AMERICA: USA: BOSTON: ORDER OF NUNS STARTED BY IRAQI WOMAN
It hoped that the new order will be opened by the end of the year. (Image source: connect.in.com) She has begun the process of writing a constitution and finding a place for a convent. According to CNA, Sister has said that, “We will be a very Eucharistic and Marian order – Eucharistic communion, daily adoration, and Marian devotion,” “These will be the two lungs we will be breathing out of as religious women.” They “will be a contemplative and apostolic community,” The Sister noted that the habit will be blue with a veil and a rosary. Already, some have shown interest in joining Sister Olga. The Sister expressed that “presence of a religious sister wearing a habit, bringing a smile and that motherly face of the Church".EUROPE: RUSSIA - 1ST CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION SINCE 1918
The announcement was confirmed by the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow, reported Vatican Radio. The procession will take place on Sunday, June 26, through the Prospettiva Nevsky Avenue, the city’s main street.
The avenue has traditionally been called the “way of confessional tolerance,” as it is lined with Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Armenian churches. According to archdiocesan officials, the last time a Corpus Christ procession took place on the avenue was in 1918.
Now, 93 years later, Catholics will return to the Prospettiva Nevsky Avenue led by Archbishop Paolo Pezzi of Moscow.
AUSTRALIA: ANNUAL CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION EXPECTS 5,000
ARCHDIOCESE OF SYDNEY PRESS RELEASE:
Sydney's Annual Procession of the Blessed Sacrament Feast of Corpus Christi
Walk with Christ on Sunday 26 June 2011 at 2.30pm
Walk with Christ has become a beautiful tradition for the city of Sydney. Come and join thousands of Catholic faithful as they walk in procession and witness to the presence of Jesus Christ in our world today. The Bishops will lead the Procession carrying the Blessed Sacrament. We need your voices! Join us to sing, pray and share our faith. Cardinal Pell will conclude the ceremony with Solemn Benediction.
Starting at 2:30pm at St Patrick's Church Hill (near Wynyard Station), the procession will travel along Grosvenor St, George St, Hunter St, Macquarie St ending at St Mary's Cathedral.
This special event of prayer and adoration will be accompanied by various choirs, including The Seminary of the Good Shepherd. You can join in the hymns and prayers along the route, - make sure you get a copy of your free program and songbook at St Patrick's Church Hill.
The Procession will culminate at St Mary's Cathedral, with the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Solemn Benediction. Participants will be able to join in prayers from the spacious Forecourt.
Prayers are expected to conclude at 4:30pm.
So don't miss this uplifting event! Bring family, - and friends walk with Christ and share our faith.
There is a particular need to cultivate a lively awareness of Christ's real presence, both in the celebration of Mass and in the worship of the Eucharist outside Mass.
Pope John Paul II, Mane Nobiscum Domine, n. 18.
Click here to join our Facebook page and see pics and footage from past Processions. We'd love to see your photos – share them on Facebook.!
For more information on the coordinating agency, CREDO, visit www.credosydney.org or phone 02 9390 5996.
ASIA: JAPAN: BISHOPS SEND MORE AID FROM ALL DIOCESES
Bishops have agreed to bolster aid and reconstruction efforts in and around Sendai diocese at a meeting that ended this week.
The decision was made at the 2011 Ordinary Plenary Assembly of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Japan (CBCJ) which took place from June 13 to June 17 at the Japan Catholic Center in Tokyo.
The focus of the assembly was the problem of bolstering their response to the Great East Japan Earthquake.
They decided that all Japanese dioceses will participate in reconstruction assistance for Sendai diocese.
The decision cements a policy of coordinated nationwide relief efforts that has been in effect since late May.
The CBCJ established an Office for Reconstruction Assistance that stays in communication with and coordinates the various ecclesiastical provinces and male and female religious orders and mission societies.
The bishop’s conference also agreed to facilitate the assignment of priests from around Japan to the Sendai region, while the three archbishops overseeing Japan’s ecclesiastical provinces would secure the cooperation of the president and vice-president of the Conference of Major Superiors to form a “support desk” which will be available for consultation.
Financial assistance is to be spread over three years beginning with the 2011 fiscal year.
According to the conference, the CBCJ General Secretariat will send a donation of 30 million yen (about US$373,000) each year for three years to Sendai diocese, while Saitama diocese will get 10 million yen per year.
Sendai and Saitama will also be exempt from their expected contributions to the CBCJ General Secretariat for three years starting with the 2011 fiscal year.
The burden of making up for this financial shortfall will be divided among the remaining 14 dioceses.
http://www.ucanews.com/2011/06/23/bishops-to-intensify-aid-to-sendai/
AFRICA: BURUNDI: SEMINAR ON HUMAN RIGHTS
The seminar was opened by Archbishop Evariste Ngoyagoye, Archbishop of Bujumbura and President of ECAL, and Archbishop Francesco Coppola, Apostolic Nuncio in Burundi. Archbishop Simon Ntamwana, Archbishop of Gitega and President of the Association of Episcopal Conferences of Central Africa (AECCA),who introduced the work.
There are 4 topics in discussion: "The dignity of the human person as ethical priority"; "The international law of human rights: the protection of human dignity"; "human rights for peace based on rules in a democratic society"; " Forgiveness and reconciliation as a necessary path for peace based on the rules".
"In the course of the work we present what the Church is doing in Burundi to promote national reconciliation, as the youth forum on reconciliation and Atelier on peace," said Don Salvatore Niciteretse to Fides. "We are also working with the Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace to spread the Church's social doctrine. There are, finally, the training camps for youth, where the young learn to live together and become protagonists of their future".
There are about 50 delegates from from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Italy and Thailand.
TODAY'S SAINT: JUNE 23: ST. ETHELDREDA OF ELY
St. Etheldreda of Ely
ABBESS
Feast: June 23
Queen of Northumbria; born (probably) about 630; died at Ely, 23 June, 679. While still very young she was given in marriage by her father, Anna, King of East Anglia, to a certain Tonbert, a subordinate prince, from whom she received as morning gift a tract of land locally known as the Isle of Ely. She never lived in wedlock with Tonbert, however, and for five years after his early death was left to foster her vocation to religion. Her father then arranged for her a marriage of political convenience with Egfrid, son and heir to Oswy, King of Northumbria. From this second bridegroom, who is said to have been only fourteen years of age, she received certain lands at Hexham; through St. Wilfrid of York she gave these lands to found the minster of St. Andrew. St. Wilfrid was her friend and spiritual guide, but it was to him that Egfrid, on succeeding his father, appealed for the enforcement of his marital rights as against Etheldreda's religious vocation. The bishop succeeded at first in persuading Egfrid to consent that Etheldreda should live for some time in peace as a sister of the Coldingham nunnery, founded by her aunt, St. Ebba, in what is now Berwickshire. But at last the imminent danger of being forcibly carried off by the king drove her to wander southwards, with only two women in attendance. They made their way to Etheldreda's own estate of Ely, not, tradition said, without the interposition of miracles, and, on a spot hemmed in by morasses and the waters of the Ouse, the foundation of Ely Minster was begun. This region was Etheldreda's native home, and her royal East Anglian relatives gave her the material means necessary for the execution of her holy design. St. Wilfrid had not yet returned from Rome, where he had obtained extraordinary privileges for her foundation from Benedict II, when she died of a plague which she herself, it is said, had circumstantially foretold. Her body was, throughout many succeeding centuries, an object of devout veneration in the famous church which grew up on her foundation. One hand of the saint is now venerated in the church of St. Etheldreda, Ely Place, London, which enjoys the distinction of being the first—and at present (1909) the only—pre-Reformation church in Great Britain restored to Catholic worship. Built in the thirteenth century as a private chapel attached to the town residence of the Bishop of Ely, the structure of St. Etheldreda's passed through many vicissitudes during the centuries following its desecration, until, in 1873-74, it was purchased by Father William Lockhart and occupied by the Institute of Charity, of whose English mission Father Lockhart was then superior. |
SOURCE: http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/E/stetheldredaofely.asp#ixzz1Q7m39slh
TODAY'S GOSPEL: JUNE 23: Matthew 7: 21- 29
21"Not every one who says to me, `Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.22On that day many will say to me, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?'23And then will I declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.'24"Every one then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock;25and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.26And every one who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand;27and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it."28And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,29for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.
