REFLECTIONS ON OUR FAITH AND ITS PRACTICES

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benefan
00martedì 24 maggio 2011 04:44

I probably have already posted this trailer somewhere on the forum. If so, I apologize but I think it is really good and should be on this thread.


The Catholicism Project

with Fr. Robert Barron









benefan
00lunedì 13 giugno 2011 06:38

Monasticism studied at international conference in Rome

By David Kerr

Rome, Italy, Jun 11, 2011 / 06:26 pm (CNA).- Christian monks once saved the cultural treasures of the western world from barbarian invasions, and now a major four-day conference in Rome is examining how modern culture affects monasticism.

“We’ve invited scholars from around the world to share around the theme of monasticism and culture – the effects of monasticism of culture and the effect of culture on monastic life,” Father Jeremy Driscoll, O.S.B., told CNA June 10.

The conference at the Sant’ Anselmo Benedictine University in Rome is titled “Monasticism between Culture and Cultures” and runs from June 8 to 11.

The word “monasticism” actually comes from the Greek word for ‘dwelling alone’ and has come to denote the mode of life in seclusion from the world, under religious vows and subject to a fixed rule. It emerged in the deserts of northern Africa in the earliest centuries of Christianity.

“A monk is cut off from the world so he can deeply join the world in spirit and in prayer,” explained Fr. Driscoll, who joined the Benedictine Abbey at Mount Angel in Oregon back in 1973, at the age of 22.

“The solitude of a monk and the intensity of the monk’s life apart from the world are precisely done for the world, and to give witness to the world, and in unity with the world.”

The conference is looking at every aspect of monastic life – past, present and future.

For his own presentation, Fr. Driscoll drew upon the life and work of a 20th century Italian priest and monk, Don Divo Barsotti. He was a diocesan priest in Florence but went on to found a community called the Figli di Dio - or Sons of God – on the belief that monastic ideals could be applied to ordinary lay life.

“He wanted to share monastic spirituality with lay people and to really let them think of themselves as a sort of living an interior monastic life in the world.”

“He says that monasticism is nothing less than the Christian life intensely lived and lived,” Fr. Driscoll said.

Given that the work of Don Divo Barsotti is currently little known outside Italy, Fr. Driscoll said this week’s international conference presents an ideal opportunity to change that situation. He hopes that many more lay people will now attempt to live a spirit of monasticism.

“Being cut off from the world is an attitude of being absorbed in Christ and then being united to the world by means of that absorption in Christ - because he is united to the world.”


PapaBear84
00mercoledì 13 marzo 2013 15:58
A Man Like No Other
From The Catholic Thing ... how about a break from smoke and tears?

By Anthony Esolen
WEDNESDAY, 13 MARCH 2013

For the last several months I’ve been doing something that, for all I know, nobody else in the United States is doing. I’ve been learning to read Welsh by toddling through the New Testament.

That doesn’t make me unique. People do unusual things all the time; being unusual in one way or another is as common as rain. But when you are handling the words of Jesus one by one, like riddles, even though you know what the verses will say, you see that words like usual and unusual do not describe Jesus.

It isn’t as if Jesus stands at an extreme end of a spectrum of teachers in the ancient world. He teaches “with authority,” as the people remarked, amazed, even bewildered. He defers to no prophet or king, not even to Moses. He does not reason people into a benignant way of life, like Buddha, nor does he embrace the traditions of a gentleman, like Confucius.

We are to imitate Jesus, but Jesus never imitates us. He knows the heart of man, says Saint John, and he is like us in all things but sin, says Saint Paul, and he feels for our weakness, says the writer to the Hebrews, but it would sound like blasphemy to give Jesus a compliment, to call Him unusually perceptive. It would be like saying that light is unusually illuminating, or that beauty is unusually attractive.

I’m struggling to say that there is no one in the history of the world whom Jesus resembles; although many a saint, by the grace of God, has come to resemble Jesus. The Lord is unique. So are the great things associated with Him. There’s nothing in the ancient world that is like the Gospels – and that includes the foolish sham-gospels, flimsy and derivative things.

There’s nothing in the world that is like the Person or the events they describe. The great letters of Saint Paul are unique. The transformation of ordinary people into saints on fire to spread the Good News, unique; the kinds of people they became, unique; even the Shroud of Turin is unique – there isn’t any ancient artifact like it, and there isn’t anything close.

So I’m reading the Gospels slowly, in Welsh, and am compelled to dwell upon words that pass me by too quickly in English. “When you give alms,” says Jesus, “do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. But when you give alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Mt. 6:2-3).

If we hear those words aright, we’ll experience the shock of something wholly unexpected, but which, when expressed, strikes us, if we are steeped in the wisdom of the law and the prophets, as fulfilling the whole of the Old Testament, even though no one in the Old Testament ever says anything like it.


Jesus Sits by the Seashore and Preaches by James Tissot, c. 1890

And what of the ancient pagans? Aristotle praised the virtue of magnificence, the performing of visibly great deeds, especially by means of public generosity, because he took for granted that men desire honor. The lowliest mayor of a cowtown wants to emulate Augustus Caesar – to find Farmville in brick, and leave it, if not in marble, at least in shiny slates, and with new sidewalks; and he wants to be seen and known for it too, with a nice plaque on the village commons.

But there is Jesus, saying, Na wyped dy law aswy pa beth a wna dy law ddehau: Let not your left hand know what your right hand is doing. No one ever said anything like it.

So let’s pause. Let’s not assume that it is an unusual metaphor expressing an unusual wisdom. Let’s assume that this unique Jesus, in saying this never-said thing, has expressed it also in a unique way. Then we will not reduce the metaphor to anything resembling a “Christian” common sense.

We’ll not then say, “Jesus recommends that we be quiet about it, when we give alms.” After all, there’s a way to win the approval of men quietly, so that you can double the glow of the pleasure, basking not only in the glory of your generosity, but in the knowledge that your beneficiaries cannot accuse you of pride.

No, if the left hand is not to know what the right hand is doing, we must take care to hide our good deeds from the most fawning and flattering audience there can be – ourselves. How is that possible? We accuse the disciples of being slow to understand Jesus, and we’re right, they were slow. Are we any quicker? And did they not have cause to be slow? How can we hide ourselves from ourselves? How can we not know what we know?

I can’t answer my own question, but Jesus does give us a hint at where the answer must lie. “Your Father,” He says, “who sees in secret shall reward you openly.” We are, He has said, to be like that Father who makes His rain to fall upon the just and the unjust, in the mysteries of His wisdom and providence.

This is the Father who sees the recesses of the heart. He is the God who wishes to dwell in those recesses; to take away the heart of stone, even if it is gleaming marble stone, and replace it with a heart of flesh, a heart that beats with His life.

If we are to enjoy a reward, what better can it be than God Himself? So Jesus isn’t simply warning against ostentation. He’s inviting us into a complete surrender to the Father, so that we will not remain in our ignorant knowledge, and our alienating generosity. It is a call to be born again. And what is that? Can we toddle more than a step or two beyond the beginning of that?


Anthony Esolen is a lecturer, translator, and writer. His latest book is Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child. He teaches at Providence College.
PapaBear84
00lunedì 29 aprile 2013 19:09
From the NC Register
Military Archbishop Encourages His Auxiliary: Serve Vigilantly, Humbly (301)
Archbishop Timothy Broglio welcomes Auxiliary Bishop-elect Robert Coyle.



by CNA/EWTN NEWS 04/29/2013 Comment

Auxiliary Bishop Robert Coyle
– Archdiocese for the Military Services
WASHINGTON — The Archdiocese for Military Services received a new auxiliary bishop on Thursday, as Msgr. Robert Coyle was ordained with exhortations to remain humble, vigilant and faithful to the Gospel.
“The successor of the apostles is humble and recognizes that he has received everything from God. He is sober and alert so as to be vigilant,” Military Archbishop Timothy Broglio told Bishop-designate Coyle in his homily before the ordination.
He encouraged the new bishop to listen willingly to those he serves.
“Much of your ministry will be listening as you allow the soldier to tell his story, the veteran afflicted with PTSD relate what brought him to this point, or the Marine share her pride in the corps,” he said.
The April 25 ordination Mass took place in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
Bishop Coyle will serve as episcopal vicar for the eastern half of the U.S. He succeeds Bishop Joseph Estabrook, who died last year.
The Archdiocese for Military Services provides Catholic pastoral ministries and religious services to members of the U.S. armed forces and their families. It serves more than 220 installations in 29 countries and has responsibility for the pastoral care of more than 1.8 million Catholics.
Born in Brooklyn and ordained to the priesthood in 1991, Bishop Coyle served as a priest of the Diocese of Rockville Centre and pastor of a New York parish before Pope Benedict XVI picked him to become a bishop.
The 48-year-old is a decorated Navy chaplain who served as a command chaplain on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier. He also served on the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier during a deployment to the Persian Gulf. He is a past command chaplain at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy.
In his homily, Archbishop Broglio reminded Bishop Coyle of the need to share the Gospel.
“Like the apostles whose unworthy successors we are, we seek that personal conversion and then go forth to invite every person to meet the Lord Jesus and discover in him the only path to the fullness of life,” he said.
“We never forget that the good news has a unique and exclusive object: the person, the teaching, and the ministry of Jesus, only Messiah and truly the Son of God.”
The archbishop also had bracing words about the religious freedom situation in the United States. Religious liberty concerns have become increasingly prominent in the military, as chaplains have reported prohibitions, threats and disciplinary action for speaking about the Church’s teaching on marriage and homosexuality.
“The fight for the freedom of conscience has reached our shores and we find ourselves on the front lines. Fidelity to the Gospel has a higher price and vigilance is necessary,” Archbishop Broglio said, adding that “we cannot be blind to the challenges of the present day.”
He further reflected on the mission of the military archdiocese.
“Very much like the apostles, pastoral ministry in the Archdiocese for the Military Services, U.S.A, has the globe as its area of ministry. We are challenged with a shortage of priests, an abundant flock, and daunting distances,” he said.
“Bishop-elect Coyle, I am grateful for your willingness to accept this ministry and to leave behind the familiar to embrace the nomadic task of pastoral visitation.”

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