VATICAN: POPE: EASTER VIGIL HOMILY AND URBI ET ORBI
“In resurrectione tua, Christe, coeli et terra laetentur!
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Rome and across the world, Easter morning brings us news that is ancient yet ever new: Christ is risen! The echo of this event, which issued forth from Jerusalem twenty centuries ago, continues to resound in the Church, deep in whose heart lives the vibrant faith of Mary, Mother of Jesus, the faith of Mary Magdalene and the other women who first discovered the empty tomb, and the faith of Peter and the other Apostles.
Right down to our own time – even in these days of advanced communications technology – the faith of Christians is based on that same news, on the testimony of those sisters and brothers who saw firstly the stone that had been rolled away from the empty tomb and then the mysterious messengers who testified that Jesus, the Crucified, was risen. And then Jesus himself, the Lord and Master, living and tangible, appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and finally to all eleven, gathered in the Upper Room (cf. Mk 16:9-14).
The resurrection of Christ is not the fruit of speculation or mystical experience: it is an event which, while it surpasses history, nevertheless happens at a precise moment in history and leaves an indelible mark upon it. The light which dazzled the guards keeping watch over Jesus’ tomb has traversed time and space. It is a different kind of light, a divine light, that has rent asunder the darkness of death and has brought to the world the splendour of God, the splendour of Truth and Goodness.
Just as the sun’s rays in springtime cause the buds on the branches of the trees to sprout and open up, so the radiance that streams forth from Christ’s resurrection gives strength and meaning to every human hope, to every expectation, wish and plan. Hence the entire cosmos is rejoicing today, caught up in the springtime of humanity, which gives voice to creation’s silent hymn of praise. The Easter Alleluia, resounding in the Church as she makes her pilgrim way through the world, expresses the silent exultation of the universe and above all the longing of every human soul that is sincerely open to God, giving thanks to him for his infinite goodness, beauty and truth.
“In your resurrection, O Christ, let heaven and earth rejoice.” To this summons to praise, which arises today from the heart of the Church, the “heavens” respond fully: the hosts of angels, saints and blessed souls join with one voice in our exultant song. In heaven all is peace and gladness. But alas, it is not so on earth! Here, in this world of ours, the Easter alleluia still contrasts with the cries and laments that arise from so many painful situations: deprivation, hunger, disease, war, violence. Yet it was for this that Christ died and rose again! He died on account of sin, including ours today, he rose for the redemption of history, including our own. So my message today is intended for everyone, and, as a prophetic proclamation, it is intended especially for peoples and communities who are undergoing a time of suffering, that the Risen Christ may open up for them the path of freedom, justice and peace.
May the Land which was the first to be flooded by the light of the Risen One rejoice. May the splendour of Christ reach the peoples of the Middle East, so that the light of peace and of human dignity may overcome the darkness of division, hate and violence. In the current conflict in Libya, may diplomacy and dialogue take the place of arms and may those who suffer as a result of the conflict be given access to humanitarian aid. In the countries of northern Africa and the Middle East, may all citizens, especially young people, work to promote the common good and to build a society where poverty is defeated and every political choice is inspired by respect for the human person. May help come from all sides to those fleeing conflict and to refugees from various African countries who have been obliged to leave all that is dear to them; may people of good will open their hearts to welcome them, so that the pressing needs of so many brothers and sisters will be met with a concerted response in a spirit of solidarity; and may our words of comfort and appreciation reach all those who make such generous efforts and offer an exemplary witness in this regard.
May peaceful coexistence be restored among the peoples of Ivory Coast, where there is an urgent need to tread the path of reconciliation and pardon, in order to heal the deep wounds caused by the recent violence. May Japan find consolation and hope as it faces the dramatic consequences of the recent earthquake, along with other countries that in recent months have been tested by natural disasters which have sown pain and anguish.
May heaven and earth rejoice at the witness of those who suffer opposition and even persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. May the proclamation of his victorious resurrection deepen their courage and trust.
Dear brothers and sisters! The risen Christ is journeying ahead of us towards the new heavens and the new earth (cf. Rev 21:1), in which we shall all finally live as one family, as sons of the same Father. He is with us until the end of time. Let us walk behind him, in this wounded world, singing Alleluia. In our hearts there is joy and sorrow, on our faces there are smiles and tears. Such is our earthly reality. But Christ is risen, he is alive and he walks with us. For this reason we sing and we walk, faithfully carrying out our task in this world with our gaze fixed on heaven.
Happy Easter to all of you!
Yet these great signs of creation, light and water, are not the only constituent elements of the liturgy of the Easter Vigil. Another essential feature is the ample encounter with the words of sacred Scripture that it provides. Before the liturgical reform there were twelve Old Testament readings and two from the New Testament. The New Testament readings have been retained. The number of Old Testament readings has been fixed at seven, but depending upon the local situation, they may be reduced to three. The Church wishes to offer us a panoramic view of whole trajectory of salvation history, starting with creation, passing through the election and the liberation of Israel to the testimony of the prophets by which this entire history is directed ever more clearly towards Jesus Christ. In the liturgical tradition all these readings were called prophecies. Even when they are not directly foretelling future events, they have a prophetic character, they show us the inner foundation and orientation of history. They cause creation and history to become transparent to what is essential. In this way they take us by the hand and lead us towards Christ, they show us the true Light.
At the Easter Vigil, the journey along the paths of sacred Scripture begins with the account of creation. This is the liturgy’s way of telling us that the creation story is itself a prophecy. It is not information about the external processes by which the cosmos and man himself came into being. The Fathers of the Church were well aware of this. They did not interpret the story as an account of the process of the origins of things, but rather as a pointer towards the essential, towards the true beginning and end of our being. Now, one might ask: is it really important to speak also of creation during the Easter Vigil? Could we not begin with the events in which God calls man, forms a people for himself and creates his history with men upon the earth? The answer has to be: no. To omit the creation would be to misunderstand the very history of God with men, to diminish it, to lose sight of its true order of greatness. The sweep of history established by God reaches back to the origins, back to creation. Our profession of faith begins with the words: “We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth”. If we omit the beginning of the Credo, the whole history of salvation becomes too limited and too small. The Church is not some kind of association that concerns itself with man’s religious needs but is limited to that objective. No, she brings man into contact with God and thus with the source of all things. Therefore we relate to God as Creator, and so we have a responsibility for creation. Our responsibility extends as far as creation because it comes from the Creator. Only because God created everything can he give us life and direct our lives. Life in the Church’s faith involves more than a set of feelings and sentiments and perhaps moral obligations. It embraces man in his entirety, from his origins to his eternal destiny. Only because creation belongs to God can we place ourselves completely in his hands. And only because he is the Creator can he give us life for ever. Joy over creation, thanksgiving for creation and responsibility for it all belong together.
The central message of the creation account can be defined more precisely still. In the opening words of his Gospel, Saint John sums up the essential meaning of that account in this single statement: “In the beginning was the Word”. In effect, the creation account that we listened to earlier is characterized by the regularly recurring phrase: “And God said ...” The world is a product of the Word, of the Logos, as Saint John expresses it, using a key term from the Greek language. “Logos” means “reason”, “sense”, “word”. It is not reason pure and simple, but creative Reason, that speaks and communicates itself. It is Reason that both is and creates sense. The creation account tells us, then, that the world is a product of creative Reason. Hence it tells us that, far from there being an absence of reason and freedom at the origin of all things, the source of everything is creative Reason, love, and freedom. Here we are faced with the ultimate alternative that is at stake in the dispute between faith and unbelief: are irrationality, lack of freedom and pure chance the origin of everything, or are reason, freedom and love at the origin of being? Does the primacy belong to unreason or to reason? This is what everything hinges upon in the final analysis. As believers we answer, with the creation account and with John, that in the beginning is reason. In the beginning is freedom. Hence it is good to be a human person. It is not the case that in the expanding universe, at a late stage, in some tiny corner of the cosmos, there evolved randomly some species of living being capable of reasoning and of trying to find rationality within creation, or to bring rationality into it. If man were merely a random product of evolution in some place on the margins of the universe, then his life would make no sense or might even be a chance of nature. But no, Reason is there at the beginning: creative, divine Reason. And because it is Reason, it also created freedom; and because freedom can be abused, there also exist forces harmful to creation. Hence a thick black line, so to speak, has been drawn across the structure of the universe and across the nature of man. But despite this contradiction, creation itself remains good, life remains good, because at the beginning is good Reason, God’s creative love. Hence the world can be saved. Hence we can and must place ourselves on the side of reason, freedom and love – on the side of God who loves us so much that he suffered for us, that from his death there might emerge a new, definitive and healed life.
The Old Testament account of creation that we listened to clearly indicates this order of realities. But it leads us a further step forward. It has structured the process of creation within the framework of a week leading up to the Sabbath, in which it finds its completion. For Israel, the Sabbath was the day on which all could participate in God’s rest, in which man and animal, master and slave, great and small were united in God’s freedom. Thus the Sabbath was an expression of the Covenant between God and man and creation. In this way, communion between God and man does not appear as something extra, something added later to a world already fully created. The Covenant, communion between God and man, is inbuilt at the deepest level of creation. Yes, the Covenant is the inner ground of creation, just as creation is the external presupposition of the Covenant. God made the world so that there could be a space where he might communicate his love, and from which the response of love might come back to him. From God’s perspective, the heart of the man who responds to him is greater and more important than the whole immense material cosmos, for all that the latter allows us to glimpse something of God’s grandeur.
Easter and the paschal experience of Christians, however, now require us to take a further step. The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week. After six days in which man in some sense participates in God’s work of creation, the Sabbath is the day of rest. But something quite unprecedented happened in the nascent Church: the place of the Sabbath, the seventh day, was taken by the first day. As the day of the liturgical assembly, it is the day for encounter with God through Jesus Christ who as the Risen Lord encountered his followers on the first day, Sunday, after they had found the tomb empty. The structure of the week is overturned. No longer does it point towards the seventh day, as the time to participate in God’s rest. It sets out from the first day as the day of encounter with the Risen Lord. This encounter happens afresh at every celebration of the Eucharist, when the Lord enters anew into the midst of his disciples and gives himself to them, allows himself, so to speak, to be touched by them, sits down at table with them. This change is utterly extraordinary, considering that the Sabbath, the seventh day seen as the day of encounter with God, is so profoundly rooted in the Old Testament. If we also bear in mind how much the movement from work towards the rest-day corresponds to a natural rhythm, the dramatic nature of this change is even more striking. This revolutionary development that occurred at the very the beginning of the Church’s history can be explained only by the fact that something utterly new happened that day. The first day of the week was the third day after Jesus’ death. It was the day when he showed himself to his disciples as the Risen Lord. In truth, this encounter had something unsettling about it. The world had changed. This man who had died was now living with a life that was no longer threatened by any death. A new form of life had been inaugurated, a new dimension of creation. The first day, according to the Genesis account, is the day on which creation begins. Now it was the day of creation in a new way, it had become the day of the new creation. We celebrate the first day. And in so doing we celebrate God the Creator and his creation. Yes, we believe in God, the Creator of heaven and earth. And we celebrate the God who was made man, who suffered, died, was buried and rose again. We celebrate the definitive victory of the Creator and of his creation. We celebrate this day as the origin and the goal of our existence. We celebrate it because now, thanks to the risen Lord, it is definitively established that reason is stronger than unreason, truth stronger than lies, love stronger than death. We celebrate the first day because we know that the black line drawn across creation does not last for ever. We celebrate it because we know that those words from the end of the creation account have now been definitively fulfilled: “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). Amen.
AMERICA: CANADA: PETERBOROUGH ELABORATE WAY OF THE CROSS THROUGH TOWN
LIFESITENEWS.COM VIDEO AND REPORT: PETERBOROUGH, Ontario, April 24, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Every Good Friday for the past 7 years the youth of the diocese of Peterborough, Ontario have put on an elaborate, heartfelt enactment of Christ’s Passion and Way of the Cross. They begin within the cathedral, later enact the condemning of Christ in front of the cathedral and then slowly proceed for a considerable distance through the city downtown to another church for the crucifixion scenes. Stations of the cross are enacted at intersections along the way.
68 actors took part in this year’s Way of the Cross with 28 more youth involved in many behind the scenes aspects of the annual event, directed this year by Mary Helen Moes, program manager for youth for the diocese of Peterborough. The idea for the Way of the Cross came from the youth themselves.
As part of the initial proceedings inside the cathedral of St. Peter-in-Chains, 16-year old Wayside Academy student Maria DeCiccio, with the accompaniment of a recorded songtrack, performed achilling rendition of the song, Via Dolorosa (The Way of Suffering). The song retells the story of Christ’s climb to Calvary.
Maria sang from the side of the Church, hidden by a number of pillars which caused a good number of worshipers to think that they were hearing a recorded voice. They were later amazed when told that the singing was done live by a young girl from their community.
Peterborough bishop Nicola De Angelis actively takes part in the event every year, walking the entire distance right behind the performers. Di Angelis is known for his outspoken pro-life views and strong defense of all aspects of authentic Catholic faith and morality.
The LifeSiteNews video recording of this event was done on a small personal digital photo camera that happens to also take video. There was no intention of producing a video, but the quality of the recording was found to be surprisingly good enough to produce the short amateur production conveying the sense of this moving event.
The music from the movie, “The Passion of Christ”, was not added to the video. It was played from a sound truck during the procession as it moved through the streets and so all the audio in the video is as it was during the procession, except for the voice over of Maria’s singing for the duration of her song.
AFRICA: UGANDA: CHRISTIAN LEADERS COMMENT ON RECONCILIATION
ALL AFRICA REPORT: RELIGIOUS leaders have welcomed the President's offer of dialogue to resolve the issues behind the opposition's 'walk-to-work' protests. The leaders read the story before it went to print as they met to edit content in today's newspaper.
The Sunday Vision, Easter edition was jointly edited by clergy of the three main Christian faiths in an imitative of Vision Group management and editors to have members of the public involved in producing newspapers.
In addition to writing the editorial the joint editors participated in generating story ideas and selection of stories published in this issue.
The clerics said the President's gesture coincided with the content of their joint editorial which was written early last week and published in today's paper.
Present was Pastor Joseph Serwadda, the presiding apostle of the Born Again Faith, Msgr. John Wynand Katende representing the Catholic Church and Amanda Onapito representing the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda Henry Luke Orombi.
"Our editorial was designed on the issue of reconciliation. This reflects Jesus' ministry of reconciliation," said Pastor Serwadda during a meeting at Sunday Vision office yesterday.
Commenting on the President's offer, Msgr Katende said: "This is the resurrection. The President's offer of an olive branch to the opposition is indeed good news for Uganda. It means that God has answered our prayers."
The clergy urged the opposition not to snub the offer but to respond positively for the good of the nation.
"The opposition needs to think about the people and talk about real issues," Onapito urged."Let everyone put emotion and self-interest aside; this is about Uganda and both sides should focus on issues of national interest," said Katende.
Serwadda pointed out that King Herod and Pontius Pilate were enemies but they became friends during the trial of Jesus. He noted that the offer to talk was a fitting act of reconciliation at Easter.
"Jesus was the catalyst for that reconciliation and he has finally reached out to Uganda as he did in the day of Pilate and Herod."
ASIA: KOREA: UNIFIED CHRISTIAN PRAYER FOR PEACE
Protestant Churches in North and South Korea say this year’s common Easter prayer will be for peace and the reunification of the Korean peninsula.
The National Council of Churches in Korea (NCCK) and the (North) Korean Christian Federation (KCF) released the text of the Easter Sunday prayer on Tuesday.
The NCCK will read it during a joint service in the Yoido Full Gospel Church in South Korea on April 24.
“Inter-Korean tension remains high following the North’s sinking of the warship, Cheonan, and its shelling of Yeonpyeong-do Island last year. So Christians should pray for each other,” said Reverend Lee Hun-sam, director of the NCCK’s justice and peace department.
“Please be with the two Koreas who desperately need the resurrection of Jesus. We didn’t request reconciliation nor practice sharing. As a result, the dialogue between the two Koreas has stopped and we have faced the growing fear of possible war now,” the prayer reads.
“We haven’t realized peace and reunification for 66 years since the division of the Korean Peninsula. Please give us peace,” it goes on to say.
The Common Easter Prayer has been jointly written by both the NCCK and KCF since 1996.
http://www.ucanews.com/2011/04/21/churches-reveal-common-easter-prayer/
EUROPE: CONTROVERSIAL MOVIE- POSSIBLE BOYCOTT- HABEMUS PAPEM
- A new film depicting a fictitious Pope who struggles to adjust to his new role and eventually resigns is dividing Catholic opinion in Italy.
“Habemus Papam,” which opened in cinemas across Italy this weekend, is the creation of Italian director Nanni Moretti. It stars the 85-year-old French actor Michel Piccoli as the reluctant pontiff.
A Vatican reporter for the Italian news agency AGI, Salvatore Izzo, called for a boycott of the box-office hit and Cannes Palme D'Or contender “Habemus Papam.”
Despite its controversial subject matter the Jesuit journal Civiltà Cattolica praised the film, while Vatican Radio said it was pleased to report that it featured “no irony” relating to the Pope and was not a “caricature.”
Such conciliatory talk, though, is being dismissed by the Vatican reporter Izzo. Writing in the Italian bishop’s newspaper Avvenire, he said, “You don't touch the Pope: he is the Christ's vicar, the rock upon which Jesus founded his Church.”
Izzo also condemned those Catholics who have praised the film. “Let’s not trust the Catholic critics, even if they are priests, who absolve (Moretti) with a very curious justification: 'Moretti could have been even worse'.”
“We do not need ‘Habemus Papam,’” he said, urging a boycott.
Italian journalist and Vatican-watcher Sandro Magister told AFP that there’s unlikely to be any official condemnation of the film. “It would only help the producer,” he said. “He would be very happy with a polemic that is completely without foundation.”
Meanwhile, Moretti told an interviewer for Italian RAI3 TV, “There is freedom of expression in my work. I am not commenting.” The director added, “People can boycott it after seeing it.”
“Habemus Papam” is now in the running for the prestigious Palme D'Or Prize at the Cannes Film Festival next month.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/catholic-opinion-divided-over-film-habemus-papam/
AUSTRALIA: CHURCH ROBBED $19, 000 ON EASTER SUNDAY
NEWS.COM.AU REPORT: THE resurrection of Christ was met with the resurrection of crime at one Canberra church on Easter Sunday.
Thieves have stolen $19,000 from St Augustine's in southern Canberra.
"Between 1pm and 4pm entry was forced to the residential premises of St Augustine Church in Farrer via a window opposite Yamba Drive," police said in a statement.
"Some cash and a safe containing collection money totalling $19,000 was stolen."
Police are urging any witnesses to the crime to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/canberra-church-robbed-of-19000-on-easter-sunday/story-e6frfku0-1226044351891#ixzz1KUzb6cMT
TODAY'S SAINT: APR. 24: ST. FIDELIS OF SIGMARINGEN
St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen
MARTYR
Feast: April 24
| He was born in 1577, at Sigmarengen, a town in Germany, in the principality of Hoinvenzollen. The name of his father was John Rey. The saint was christened Mark, performed his studies in the university of Fribourg in Switzerland, and while he taught philosophy, commenced doctor of laws. He at that time never drank wine, and wore a hair-shirt. His modesty, meekness, chastity, and all other virtues, charmed all that had the happiness of his acquaintance. In 1604, he accompanied three young gentlemen of that country on their travels through the principal parts of Europe. During six years, which he continued in this employment, he never ceased to instil into them the most heroic and tender sentiments of piety. He received the holy sacrament very frequently, particularly on all the principal holidays: in every town where he came, he visited the hospitals and churches, passed several hours on his knees in the presence of the blessed sacrament, and gave to the poor sometimes the very clothes off his back. After this he practiced the law in quality of counsellor or advocate, at Colmar, in Alsace, with great reputation, but with greater virtue. Justice and religion directed all his actions. He scrupulously forbore all invectives, detractions, and whatever might affect the reputation of any adversary. His charity procured him the surname of counsellor and advocate for the poor: but the injustices of a colleague in protracting lawsuits for gain, and his finding fault with our saint for producing all his proofs for his clients in the beginning, in order to the quicker dispatch, gave him a disgust of a profession which was to many an occasion of sin, and determined him to enter among the Capuchin friars. He first received holy orders, and having said his first mass in their convent at Fribourg, on the feast of St. Francis, in 1612, he consecrated himself to God by taking the habit. The guardian gave him, in religion, the name of Fidelis, or Faithful, alluding to that text of the Apocalypse which promises a crown of life to him who shall continue faithful to the end. From that moment humiliations, macerations, and implicit obedience were his delight. He overcame temptations by discovering them to his director, and submitting to his advice with regard to his conduct under them. By his last will, he bequeathed his patrimony to the bishop's seminary, for the establishment of a fund for the support of poor students, to whom he also left his library; and gave the remainder of his substance to the poor. In regard to dress and furniture, he always chose that for his own use which was the least valuable and convenient. He fasted Advent, Lent, and Vigils, on bread and water, with dried fruits, tasting nothing which had been dressed by fire. His life was a continued prayer and recollection, and at his devotions he seemed rather like an angel than a man. His earnest and perpetual petition to God was, that he would always preserve him from sin, and from falling into tepidity or sloth in his service. He sought the most abject and most painful employments even when superior; knowing that God exalts those highest who have here humbled themselves the lowest and the nearest to their own nothingness. He had no sooner finished his course of theology, than he was employed in preaching and in hearing confessions; and being sent superior to the convent of Weltkirchen, that town and many neighboring places were totally reformed by his zealous labors, and several Calvinists converted. The congregation de propaganda fide, sent to father Fidelis a commission to go and preach among the Grisons; and he was the first missionary that was sent into those parts after that people had embraced Calvinism. Eight other fathers of his order were his assistants, and labored in this mission under his direction. The Calvinists of that territory, being incensed at his attempt, loudly threatened his life, and he prepared himself for martyrdom on entering upon this new harvest. Ralph de Salis, and another Calvinist gentleman, were converted by his first conferences. The missionary penetrated into Pretigout, a small district of the Grisons, in 1622, on the feast of the Epiphany, and gained every day new conquests to Christ; the conversion of which souls ought to be regarded as more the fruit of the ardent prayers in which he passed great part of the nights, than of his sermons and conferences in the day. These wonderful effects of his apostolic zeal, whereof the bishop of Coire sent a large and full account to the congregation de propaganda, so enraged the Calvinists in that province, who had lately rebelled against the emperor. their sovereign, that they were determined to bear with them no longer. 'The holy father having notice of it, thought of nothing but preparing himself for his conflict, passing whole nights in fervent prayer before the blessed sacrament, or before his crucifix, and often prostrate on the ground. On the 24th of April, 1622, he made his confession to his companion with great compunction, said mass, and then preached at Gruch, a considerable borough. At the end of his sermon, which he delivered with more than ordinary fire, he stood silent on a sudden, with his eyes fixed on heaven, in an ecstasy, during some time. He foretold his death to several persons in the clearest terms, and subscribed his last letters in this manner: "Brother Fidelis, who will be shortly the food of worms." From Gruch he went to preach at Sevis, where, with great energy, he exhorted the Catholics to constancy in the faith. A Calvinist having discharged his musket at him in the church, the Catholics entreated him to leave the place. He answered, that death was his gain and his joy, and that he was ready to lay down his life in God's cause. On his road back to Gruch, he met twenty Calvinist soldiers with a minister at their head. They called him false prophet, and urged him to embrace their sect. He answered: "I am sent to you to confute, not to embrace your heresy. The Catholic religion is the faith of all ages, I fear not death." One of them beat him down to the ground by a stroke on the head with his backsword. The martyr rose again on his knees, and stretching out his arms in the form of a cross, said with a feeble voice "Pardon my enemies, O Lord: blinded by passion they know not what they do. Lord Jesus, have pity on me. Mary, mother of Jesus, assist me." Another stroke clove his skull, and he fell to the ground and lay wetering in his blood. The soldiers, not content with this, added many stabs in his body, and hacked his left leg, as they said, to punish him for his many journeys into those parts to preach to them. A Catholic woman lay concealed near the place during this butchery; and after the soldiers were gone, coming out to see the effects of it, found the martyr's eyes open, and fixed on the heavens. He died in 1622, the forty-fifth year of his age, and the tenth of his religious profession. He was buried by the Catholics the next day. The rebels were soon after defeated by the imperialists, an event which the martyr had foretold them. The minister was converted by this circumstance, and made a public abjuration of his heresy. After six months, the martyr's body was found incorrupt, but the head and left arm separate from the trunk. These being put into two cases, were translated from thence to the cathedral of Coire, at the earnest suit of the bishop, and laid under the high altar with great pomp; the remainder of the corpse was deposited in the Capuchin's church at Weltkirchen. Three miracles performed by his relics and intercession, out of three hundred and five produced, are inserted in the decree of his beatification, published by pope Benedict XIII., in 1729. Other miracles were proved, and the decree of his canonization was published by Benedict XIV., in 1746. The 24th of April is appointed the day of his festival, and his name is inserted in the Roman Martyrology. See the acts of his canonization: also his life, written by Dom. Placid, abbot of Weissenau, or Augia Brigantina, published by Dom. Bernard Pez, librarian in the famous abbey of Melch, in Austria, in his Bibliotheca Ascetica, t. 10, p. 403. |
SOURCE: http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/F/stfidelisofsigmaringen.asp#ixzz1KUsSeTZ6
TODAY'S MASS READINGS: SOLEMNITY OF EASTER SUN./ YEAR A
| Acts 10: 34, 37 - 43 | |||||||||||||||
| 34 | And Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, | ||||||||||||||
| 37 | the word which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: | ||||||||||||||
| 38 | how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. | ||||||||||||||
| 39 | And we are witnesses to all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; | ||||||||||||||
| 40 | but God raised him on the third day and made him manifest; | ||||||||||||||
| 41 | not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. | ||||||||||||||
| 42 | And he commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that he is the one ordained by God to be judge of the living and the dead. | ||||||||||||||
| 43 | To him all the prophets bear witness that every one who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."
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