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Sunday, May 20, 2012

CATHOLIC NEWS WORLD : ASCENSION SUNDAY MAY 20, 2012

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
VATICAN : POPE : WORLD DAY OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS
EUROPE : STATEMENT ON LEAKED VATICAN DOCUMENTS
AMERICA : CANADA : CLOSE TO 20000 AT MARCH FOR LIFE
AUSTRALIA : MASS FOR SCHOENSTATT COMMUNITY
AFRICA : DEM. REP. OF CONGO : BISHOPS URGES CONGRESS RE : SEC
ASIA : PAKISTAN : CHRISTIAN GIRL KIDNAPPED - FORCED CONVERSION TO ISLAM
HOLY SPIRIT NOVENA DAY 3 FOR PENTECOST
TODAY'S MASS ONLINE ASCENSION SUNDAY MAY 20, 2012
 
VATICAN : POPE : WORLD DAY OF SOCIAL COMMUNICATIONS
RADIO VATICANA REPORT:
Pope Benedict XVI marked World Day for Social Communications. In comments after his Regina Caeli address he said: “Today we celebrate the World Day of Social Communications, on the theme "Silence and Word: a path of evangelisation.” Silence is an integral part of communication, it is a privileged place of encounter with the Word of God and our brothers and sisters. I invite all to pray so that communications, in all forms, always serve to establish a genuine dialogue with others, founded on mutual respect, listening and sharing”.

The theme for the 46th World Day for Social Communications was released earlier in January on the feast of St Francis de Sales, patron saint of Catholic journalists.

In the message, the value of silence is presented, not as a simple antidote to the constant flow of information which characterises today’s society, but as an essential tool to help us understand and welcome the Word of God into our lives.

In a reflection on this theme, Archbishop Claudio Celli, President of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, says since silence favours habits of discernment and reflection, we ought not to think in terms of a dualism, but in terms of the complementary nature of silence and words, which, when they are held in balance, serve to enrich the value of communication and make it a key factor in the service of the new evangelisation
SOURCE: RADIO VATICANA

EUROPE : STATEMENT ON LEAKED VATICAN DOCUMENTS

On Saturday, the Holy See press office director, Fr. Federico Lombardi released the following statement regarding the latest publication of confidential documents: The latest publication of documents of the Holy See and private documents of the Holy Father can no longer be considered a questionable - and objectively defamatory - journalistic initiative, but clearly assumes the character of a criminal act.

The Holy Father, but also several of his collaborators and the senders of messages directed to him, have seen their rights to personal privacy and freedom of correspondence violated.

The Holy See will continue to explore the different implications of these acts of violation of the privacy and dignity of the Holy Father - as a person and as the supreme authority of the Church and Vatican City State - and will take appropriate steps so that the authors of the theft, those who received stolen property and those who disclosed confidential information, using illegally obtained private documents for commercial use, answer for their acts before the law. To this end, if necessary, the Holy See will seek international collaboration.

AMERICA : CANADA : CLOSE TO 20000 AT MARCH FOR LIFE

Canada's NATIONAL MARCH FOR LIFE 2012 gathered almost 20,000 people at the nation's capitol on Parliament Hill on Thursday, May 10. Most of the participants were under 30 years old. Police barracaded the area as marchers made their way through the streets carrying signs defending life from conception onwards.
Many Members of the Canadian Parliament were in attendence. One MP Stephen Woodworth, called for a Parliament Motion-312 to redefine a human being to include those in the womb.
There were many Catholic Hierarchy in attendance including Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto, Archbishop Terrence Prendergrast, Primate Cyprian Lacroix, Bishop Nicholas De Angelis, Bishop Noel Simard, Bishop Michael Mulhall and others. Also in attendence was the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada president Bruce Clemenger. There were three Masses held in the Cathedral, St. Patrick's and another parish.

AUSTRALIA : MASS FOR SCHOENSTATT COMMUNITY

ARCHDIOCESE OF MELBOURNE RELEASE:
May 2012
ON SATURDAY 12 May, Bishop Peter Elliott celebrated Mass for the Schoenstatt Community at the Pallotine Centre, Kew. The celebration marked the sixtieth anniversary of Archbishop Daniel Mannix’s blessing of the Schoenstatt chapel, built in the grounds of the Pallottine Centre.
Schoenstatt, which means ‘a beautiful place’ is a movement of renewal within the Catholic Church which was founded in Germany in 1914 by Fr Joseph Kentenich.
In his homily, Bishop Elliott paid tribute Fr Kentenich’s spiritual vision, and to members of the movement.
“Through their lives and their wise counsel, these members of the Schoenstatt family have shown me how well Fr Kentenich anticipated, indeed directly influenced, the emphasis of the Second Vatican Council on the essential mission of lay Catholics, working with their priests and religious, to evangelise in the modern world,” he said.
Read Bishop Elliott's homily
Schoenstatt Bishop Elliott said the Schoenstatt movement had much to offer contemporary Australia “where we need strong and active Catholics to meet the new challenges of aggressive secularism, indifference, materialism and unbelief.”
I thought I would add at the end: contact details and this information based on the website:
The Schoenstatt chapel at Kew was dedicated to the Mother Thrice Admirable and Queen of Schoenstatt on 11 May, 1952. It’s design is inspired by the original Schoenstatt Shrine in Germany, where Fr Kentenich and a small group of students entered into a covenant of love with Mary.
The Shrine is owned by the Pallottine Fathers and is the spiritual home of the growing Schoenstatt Family in Melbourne. The Schoenstatt Family gathers on the third Saturday of each month at 3-4pm at the Shrine.
For more information about the Schoenstatt movement: www.schoenstatt.org.au
Homily: THE SCHOENSTATT FAMILY, UNDER MARY’S MANTLE
Bishop Peter J. Elliott
Today we celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the day when Archbishop Daniel Mannix blessed this Schoenstatt chapel, built with so much love in the grounds of the Pallottine Centre, Kew. This is one of many chapels that make up the symbolic heart of the Schoenstatt Movement around the world.
The spiritual vision of one man, guided by the Holy Spirit, is the source of the Schoenstatt communities. Born in 1885 near Cologne, Father Joseph Kentenich followed God’s call to priesthood in the Pallottine congregation. Early in the last century, living in the heart of Europe, this brilliant priest and teacher could see the need to form spiritually committed and active laity, clergy and religious in a world that was about to enter many changes and massive social upheavals.
On October 18, 1914, when enthusiasm for the first World War had engulfed his nation, he gathered his students around him not to rejoice in a disastrous nationalism, but to make “a covenant of love with Our Lady” In the chapel at Shoenstatt there began the world-wide Schoenstatt Movement, forming and guiding priests, religious and laity, men and women, young people and especially families to be at the heart of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, which is the Holy Catholic Church.
My first contact with the Schoenstatt Movement was through a remarkable German couple, Norbert and Renate Martin, members of the chosen group of married couples in the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family. At the time, 1987, I had just begun service in the Curia in the Pontifical Council. I soon came to recognize the strong spirituality of Norbert and Renate, their commitment and clear intellectual grasp of the role of a spiritual apostolate in today’s world. More recently I have come to know as a friend and colleague, Sister Isabel Neuman, a Schoenstatt sister who is member of the Faculty of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, of which I am Director.
Through their lives and their wise counsel, these members of the Schoenstatt family have shown me how well Fr. Kentenich anticipated, indeed directly influenced, the emphasis of the Second Vatican Council on the essential mission of lay Catholics, working with their priests and religious, to evangelize in the modern world.
Fr. Joseph Kentenich lived to see the Council, and was he was recognized by Pope Paul VI. He died three years after the Council in 1968, appropriately on September 15, feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady. We pray that the cause of his beatification will have a speedy outcome.
Today we celebrate not only his vision, but the movement he founded. Would that it were better known in Australia, where we need strong and active Catholics to meet the new challenges of aggressive secularism, indifference, materialism and unbelief.
Such a witness is not without suffering. Fr. Kentenich knew sufferings in his own life. Two world wars devastated his own nation. He suffered under the terror and oppression of the Third Reich. After the War he was even subject to church discipline which seemed to separate him from the great work he founded. Yet all the while he trusted in God, accepted God’s Will and knew that he was beneath the mantle of Mary, Queen of Schoenstatt. Today we renew our commitment beneath the mantle of her loving care. As she holds her divine Son in her arms, so she holds us as the Mother of the Church.
In this Easter Season we look to her risen Son. In Jesus Christ the Lord we see suffering transformed into joy, death into life, despair into hope, doubt into faith. As the Year of Grace proclaimed by the Bishops of Australia is about to begin at Pentecost, I invite all members of the Schoenstatt family to seek the amazing grace of God, not only for yourselves but for all those families and friends you know and love, placing us all under the mantle of the gentle Queen of Schoenstatt.

AFRICA : DEM. REP. OF CONGO : BISHOPS URGES CONGRESS RE : SEC

CISA NEWS REPORT:
Bishop Lola
TSHUMBE, May 18, 2012 (CISA) -Bishop Nicolas Djomo Lola, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has urged the US Congress to continue to support laws that promote transparency among companies that mine in the DR Congo and to “resist watering down Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations to half measures that may save money, but cost lives.”
Bishop Lola gave testimony to the House Financial Services Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sponsored Bishop Djomo Lola’s participation in the hearing, entitled ‘The Costs and Consequences of Dodd-Frank Section 1502: Impacts on America and the Congo,’ Catholic Relief Services (CRS) coordinated the trip.
Speaking not as a businessman or a financial expert but as “a religious leader, who is deeply disturbed by the terrible violence and suffering that has dominated life in Eastern Congo since 1996,” Bishop Djomo Lola said: “This violence has destroyed families, villages and communities. One prominent driver of the violence is illicit mining conducted by the many armed groups in Eastern Congo. To protect our people from the misery of minerals, the Church in the Congo publicly supported the passage of Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.”
According to CRS, Bishop Djomo Lola expressed the hope that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will publish rules that will be rigorous enough to ensure that companies and consumers do not participate, inadvertently or not, in commerce that has led to suffering and thousands of deaths.
He added: “The Church in the Congo trusts that the business community can and will join us to protect the life and human dignity of the Congolese people by conducting legal, transparent and accountable international commerce. We are confident that they do not want to be part of the misery that has plagued Eastern Congo for years.”

ASIA : PAKISTAN : CHRISTIAN GIRL KIDNAPPED - FORCED CONVERSION TO ISLAM

ASIA NEWS REPORT:
by Shafique Khokhar
To date, the police refuses to liberate the girl, despite the repeated requests of the family. Mary Salik (fictitious name) was kidnapped last May 4 near Faisalabad by an uncle who had converted to Islam. The girl's father denounces conspiracy against his family: "My daughter has heart problems and was kidnapped by deception".


Faisalabad (AsiaNews) - The family of Mary Salik (fictional name for security reasons) asks for justice for the 14 year old Christian girl, kidnapped last May 4 in Ali (Faisalabad, Punjab) and forced to convert to Islam. The author of the kidnapping is the uncle of the girl, who embraced Islam about a year ago and since then ended all contact with the family of origin. He kidnapped the young girl to marry her off with his son Kashif. The wedding was celebrated on 7 May.

The girl's father, told AsiaNews that "my daughter is only 14 years old and suffers from the birth from heart problems and can not do heavy work. After converting my brother is conspiring against our family and kidnapped Mary with deception ".

Immediately after the seizure, the father of the young Christian girl turned to local police and demanded the immediate release of his daughter, but the agents refused to return Mary to her family. According to police, the girl converted of her own free will and submitted as evidence a written statement in which the girl says to "be mature and have embraced Islam without coercion or threats."

To get their daughter back, the parents decided to find a compromise with the help of some influential people in the area and have filed a petition against the police officers.

Fr. Bonnie Mendes, priest and activist, former secretary of the Pakistan National Commission for Justice and Peace, speaks of the abuses suffered by the Christian community. "Although we are free to pray - he says - and to practice our religion, we are threatened when we try to defend our rights." The priest denounces the problem of cases of forced conversions to Islam of young Christians, which together with the blasphemy law is one of the most severe violations of religious freedom to the detriment of minorities. For Fr. Mendes Mary's case is against the teachings of Islam. In fact, those who want to convert require an iddat, a discernment period that must last at least three months. However, due to ignorance, illiteracy and social injustice, most Muslims do not observe this rule.

Each month between 25 and 30 young girls suffer similar abuses, for a yearly total of about 300 conversions and forced marriages. Hindu girls - but also Christian - who are torn from the family while very young and delivered into the hands of their husbands / torturers. One case recently made headlines when the Pakistani Supreme Court forced three young Hindu women to return to their Muslim husbands, despite the desire of the young girls to return to their family. The young women were kidnapped in February, forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men. On March 26 Rinkle Kumari, one of the girls, told the judges of the Court that there "is no justice in this country only for Muslims, justice is denied Hindus. Kill me here, now, in court. But do not send me back to the Darul-Aman [Koranic school] ... they will kill us. " The other two young girls, Lata and Asha, had expressed, in vain, the desire to be reunited with their families.

HOLY SPIRIT NOVENA DAY 3 FOR PENTECOST


HOLY SPIRIT NOVENA DAY 3 FOR PENTECOST
ACT OF CONSECRATION TO THE HOLY GHOST

On my knees before the great multitude of heavenly witnesses I offer myself, soul and body to You, Eternal Spirit of God. / I adore the brightness of Your purity the unerring keenness of Your justice and the might of Your love. You are the Strength / and Light of my soul. In You I live and move and am. I desire never to grieve You by unfaithfulness to grace and I pray with all my heart! To be kept from the smallest sin against You. Mercifully guard my every thought and grant that I may always watch for Your light: and listen to Your voice and follow Your gracious inspirations. I cling to You and give myself to You and ask You / by Your compassion to watch over me in my weakness. Holding the pierced Feet of Jesus and looking at His Five Wounds / and trusting in His Precious Blood and adoring His opened Side and stricken Heart / I implore You / Adorable Spirit I Helper of my infirmity, so to keep me in Your grace that I may never sin against You. Give me grace O Holy Ghost, Spirit of the Father and the Son to say to You always and everywhere / "Speak Lord for Your servant heareth." Amen.


PRAYER FOR THE SEVEN GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST

O Lord Jesus Christ Who, before ascending into heaven did promise to send the Holy Ghost to finish Your work in the souls of Your Apostles and Disciples deign to grant the same Holy Spirit to me that He may perfect in my soul / the work of Your grace and Your love. Grant me the Spirit of Wisdom that I may despise the perishable things of this world and aspire only after the things that are eternal the Spirit of Understanding to enlighten my mind with the light of Your divine truth / the Spirit on Counsel that I may ever choose the surest way of pleasing God and gaining heaven, the Spirit of Fortitude, that I may bear my cross with You I and that I may overcome with courage all the obstacles that oppose my salvation the Spirit of Knowledge that I may know God find know myself and grow perfect in the science of the Saints the Spirit of Piety that I may find the service of God sweet and amiable / the Spirit of Fear that I may be filled with a loving reverence towards God and may dread in any way to displease Him. Mark me, dear Lord with the sign of Your true disciples / and animate me in all things with Your Spirit. Amen.

Thou, of all consolers best, Visiting the troubled breast, Dost refreshing peace bestow.
The Gift of Piety
The gift of Piety begets in our hearts a filial affection for God as our most loving Father. It inspires us to love and respect for His sake persons and things consecrated to Him, as well as those who are vested with His authority, His Blessed Mother and the Saints, the Church and its visible Head, our parents and superiors, our country and its rulers. He who is filled with the gift of Piety finds the practice of his religion, not a burdensome duty, but a delightful service. Where there is love, there is no labor.
Prayer
Come, O Blessed Spirit of Piety, possess my heart. Enkindle therein such a love for God, that I may find satisfaction only in His service, and for His sake lovingly submit to all legitimate authority. Amen
(Our Father and Hail Mary ONCE. Glory be to the Father 7 TIMES. Act of Consecration, Prayer for the Seven Gifts)

TODAY'S MASS ONLINE ASCENSION SUNDAY MAY 20, 2012

Acts 1: 1 - 11
1 In the first book, O The-oph'ilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,
2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.
3 To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God.
4 And while staying with them he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, "you heard from me,
5 for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
6 So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"
7 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.
8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Sama'ria and to the end of the earth."
9 And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,
11 and said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven."
Psalms 47: 2 - 3, 6 - 9
2 For the LORD, the Most High, is terrible, a great king over all the earth.
3 He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.
6 Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
7 For God is the king of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm!
8 God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.
9 The princes of the peoples gather as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; he is highly exalted! --
Ephesians 1: 17 - 23
17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,
18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,
19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might
20 which he accomplished in Christ when he raised him from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places,
21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come;
22 and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church,
23 which is his body, the fulness of him who fills all in all.
Mark 16: 15 - 20
15 And he said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.
16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
18 they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover."
19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.
20 And they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it. Amen.