in the Hitler Youth is utterly irrelevant to his thinking: nowhere in his writings is there the slightest sympathy for the clerical fascism embraced by Catholic ultra-traditionalists.
His politics, in so far as he has any, seem to be middle-of-the-road Christian Democrat. He flirted with mild theological liberalism at the time of the Second Vatican Council, but abandoned that after he became convinced radicals were interpreting the council – which affirmed the role of lay people, reached out to other faiths and prepared the way for vernacular worship – as a moment of total rupture with the past.
Cardinal Ratzinger saw the papacy of the charismatic John Paul II as an opportunity to reassert the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church while reaching out to new audiences. His own project depends less on personal charisma or the thunderous condemnation of modern society.
At the heart of Benedict’s papacy is the belief that Catholics must worship God properly. He wants to heal the wounds caused by the liberals’ cruel repudiation of beautiful Latin services. In 2007 he dramatically removed all the restrictions on the celebration of the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass. Old and new worship should live side by side, enriching each other, he believes.
This policy has alarmed a generation of middle-aged and elderly Catholics (including bishops) brought up to regard Vatican II as a new beginning, a year zero. And Benedict has paid a price for his lack of allies in the Vatican: some cardinals sought to exploit the crisis.
However, the new generation is on the side of the Pope, for younger active Catholics are surprisingly conservative. They see the Pope as a grandfatherly figure who is introducing them to ancient treasures rejected by their hippy parents. Rome these days is full of black-clad seminarians inspired by this “Benedictine” conservatism.
There are interesting parallels here with Islam. Benedict does not believe that Christianity and Islam can converge theologically, but he shares an understanding with Muslim leaders who believe that the strength of a religious community lies in its traditions. Liberal Catholicism and liberal Islam have one thing in common: they have a very poor track record of attracting followers.
Benedict rejects extremists of all faiths, but he is also unimpressed by diluted religion. And he is curious to learn more about how Islam is walking the tightrope of modernising without surrendering its identity because he is walking a similar tightrope.
His visit to the Middle East is fraught with difficulties. So many things could go wrong. But Pope Benedict has a secret weapon: a deep, unaffected charm that breaks out through the shyness to win friends in unlikely places.
When he was a senior cardinal, he walked across St Peter’s Square every morning. He did not march ahead with an entourage of advisers: he was often on his own and only too delighted to chat to pilgrims, sometimes for as long as 20 minutes. That is the side of Joseph Ratzinger that the Muslims, Jews and Christians of the Holy Land are about to discover. Whether it is enough to produce a diplomatic triumph remains to be seen.
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I Tripped Over This: Randomness Off the Web
St. Teresa of Avila: "Remember . . . that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and there is only one glory, which is eternal.
If you do this, there will be a great many things about which you care nothing."
What the....?: 1999 – Sinead O’Connor is ordained as the first woman priest in the Latin Tridentine Church, a Roman Catholic splinter group.
His Holiness Benedict XVI: "When I was young I was rather more severe. I said: the sacraments are the sacraments of the faith, and when the faith isn’t there, where there’s not practice of the faith, the sacraments can’t be conferred. ... (I) have realized that we have to follow instead the example of the Lord, who was very open also with the people who were at the margins of Israel at that time. He was a Lord of mercy, too open – according to many of the official authorities – with sinners, welcoming them or allowing himself to be welcomed by them at their dinners, drawing them to himself in his communion..." blogger's note: this was taken from the article following...
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Transcript of Benedict XVI's Q&A with Priests in Northern Italy
By John L Allen Jr Daily
Courtesy the National Catholic Reporter
Blogger's note: this is a great read and insight into the Holy Father's stream of thought. Alas it is much to long to post here...visit the link here
The morning of Wednesday, August 6, Pope Benedict XVI met with some 400 priests of the diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone in the local cathedral. He was welcomed by the local bishop, made some brief opening remarks, and then took six questions. The pope spoke in German and Italian; the following is a rush NCR translation of the transcript of the exchange released this morning by the Vatican. visit the link here
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Swine Flu + Egypt +Slaughter of Pigs = Coptic Christian Persecution?
Courtesy Stellaa's Blog
Blogger's Note: This is an interesting read from one blogger's personal blog. I had thought the original story, when it hit the news, was a little wacky ...an over reaction by Egypt to the swine flu scare.
Please note: the accuracy said information has not been verified by Venite Missa Est! I leave it to you good readers to discern truth from hyperbole.
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Egypt is predominantly Moslem , you all know that. Egypt has Christians, the biggest group are the Copts, but there are other denominations. A small group of Copts are the Zabaleen. Who are the Zabaleen and what does all have to do with Egyptian politics and economy?
Zabaleen basically pick up all the rubbish, or garbage. They have done this in Egyptian cities for centuries. What they also do is use the organic material to feed their pigs. They raise pigs and sell them on an as needed basis. The service they provide is incredible. Daily pick up and no charge. They basically recycle pretty much all the material.
For some time now, part of the modernization and continued corruption of Egypt by the Mubarak dynasty, they have wanted to take away that work from the Zabaleen and give garbage contracts to corporations that will do the service for a price. Trucks sold by European companies, contracts, charges etc. Of course the reasons used are sanitation, public health. Instead, they should be looking for a way to help the Zabaleen enter into modern methods and sustain their way of living.
So, what an excuse, the swine flu. Now the Egyptian government wants to slaughter the 300,000 pigs owned by Zabaleen for the prevention of the swine flu. The original decree was that the Zabaleen would be compensated for the pigs, but now they are saying that since they can sell the pigs, they will not be compensated.
The Zabaleen sell pigs one by one. They are not butchers and have no refrigeration or a system to sell the pigs. So, it's impossible to sell pigs slaughtered en masse. Not to mention the danger of cholera.
Also, at this time Egypt is in the midst of many worker strikes. What a great time to create an artificial enemy, the Zabaleen to distract from the strikes by numerous sectors.
Yet, what do Western eyes see: 1. The little piglets ,or 2. The fellow OS blogger who thinks this is a brilliant move to protect the Christians.
First of all the Zabaleen are being scape goated and the means of survival are being taken away by the tyranny that is Mubarak, our best friend in the Middle East. The government knows that this is not a solution, but they will use it to manipulate public opinion. They will use it as the reason to eliminate the living of the Zabaleen.
In the name of modernization and in the name of public health two wrongs will take place and we in the West will applaud:
1. An impoverished minority will lose the means of sustainability, methods that date back centuries. Modern companies will do the work with trucks and contracts, kick backs to government officials. The west will probably give loans for this modernization and they will get to sell the trucks. There will be ribbon cutting ceremonies and tv coverage talking about modernization.
2. Mubarak is using the swine flu hysteria to distract from his political problems, the strikes and general dissatisfaction by the Egyptian people with the economy and the policies. Pigs, the symbol of the unclean and non believers will be used to redirect frustration with his regime.
Next time you look for fanatic Isalmists, look at the regimes that we support and how they manipulate and oppress their people.
You see when you reduce the middle east to the binaries we know, just religion, you miss the layers of economic and political nuance that complicate the issues in those countries. Then we can justify supporting their dictators, because we convince ourselves that the dictators are good for the people and ultimately good for us.
Whenever you see an easy binary, look underneath. See all the layers and look at them once in a while from the point of view of the people living in that nation, not just "our interests".
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The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria
Here is a quick look at the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt from Wikipedia. Though Wikipedia is by no means a source for scholarly inquiry (it is a free and open access dictionary) it is a great place to start on any given subject.
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The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria literally: the Egyptian Orthodox Church of Alexandria) is the official name for the largest Christian church in Egypt. The Church belongs to the Oriental Orthodox family of churches, which has been a distinct church body since the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, when it took a different position over Christological theology from that of the Eastern Orthodox and Western churches, then still in union. The precise
differences in theology that caused the split are still disputed, highly technical and mainly concerned with the Nature of Christ. The foundational roots of the Church are based in Egypt but it has a worldwide following.
According to tradition the Coptic Orthodox Church is the Church of Alexandria which was established by Saint Mark the apostle and evangelist in the middle of the 1st century (approximately AD 42).[1] The head of the church and the See of Alexandria is the Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa on the Holy See of Saint Mark, currently His Holiness Pope Shenouda III. About 90% of Egypt's Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, though other churches also claim Patriarchates and Patriarchs of Alexandria.
go to Wikipedia for more information and links here.
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St. Mary Orthodox Christian Church, Wichita Kansas
Mediterranean Festival, Good Eats!!!!!!!
The last time I went to this function I found the people at St. Mary's to be warm and happy. There is a real sense of hospitality and family with great food, dancing and fellowship. In my opinion, I found the food to be better than the "other" Orthodox festival in town (and the parish not as "well off" if you get my drift) and the people to be more genuine. Please visit and give them your support...and take the tour of the church!
St. Mary Orthodox Christian Church is pleased to invite you to the St. Mary Mediterranean Festival, Saturday May 2nd to Sunday May 3rd. For over 75 years, we have celebrated our Mediterranean heritage by holding public dinners and bake sales. With the Mediterranean Festival, we have combined the best of both events.
With our Ala Carte concept, you can taste authentic foods from Lebanon, Syria, Greece, Russia, and Serbia for lunch or dinner. The traditional Lebanese dinner you know and love will still be available as separate items on the Ala Carte line.
In addition to the foods available as Ala Carte items, you can explore our Mediterranean Marketplace where you will find traditional and ethnic baked goods like pastries, breads, & desserts from Greece, Lebanon, Syria, Serbia, Russia, & more, along with imported gift items. Browse our bookstore for gifts, icons, and books on the Orthodox faith, and make sure to take a church tour and see our hand-painted Byzantine frescoes and icons.
This two-day event is our opportunity to share our heritage, and to give back to the community, as we continue our support of local non-profit groups. This year we will share a portion of our proceeds with The Treehouse, A Project of Orthodox Christian Ministries, Inc.
As always, you can pre-order some of your favorite foods by filling out the order form in the PDF below and sending it to the church. All orders must include payment. Pre-orders are to be picked up before the Festival. You can pick up your order on Wednesday April 29th from 9 AM - 12 PM, or Thursday April 30th from 3 PM - 7 PM.
We look forward to seeing you!
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Saint Cast
The Best in Catholic Podcasts
Podcasts on saints, news, sermons and entertainment.
Here is my latest online hobby. At Saint Cast, a production of Star Quest Production Network (Catholic Media) you can download all manner of podcasts on saints and related information. You can also subscribe right out of iTunes. iTunes is a free service from Apple where you can subscribe to many podcasts. I subscribe to Father Z's What Does the Prayer Really Say and Saintcast. IT"S FREE and you don't need an iPod (mp3 player), you can listen to them right out of iTunes on your computer or burn them on a CD for the car. Check it out! http://www.saintcast.org/
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Pope Benedict XVI Names Five New Saints Telegraph.co.ukhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/5226735/Pope-Benedict-XVI-names-five-new-saints.html
Speaking in a packed St Peter's Square, the Pope praised each of the five as a model for the faithful, saying their lives and works were as relevant today as when they were alive. The Pontiff singled out the Rev Arcangelo Tadini, who lived at the turn of the last century and founded an order of nuns to tend to factory workers – something of a scandal at the time, since factories were considered immoral and dangerous places. Tadini also created an association to provide emergency loans to workers experiencing financial difficulties.
Related ArticlesPope Benedict XVI: condoms make Aids crisis worsePrince Charles warns of 'Dark Age'Paraguay President asks for forgiveness over paternity claim scandalThe Kitchen Thinker: are pretzels worth their salt?G20 Summit: Pope Benedict XVI urges leaders to help poor"How prophetic was Don Tadini's charismatic intuition, and how current his example is today, in this time of grave economic crisis!" Benedict marvelled in his homily.
The only non-Italian canonised Sunday was Nuno Alvares Pereira, who helped secure Portugal's independence from the Spanish kingdom of Castile, leading Portuguese forces in the critical Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385.
After leaving the military, he entered religious life as a Carmelite and changed his name to Nuno de Santa Maria. He dedicated himself to the poor, never taking the privileges that would have been afforded to him as a former commander. He is remembered as a national hero today in Portugal, with street signs named after him in many towns, but also as a humble man of great spirituality.
"The canonisation of Nuno Alvares Pereira honours one of the personalities that most clearly mapped out our national history," Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva said in Lisbon. Also canonised on Sunday was Bernardo Tolomei, a nearly blind monk who founded the Benedictine Congregation of Santa Maria di Monte Oliveto in the 1340s. He died in 1348 along with 82 of his monks after leaving the safety of his monastery to tend to plague victims in Siena. The Pope praised his dedication, saying he died "as an authentic martyr of charity." The others canonised were Gertrude Comensoli and Caterina Volpicelli, 19th century Italian nuns who founded religious orders.
He has presided over a handful of canonisation ceremonies in his four-year pontificate, and has left it to other Vatican officials to officiate at beatification ceremonies. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, beatified 1,338 people and canonised 480 during his quarter-century pontificate. Beatification is the first step to possible sainthood. The Vatican must certify one miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession for beatification, and a second miracle that occurred after beatification for the candidate to be declared a saint.
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