VATICAN: POPE: TRUST IN GOD BEFORE WEALTH
AMERICA: CANADA: LEADERS COME TO AID OF BABY JOSEPH
VATICAN: POPE: TRUST IN GOD BEFORE WEALTH
AFRICA: LIBYA: ESTIMATES OF 1,000 KILLED IN UPRISING
ASIA: PHILIPPINES: STATUE OF LATE CARDINAL UNVEILED IN MANILA
AUSTRALIA: NUMBER OF MEN ENTERING PRIESTHOOD INCREASES
TODAY'S SAINT: FEB. 27: ST. GABRIEL OF OUR LADY OF SORROWS
TODAY'S MASS READINGS: 8th SUN. OF ORDINARY TIME/ YEAR A
Pope Benedict underlined on Sunday the need to put God before wealth.
The Pope said that those who believe in God should trust in Providence and put the search for his will in first place, ahead of the desire for wealth
“In today’s Gospel Jesus invites us to trust in the provident care of our heavenly Father and to seek first his Kingdom and its righteousness. May his words inspire us to see all things in their true perspective and to live our lives in joyful faith and sure hope in God’s promises.”
Yet, he added this is not “fatalism”.
However, Pope Benedict said it “does not exempt from the hard struggle for a dignified life”, it should lead to an existence based on “a simpler and more sober lifestyle, the hard work of every day and respect for creation, which God put into our care”.
The Pope’s words were drawn from a passage from the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus called on his disciples to trust the providence of God the Father.
“It is clear”, the Holy Father added, “that a teaching like this from Jesus, whilst always true and valid for everyone, is practiced in different ways according to various vocations of people.
A Franciscan friar might be able to follow it in a more radical way, whilst a family man would take into account his duties towards his wife and children.
In any event, said the Pope, Christians are recognisable by their absolute trust in the heavenly Father, as did Jesus.” Listen to Lydia O'Kane's report here.
AMERICA: CANADA: LEADERS COME TO AID OF BABY JOSEPH
CATHOLIC ONLINE REPORT: It used to be that a society sacrificed for its children; now we hand over our children as sacrifices to our convenience
Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life and the family of Terri Schiavo have come to Baby Joseph's defense, hoping to save him from a death mandate. Fr. Pavone said from "If I have to fly from Rome to Canada to get Baby Joseph out of the hospital and back home where he belongs, I am ready to do that right now."
Fr Frank Pavone and the Schindler family fight to save baby Joseph
Fr. Pavone announced that Priests for Life is prepared to pay all expenses to bring Baby Joseph and his family to a hospital in the United States that would be willing to perform the tracheotomy the parents requested so they could take their son home. Fr. Pavone said from the Vatican where he's been attending meetings, "If I have to fly from Rome to Canada to get Baby Joseph out of the hospital and back home where he belongs, I am ready to do that right now."
"The parents of this precious boy are asking only to be allowed to bring Baby Joseph home, where he can die surrounded by those who love him. It's beyond imagination that they would have to ask. This is not an issue that belongs in the court, or in the hands of his doctors. This is their son; he needs to be home with his family."
"This couple lost a child to this same disease eight years ago so they know exactly what they are dealing with, and what to expect as Baby Joseph reaches the end of his life. The small comfort they could take from Zina's death was to know she died in peace surrounded by those whose lives she had touched in her own short life. They want the same for Baby Joseph."
The family of Terri Schiavo have also been outspoken this week in their support of Baby Joseph and his parents. Fr. Pavone was with the Schindler family in the last hours of Terri's life as she died from court-ordered dehydration and starvation after her estranged husband fought in court to force Terri's death by depriving her of food and water, despite the Schindler's pleas to be allowed to care for her.
The Schindlers are urging the Ontario hospital not to commit the same evil against Baby Joseph. Suzanne Vitadamo, Terri's sister, told LifeNews.com, "The Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Network stands with the family of Baby Joseph Maraachli. It is unacceptable for Canadian Health Allocation Officials and/or the Canadian government to make decisions for baby Joseph and his family. Every patient, regardless of age, has a right to proper and dignified health care. It is frightening to once again see government usurp the God-given rights of parents to love and care for their child at home, especially when the child is dying."
Last week when I'd written the first story about Baby Joseph for Catholic Online, my oldest daughter saw the headline on the site and began asking me about it. I carefully explained the story to her in the least frightening way I could think of, but I couldn't spare her from the harsh reality that this little baby was probably going to die the next morning (the Monday his breathing tube was ordered to be removed). She was horrified and so confused about why grown-ups would do something like that to a baby.
"Aren't the doctors supposed to help him? Why would they want to make sure he dies? That's just wrong!" Tears running down her face, she said, "I'm so sad for him, Momma. It's just so wrong! I wish I could fire all those doctors!"
It wasn't hard to agree with her on that one. It was a chance to talk with her about the fact that many times grown-ups make very bad decisions and do terrible things that are evil. But we must not be afraid to defend what is right and we must live our lives being faithful to Jesus and His Church. We said special prayers for Baby Joseph that night, and in the morning I was delighted to tell her that Baby Joseph was not going to die that day, and some doctors in the United States might be able to help him. It was a much-needed lift to a little girl's downcast heart, and we both celebrated and thanked the Lord for hearing our pleas.
I didn't have the heart to tell her later on that things had taken another wrong turn for Joseph and his life is once again being threatened by the grown-ups who are supposed to be caring for him.
Now I can tell her that some very wonderful, faithful people are doing everything they possibly can to rescue Baby Joseph from this death mandate. I'll tell her about the courageous and generous priest who is offering to help get Joseph the help he needs, but more importantly, is using his voice to speak out against the evil of ordering a baby's death.
The irony is that children can see the culture of death plainly for what it is, yet it is our children we are destroying as we cultivate the culture of death. It used to be that a society sacrificed forits children; now we hand over our children as sacrifices to our convenience, our greed, our autonomy, our desires, our "choices."
Please keep this precious family in your prayers. Pray that God will open eyes and soften hearts. You can visit Priests for Life and make a donation to help Fr. Pavone bring Baby Joseph to the U.S. Let's pray that there's a hospital here that will agree to help this child and his parents. And continue to contact the hospital and Canadian authorities and plead with them not to do this unspeakable wrong.
There are reports that the Ontario hospital has been receiving threats against its physicians and staff. That has to stop. If you contact the hospital or any Canadian authorities, your communication must be respectful and non-threatening. Violence is not the answer. Prayer and courage are. Speak up, please, but do it right.
Contact Information:
Bonnie Adamson
President and CEO, London Health Sciences Centre
800 Commissioners Road East
London, Ontario Canada N6A 5W9
Phone: 519-685-8462
E-mail: bonnie.adamson@lhsc.on.ca
Dalton McGuinty, Premier
Legislative Building
Queen's Park
Toronto ON M7A 1A1
Fax: (416) 325-3745
Tim Hudak, Opposition Leader
The Ontario PC Party
19 Duncan Street
Suite 401
Toronto, ON M5H 3H1
Phone: 416-861-0020
Toll-free: 1-800-903-6453
Fax: 416-861-9593
Email: tim.hudakco@pc.ola.org
Thank you, Fr. Pavone, and God bless you. Thank you, ...
AFRICA: LIBYA: ESTIMATES OF 1,000 KILLED IN UPRISING
Tripoli (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The first uprising in Tripoli yesterday caused the death of perhaps a thousand demonstrators. Sources spoke to Middle East Transparent (MET) about “probably more than a 1,000 killed and hundreds of wounded” near Tripoli’s Green Square. Various agencies, satellite TV channels and newspapers had reported only a few dead, acknowledging though that exact figures were hard to obtain or check.
Yesterday’s uprising was the first mass action in the capital, after the fall of the east and the northwest to rebels bent on ending the dictatorship like their brethren in Tunisia and Egypt.
Sources told MET that yesterday “many demonstrations took place in Tripoli, especially in the neighbourhoods of al-Siyahiyya, Fashloum, Zawiyat al-Dahmani, bin Ashour and Janzour.” Qaddafi’s soldiers controlled every street and fired, “probably killing five or six in each neighbourhood.”
The worst incident took place in Tajura however, a town east of the capital, where people who attended Friday prayers gathered in a demonstration that headed to Tripoli’s Green Square. They were joined by protestors from surrounding neighbourhoods, so that there were around 30-50,000 protestors.
“The Qaddafi brigades met the demonstrators at the Souk al Jumaa Bridge, opening fire with machine guns. [. . .] No one has exact figures. Probably, more than a 1,000 were killed, and hundreds wounded”.
In the meantime, support for Qaddafi continues to erode. Libya's delegation to the United Nations in Geneva announced Friday it was defecting to the opposition—it was given a standing ovation at a gathering of the United Nations Human Rights Council. They join a string of Libyan ambassadors and diplomats around the world who abandoned the regime, as have the justice and interior ministers at home, and one of Qaddafi's cousins and closest aides, Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, who sought refuge in Egypt.
ASIA: PHILIPPINES: STATUE OF LATE CARDINAL UNVEILED IN MANILA
Several Philippine Church leaders said they failed to recognize the late Archbishop of Manila Jaime Cardinal Sin at the unveiling yesterday of a life-size bronze statue on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the people power revolution he helped bring to life.
“It’s quite different… but I don’t want to criticize,” said the late cardinal’s successor, Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales.
Father Rufino Jun Sescon, who was Cardinal Sin’s private secretary, was also surprised.
“While it was being made we suggested some revisions, but as you very well know every artist has his or her own interpretation,” Father Sescon said.
He said another statue of the former prelate at a local bank “resembled the cardinal more.”
Asked by reporters if the Church wanted the statue scrapped, Father Sescon said that decision was up to theManila city government who funded the project.
However, Father Mark Munda, priest at the Mother of Perpetual Help Parish in Sta. Ana in Manila, said the statue did look a bit like the cardinal when he was a younger man.
“If you saw Cardinal Sin when he was still a young priest you’ll see some resemblance,” he said.
The 3-meter monument of the late archbishop by sculpture Ed Castrillo now stands next to those of former presidentCorazon Aquino and former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. on the corner of Padre Burgos Street and Bonifacio Drive outside the walls of the old city.
The Aquinos, parents of President Benigno Aquino III, and the late Cardinal Sin were leading figures in the fight against the Marcos dictatorship that led to the 1986 people poweruprising.
http://www.ucanews.com/2011/02/25/manila-gains-a-new-look-cardinal-sin
EUROPE: POLAND: PAINTER JERZY NOWOSIELSKI'S BODY PLACED IN CHURCH
Jerzy Nowosielski. Photo: PAP/Jacek BednarczykTHENEWSPL REPORT: The body of painter Jerzy Nowosielski, who died earlier this week at the age of 88, has been placed in the Greek Catholic Church of the Exultation of the Holy Cross in the southern city of Krakow, where the artist lived.
Jerzy Nowosielski, whose father was an ethnic Rusyn, was baptised at the Greek Catholic Church in 1923. The artist went on to decorate the church, situated on Wislna street, with a new iconostasis painted in the 1960s.
The church’s rector, Piotr Pawliszcze told Polish Radio that a mourning Mass is to be held at 5 pm at the church, after which the body of Nowosielski will be transported to the Orthodox Church on Szpitalna street, where another Mass will be held at 8.30 pm.
The main funeral ceremony is to take place on Saturday morning at 9 am, after which Nowosielski will be interred at the Rakowicki cemetery in the so-called Avenue of Notables.
Meanwhile, police in the city of Krakow have released images of the pictures that were stolen from the artist’s house soon after his death this week.
Eleven pictures, mostly oil paintings, as well as several pencil-drawn icons were taken by robbers merely a day after the painter’s death. A carriage clock, cash and other personal items were also looted by the thieves.
Prosecutors in Krakow have started investigations into the theft, estimating that the items have a combined value of 240,000 zloty (60,000 euro). (jb)
http://www.thenews.pl/national/artykul150091_body-of-nowosielski-lies-in-state-ahead-of-funeral.html
AUSTRALIA: NUMBER OF MEN ENTERING PRIESTHOOD INCREASES
CATHNEWS REPORT:
Image from www.vocationcentre.org.au
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The number of seminarians in Sydney alone - more than 60 - is a testament to the interest in the priesthood among the young, reports the Catholic Weekly.
Over the past two years, 10 young men have been ordained in St Mary's Cathedral, with further ordinations scheduled for May this year.The figure is comprised from 39 at the Seminary of the Good Shepherd, 21 at the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and others in formation with orders such as the Dominicans and the Capuchin Friars, theWeekly reports.
The Vocation Centre of the archdiocese of Sydney, the report says, is hard at work offering confidential spiritual guidance and retreats for those discerning priestly and religious life.
This year, it is offering two discernment retreats and will this month launch a Vocations Co-ordinators Resource Kit. The Vocation Centre is also helping parishes to be supportive and caring places for young people discerning their vocation.
This Sunday the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal Pell, will commission the first group of lay volunteers who will implement the kit in their parishes.
Elizabeth Arblaster of the Vocation Centre says: "The lay people who have volunteered to be parish vocations co-ordinators know that we need to support priests in this work so that our young people hear vocations stories, see positive examples of all vocations and have a prayerful and informed community that will support them as they listen to God's call.
The Vocation Centre is also about the launch a new DVD on the priesthood as well as a weekly Vocations Show on the online Catholic radio station CRADIO, offering in-depth interviews, testimonies and the chance to ask questions about vocations.
"These retreats, reflection and inquiry days for young men considering whether Christ is calling them to the priesthood is a time for these men to go deeper, ask questions, and meet up with peers who are undertaking a similar journey" says the archdiocesan director of Vocations, Fr Michael de Stoop.
TODAY'S SAINT: FEB. 27: ST. GABRIEL OF OUR LADY OF SORROWS
St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows
PASSIONIST MONK
Feast: February 27
| On a summer day a little over a hundred years ago, a slim figure in a black cassock stood facing a gang of mercenaries in a small town in Piedmont, Italy. He had just disarmed one of the soldiers who was attacking a young girl, had faced the rest of the band fearlessly, then drove them all out of the village at the point of a gun. The young man was Francesco Possenti, whose father was lawyer for the Papal States and who had recently joined the Passionist Order, taking the name of Brother Gabriel. |
Read more: http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/G/stgabrielofourladyofsorrows.asp#ixzz1FCOv8Jm5
TODAY'S MASS READINGS: 8th SUN. OF ORDINARY TIME/ YEAR A
| Isaiah 49: 14 - 15 | |
| 14 | But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me." |
| 15 | "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. |
| Psalms 62: 2 - 3, 6 - 9 | |
| 2 | He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly moved. |
| 3 | How long will you set upon a man to shatter him, all of you, like a leaning wall, a tottering fence? |
| 6 | He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. |
| 7 | On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. |
| 8 | Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. [Selah] |
| 9 | Men of low estate are but a breath, men of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath. |
1This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.2Moreover it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.3But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself.4I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.5Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then every man will receive his commendation from God.
| Matthew 6: 24 - 34 | |
| 24 | "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. |
| 25 | "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? |
| 26 | Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? |
| 27 | And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? |
| 28 | And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; |
| 29 | yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. |
| 30 | But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? |
| 31 | Therefore do not be anxious, saying, `What shall we eat?' or `What shall we drink?' or `What shall we wear?' |
| 32 | For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. |
| 33 | But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well. |
| 34 | "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day. |
