Vatican City, Mar 7, 2010 /(CNA/EWTN News).-
Following his visit to the Roman parish of St. John of the Cross on Sunday, the Holy Father returned to the Apostolic Palace for the Angelus. In his remarks, the Pope underscored the need to look at life through the perspective of conversion.
As God appears to Moses in the form of the burning bush, said Benedict XVI reflecting on Sunday's Liturgy, he also reveals himself in different ways in the lives of each of us. "To be be able to recognize his presence, however, it's necessary that we bring ourselves to his side with knowledge of our misery and with profound respect."
Otherwise, the Pope said, "we render ourselves incapable of finding him and entering into communion with him."
In this light, he repeated St. Paul's observation that God does not reveal himself to those who are "pervaded by arrogance and thoughtlessness, but to those who are poor and humble before him."
The Holy Father then turned to the Gospel from Luke which took place following the deaths of some Galileans who were killed by Pontius Pilate, and others who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed.
Pope Benedict said that "Jesus proclaims the innocence of God, who is good and cannot want evil" as the people in the reading attribute the deaths in the community to divine punishment.
"Do you think that they also were greater transgressors than all the men living in Jerusalem?" asked Jesus in the Gospel. "No, I tell you. But if you do not repent, you will all perish similarly.”
In these words, taught the Pope, Jesus invites the perspective of conversion: "misfortunes (and) mournful events should not arouse curiosity or investigation for possible culprits in us, but they should represent occasions to reflect, to win over the illusion of being able to live without God, and to reinforce, with the help of the Lord, the commitment to changing (our) lives."
God, in his fullness of mercy, said Pope Benedict, never stops calling us to come back, to grow in his love, to "concretely" help our neighbors and to live in the joy of grace.
The possibility of conversion, “demands that we learn to read the facts of life in the perspective of the faith, encouraged also by the holy fear of God."
In the midst of sufferings and mourning, "true wisdom," concluded the Pope, is being able to realize "the precariousness of existence and reading the human story with the eyes of God, who, wishing always and only the good of his children, for an inscrutable design of his love, sometimes permits us to be tested by pain to guide them to a greater good.
The Holy Father prayed for the aid of Most Holy Mary to bring all Christians back to the Lord and to support us in "our decision to renounce evil and accept with faith the will of God in our lives."
zondag 7 maart 2010
True wisdom needed to understand suffering, Holy Father teaches
Parishioners have responsibility for mission of the Church, says Benedict XVI
Rome, Italy, Mar 7, 2010 / (CNA/EWTN News).-
On Sunday morning, the Holy Father celebrated Mass at St. John of the Cross, a parish located in the northern part of Rome. In his first visit to the relatively new church, Pope Benedict reminded the congregation that they are "co-responsible" for the Church and her mission.
The Holy Father presided over the Eucharistic celebration on the third Sunday of Lent on his visit to the church, which was consecrated in 2001. He exhorted the people “to make this church a place where you can better listen to the Lord, who speaks to you in Sacred Scripture," he said, calling it the "life giving center" of the community.
Addressing the involvement of the lay faithful, he urged them to not only be "collaborators" in their roles in the Church but to be "corresponsible for the being and action of the Church."
Benedict XVI told the families and youth to become involved in the announcement of the Gospel, not waiting for others to bring messages that "don't lead to life," but to make themselves "missionaries of Christ" for others. In going out into different areas of the community, he added, they can educate people to pray and to live life as a gift from God.
Referring to Jesus' message of conversion in Sunday's Gospel, Pope Benedict emphasized that we are all invited by God to change ourselves by thinking and living according to the Gospel, making corrections to our ways of praying, acting and working in relation to others.
"Jesus directs this call to us with urgency," explained the Holy Father, "...because he is worried for our good, our happiness and our salvation."
"For our part, we should respond to him with a sincere interior effort, asking him to make us" realize the aspects of our lives where we are called to repentance.
The Holy Father concluded by highlighting the Lenten invitation to each one of us "to recognize the mystery of God that makes itself present in our lives."
"We remain in the contemplation of this mystery … to better understand the mystery of Lent." He then emphasized the necessity of living "individually and as a community in perennial conversion, so as to be a 'constant epiphany' in the world of the living God, who liberates and saves for love."
Pope Benedict XVI was joined by a number of clergy on the occasion, including Cardinal Vicar of Rome Agostino Vallini and parish priest Fr. Enrico Gemma.
Be living models of the Good Samaritan, Benedict XVI encourages volunteers
Vatican City, Mar 6, 2010 / (CNA/EWTN News).-
The Holy Father met with thousands of members of the Italian Civil Protection Service on Saturday in the Paul VI Hall. He commended their voluntary service in protection of the common good and the dignity of man, comparing their work to that of the Good Samaritan.
Drawing attention to the strength of the volunteer organization in its approximately 1.3 million members, Pope Benedict XVI called it "one of the most recent and mature expressions of the long tradition of solidarity," which has its foundation "in the altruism and generosity of the Italian people."
Italian Civil Protection Service’s (ICPS) mission and "vocation" of protecting people and their dignity, he said, is well-represented in the name of the organization.
The ICPS provides assistance and security for national and international emergencies as well as major events, such as World Youth Day 2000 in Rome. They offered a massive response following the earthquake that rocked L'Aquila, Italy April 6, 2009.
"This mission," he continued, "does not only consist in emergency management, but in a precise and worthy contribution to the realization of the common good" which is always the goal of human coexistence "especially in the moments of great trials."
These occasions, said the Pope, provide a chance for "discernment and not desperation" and they offer the opportunity to design new plans for society oriented towards virtue and the good of all.
In the figure of the Good Samaritan, said the Holy Father, we see a model for the protection of the person and commitment to the common good. "This person indeed demonstrated charity and humility tending to an unfortunate person in the moment of utmost need."
While others turned a blind eye, the Good Samaritan taught us to "walk towards the emergency and to prepare ... the return to normalcy," he pointed out.
As these pages in Luke's gospel show us, said Benedict XVI, "love of our neighbor cannot be delegated: the State and politics, though with the necessary attention for welfare, cannot replace it."
Pope Benedict XVI repeated the words from his encyclical, “Deus caritas est” saying, "Love will always be necessary, even in the most just society" and this "requires and will always require personal and volunteer commitment."
For this reason, the Holy Father told the group of an estimated 7,000 people from the ICPS, volunteers are not just "hole-fillers" in society, but they are people who "truly contribute to delineate the human and Christian face of society."
"Without volunteer work, the common good and society cannot last long, as their progress and their dignity depend in great measure exactly on those people who do more than their strict duty."
The Holy Father called the members of the ICPS to be "living icons of the Good Samaritan," giving attention to their neighbors, remembering the dignity of man and inciting hope.
"When a person doesn't limit himself to just completing his duty in his profession and in the family, but he works for others, his heart delights. He who loves and serves another freely as a neighbor lives and acts according to the Gospel and takes part in the mission of the Church, which always protects the entire human and wants to make him feel the love of God," Pope Benedict concluded.
Vatican paper looks at faith connection between saints and their mothers
Rome, Italy, Mar 5, 2010 / (CNA/EWTN News).-
Italian historians are taking interest in the role mothers in transmitting faith to their sons. Referring to the examples of St. Jean Vianney, Popes Pius X and Paul VI, the Vatican newspaper suggests that this relationship is fundamental to religious vocations.
According to an article published in the Vatican paper L'Osservatore Romano (LOR), historians at a recent conference in Modena, Italy commented on the need to study the relationship that ties the man of faith to his mother. In studying biographies, they asserted that faith is almost always transmitted to a man by his mother.
LOR indicates that while research into this relationship can be useful in "reconstructing biographical events of public personalities, it assumes a deeper and almost essential significance" if one looks at the emergence and maturation of a religious vocation.
St. Jean Vianney, the Cure of Ars and patron of priests, spoke of this relationship often, telling his parishioners "virtue passes from the heart of the mother to the heart of the children," the Vatican newspaper noted.
In the book Mothers of Saints, by Albina Henrion, the prayerfulness of the Cure of Ars is attributed to the influence of St. Jean's mother who created an atmosphere of prayer that "he almost breathed in his family life."
The saint said about his gift of prayer, "After God, it is the work of my mother," and added that children "voluntarily do what they see done."
In the book, the story of his mother's great charity throughout her life is told as well as her encouragement of young Jean's vocation and how she convinced the boy's father to allow him receive religious instruction. Although she did not live to see him ordained, he carried her example on through the "inexhaustible and charitable exercise of his ministry," reported LOR.
Another example offered by the Vatican newspaper was Saint Pius X, whose mother, Margherita Sanson, raised him and numerous brothers and sisters. She taught them to pray first thing in the morning, communicate with God throughout the day in Mass and Scripture reading, and to end each day with prayer, bringing the family together for an open examination of conscience. After describing this tradition, a friend of the family said, "is it any wonder that a holy soul came out of there?"
Following her son's episcopal ordination and placement in Mantova, the future Pope Pius X visited his mother to thank her. After kissing his episcopal ring, she showed him her wedding ring and said, "Your ring is very beautiful, Giuseppe, but you wouldn't have it if I didn't have this."
Margherita lived to see her son become the Patriarch (Archbishop) of Venice.
The final example presented by LOR was that of Pope Paul VI, who talked of an "unpayable debt of gratitude to his mother." To her, he said, "I owe my sense of concentration, of interior life, of the meditation which is prayer, the prayer that is meditation. Her entire life was a gift."
After the deaths of his parents, he said, "To the love of my father and of my mother, to their union I owe my love of God and love of man."
Paul VI, indicates LOR, offered a further insight, saying, "We, they tell us, all live more or less from that which a woman has taught us in the sublime dimension. And boys feel it more than girls, because of nature... priest-sons even more strongly, because they are consecrated to solitude."
