tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8290789268761846892024-03-13T14:37:30.438-05:00The Christocentric LifeMay the Holy Spirit make you creative in charity, persevering in your commitments, and brave in your initiatives, so that you will be able to offer your contribution to the building up of the “civilization of love”. The horizon of love is truly boundless: it is the whole world!--Pope Benedict XVIAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.comBlogger81125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-73174175357206640662014-08-20T16:11:00.001-05:002014-08-25T18:47:03.256-05:00Becoming the Beloved<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuc08YOVOAwD2OX1kmXpZ7EHGtnuYKSoXmvQufCYFBKe_NE5v_LJlpGcEd33PJcY_pK-MSRnA_S3v3gOySuhAuIs89v2T1lXo58WBDhaVNhR6voSzb01-V0vFvV5b_BFmiq3cewBMoHkg/s1600/51ZQaqLIuxL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuc08YOVOAwD2OX1kmXpZ7EHGtnuYKSoXmvQufCYFBKe_NE5v_LJlpGcEd33PJcY_pK-MSRnA_S3v3gOySuhAuIs89v2T1lXo58WBDhaVNhR6voSzb01-V0vFvV5b_BFmiq3cewBMoHkg/s1600/51ZQaqLIuxL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></div>
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In this sublime work Fr. Nouwen offers: "The greatest gift my friendship can give to you is the gift of your Belovedness. I can give that gift only insofar as I have claimed it for myself. Isn't that what friendship is all about: giving to each other the gift of our Belovedness?"</div>
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This book is, at its essence, a love letter. A love letter from Nouwen to God, from God to each of us, and if we so choose, an offering of our love returned to our Creator who calls us Beloved.</div>
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Fr. Nouwen speaks to each of us as friends: "Dear Friend, being the Beloved is the origin and the fulfillment of the life of the Spirit. I say this because, as soon as we catch a glimpse of this truth, we are put on a journey in search of the fullness of that truth and we will not rest until we rest in that truth. From the moment we claim the truth of being the Beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are. Becoming the Beloved is the great spiritual journey we have to make. Augustine's words: "My soul is restless until it rests in you, O God," capture well this journey."</div>
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In our gratitude, out of our brokenness, accepting our blessedness and giving to all we touch we may share the eternal love that brings eternal joy. </div>
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"Becoming the Beloved means letting the truth of our Belovedness become enfleshed in everything we think, say or do."</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-43757044144786204342014-08-19T18:52:00.000-05:002014-08-19T18:52:46.267-05:00The Great Rebellion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found. Why do I keep ignoring the place of true love and persist in looking for it elsewhere? Why do I keep leaving home where I am called a child of God, the Beloved of my Father? I am constantly surprised at how I keep taking the gifts God has given me— my health, my intellectual and emotional gifts— and keep using them to impress people, receive affirmation and praise, and compete for rewards, instead of developing them for the glory of God. Yes, I often carry them off to a “distant country” and put them in the service of an exploiting world that does not know their true value. It’s almost as if I want to prove to myself and to my world that I do not need God’s love, that I can make a life on my own, that I want to be fully independent.</div>
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Beneath it all is the great rebellion, the radical “No” to the Father’s love, the unspoken curse: “I wish you were dead.” The prodigal son’s “No” reflects Adam’s original rebellion: his rejection of the God in whose love we are created and by whose love we are sustained. It is the rebellion that places me outside the garden, out of reach of the tree of life. It is the rebellion that makes me dissipate myself in a “distant country.” </div>
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Looking again at Rembrandt’s portrayal of the return of the younger son, I now see how much more is taking place than a mere compassionate gesture toward a wayward child. The great event I see is the end of the great rebellion. The rebellion of Adam and all his descendants is forgiven, and the original blessing by which Adam received everlasting life is restored. It seems to me now that these hands have always been stretched out— even when there were no shoulders upon which to rest them. God has never pulled back his arms, never withheld his blessing, never stopped considering his son the Beloved One. But the Father couldn’t compel his son to stay home. He couldn’t force his love on the Beloved. He had to let him go in freedom, even though he knew the pain it would cause both his son and himself. It was love itself that prevented him from keeping his son home at all cost. It was love itself that allowed him to let his son find his own life, even with the risk of losing it. </div>
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Here the mystery of my life is unveiled. I am loved so much that I am left free to leave home. The blessing is there from the beginning. I have left it and keep on leaving it. But the Father is always looking for me with outstretched arms to receive me back and whisper again in my ear: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.”</div>
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--Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son (pp. 43-44). </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-59626921043754931832014-08-18T17:05:00.000-05:002014-08-20T18:15:26.100-05:00Returning Home: The Prodigal Son<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">"Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests”— the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam; the same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light. I have heard that voice. It has spoken to me in the past and continues to speak to me now. It is the never-interrupted voice of love speaking from eternity and giving life and love whenever it is heard."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">--Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-35797503527258267992013-06-06T03:16:00.000-05:002013-06-06T03:16:23.831-05:00Blessings to our friends in Oxford!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimzgiyPJ_F-Gp6zuHkkIncI7G7QLBQs_eW8s3SkEhJ5scTFHbN0hjts6JLnsD1xGGkvNWlO1XHGM2RilL-d5MHMyFckP8_PqlYKgnM3BvxmcSgmnZITin1OQrsKPhvIAOAZg-rcm3JdZs/s1600/IMG_0551.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimzgiyPJ_F-Gp6zuHkkIncI7G7QLBQs_eW8s3SkEhJ5scTFHbN0hjts6JLnsD1xGGkvNWlO1XHGM2RilL-d5MHMyFckP8_PqlYKgnM3BvxmcSgmnZITin1OQrsKPhvIAOAZg-rcm3JdZs/s320/IMG_0551.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stratford Caldecott, Winston & Barbara Elliott</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The Community of Eternal Love, the Blessed Trinity makes his creatures by Love for Love. And then, if free will does not hide it in the darkness, our souls expand in the love we share with one another, a glimpse of the brilliant and overwhelming Love of the Triune God who is Love in singular and communal form. Mysterious? Yes. A gift of mystery. A loving response to love received our greatest offering?</span></div>
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Three questions worth asking: What is worth living for? What is worth dying for? Of what is the spirit made? The answer to all three is the same. Love.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tessa & Leonie Caldecott with Barbara</td></tr>
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Love (another word is Grace) is all around us and yet...the darkness often seems to be expanding today...the victory is promised...but many battles are lost until the end...and yet some victories? To our beloved friends each evening of the days until the Creator of time slips us out of time, sleep well kept warm by the Love of all Loves from the Giver of Love eternal and Grace abundant.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Thank you to Friends from far away who <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh42hGkav6DWhf3Konk3QoVI2Ihr0-ch4dhOGjwh6lLEvHiIbmlCFQzMp5HvNhVdczvqYlkQI4qRyxClEREZ_SMxgBTkM7dX6C1BEg8VeesuxkftfxJ56_grCXuQ-DAgg-9o3fFwjRwhX0/s1600/IMG_0607.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh42hGkav6DWhf3Konk3QoVI2Ihr0-ch4dhOGjwh6lLEvHiIbmlCFQzMp5HvNhVdczvqYlkQI4qRyxClEREZ_SMxgBTkM7dX6C1BEg8VeesuxkftfxJ56_grCXuQ-DAgg-9o3fFwjRwhX0/s320/IMG_0607.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Khalil Habib & Winston</td></tr>
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made far away warm and wonderful. The sites were magnificent, the Bodleian Library beautiful. The friendships, we treasure beyond measure.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0Oxford, UK51.7520209 -1.257726300000058551.594735899999996 -1.5804498000000584 51.9093059 -0.93500280000005853tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-42464474123025497002011-08-14T16:35:00.000-05:002011-08-14T16:35:20.542-05:00Quote of the Day: St. Maximilian Kolbe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtmlBrcy7gdby_WefaYhtI9SH0BywW0Fxn2WVNhi5n1C9ljR5tsoH0W87mB0-24_YGVBEurVRzrhV7M4eDQFEF818EBhfC8_1rbgTibmPiYnmC71JP4Kw2j1t0vnAchDl0fQcDd0sABBM/s1600/M.+Kolbe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtmlBrcy7gdby_WefaYhtI9SH0BywW0Fxn2WVNhi5n1C9ljR5tsoH0W87mB0-24_YGVBEurVRzrhV7M4eDQFEF818EBhfC8_1rbgTibmPiYnmC71JP4Kw2j1t0vnAchDl0fQcDd0sABBM/s320/M.+Kolbe.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="fbPhotoCaptionText">The militant desires for everyone the light of faith, happiness, forgiveness of sins, and a heart afire with God's love. His dream is the happiness of all humanity in God.--St. Maximilian Kolbe</span></span></b>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-47113798942852195052011-08-08T07:56:00.000-05:002011-08-08T07:56:50.529-05:00Quote of the Day: Bring Christ to the World-Blessed John Paul II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY6zuBFOvA3DgIfebDb70OOfaTO67SiI_fDyVT9j2jPDueTIQMZcqKT3s-5CUMycEATXX-87B4310EKvnDI1h5YE651uovivhuF5woxXCcoJxqX4tAUz9u2MSJm3veGIUButdZ2Lxc3k8/s1600/88_pop_john_paul_ii.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY6zuBFOvA3DgIfebDb70OOfaTO67SiI_fDyVT9j2jPDueTIQMZcqKT3s-5CUMycEATXX-87B4310EKvnDI1h5YE651uovivhuF5woxXCcoJxqX4tAUz9u2MSJm3veGIUButdZ2Lxc3k8/s320/88_pop_john_paul_ii.jpg" width="251" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="fbPhotoCaptionText">It is not enough to discover Christ-you must bring Him to others! The world today is one great mission land, even in countries of longstanding Christian tradition.--Blessed John Paul II</span></b></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-77886440062406331372011-08-07T09:29:00.000-05:002011-08-07T09:29:25.602-05:00Quote of the Day: Gerard Manley Hopkins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhscA_csUY3GWktKBAfA_7i30r6Za9hyphenhypheng3fUX-NsK7xrOjKBOxQAwUOmJTXucSQCGwr7ZzKC8JYXOg5NzzpLzI57B_y0G8pYN85yaOwCkZuTlFjYsTSXftQNjo9FMQjK2IHfaqHaJmi6UQ/s1600/Hopkins.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhscA_csUY3GWktKBAfA_7i30r6Za9hyphenhypheng3fUX-NsK7xrOjKBOxQAwUOmJTXucSQCGwr7ZzKC8JYXOg5NzzpLzI57B_y0G8pYN85yaOwCkZuTlFjYsTSXftQNjo9FMQjK2IHfaqHaJmi6UQ/s1600/Hopkins.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="fbPhotoCaptionText">The best ideal is the true<br />
And other truth is none.<br />
All glory be ascribed to<br />
The holy Three in One.<br />
--Gerard Manley Hopkins, Summa</span></b></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-28724668569290945132011-08-06T09:56:00.000-05:002016-08-06T08:57:13.635-05:00The Feast of the Transfiguration<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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August 6, 2011 by <a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/" target="_blank" title="Posts by Communio">Communio</a> </div>
<b>Jos<b>é</b> Granados,</b>, <a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/view/embodied-light-incarnate-image-the-mystery-of-jesus-transfigured" target="_blank">Embodied Light, Incarnate Image: The Mystery of Jesus Transfigured</a>. (pdf, 2008).<br />
From the text:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><b>What is new and surprising</b></span> in Christ is that in him we see not only a fraction of the past, but the ultimate origin from which everything comes; that he foreshadows not only a slice of the future, but the ultimate goal of the universe. In the life of the Son, time encounters its own truth by making visible the depths of eternity.</div>
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Now the glory of the one who eternally comes from the Father and eternally returns to him in love enters into the flesh, into the space where past and future, coming from and walking toward, memory and promise, are joined in the density of the present. We see then how Christ can fulfill the human experience of time beyond what is imaginable while faithfully preserving its structure. These reflections allow us to see in the Transfiguration a key to understanding the rhythm of salvation history. That the glory of Easter is anticipated on Mount Tabor is no exception, but rather a witness to Christ’s dominion over time, including the past and future. The second epistle of Peter tells us, indeed, that the Transfiguration validates the Old Testament in retrospect. From this point of view it is possible to see how the prophets and the just of the Old Testament were justified by the Spirit of Christ. We can glimpse also the meaning of Tertullian’s sentence, quoted in <i>Gaudium et spes</i> 22, in which he sees in the image of man a prefiguration of Christ’s image: “Thus that clay, already putting on the image of Christ who was to be in the flesh, was not only a work of God but also a token of him.” (<a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/view/embodied-light-incarnate-image-the-mystery-of-jesus-transfigured" target="_blank">full text</a>)</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-64632824822755752352011-08-06T07:13:00.002-05:002011-08-06T07:14:36.362-05:00Quote of the Day: St. Maximilian Kolbe on Truth, Good & Evil<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7nEJSN7zraAopgkibQYSFPqPzUoxOh2CfOAdkG4LwdaLm_iOos9-bEK8W5_wIHZcZB0eV3Jh_OjyZchZwnOXU1EYpAFikrp37oOmLUYW5N7zw3JC16FiprM4juX4AxiqYOH0OM8UEWsw/s1600/Maxmillian+Kolbe+beard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7nEJSN7zraAopgkibQYSFPqPzUoxOh2CfOAdkG4LwdaLm_iOos9-bEK8W5_wIHZcZB0eV3Jh_OjyZchZwnOXU1EYpAFikrp37oOmLUYW5N7zw3JC16FiprM4juX4AxiqYOH0OM8UEWsw/s320/Maxmillian+Kolbe+beard.jpg" width="194" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="fbPhotoCaptionText">"No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?"</span></b></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span class="fbPhotoCaptionText">~ St. Maximilian Kolbe</span></b></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-73529828751686322632011-08-05T09:25:00.000-05:002011-08-05T09:25:26.119-05:00Quote of the Day: The Devout Life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQQPHGC4eDkrYIwv1KaosTjMrt2qjuleT4l_jGmIA7FUWQHmnzDTjEWiRWxsBYYzK3wtgNIjYV4ppZMJArvM7cqFwV2EeXsb_bYGWCrYCHSVHs4m9bs94wuZ2dIKq7-rVAQrx36LMUAcc/s1600/St.+Frances+de+Sales.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQQPHGC4eDkrYIwv1KaosTjMrt2qjuleT4l_jGmIA7FUWQHmnzDTjEWiRWxsBYYzK3wtgNIjYV4ppZMJArvM7cqFwV2EeXsb_bYGWCrYCHSVHs4m9bs94wuZ2dIKq7-rVAQrx36LMUAcc/s1600/St.+Frances+de+Sales.jpg" /></a></div><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1}"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}">But even as Josue and Caleb declared that the Land of Promise was good and fair, and the possession of it would be easy and pleasant; so the Holy Spirit, speaking by all the Saints, and our blessed Lord Himself assure us that a devout life is a lovely, a pleasant, and a happy life.-St. Frances de Sales</span></span></h6>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-78459579898159523922011-08-04T15:20:00.001-05:002011-08-04T15:26:58.493-05:00Tolkien: Lover of the Logos<div class="posttitle"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvPRuzxVeOftgYW2pIH9rLEB834ZoZcvBFlv2aGJrzfdT7rJZcWc6FOE7_bdUfkUPucC-d5dpjfydqEibd3SCJpAmYSCIcxuY015oWMABi0Z9NAxGrb4OwVuoyTfokviLKYNXTsX-kYnY/s1600/Tolkien+color.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvPRuzxVeOftgYW2pIH9rLEB834ZoZcvBFlv2aGJrzfdT7rJZcWc6FOE7_bdUfkUPucC-d5dpjfydqEibd3SCJpAmYSCIcxuY015oWMABi0Z9NAxGrb4OwVuoyTfokviLKYNXTsX-kYnY/s1600/Tolkien+color.jpg" /></a></div><div class="post-info"><span style="font-size: large;">August 4, 2011 by <a href="http://communionews.wordpress.com/author/communioblog/" title="Posts by Communio">Communio</a></span> </div></div><span style="font-size: large;">From the Spring 1993 issue: <b>Mark Sebanc</b>, <a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/sebanc20-1.pdf" target="_blank">JRR Tolkien: Lover of the Logos</a> (pdf).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">From the text:</span><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: blue;">Tolkien’s is an exquisitely</span></b> proleptic art that takes a pagan, pre-Christian universe and suffuses it discreetly with a sacramental holiness stemming implicitly from what Balthasar makes bold to call a Christian form. . . . . Like a colossus, Tolkien bestrides the abyss which separates the ancient and medieval worldviews from that of modern man, who has utterly lost sight of the Christ form as the primary means of access to the noumenal world. The power of the Word has been repudiated, and all around us now we see only its debased and slatternly distortions, hideous and mass-produced, like Tolkien’s Orcs. Tolkien’s art restores the incarnational, Christo-logical inclination of language. . . . (<a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/sebanc20-1.pdf" target="_blank">full text</a>).</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-70750783081526950082011-08-02T11:20:00.000-05:002011-08-02T11:20:25.995-05:00Two Wonderful Videos on Catholicism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/9gu3UOoLcos?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><h3 class="post-title entry-title"></h3><div class="post-header"> </div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/yXz7CiIovJ8?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-6443088570674579302011-06-27T09:01:00.000-05:002011-06-27T09:01:47.361-05:00Enriching the Good: Toward the Development of a Relational Anthropology<div class="posttitle"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ5KXNdnptg3YYYU6lePr1fzdEP43uBt1vStLj3jBfuT_pIj2nPr7vTocEYZAaZYn4_9c8eeFrI7pw9V_vLRMzoWTshFozG6FQZDh3mJlwr33k2MVTcZQKgtw9sXuFx0blZwLOofDdJ4s/s1600/communio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="42" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ5KXNdnptg3YYYU6lePr1fzdEP43uBt1vStLj3jBfuT_pIj2nPr7vTocEYZAaZYn4_9c8eeFrI7pw9V_vLRMzoWTshFozG6FQZDh3mJlwr33k2MVTcZQKgtw9sXuFx0blZwLOofDdJ4s/s320/communio.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="post-info"><span style="font-size: large;">June 27, 2011 by <a href="http://communionews.wordpress.com/author/communioblog/" title="Posts by Communio">Communio</a></span> </div></div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span> <span style="font-size: large;">From the Winter, 2010 issue:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"><strong>D.C. Schindler </strong>(<a href="http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/artsci/humanities/facstaff.html?mail=david.schindler@villanova.edu&xsl=bio_long" target="_blank">bio</a>)<strong>.</strong> <a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/schindlerdc37-4.pdf" target="_blank">Enriching the Good: Toward the Development of a Relational Anthropology</a></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;">From the text:</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: blue;"><strong>[W]ealth is not simply</strong></span> a collection of possessions (or indeed an abstract measurement of their monetary value) but more fundamentally a way of being, and specifically, being good. A response to the problem of poverty requires, before some sort of redistribution of wealth, more radically a reconception of wealth, and so an “enrichment” of the notion of the good, or it risks reinforcing the individualistic atomism at the root of poverty.</span></div><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ultimately, in order to overcome the poverty of individualism, which is a spiritual poverty at the root of material poverty, we must think of the common good in its most transcendent sense, and this entails a recovery of the Platonic understanding of goodness. (<a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/schindlerdc37-4.pdf" target="_blank">full text</a>)</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-72106173275523053892011-06-25T09:34:00.002-05:002011-06-25T09:34:20.397-05:00The Mystery of Grace by Romano Guardini<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG_m8phjyRuZaQH2Iv2VqH5Uo6CZtDPkp4w1_iM37Lgvsrviapx7BOwuALnKrQBKQ4V-ZMv9dzxIzHGFjBF8jWjEqve380CEAqJb1FWseuNSw3WaO2CngZTSt2zsfu3O-IZCkI4wYyiZDF/s1600/romano_guardini.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG_m8phjyRuZaQH2Iv2VqH5Uo6CZtDPkp4w1_iM37Lgvsrviapx7BOwuALnKrQBKQ4V-ZMv9dzxIzHGFjBF8jWjEqve380CEAqJb1FWseuNSw3WaO2CngZTSt2zsfu3O-IZCkI4wYyiZDF/s1600/romano_guardini.jpg" /></a></div>Through your creation, O Lord, goes a voice that reminds us of something that is above everything created. The things and their ordering, earth, sun and stones, seem to be pure reality, but our heart knows that they proceed from your holy freedom, and are gifts that should always be accepted afresh. And so they point away from themselves to something higher than they are; but what they might be they do not say.<br />
<br />
This indication is stronger in our own life. Plants and animals grow from their own nature and perfect themselves in it; not so men. Only in joining with this other does he come to himself; he gains his own being only when he gives himself to the other. But there is nothing mortal that could be the last fulfilling encounter for him, and so he is always wandering and searching. <br />
<br />
But what he in fact seeks, he never gains through his own strength. Only grace can give it to him. On grace depends our salvation, but we have neither a right to grace nor the power to compel it. Grace must reveal itself to us, and only then will we recognize it. Grace must give itself to us, and only then will we possess it. And in it alone do we receive our own true self, which you, O God, assigned to us as you created us.<br />
<br />
In the work of your redemption, O Lord, you started a fresh work. You yourself came and called to man. Your being, veiled from all creation, “shown out to him in the face of Jesus Christ”. You showed him how he was lost, and offered him forgiveness. Your love and holiness streamed out to him; now he can accept them and share them.<br />
<br />
All that is your free gift, and yet the answer to our innermost need. We cannot conceive it with our own strength, but when you reveal it, we feel that it is the truth upon which we live. We must preserve it from the claim of the world and from the contradiction of our own inadequacy. But when our heart is open, the truth speaks within it and bears up our existence.<br />
<br />
Awake within me a holy disquiet, O Lord, so that at all times I may search for you. Teach me to understand the mystery according to which you made my being: that I can only live from that which is above me, and that I lose myself as soon as I place myself within myself. Take my hand; help me to cross over to you, so that I may truly find myself in you.<br />
<br />
Amen.<br />
<br />
(From <i>Prayers from Theology</i> by Romano Guardini)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-91578123872474698312011-06-24T07:50:00.002-05:002011-06-24T07:50:31.572-05:00Become Humble like Mary-Mother Teresa<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnNagOgFZORAUf1tRpHcM6BN3rySD8JqStmWbnpvtNs2zxfcqSZ6VZmS3-PCgn0c8-eMhvWWWMhJ8CsyjrYJxkFGCtwqsag06ws2ggawjsu_XY4sjNF6nBir2yF6VlEWufo77D0XfQXsvz/s1600/mother-teresa-pics-0101.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnNagOgFZORAUf1tRpHcM6BN3rySD8JqStmWbnpvtNs2zxfcqSZ6VZmS3-PCgn0c8-eMhvWWWMhJ8CsyjrYJxkFGCtwqsag06ws2ggawjsu_XY4sjNF6nBir2yF6VlEWufo77D0XfQXsvz/s320/mother-teresa-pics-0101.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;">With deep appreciation, I thank you for you remembering me in your prayers. My gratitude will be my prayer for you that you may become humble like Mary, so as to become more and more holy like Jesus. Together, let us thank God for all his tender love and care. Continue to pray for me and my sisters that we may not spoil God’s work. Always be one heart full of love in the hearts of Jesus and Mary by loving one another with a most tender and forgiving love.--Mother Teresa</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-42705183944330268842011-06-23T12:11:00.000-05:002011-06-23T12:11:05.226-05:00The Creation of Man-Romano Guardini<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsybyCEEp0OPmtD2k9Nl69FIwqaTXygRFRDE33Y8GG54-nOGV3VJPJG7Wd_okEwxlEOuPyIEZMUCxqaWL-7XNQsndAIfAyVowb6vDSpyW6PL-SnBkP-M7aIMDnhjPTEfBsG9bsDdbqzgBK/s1600/Romano+Guardini+old.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsybyCEEp0OPmtD2k9Nl69FIwqaTXygRFRDE33Y8GG54-nOGV3VJPJG7Wd_okEwxlEOuPyIEZMUCxqaWL-7XNQsndAIfAyVowb6vDSpyW6PL-SnBkP-M7aIMDnhjPTEfBsG9bsDdbqzgBK/s200/Romano+Guardini+old.jpg" width="151" /></a></div>O Lord, you made all things. You gave them their being, set them in their place and gave them their measure. They are filled with your mystery, and the pious heart is moved by it.<br />
<br />
We people, too, O Lord, were called into being and placed between you and the things. You have formed us in your own image and made us to share in your dominion. You have placed your world into our hands that it may serve us and that in it we may complete our work. However, we must remain your subjects, and our dominion becomes rebellion and robbery if we do not bow down before you, who alone bears the eternal crown and is Lord in his own right.<br />
<br />
Wonderful, O God, is your generosity. You did not fear for your sovereignty when you created beings who were masters of themselves and entrusted your will to their freedom. Great and truly regal are you!<br />
<br />
You have placed the honor of your will in my hands. Each word of your revelation says that you respect and trust me, that you give me dignity and responsibility. Teach me to understand that. Give me that holy maturity that is capable of receiving the right that you grant and of assuming the responsibility that you entrust. Keep my heart awake that at all times it may be before you, and let what I do become one with the command and the obedience to which you have called me.<br />
<br />
Amen.<br />
<br />
(From <i>Prayers from Theology</i> by Romano Guardini)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-72287244391418266672011-06-23T11:20:00.002-05:002011-06-23T11:20:54.075-05:00Working With the Grammar of Creation: Benedict XVI, Wendell Berry, and the Unity of the Catholic Moral Vision<div class="postnav"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGgt7IOnhky6NZy0kcYvPqrHgzdLgoiwUT4WozxCdJgpPcsHPQ9rIOdA9KPLPmmVRWOxzTzZN6uLqY_sNoZBSEoOD-1gV1gRRJKW37etC8Aa2ndfnedpBIw-woGNNU-j3kB6kz_KZjg-y/s1600/communio.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="42" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGgt7IOnhky6NZy0kcYvPqrHgzdLgoiwUT4WozxCdJgpPcsHPQ9rIOdA9KPLPmmVRWOxzTzZN6uLqY_sNoZBSEoOD-1gV1gRRJKW37etC8Aa2ndfnedpBIw-woGNNU-j3kB6kz_KZjg-y/s320/communio.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="alignleft">June 23, 2011 by <a href="http://communionews.wordpress.com/author/communioblog/" title="Posts by Communio">Communio</a></div></div>From the Winter 2010 <a href="http://communio-icr.com/latest.htm" target="_blank">issue</a>:<br />
<b>David Cloutier</b>. <a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/cloutier37-4.pdf" target="_new">Working With the Grammar of Creation: Benedict XVI, Wendell Berry, and the Unity of the Catholic Moral Vision</a><br />
From the text:<br />
<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><b><span style="color: blue;">At the heart of Berry’s work</span></b> is a conviction about the pattern of nature, a pattern he seeks to discover through the careful practice of farming. He is sometimes called an “agrarian writer,” and he notes the influence of the “Southern agrarians” on his work. Yet he worries that, for some of these writers, their agrarianism “is abstract, too purely mental . . . too often remote from the issues of practice.” Berry’s own life is “forcibly removed” from “abstraction,” and instead “must submit to the unending effort to change one’s mind and ways to fit one’s farm.” But ultimately such effort is aimed at “seeing in nature the inescapable standard and in natural processes the necessary pattern for any human use of the land.”</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />
</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;">The patterns are discovered through ignorance and discipline. “Ignorance” here refers to a “humbling knowledge” that is “a way of acknowledging the uniqueness of every individual creature, deserving respect, and the uniqueness of every moment, deserving wonder.” Such a way of proceeding acknowledges limits, both in oneself and in the human condition. Since we are often uncomfortable with such limits, hewing to them also requires discipline. In preferring a lack of discipline, we ordinarily end up allowing our desires to determine what we will do and how we will do it. However, “we have, in fact, no right to ask the world to conform to our desires.” . . .</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />
[The] conflict between environmental romanticism and industrial capitalism, two oversimplified patterns, also appears in virtually the same form in our thinking about human sexuality. Indeed, Berry argues that our sexual lives are governed primarily by a “sexual romanticism,” that worships “true love,” trying to defend against the “sexual capitalism” of purely instrumental use of sex for pleasure. Sexual capitalists, he remarks, are merely disillusioned sexual romantics. As he puts it wryly, “The sexual romantic croons, ‘You be-long to me.’ The sexual capitalist believes the same thing, but has stopped crooning.” An oversimplified pattern of possessive ownership replaces the much more complex mutual belonging that is marriage.</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />
</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;">Summarizing these oversimplified grammars in an essay on language, Berry diagnoses its “increasing unreliability” by explaining two types of language that fail to be accountable in their imprecision, and hence oversimplification. One kind of language is “diminished by subjectivity, which ends in meaninglessness . . . .” This is the language of expressivist romanticism. But then there is also “a language diminished by objectivity, or so-called objectivity (inordinate or irresponsible ambition), which ends in confusion.” This is the language of specialization, which Berry so often derides, a language characteristic especially of industrial science, but which also infects most areas of knowledge. Both these sorts of language, in different ways, ultimately dispense with the matter of truth, insofar as they fail to be accountable to the reality which they are trying to designate. Therefore, the languages are useful for concealing ignorance, but also for attempting supposed knowledge of things without the practices of discipline actually required. (<a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/cloutier37-4.pdf" target="_blank">full text</a>.)</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />
</div><b>DAVID CLOUTIER</b> is <a href="http://www.msmary.edu/College_of_liberal_arts/theology/department-of-theology/Faculty.html" target="_blank">associate professor of theology</a> at Mount St. Mary’s<br />
University in Emmitsburg, Maryland.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-77549410129710333072011-06-22T07:38:00.001-05:002016-08-17T12:46:23.873-05:00St. John Fisher-An Example for Our Time<div align="CENTER">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #993300;">Saint John Fisher, Bishop & Martyr</span><span style="color: #993300;"><br />
</span></b></span><span style="color: #993300; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;">If more Catholic Bishops were like Fisher more Catholic politicians would be like St. Thomas More</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;"><br />
<b><span style="color: #993300;">June 22nd</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: black;">John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester</span></b></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;"><br />
Born at Beverly, 1469 - martyred June 22, 1535, Tower of London<br />
Canonized (with Saint Thomas More) 1935</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;">Saint John Fisher studied theology in Cambridge, England and became Bishop of Rochester. His friend Saint Thomas More wrote of him, "I reckon in this realm no one man, in wisdom, learning, and long approved virtue together, meet to be matched and compared with him."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;">Saint John Fisher and his friend Saint Thomas More gave up their lives in testimony to the unity of the Church and to the indissolubility of marriage.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;">Source: Daily Roman Missal, Edited by Rev. James Socías, <a href="http://www.theologicalforum.org/">Midwest Theological Forum</a>, Chicago, Illinois ©2003</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Born at Beverly, 1469 + June 22, 1535, Tower of London<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial";"> </span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial";">Reply to Bishops Stokesley, Gardiner and Tunstal, sent to the Tower by Thomas Cromwell to persuade Fisher to submit to the King:</span></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Methinks it had been rather our parts to stick together in repressing these violent and unlawful intrusions and injuries dayly offered to our common mother, the holy Church of Christ, than by any manner of persuasions to help or set forward the same. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And we ought rather to seek by all means the temporal destruction of the so ravenous wolves, that daily go about worrying and devouring everlastingly, the flock that Christ committed to our charge, and the flock that Himself died for, than to suffer them thus to range abroad. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But (alas) seeing we do it not, you see in what peril the Christian state now standeth: We are besieged on all sides, and can hardly escape the danger of our enemy. And seeing that judgment is begone at the house of God, what hope is there left (if we fall) that the rest shall stand! </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it. And therefore seeing the matter is thus begun, and so faintly resisted on our parts, I fear that we be not the men that shall see the end of the misery. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wherefore, seeing I am an old man and look not long to live, I mind not by the help of God to trouble my conscience in pleasing the king this way whatsoever become of me, but rather here to spend out the remnant of my old days in praying to God for him.<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial";"> </span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial";">On the scaffold he said to the people assembled:</span></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's Holy Catholic Church, and I thank God hitherto my stomach hath served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Wheefore I do desire you all to help and assist me with your prayers, that at the very point and instant of death's stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast without fainting in any one point of the Catholic faith free from any fear; and I beseech Almighty God of His infinite goodness to save the king and this Realm, and that it may please Him to hold His holy hand over it, and send the king good Counsel.<b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial";"> </span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial";">He then knelt, said the <i>Te Deum</i>, <i>In te domine speravi</i>, and submitted to the axe.</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;">Of all the English bishops, only Bishop John Fisher of Rochester publicly opposed Henry VIII's mandatory Oath of Allegience, which unlawfully declared King Henry the head of the Church of England. The bishop's stand ultimately cost him his life. May his example inspire all Catholics today, especially the bishops on whose courageous leadership the Church depends.</span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;"><b>Collect:</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;"><b><br />
</b>Father,<br />
You confirm the true faith<br />
with the crown of martyrdom.<br />
May the prayers of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More<br />
give us the courage to proclaim our faith<br />
by the witness of our lives.<br />
Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son,<br />
who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit,<br />
one God, for ever and ever. + Amen.<b> </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "times" , "arial"; font-size: large;"><b>First Reading: I Peter 4:12-19<br />
</b>Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker; yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God. For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? And "If the righteous man is scarcely saved, where will the impious and sinner appear?" Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will do right and entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.<br />
<b><br />
Gospel Reading: Matthew 10:34-39<br />
</b>"Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-76319062572115447292011-06-21T06:47:00.002-05:002011-06-21T06:47:37.891-05:00The Creation of the World-Romano Guardini<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG_m8phjyRuZaQH2Iv2VqH5Uo6CZtDPkp4w1_iM37Lgvsrviapx7BOwuALnKrQBKQ4V-ZMv9dzxIzHGFjBF8jWjEqve380CEAqJb1FWseuNSw3WaO2CngZTSt2zsfu3O-IZCkI4wYyiZDF/s1600/romano_guardini.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG_m8phjyRuZaQH2Iv2VqH5Uo6CZtDPkp4w1_iM37Lgvsrviapx7BOwuALnKrQBKQ4V-ZMv9dzxIzHGFjBF8jWjEqve380CEAqJb1FWseuNSw3WaO2CngZTSt2zsfu3O-IZCkI4wYyiZDF/s1600/romano_guardini.jpg" /></a></div>O God, your revelation is a light for our mind, that it may understand, and a call to our heart, that it may hear and obey. So teach us properly to accept the message that you made man and with him all things.<br />
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We were born through you. We do not originate from the silent elements, but from the free power of your commanding word; not from the prime matter of the world, but from your clear truth. And all things were born through you. The world is not nature shrouded in its own mystery, but your work. You conceived it and brought it into being. From you it has reality and strength, being and purpose, and you bore witness to it, calling it “good” and “very good”.<br />
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I believe that all was created by you, O God. Teach me to understand this truth. It is the truth of existence, and if it is forgotten, then all sinks into injustice and folly. My heart has agreed to it. I do not wish to live in my own right, but in freedom through you. By my own efforts I have nothing; everything is a gift from you, and only becomes mine when I receive it from you.<br />
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Always I receive myself from your hand. So it is, and so it should be. That is my truth and my joy. Your eye is seeing me always, and I live upon your gaze, my creator and my salvation. Teach me, in the stillness of your presence, to understand the mystery that I am. And that I am through you and before you and for you.<br />
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Amen.<br />
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(From <i>Prayers from Theology</i> by Romano Guardini)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-3183110488475284302011-06-20T14:39:00.000-05:002011-06-20T14:39:35.449-05:00Tracey Rowland: The Anglican Patrimony<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj80VNqtZXjik5CSaVK6JuqCJscq2gjljbCb5pWS0C9pbVyWWJ8xsnFFyBYeg7TQ8OvjHZdIyG67tV2rz8ilDXqxX-EnVRQhzEnBfoeNzWbkbU2LpBoqePw9n4dQvkfRhoZCws9znGogCJO/s1600/Statue+-+Our+Lady+of+Walsingham.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj80VNqtZXjik5CSaVK6JuqCJscq2gjljbCb5pWS0C9pbVyWWJ8xsnFFyBYeg7TQ8OvjHZdIyG67tV2rz8ilDXqxX-EnVRQhzEnBfoeNzWbkbU2LpBoqePw9n4dQvkfRhoZCws9znGogCJO/s320/Statue+-+Our+Lady+of+Walsingham.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><small class="date"> <span class="date_day">18</span> <span class="date_month">06</span> <span class="date_year">2011</span></small><br />
<small class="date"><span class="date_year"> </span> </small> <br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Professor Tracey Rowland is Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage & Family in Melbourne, Australia, and gave this address at a conference for those exploring joining a Personal Ordinariate in Australia. She is also the author of the popular and excellent </i><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ratzingers-Faith-Theology-Pope-Benedict/dp/0199570345/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308297761&sr=8-1">Ratzinger’s Faith</a><i>, published by Oxford University Press.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pope Benedict XVI has consistently held that the ecumenical process is one of acquiring unity in diversity, not structural reintegration. For example, in his Ecumenical Address in Cologne in 2005 he remarked that ‘Ecumenism does not mean what could be called an ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history – it does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline’.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In this address he also spoke of dialogue as an exchange of gifts in which the Churches and Ecclesial Communities can make available their own riches. This theme was reiterated in a parallel address in the Crypt of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, at the second World Youth Day of his pontificate. He noted that whereas an idea aims at truth, a gift expresses love. Both, he concluded, were essential elements of dialogue.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The announcement of the establishment of a Personal Ordinariate for Anglicans has been the most dramatic example of Pope Benedict’s attempt to put these principles into operation. According to Cardinal Levada:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>It is the hope of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, that the Anglican clergy and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this ecumenical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith. Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural diversity, as the history of Christianity shows.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In his published commentary on <i>Anglicanorum Coetibus</i> Cardinal Levada noted that this proposal of a Personal Ordinariate was consistent with the earlier ecumenical efforts of Cardinal Mercier of Belgium who explored the possibility of an Anglican union with the Catholic Church under the principle of an Anglicanism ‘reunited but not absorbed’. Cardinal Levada also noted that paragraph 13 of the Second Vatican Council’s <i>Decree on Ecumenism </i>recognised the special place of the Anglican Communion as a body in which Catholic traditions and institutions were to some degree retained after the Reformation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">From my personal experience I would say that for many Anglo-Catholics the barriers to full communion with the See of Peter have tended to be primarily cultural rather than doctrinal. They have been reluctant to seek full membership of the Catholic Church because of a not unreasonable belief that they would have to abandon whole elements of their Anglican cultural heritage. It is precisely this problem Pope Benedict hopes the creation of an Ordinariate will overcome.<br />
<br />
Read the complete essay <a href="http://ordinariateportal.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/tracey-rowland-the-anglican-patrimony/">here</a>. </div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-74717741585598252052011-06-20T09:32:00.002-05:002011-06-20T09:32:40.352-05:00Caritas in Veritate and Economic Theory-Nicholas J. Healy, Jr.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGgt7IOnhky6NZy0kcYvPqrHgzdLgoiwUT4WozxCdJgpPcsHPQ9rIOdA9KPLPmmVRWOxzTzZN6uLqY_sNoZBSEoOD-1gV1gRRJKW37etC8Aa2ndfnedpBIw-woGNNU-j3kB6kz_KZjg-y/s1600/communio.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="42" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGgt7IOnhky6NZy0kcYvPqrHgzdLgoiwUT4WozxCdJgpPcsHPQ9rIOdA9KPLPmmVRWOxzTzZN6uLqY_sNoZBSEoOD-1gV1gRRJKW37etC8Aa2ndfnedpBIw-woGNNU-j3kB6kz_KZjg-y/s320/communio.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>June 20, 2011 by <a href="http://communionews.wordpress.com/author/communioblog/" title="Posts by Communio">Communio</a> <br />
From the Winter, 2010 issue: <a href="http://communio-icr.com/latest.htm" target="_blank">A Symposium on <i>Caritas in veritate</i></a>.<br />
<b>Nicholas J. Healy, Jr. </b>(<a href="http://www.johnpaulii.edu/faculty/detail/nicholas-healy" target="_blank">bio</a>): <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/healy37-4.pdf" target="_new"><i>Caritas in veritate</i> and Economic Theory</a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
From the text:<br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;">. . . <span style="color: blue;"><b>Benedict is also asking</b></span> us to re-conceive the meaning of economic activity and economic logic; the study of “efficient use of scarce resources” is not realistic. There is “more” to economic relations than efficiency or utility. The “economy” allows for an exchange of goods between members of the human family; market exchanges are an integral part of human life and the common good of humanity. The logic of gift is not extraneous to the logic of the market; it rather opens the door to good economic analysis. . . (<a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/healy37-4.pdf" target="_blank">full text</a>)</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-39584291326231251642011-06-15T07:28:00.000-05:002011-06-15T07:28:02.852-05:00The Anthropological Vision of Caritas in Veritate in Light of Cultural and Economic Life in the United States<div class="posttitle"><div class="post-info"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeBucyMTEYFR2h5ieDOvKADZvnPGGlpf-Z2qXCfWiBQ8KC9XL5rOyC2gqcQQs-yo-I-uKr2cGMvCFXBmOZRSUaIavkop0V4MMGBErVOUmm-FcOOSKQlzuDy1JfYDeCMP_Xo5Sse4-y1jM/s1600/Winter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeBucyMTEYFR2h5ieDOvKADZvnPGGlpf-Z2qXCfWiBQ8KC9XL5rOyC2gqcQQs-yo-I-uKr2cGMvCFXBmOZRSUaIavkop0V4MMGBErVOUmm-FcOOSKQlzuDy1JfYDeCMP_Xo5Sse4-y1jM/s1600/Winter.jpg" /></a></div>June 14, 2011 by <a href="http://communionews.wordpress.com/author/communioblog/" title="Posts by Communio">Communio</a> </div></div>From the <a href="http://communio-icr.com/latest.htm" target="_blank">Winter 2010</a> issue:<br />
<b>David L. Schindler.</b> <a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/schindlerdl37-4.pdf" target="_blank">The Anthropological Vision of <i>Caritas in veritate</i> in Light of Cultural and Economic Life in the United States</a>.<br />
<i>From the text:</i><br />
<div style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><b><i>Caritas in veritate</i> takes up</b></span> the complicated question of technology in its last chapter. Benedict of course acknowledges that technology “enables us to exercise dominion over matter” and to “improve our conditions of life,” and in this way goes to “the heart of the vocation of human labor” (n. 69). The relevant point, however, is that “technology is never merely technology” (n. 69). It always invokes some sense of the order of man’s naturally given relations to God and others. Technology thus, rightly conceived, must be integrated into the call to holiness, indeed into the covenant with God, implied in this order of relations (cf. n. 69): integrated into the idea of creation as something first given to man, as gift, “not something self-generated” (n. 68) or produced by man.</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><br />
</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;">Here again we see the importance of the family. It is inside the family that we first learn a “technology” that respects the dignity of the truly weak and vulnerable—the just-conceived and the terminally-ill, for example—for their own sake. It is inside the family, indeed the family as ordered to worship, that we first learn the habits of patient interiority necessary for genuine relationships: for the relations that enable us to see the truth, goodness, and beauty of others as given (and also to maintain awareness of “the human soul’s ontological depths, as probed by the saints”: n. 76). It is inside the family that we can thus learn the limits of the dominant social media of communication made available by technology, which promote surface movements of consciousness involving mostly the gathering of bits of information, and foster inattention to man in his depths and his transcendence as created by God. It is in the family that we first become open to the meaning of communication in its ultimate and deepest reality as a dia-logos of love that is fully revealed by God in the life, and thus including also the suffering, of Jesus Christ (cf. n. 4).</div><div style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/schindlerdl37-4.pdf" target="_blank">Read the full article.</a></div><br />
DAVID L. SCHINDLER (<a href="http://www.johnpaulii.edu/faculty/detail/provostdean" target="_blank">bio</a>) is Provost and Gagnon Professor of Fundamental Theology at the <a href="http://www.johnpaulii.edu/" target="_blank">Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family</a> at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-40596602770405277542011-06-11T08:28:00.000-05:002011-06-11T08:28:32.360-05:00A Birthday Prayer (for Veronica Rose Birzer)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2GzwysysvvLwYZJl-kuyC5lw5FRso0mkkSC5caLNRBDbqG6k5WxfteGCFCip3wbBnICzyM8ajbulx-xyfLZuWrSCelLjie5QK7XL9iVt9jswxA_uXKpccQ89YXZfhby_Q-E4Z_w4iiJL3/s1600/257646_10150213047623360_784858359_6978137_1098149_o.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Veronica Rose Birzer born June 11, 2011</td></tr>
</tbody></table><b>by Stephen Masty</b><br />
<br />
<b>A Birthday Prayer<br />
(for Veronica Rose Birzer)</b><br />
<br />
Hear the tocsin as it blows,<br />
Down the mountain as it snows,<br />
Word across the valley goes:<br />
Born to us, Veronica Rose.<br />
<br />
As our days turn middling dark,<br />
As decay around us grows,<br />
Pray she be our Joan of Arc,<br />
Fearsome to our craven foes;<br />
Arm her with Thine Holy Word,<br />
Keep her safe where ‘ ere she goes,<br />
Strong of will and mind and sword,<br />
Make her, Lord, Veronica Rose.<br />
<br />
As the face of Christ was washed,<br />
(By her namesake, bear in mind),<br />
Keep her selfish instincts quashed;<br />
By Our Lady, make her kind;<br />
Let her, Lord, draw joy in store<br />
From all Thee made and all that grows;<br />
Guard her soul for evermore,<br />
And keep her Thine, Veronica Rose.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-33352272972563013192011-06-10T17:12:00.003-05:002011-06-14T22:14:10.172-05:00A brief Reflection on Marriage: In Unity and Love<div style="text-align: right;"></div><b>by Winston Elliott III</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSg1u22YFEUcEebd_i2G4J5Va49XY6Trno6JS9ZJy4mOBiFajmUJBG0fQ-wa3btHTM_qrifJhFOrFYW9MRlP5jEot-Y9CY5fOHxsgwSa89W0n0BrL-HW9FaU7bmBxspkizAWdamaf-e7M/s1600/249733_10150291107965081_129704790080_9359265_3692951_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSg1u22YFEUcEebd_i2G4J5Va49XY6Trno6JS9ZJy4mOBiFajmUJBG0fQ-wa3btHTM_qrifJhFOrFYW9MRlP5jEot-Y9CY5fOHxsgwSa89W0n0BrL-HW9FaU7bmBxspkizAWdamaf-e7M/s320/249733_10150291107965081_129704790080_9359265_3692951_n.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lt. & Mrs. Winston Elliott IV</td></tr>
</tbody></table><b>(Dedicated to Marti & Winston IV)</b><br />
<br />
<b>Genesis 2:18</b> Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone..."<br />
<br />
This is the first time in Sacred Scripture that our Lord says anything in creation is "not good." The light was good. The stars and the beasts of the earth were good. But it is not good that man should be alone. So our Creator, in perfect love, creates the human community of love. "I will make him a helper fit for him.” Not only will God give man a helper but the way he forms woman brings union to all humanity.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Genesis 2:21</b> "So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man...took one of his ribs ...and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man." So this new creation of God was not to be as the beasts and the stars. Not to be separate from man. For this new creation was joined to man out of his own flesh. How did the man react to this gift from his Creator? "Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh...” Adam saw that woman was unique for she was forever a part of him. For she was created from the "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." The woman completes the man. He is not complete without her for she has his very bone as her beginning. Man has been given life by his Creator. Woman has been given her very existence as gift out of the very substance of man. What is the appropriate response to such gifts? Gratitude. Gratitude for the life, from love, God has given to man and woman. And gratitude for the gift of one another. For God now viewed his Creation, "everything he had made, and behold, it was very good."<br />
<br />
What does this mean to sons of Adam today? What is man to do in relation to his life with woman? "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh."<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGbVXBV0hp4jHn8_fEUfV5xQA9f3GrVA5_1WCm_lGcbjySN88zquY4d58RNhDN3jMNz5Uq0L1hEnWwz83nsAHi0BtIGShZhycDVEA0dSwQvi-xIePC2bbZ0_pmyJb7_aXIRTSYxyz1Hs/s1600/Wedding+at+Cana.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGbVXBV0hp4jHn8_fEUfV5xQA9f3GrVA5_1WCm_lGcbjySN88zquY4d58RNhDN3jMNz5Uq0L1hEnWwz83nsAHi0BtIGShZhycDVEA0dSwQvi-xIePC2bbZ0_pmyJb7_aXIRTSYxyz1Hs/s320/Wedding+at+Cana.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wedding feast at Cana</td></tr>
</tbody></table>They become one flesh in the sacrament of marriage. How important is this to Jesus? Perhaps we can draw an answer to this from the wedding in Cana. Jesus lived life with a purpose. He had a mission and what he did in his earthly life tells us what we should remember about his, and our, mission. In Cana he is part of the celebration of the joining of a man and woman. There he performs his first public miracle. Is this a sign of the importance of marriage in the kingdom of God?<br />
<br />
Even this is only the beginning of the story. Now they are joined. They are one flesh. How are they to live the life of nuptial bliss? Jesus gives an answer to this question.<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>In John 17:21 Jesus prays that his disciples "...</b>may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." With these words as a guide the family, the center of Christian life, may emulate the perfect community of love, the Blessed Trinity. Then they will play their part inspiring the whole world to believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Are we really capable of living love patterned after that perfect community? Jesus prayed that it would be so: "I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." A prayer for perfect love so that we may demonstrate to the world the Father's love. This is a mission for marriage and family life. Jesus wants this for us, his family. This is why he prays that "the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” He in us and we in him. One flesh. A union with God and with one another. Then may come forth generations to spread God's love to the world. Let it be so. Amen.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-829078926876184689.post-53574598197021781152011-06-10T14:59:00.002-05:002011-06-11T16:13:41.628-05:00Gospel Reflection-Do You Love Me? Really?<b>by Winston Elliott III </b><br />
<br />
<b>John 21:15-19</b><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj18kC5uRXHvyifUq3ZVCD8t8tsr_7T2dGghthYp-p3EnkKcRo79Qahk6IXr1ebHA9OTA5kIH-UiR3cekmarXemTqtJ6Rns4YqDlSVdVGhXSbZNNlzNI1_ERnf3FB4VlPVE9z-RuPB3SxA/s1600/Jesus+%2526+Peter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj18kC5uRXHvyifUq3ZVCD8t8tsr_7T2dGghthYp-p3EnkKcRo79Qahk6IXr1ebHA9OTA5kIH-UiR3cekmarXemTqtJ6Rns4YqDlSVdVGhXSbZNNlzNI1_ERnf3FB4VlPVE9z-RuPB3SxA/s320/Jesus+%2526+Peter.jpg" width="270" /></a></div>15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you fastened your own belt and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will fasten your belt for you and carry you where you do not wish to go.” 19 (This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God.) And after this he said to him, “Follow me.”<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Is the resurrected Lord being hard on Peter? Does he doubt the intensity of Peter's love for him? “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” This is the question asked of the disciple who was still wet from swimming to Jesus. The others in the boat were more restrained. They brought the boat in with the catch. Not Peter. He jumped in the water when he realized it was the resurrected Jesus standing on the shore. And now Jesus is asking Peter "do you love me more than these." Perhaps Jesus is thinking that Peter must speak the words out in a loud declaration for his own good. Especially after he loudly denied our Lord three times. Peter affirms: "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Now it is time for Jesus to give Peter directions. Jesus is preparing for his Ascension and he appears to give Peter singular responsibility. Jesus asks Peter to “Feed my lambs.” Peter must feed Jesus' flock. Jesus is not finished. "Do you love me?” Didn't Peter just answer this? Doesn't this seem to be a "really?" from Jesus? Or is he simply pushing Peter for a deeper meditation on what it means to love Jesus? So Peter again affirms “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus asks him to “Tend my sheep.” Is there a difference between tending the sheep and feeding them? Does it mean to guard them as well as teach them? Jesus does not explain.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>“Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” Wouldn't we be grieved if our beloved Jesus asked this three times? After all, we don't want to consider that he may doubt our love. And yet, let us think of our own lives for a moment. Have there been times when we turned away from Jesus? In our sinfulness have we denied Jesus our whole hearts? Have we placed worldly things ahead of him? Have we at times focused our lives on sex, power or money instead of our relationship with God? Are we always deeply aware of, and bold in our gratitude for, all that God has done for us? No? Then perhaps Jesus may be moved to ask us more than once "do you love me?" Maybe he is asking us this every time we turn away from him. Hundreds or thousands of times in our lives. How many times has he had to ask me "do you love me?" Perhaps, as with Peter, our Lord wished us to replace every denial, every sin, with a statement of love for him. "And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep." Jesus asks for Peter to answer the question. But Jesus clearly asks Peter not just for words, but also for action. Feed my lambs (little ones?), tend my sheep, feed my sheep. Love is fulfilled by action. Love without action is dead.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Lord we pray that with your grace we may say "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Help us to turn away from sin and turn to you in love. A love which is whole, complete, full and abiding. A love which always says Yes to you. Yes in words. Yes in our hearts. Yes in Action. Yes, Yes, a thousand times Yes. Lord, I Love YOU. Amen.</b></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04879065898537009269noreply@blogger.com0