Vatican City, Jun 29, 2011 / (CNA/EWTN News).-
“Thanks to the Lord for the friendship that he has bestowed upon me,” Pope Benedict said to a packed St. Peter’s Basilica as he celebrated his 60th anniversary of becoming a priest, a day that is also the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
“Thanks to the people who have formed and accompanied me. And all this includes the prayer that the Lord will one day welcome us in his goodness and invite us to contemplate his joy,” the Pope said.
Pope Benedict was ordained to the priesthood, along with his brother Georg, in the Bavarian town of Freising on June 29, 1951. Georg is with him in Rome today.
Appropriately, the music throughout today’s ceremonies seemed to have a distinctly Germanic feel, with pieces by Mozart, Bach and Handel included.
In his homily, the Pope repeatedly drew upon the words of Christ that were quoted to him by the bishop ordaining him 60 years ago: “I no longer call you servants, but friends.”
“Sixty years on from the day of my priestly ordination, I hear once again deep within me these words of Jesus that were addressed to us new priests at the end of the ordination ceremony by the Archbishop, Cardinal Faulhaber, in his slightly frail yet firm voice.”
“At that moment I knew deep down that these words were no mere formality, nor were they simply a quotation from Scripture. I knew that, at that moment, the Lord himself was speaking to me in a very personal way.”
At today’s Mass, Pope Benedict was wearing red vestments in remembrance of Saints Peter and Paul shedding their blood when they were martyred in Rome during the 1st century. He said that the life of the Christian – and particularly the life of the priest - is one that grows through joys and hardship. He drew upon another analogy of Christ’s – the vine and the branches – noting that for grapes to ripen and produce good wine “sun is needed, but so too is rain, by day and by night.”
“Is this not already an image of human life, and especially of our lives as priests?” asked the Pope as he looked back on his own experiences over the past 60 years.
“We need both sun and rain, festivity and adversity, times of purification and testing, as well as times of joyful journeying with the Gospel.”
“In hindsight,” he said, “we can thank God for both: for the challenges and the joys, for the dark times and the glad times. In both, we can recognize the constant presence of his love, which unfailingly supports and sustains us.”
The Pope said it is a close friendship with Christ that sustains the Christian – priests included – during such moments of darkness.
“What is friendship?” Benedict XVI asked, answering with an ancient Latin maxim.
“Idem velle, idem nolle – wanting the same things, rejecting the same things: this was how it was expressed in antiquity. Friendship is a communion of thinking and willing.”
The Pope then gave advice as to how to deepen that friendship with Jesus.
“The friendship that he bestows upon me can only mean that I too try to know him better; that in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in prayer, in the communion of saints, in the people who come to me, sent by him, I try to come to know the Lord himself more and more.”
Today’s papal ceremonies at St. Peter’s also included the bestowal of the pallium upon 41 new metropolitan archbishops from around the world.
The pallium is a white woolen liturgical vestment emblazoned with six black crosses. It symbolizes an archbishop’s pastoral authority and his unity the Pope.
Among the U.S. bishops present were Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle and Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller of San Antonio.
At the end of the Mass the Pope processed out to the applause of the congregation and the strains of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.
vrijdag 1 juli 2011
On his 60th anniversary, Pope reflects on his vocation
zondag 26 juni 2011
Pope Benedict calls Eucharist ‘antidote’ to modern ills
By David Kerr
Vatican City, Jun 26, 2011 /(CNA/EWTN News).-
The Eucharist is the medicine which can heal our individualist society, Pope Benedict XVI said in his midday Angelus address on Corpus Christi Sunday.
“In an increasingly individualistic culture in which Western societies are immersed - and which is tending to spread throughout the world - the Eucharist is a kind of ‘antidote’ which operates in the minds and hearts of believers and is continually sowing in them the logic of communion, of service, of sharing - in other words, the logic of the Gospel,” said Pope Benedict to pilgrims in St. Peters Square on June 26.
Catholics believe that the bread and wine offered by Christ at the Last Supper literally became his body and blood - and that this same miracle is repeated by priests at every Mass since. Hence the name of today’s festivity – ‘Corpus Christi’ Sunday or ‘Body of Christ’ Sunday.
“From the Eucharist,” observed the Pope, “the Risen Christ is truly present among his disciples and working with the power of the Holy Spirit. And in the following generations through the centuries, the Church, despite the limitations and human errors, has continued to be a force for communion throughout the world.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the Eucharist as the “source and summit” of Christian life. As the Pope bluntly put it today, “without the Eucharist, the Church simply does not exist.”
The Pope noted this belief in the centrality of the Eucharist has manifested itself throughout the history of the Church, beginning with the earliest Christian communities in Jerusalem who shared all possessions in common.
“From what came all this? From the Eucharist that is the Risen Christ, truly present among his disciples and working with the power of the Holy Spirit.”
He then drew upon the example of the fourth century Abitene martyrs from North Africa who chose to die rather than deprive themselves of Sunday Mass in the face of Roman persecution. They proclaimed “Sine Dominico non possumus’ - without the ‘Dominicum’ - without the Sunday Eucharist, we cannot live.”
Pope Benedict concluded by urging all pilgrims to turn to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, who was described by Pope John Paul II as the “Woman of the Eucharist.”
“At her school, our lives become fully ‘Eucharistic’, open to God and others, capable of transforming evil into good with the power of love, striving to promote unity, fellowship, brotherhood.”
woensdag 22 juni 2011
dinsdag 21 juni 2011
Deacons should preach less at Mass, Michigan bishop says
Marquette, Mich., Jun 21, 2011 / (CNA).-
Permanent deacons should not preach at Mass often. Rather, they should preach at other services and serve the Church in the course of their daily witness to Christ, Bishop Alexander Sample of Marquette, Mich. has said in a new pastoral letter on the deacon’s role in the Catholic Church.
Bishop Sample’s 19-page letter, titled “The Deacon: Icon of Jesus Christ the Servant,” cited the principle that the one who presides at a liturgical service or who is the principal celebrant at Mass should also give the homily.
“This should be the ordinary practice,” he said.
Deacons should preach the homily at Mass “for some identifiable advantage for the faithful in the congregation, but not on a regular basis,” the bishop wrote.
He said deacons have the opportunity to preach in other contexts, such as at wake services, funeral and wedding liturgies outside of Mass, baptisms, liturgies of the Word, during the Liturgy of the Hours and during Sunday celebrations in the absence of a priest.
Bishop Sample noted that a deacon also “preaches” through “the witness of his life, especially in his marriage and family life,” as well as in his secular work and his role as a teacher.
The deacon’s ministry in the liturgy is not the “heart” of his service. Rather, he is called especially to serve the bishop by caring for the many works of charity “especially suited” to him, most often under the direction of his local pastor.
Although the deacon is ordained to teach and preach the Word of God, “the most effective preaching he does is through the witness of his life in loving service to the most needy among us,” Bishop Sample wrote in a column summarizing the pastoral letter.
The Bishop of Marquette had stopped accepting new deacon candidates until a study of their role had been completed.
In his letter, he announced that a man will not be ordained simply to “be the deacon” at a particular parish or mission. Instead, there must be “a specifically identified need in the community” recognized by the bishop in consultation with the local pastor. This follows the scriptural example of the early Church, where the Apostles chose deacons to minister to the needs of widows so that the Apostles would be free to pray and preach the Word of God.
In the Diocese of Marquette the prospective deacon will now need to have “a particular service ministry” for which he will be ordained, such as service as a catechist or in care for the poor, the sick, the elderly or the imprisoned.
This change will reflect the fact that a deacon’s primary ministry is “not in the sanctuary but in the service of charity.”
“I express my deep gratitude to my deacon brothers for their selfless service to God’s people in the image of Christ the Servant,” Bishop Sample said. “Let us pray for them and support them as they care for the special children of God among us.”
