RADIO VATICANA REPORT:
“Violence never serves humanity – it only dehumanises.” This was the Pope’s
message at Sunday’s Angelus address, as he commented upon the Gospel passage of
the Purification of the Temple in front of several thousand pilgrims gathered in
St. Peter's Square.
Pope Benedict described our Lord’s action of driving the money-changers as a prophetic. “Indeed,” he said, “the prophets, in the name of God, often denounced abuses, and they sometimes did so with symbolic gestures.” It is impossible to describe Jesus as violent,, the Pope said, because “violence is contrary to the Kingdom of God; it is a tool of the Antichrist.”
After the Angelus, the Holy Father launched an appeal for the people of Madagascar hit by a devastating tropical storm. “My thoughts go first to the dear people of Madagascar, which have recently been hit by severe natural disasters, with serious damage to people, structures and crops. While I assure the victims and the families of those so greatly tried of my prayers, I hope for and encourage the generous assistance of the international community.”
Finally, Pope Benedict greeted pilgrims from around the world, including those from English speaking countries: “I greet the English-speaking visitors present for this Angelus prayer, including the Neo-catechumenal Community from Bristol. In today’s Gospel Jesus foretells his resurrection and points to the temple which is his body, the Church. May our meditation on these mysteries deepen our union with the Lord and his Church. Upon all of you I invoke God’s blessings!”
SOURCE: http://www.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=570492
Pope Benedict described our Lord’s action of driving the money-changers as a prophetic. “Indeed,” he said, “the prophets, in the name of God, often denounced abuses, and they sometimes did so with symbolic gestures.” It is impossible to describe Jesus as violent,, the Pope said, because “violence is contrary to the Kingdom of God; it is a tool of the Antichrist.”
After the Angelus, the Holy Father launched an appeal for the people of Madagascar hit by a devastating tropical storm. “My thoughts go first to the dear people of Madagascar, which have recently been hit by severe natural disasters, with serious damage to people, structures and crops. While I assure the victims and the families of those so greatly tried of my prayers, I hope for and encourage the generous assistance of the international community.”
Finally, Pope Benedict greeted pilgrims from around the world, including those from English speaking countries: “I greet the English-speaking visitors present for this Angelus prayer, including the Neo-catechumenal Community from Bristol. In today’s Gospel Jesus foretells his resurrection and points to the temple which is his body, the Church. May our meditation on these mysteries deepen our union with the Lord and his Church. Upon all of you I invoke God’s blessings!”
SOURCE: http://www.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=570492
ECUMENICAL VESPERS PRAYER WITH ARCHBISHOP ROWAN WILLIAMS
RADIO VATICANA REPORT:
Below please find the full texts of the two homilies, first
of Pope Benedict and then of Archbishop Rowan Williams:
Your Grace,
Dear Brother Bishops and Priests,
Dear Monks and Nuns of Camaldoli,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It gives me great joy to be here today in this Basilica of San Gregorio al Celio for Solemn Vespers on the liturgical commemoration of the death of Saint Gregory the Great. With you, dear Brothers and Sisters of the Camaldolese family, I thank God for the thousand years that have passed since the foundation of the Sacred Hermitage of Camaldoli by Saint Romuald. I am delighted to be joined on this occasion by His Grace Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. To you, my dear Brother in Christ, and to each one of you, dear monks and nuns, and to everyone present, I extend cordial greetings.
We have listened to two passages from Saint Paul. The first, taken from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, is particularly appropriate for the current liturgical season of Lent. It contains the Apostle’s exhortation to seize the favourable moment for receiving God’s grace. The favourable moment is naturally when Jesus Christ came to reveal and to bestow upon us the love that God has for us, through his incarnation, passion, death and resurrection. The “day of salvation” is the same reality that Saint Paul in another place describes as the “fullness of time”, the moment when God took flesh and entered time in a completely unique way, filling it with his grace. It is for us, then, to accept this gift, which is Jesus himself: his person, his word, his Holy Spirit. Moreover, in the first reading, Saint Paul tells us about himself and his apostolate – how he strives to remain faithful to God in his ministry, so that it may be truly efficacious and may not prove instead a barrier to faith. These words make us think of Saint Gregory the Great, of the radiant witness that he offered the people of Rome and the whole Church by a blameless ministry full of zeal for the Gospel. Truly, what Saint Paul wrote of himself applies equally to Gregory: the grace of God in him has not been fruitless (cf. 1 Cor 15:10). This, indeed, is the secret for the lives of every one of us: to welcome God’s grace and to consent with all our heart and all our strength to its action. This is also the secret of true joy and profound peace.
The second reading was taken from the Letter to the Colossians. We heard those words – always so moving for their spiritual and pastoral inspiration – that the Apostle addressed to the members of that community in order to form them according to the Gospel, saying to them: “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col 3:17). “Be perfect”, the Master said to his disciples; and now the Apostle exhorts his listeners to live according to the high measure of Christian life that is holiness. He can do this because the brothers he is addressing are “chosen by God, holy and beloved”. Here too, at the root of everything, is the grace of God, the gift of the call, the mystery of the encounter with the living Jesus. But this grace demands a response from those who have been baptized: it requires the commitment to be reclothed in Christ’s sentiments: tenderness, goodness, humility, meekness, magnanimity, mutual forgiveness, and above all, as a synthesis and a crown, agape, the love that God has given us through Jesus, the love that the Holy Spirit has poured into our hearts. And if we are to be reclothed in Christ, his word must dwell among us and in us, with all its richness and in abundance. In an atmosphere of constant thanksgiving, the Christian community feeds on the word and causes to rise towards God, as a song of praise, the word that he himself has given us. And every action, every gesture, every service, is accomplished within this profound relationship with God, in the interior movement of Trinitarian love that descends towards us and rises back towards God, a movement that finds its highest expression in the eucharistic sacrifice.
This word also sheds light upon the happy circumstances that bring us together today, in the name of Saint Gregory the Great. Through the faithfulness and benevolence of the Lord, the Congregation of Camaldolese monks of the Order of Saint Benedict has completed a thousand years of history, feeding daily on the word of God and the Eucharist, as their founder Saint Romuald taught them, according to the triplex bonum of solitude, community life and evangelization. Exemplary men and women of God, such as Saint Peter Damian, Gratian – author of the Decretum – Saint Bruno of Querfurt and the five brother martyrs, Rudolph I and II, Blessed Gherardesca, Blessed Giovanna da Bagno and Blessed Paolo Giustiniani; men of art and science like Brother Maurus the Cosmographer, Lorenzo Monaco, Ambrogio Traversari, Pietro Delfino and Guido Grandi; illustrious historians like the Camaldolese Annalists Giovanni Benedetto Mittarelli and Anselmo Costadoni; zealous pastors of the Church, among whom Pope Gregory XVI stands out, have revealed the horizons and the great fruitfulness of the Camaldolese tradition.
Every phase of the long history of the Camaldolese has produced faithful witnesses of the Gospel, not only in the hidden life of silence and solitude and in the common life shared with the brethren, but also in humble and generous service towards others. Particularly fruitful was the hospitality offered by Camaldolese guest-houses. In the days of Florentine humanism, the walls of Camaldoli witnessed the famous disputationes, in which great humanists such as Marsilio Ficino and Cristoforo Landino took part. In the turbulent years of the Second World War, those same cloisters were the setting for the birth of the famous Codex of Camaldoli, one of the most significant sources of the Constitution of the Italian Republic. Nor were the years of the Second Vatican Council any less productive, for at that time individuals of high calibre emerged among the Camaldolese, enriching the Congregation and the Church and promoting new initiatives and new houses in the United States of America, Tanzania, India and Brazil. In all this activity, a guarantee of fruitfulness was the support of monks and nuns praying constantly for the new foundations from the depths of their “withdrawal from the world”, lived at times to a heroic degree.
On 17 September 1993, during his meeting with the monks of the Sacred Hermitage of Camaldoli, Blessed John Paul II commented on the theme of their imminent General Chapter, “Choosing hope, choosing the future”, with these words: “Choosing hope and the future in the last analysis implies choosing God ... It means choosing Christ, the hope of every human being.” And he continued, “This particularly occurs in that form of life which God himself brought about in the Church, inspiring Saint Romuald to found the Benedictine family of Camaldoli, with its characteristic complementarity of hermitage and monastery, solitary life and cenobitic life in harmony with each other.” Moreover, my blessed Predecessor emphasized that “choosing God also means humbly and patiently cultivating, according to God’s design, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue”, always on the basis of fidelity to the original charism received from Saint Romuald and transmitted through a thousand years of varied tradition.
Encouraged by the visit from the Successor of Peter, and by his words, all of you Camaldolese monks and nuns have pursued your path, constantly seeking the right balance between the eremitical and the cenobitic spirit, between the need to dedicate yourselves totally to God in solitude, the need to support one another in communal prayer, and the need to welcome others so that they can draw upon the wellsprings of spiritual life and evaluate the events of the world with a truly Gospel-formed conscience. In this way you seek to attain that perfecta caritas that Saint Gregory the Great considered the point of arrival of every manifestation of faith, a commitment that finds confirmation in the motto of your coat of arms: “Ego Vobis, vos mihi”, a synthesis of the covenant formula between God and his people, and a source of the perennial vitality of your charism.
The Monastery of San Gregorio al Celio is the Roman setting for our celebration of the millennium of Camaldoli in company with His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury who, together with us, recognizes this Monastery as the birthplace of the link between Christianity in Britain and the Church of Rome. Today’s celebration is therefore marked by a profoundly ecumenical character which, as we know, is part and parcel of the modern Camaldolese spirit. This Roman Camaldolese Monastery has developed with Canterbury and the Anglican Communion, especially since the Second Vatican Council, links that now qualify as traditional. Today, for the third time, the Bishop of Rome is meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury in the home of Saint Gregory the Great. And it is right that it should be so, because it was from this Monastery that Pope Gregory chose Augustine and his forty monks and sent them to bring the Gospel to the Angles, a little over 1,400 years ago. The constant presence of monks in this place, over such a long period, is already in itself a testimony of God’s faithfulness to his Church, which we are happy to be able to proclaim to the whole world. We hope that the sign of our presence here together in front of the holy altar, where Gregory himself celebrated the eucharistic sacrifice, will remain not only as a reminder of our fraternal encounter, but also as a stimulus for all the faithful – both Catholic and Anglican – encouraging them, as they visit the glorious tombs of the holy Apostles and Martyrs in Rome, to renew their commitment to pray constantly and to work for unity, and to live fully in accordance with the “ut unum sint” that Jesus addressed to the Father.
This profound desire, that we have the joy of sharing, we entrust to the heavenly intercession of Saint Gregory the Great and Saint Romuald.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s
Homily at Papal Vesper, San Gregorio Magno al Celio
10 March 2012, 17.30 pm
Your Holiness, Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
It is a privilege to stand here, where my predecessors stood in 1989 and 1996, and to offer once again, as we did most recently in Westminster [and Assisi], the sacrifice of praise that we owe to the One Lord in whose name we are baptized; the One Lord who by his Spirit, brings to recognisability in each member of his sacramental Body, the image and abundant life of Christ his Son, through the temptations and struggles of our baptismal calling.
St Gregory the Great had much to say about the peculiar temptations and struggles of those called to office in the Church of God. To be called to this service is to be called to several different kinds of suffering – the torment of compassion, as he puts it (Moralia 30.25.74), the daily awareness of urgent human needs, bodily and spiritual, and the torment of praise, flattery and status (ib. 26.34.62). This latter is a torment because those called to this ministry know so clearly their own inner weakness and instability. But that knowledge is a saving knowledge, which among other things helps us minister effectively to others in trouble; and it reminds us that we find stability, soliditas, only in the life of the Body of Christ, not in our own achievement (Homilies on Ezekiel 2.5.22).
These are insights deeply rooted in St Gregory’s formation as a monk. Humility is the key to all faithful ministry, a humility that constantly seeks to be immersed, involved, in the life of Christ’s Body, not looking for an individual heroism or holiness. And it is this humility which the writer of the first life of St Gregory, written in England in the early eighth century, places at the head of the list of his saintly virtues, associating it with the ‘prophetic’ gift which allowed him to see what the English people needed and to respond by sending the mission of St Augustine from this place. That association of humility and prophecy is indeed one that St Gregory himself makes in the Dialogues. The true pastor and leader in the Church is one who, because he is caught up in the eternal self-offering of Jesus Christ through the sacramental mysteries of the Church, is free to see the needs of others as they really are. This may be ‘tormenting’, because those needs can be so profound and tragic; but it also stirs us to action to address such needs in the name and the strength of Christ.
And here lies the heart of Gregory’s monastic vision, the vision which the brothers and sisters of Camaldoli—whose millennium we celebrate with sincere joy here today—still seek to live out. To be immersed in the sacramental life of Christ’s Body requires the daily immersion of contemplation; without this, we cannot see one another clearly; without it we shall not truly recognize and love one another, and grow together in his one holy catholic and apostolic Body. The balance in the monastic life of solitude and common work and worship, a balance particularly carefully worked out in the life of Camaldoli, is something that seeks to enable a clear, even ‘prophetic’ vision of the other – seeing them, as the Eastern Christian tradition represented by Evagrius suggests, in the light of their authentic spiritual essence, not as they relate to our passions or preferences. The inseparable labour of action and contemplation, of solitude and community, is to do with the constant purification of our awareness of each other in the light of the God whom we encounter in silence and self-forgetting.
Your Holiness, dear brothers and sisters, it would be wrong to suggest that we enter into contemplation in order to see one anther more clearly; but if anyone were to say that contemplation is a luxury in the Church, something immaterial for the health of the Body, we should have to say that without it we should be constantly dealing with shadows and fictions, not with the reality of the world we live in. The Church is called upon to show that same prophetic spirit which is ascribed to St Gregory, the capacity to see where true need is and to answer God’s call in the person of the needy. To do this, it requires a habit of discernment, penetration beyond the prejudices and clichés which affect even believers in a culture that is so hasty and superficial in so many of its judgements; and with the habit of discernment belongs a habit of recognizing one another as agents of Christ’s grace and compassion and redemption.
And such a habit will develop only if we are daily learning the discipline of silence and patience, waiting for the truth to declare itself to us as we slowly set aside the distortions in our vision that are caused by selfishness and greed. In recent years, we have seen developing a vastly sophisticated system of unreality, created and sustained by acquisitiveness, a set of economic habits in which the needs of actual human beings seem to be almost entirely obscured. We are familiar with a feverish advertising culture in which we are persuaded to develop unreal and disproportionate desires. We are all – Christians and their pastors included – in need of the discipline that purges our vision and restores to us some sense of the truth of our world, even if that can produce the ‘torment’ of knowing more clearly how much people suffer and how little we can do for them by our unaided labours.
Your Holiness, ‘Certain yet imperfect’ was how our predecessors of blessed memory, Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Robert, here in Rome in 1989, characterised the communion that our two churches share. ‘Certain’ because of the shared ecclesial vision to which both our communions are committed as being the character of the Church both one and particular – a vision of the restoration of full sacramental communion, of a eucharistic life that is fully visible, and thus a witness that is fully credible, so that a confused and tormented world may enter into the welcome and transforming light of Christ. And ‘yet imperfect’ because of the limit of our vision, a deficit in the depth of our hope and patience. Our recognition of the one Body in each other’s corporate life is unstable and incomplete; yet without such ultimate recognition we are not yet fully free to share the transforming power of the Gospel in Church and world.
‘The truth will set you free’, says Our Lord. In the disciplines of contemplation and stillness, we are brought closer to the truth, and so also closer to the cross of the Lord. We learn our weakness and we learn something of the mystery of how God deals with our weakness – not by ignoring or rejecting it but by embracing its consequences in the incarnation and the passion of Christ. His self-emptying calls out our own self-denial – an appropriate theme for this Lenten season. We learn how to set on one side our busy and self-serving agendas and allow the self-giving Christ to live in us, to open our eyes and to empower us for service. Today, as we give thanks for a millennium of monastic witness, we celebrate the gifts of true and clear vision that have been made possible through this witness. And we pray for all who are called to public service in Christ’s Church that they may be given the grace of contemplative discipline and prophetic clarity in their own witness, so that the glory of Christ’s cross will shine forth in our world even in the midst of our own weaknesses and failures.
Your Grace,
Dear Brother Bishops and Priests,
Dear Monks and Nuns of Camaldoli,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
It gives me great joy to be here today in this Basilica of San Gregorio al Celio for Solemn Vespers on the liturgical commemoration of the death of Saint Gregory the Great. With you, dear Brothers and Sisters of the Camaldolese family, I thank God for the thousand years that have passed since the foundation of the Sacred Hermitage of Camaldoli by Saint Romuald. I am delighted to be joined on this occasion by His Grace Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. To you, my dear Brother in Christ, and to each one of you, dear monks and nuns, and to everyone present, I extend cordial greetings.
We have listened to two passages from Saint Paul. The first, taken from the Second Letter to the Corinthians, is particularly appropriate for the current liturgical season of Lent. It contains the Apostle’s exhortation to seize the favourable moment for receiving God’s grace. The favourable moment is naturally when Jesus Christ came to reveal and to bestow upon us the love that God has for us, through his incarnation, passion, death and resurrection. The “day of salvation” is the same reality that Saint Paul in another place describes as the “fullness of time”, the moment when God took flesh and entered time in a completely unique way, filling it with his grace. It is for us, then, to accept this gift, which is Jesus himself: his person, his word, his Holy Spirit. Moreover, in the first reading, Saint Paul tells us about himself and his apostolate – how he strives to remain faithful to God in his ministry, so that it may be truly efficacious and may not prove instead a barrier to faith. These words make us think of Saint Gregory the Great, of the radiant witness that he offered the people of Rome and the whole Church by a blameless ministry full of zeal for the Gospel. Truly, what Saint Paul wrote of himself applies equally to Gregory: the grace of God in him has not been fruitless (cf. 1 Cor 15:10). This, indeed, is the secret for the lives of every one of us: to welcome God’s grace and to consent with all our heart and all our strength to its action. This is also the secret of true joy and profound peace.
The second reading was taken from the Letter to the Colossians. We heard those words – always so moving for their spiritual and pastoral inspiration – that the Apostle addressed to the members of that community in order to form them according to the Gospel, saying to them: “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col 3:17). “Be perfect”, the Master said to his disciples; and now the Apostle exhorts his listeners to live according to the high measure of Christian life that is holiness. He can do this because the brothers he is addressing are “chosen by God, holy and beloved”. Here too, at the root of everything, is the grace of God, the gift of the call, the mystery of the encounter with the living Jesus. But this grace demands a response from those who have been baptized: it requires the commitment to be reclothed in Christ’s sentiments: tenderness, goodness, humility, meekness, magnanimity, mutual forgiveness, and above all, as a synthesis and a crown, agape, the love that God has given us through Jesus, the love that the Holy Spirit has poured into our hearts. And if we are to be reclothed in Christ, his word must dwell among us and in us, with all its richness and in abundance. In an atmosphere of constant thanksgiving, the Christian community feeds on the word and causes to rise towards God, as a song of praise, the word that he himself has given us. And every action, every gesture, every service, is accomplished within this profound relationship with God, in the interior movement of Trinitarian love that descends towards us and rises back towards God, a movement that finds its highest expression in the eucharistic sacrifice.
This word also sheds light upon the happy circumstances that bring us together today, in the name of Saint Gregory the Great. Through the faithfulness and benevolence of the Lord, the Congregation of Camaldolese monks of the Order of Saint Benedict has completed a thousand years of history, feeding daily on the word of God and the Eucharist, as their founder Saint Romuald taught them, according to the triplex bonum of solitude, community life and evangelization. Exemplary men and women of God, such as Saint Peter Damian, Gratian – author of the Decretum – Saint Bruno of Querfurt and the five brother martyrs, Rudolph I and II, Blessed Gherardesca, Blessed Giovanna da Bagno and Blessed Paolo Giustiniani; men of art and science like Brother Maurus the Cosmographer, Lorenzo Monaco, Ambrogio Traversari, Pietro Delfino and Guido Grandi; illustrious historians like the Camaldolese Annalists Giovanni Benedetto Mittarelli and Anselmo Costadoni; zealous pastors of the Church, among whom Pope Gregory XVI stands out, have revealed the horizons and the great fruitfulness of the Camaldolese tradition.
Every phase of the long history of the Camaldolese has produced faithful witnesses of the Gospel, not only in the hidden life of silence and solitude and in the common life shared with the brethren, but also in humble and generous service towards others. Particularly fruitful was the hospitality offered by Camaldolese guest-houses. In the days of Florentine humanism, the walls of Camaldoli witnessed the famous disputationes, in which great humanists such as Marsilio Ficino and Cristoforo Landino took part. In the turbulent years of the Second World War, those same cloisters were the setting for the birth of the famous Codex of Camaldoli, one of the most significant sources of the Constitution of the Italian Republic. Nor were the years of the Second Vatican Council any less productive, for at that time individuals of high calibre emerged among the Camaldolese, enriching the Congregation and the Church and promoting new initiatives and new houses in the United States of America, Tanzania, India and Brazil. In all this activity, a guarantee of fruitfulness was the support of monks and nuns praying constantly for the new foundations from the depths of their “withdrawal from the world”, lived at times to a heroic degree.
On 17 September 1993, during his meeting with the monks of the Sacred Hermitage of Camaldoli, Blessed John Paul II commented on the theme of their imminent General Chapter, “Choosing hope, choosing the future”, with these words: “Choosing hope and the future in the last analysis implies choosing God ... It means choosing Christ, the hope of every human being.” And he continued, “This particularly occurs in that form of life which God himself brought about in the Church, inspiring Saint Romuald to found the Benedictine family of Camaldoli, with its characteristic complementarity of hermitage and monastery, solitary life and cenobitic life in harmony with each other.” Moreover, my blessed Predecessor emphasized that “choosing God also means humbly and patiently cultivating, according to God’s design, ecumenical and interreligious dialogue”, always on the basis of fidelity to the original charism received from Saint Romuald and transmitted through a thousand years of varied tradition.
Encouraged by the visit from the Successor of Peter, and by his words, all of you Camaldolese monks and nuns have pursued your path, constantly seeking the right balance between the eremitical and the cenobitic spirit, between the need to dedicate yourselves totally to God in solitude, the need to support one another in communal prayer, and the need to welcome others so that they can draw upon the wellsprings of spiritual life and evaluate the events of the world with a truly Gospel-formed conscience. In this way you seek to attain that perfecta caritas that Saint Gregory the Great considered the point of arrival of every manifestation of faith, a commitment that finds confirmation in the motto of your coat of arms: “Ego Vobis, vos mihi”, a synthesis of the covenant formula between God and his people, and a source of the perennial vitality of your charism.
The Monastery of San Gregorio al Celio is the Roman setting for our celebration of the millennium of Camaldoli in company with His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury who, together with us, recognizes this Monastery as the birthplace of the link between Christianity in Britain and the Church of Rome. Today’s celebration is therefore marked by a profoundly ecumenical character which, as we know, is part and parcel of the modern Camaldolese spirit. This Roman Camaldolese Monastery has developed with Canterbury and the Anglican Communion, especially since the Second Vatican Council, links that now qualify as traditional. Today, for the third time, the Bishop of Rome is meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury in the home of Saint Gregory the Great. And it is right that it should be so, because it was from this Monastery that Pope Gregory chose Augustine and his forty monks and sent them to bring the Gospel to the Angles, a little over 1,400 years ago. The constant presence of monks in this place, over such a long period, is already in itself a testimony of God’s faithfulness to his Church, which we are happy to be able to proclaim to the whole world. We hope that the sign of our presence here together in front of the holy altar, where Gregory himself celebrated the eucharistic sacrifice, will remain not only as a reminder of our fraternal encounter, but also as a stimulus for all the faithful – both Catholic and Anglican – encouraging them, as they visit the glorious tombs of the holy Apostles and Martyrs in Rome, to renew their commitment to pray constantly and to work for unity, and to live fully in accordance with the “ut unum sint” that Jesus addressed to the Father.
This profound desire, that we have the joy of sharing, we entrust to the heavenly intercession of Saint Gregory the Great and Saint Romuald.
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s
Homily at Papal Vesper, San Gregorio Magno al Celio
10 March 2012, 17.30 pm
Your Holiness, Dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
It is a privilege to stand here, where my predecessors stood in 1989 and 1996, and to offer once again, as we did most recently in Westminster [and Assisi], the sacrifice of praise that we owe to the One Lord in whose name we are baptized; the One Lord who by his Spirit, brings to recognisability in each member of his sacramental Body, the image and abundant life of Christ his Son, through the temptations and struggles of our baptismal calling.
St Gregory the Great had much to say about the peculiar temptations and struggles of those called to office in the Church of God. To be called to this service is to be called to several different kinds of suffering – the torment of compassion, as he puts it (Moralia 30.25.74), the daily awareness of urgent human needs, bodily and spiritual, and the torment of praise, flattery and status (ib. 26.34.62). This latter is a torment because those called to this ministry know so clearly their own inner weakness and instability. But that knowledge is a saving knowledge, which among other things helps us minister effectively to others in trouble; and it reminds us that we find stability, soliditas, only in the life of the Body of Christ, not in our own achievement (Homilies on Ezekiel 2.5.22).
These are insights deeply rooted in St Gregory’s formation as a monk. Humility is the key to all faithful ministry, a humility that constantly seeks to be immersed, involved, in the life of Christ’s Body, not looking for an individual heroism or holiness. And it is this humility which the writer of the first life of St Gregory, written in England in the early eighth century, places at the head of the list of his saintly virtues, associating it with the ‘prophetic’ gift which allowed him to see what the English people needed and to respond by sending the mission of St Augustine from this place. That association of humility and prophecy is indeed one that St Gregory himself makes in the Dialogues. The true pastor and leader in the Church is one who, because he is caught up in the eternal self-offering of Jesus Christ through the sacramental mysteries of the Church, is free to see the needs of others as they really are. This may be ‘tormenting’, because those needs can be so profound and tragic; but it also stirs us to action to address such needs in the name and the strength of Christ.
And here lies the heart of Gregory’s monastic vision, the vision which the brothers and sisters of Camaldoli—whose millennium we celebrate with sincere joy here today—still seek to live out. To be immersed in the sacramental life of Christ’s Body requires the daily immersion of contemplation; without this, we cannot see one another clearly; without it we shall not truly recognize and love one another, and grow together in his one holy catholic and apostolic Body. The balance in the monastic life of solitude and common work and worship, a balance particularly carefully worked out in the life of Camaldoli, is something that seeks to enable a clear, even ‘prophetic’ vision of the other – seeing them, as the Eastern Christian tradition represented by Evagrius suggests, in the light of their authentic spiritual essence, not as they relate to our passions or preferences. The inseparable labour of action and contemplation, of solitude and community, is to do with the constant purification of our awareness of each other in the light of the God whom we encounter in silence and self-forgetting.
Your Holiness, dear brothers and sisters, it would be wrong to suggest that we enter into contemplation in order to see one anther more clearly; but if anyone were to say that contemplation is a luxury in the Church, something immaterial for the health of the Body, we should have to say that without it we should be constantly dealing with shadows and fictions, not with the reality of the world we live in. The Church is called upon to show that same prophetic spirit which is ascribed to St Gregory, the capacity to see where true need is and to answer God’s call in the person of the needy. To do this, it requires a habit of discernment, penetration beyond the prejudices and clichés which affect even believers in a culture that is so hasty and superficial in so many of its judgements; and with the habit of discernment belongs a habit of recognizing one another as agents of Christ’s grace and compassion and redemption.
And such a habit will develop only if we are daily learning the discipline of silence and patience, waiting for the truth to declare itself to us as we slowly set aside the distortions in our vision that are caused by selfishness and greed. In recent years, we have seen developing a vastly sophisticated system of unreality, created and sustained by acquisitiveness, a set of economic habits in which the needs of actual human beings seem to be almost entirely obscured. We are familiar with a feverish advertising culture in which we are persuaded to develop unreal and disproportionate desires. We are all – Christians and their pastors included – in need of the discipline that purges our vision and restores to us some sense of the truth of our world, even if that can produce the ‘torment’ of knowing more clearly how much people suffer and how little we can do for them by our unaided labours.
Your Holiness, ‘Certain yet imperfect’ was how our predecessors of blessed memory, Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Robert, here in Rome in 1989, characterised the communion that our two churches share. ‘Certain’ because of the shared ecclesial vision to which both our communions are committed as being the character of the Church both one and particular – a vision of the restoration of full sacramental communion, of a eucharistic life that is fully visible, and thus a witness that is fully credible, so that a confused and tormented world may enter into the welcome and transforming light of Christ. And ‘yet imperfect’ because of the limit of our vision, a deficit in the depth of our hope and patience. Our recognition of the one Body in each other’s corporate life is unstable and incomplete; yet without such ultimate recognition we are not yet fully free to share the transforming power of the Gospel in Church and world.
‘The truth will set you free’, says Our Lord. In the disciplines of contemplation and stillness, we are brought closer to the truth, and so also closer to the cross of the Lord. We learn our weakness and we learn something of the mystery of how God deals with our weakness – not by ignoring or rejecting it but by embracing its consequences in the incarnation and the passion of Christ. His self-emptying calls out our own self-denial – an appropriate theme for this Lenten season. We learn how to set on one side our busy and self-serving agendas and allow the self-giving Christ to live in us, to open our eyes and to empower us for service. Today, as we give thanks for a millennium of monastic witness, we celebrate the gifts of true and clear vision that have been made possible through this witness. And we pray for all who are called to public service in Christ’s Church that they may be given the grace of contemplative discipline and prophetic clarity in their own witness, so that the glory of Christ’s cross will shine forth in our world even in the midst of our own weaknesses and failures.
AFRICA : KONY VIDEO WATCH NOW - REACHES OVER 71 MILLION
Joseph Kony was born in 1961 he is the head of Uganda's LRA or Lord's Resistance army. This guerilla group was formed in 1987. It is found in the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Uganda. They have participated in sexual enslavement of women, abduction of children for use as soldiers, mass murders and other atrocities.
Kony himself was convicted by the International Criminal Court of the Hague, Netherlands, but never captured. This now popular film is being used to raise awareness of the "Invisible Children" or child soldiers and to bring Kony to justice.
For more information see:
AFRICA : WHAT IS KONY - BISHOP EXPLAINS CHILD SOLDIERS
ARCHDIOCESE OF
MELBOURNE
DIRECTOR: Jason Russell LEAD EDITOR: Kathryn Lang EDITORS: Kevin Trout, Jay Salbert, Jesse Eslinger LEAD ANIMATOR: Chad Clendinen ANIMATOR: Jesse Eslinger 3-D MODELING: Victor Soto VISUAL EFFECTS: Chris Hop WRITERS: Jason Russell, Jedidiah Jenkins, Kathryn Lang, Danica Russell, Ben Keesey, Azy Groth PRODUCERS: Kimmy Vandivort, Heather Longerbeam, Chad Clendinen, Noelle Jouglet ORIGINAL SCORES: Joel P. West SOUND MIX: Stephen Grubbs, Mark Friedgen, Smart Post Sound COLOR: Damian Pelphrey, Company 3 CINEMATOGRAPHY: Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey, Laren Poole, Gavin Kelly, Chad Clendinen, Kevin Trout, Jay Salbert, Shannon Lynch PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: Jaime Landsverk LEAD DESIGNER: Tyler Fordham DESIGNERS: Chadwick Gantes, Stephen Witmer
MUSIC CREDIT:
"02 Ghosts I"
Performed by Nine Inch Nails
Written by Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor
Produced by Alan Moulder, Atticus Ross, and Trent Reznor
Nine Inch Nails appear courtesy of The Null Corporation
"Punching in a Dream"
Performed by The Naked and Famous
Written by Aaron Short, Alisa Xayalith, and Thom Powers
Produced by Thom Powers
The Naked and Famous appear courtesy of Somewhat Damaged and Universal Republic
"Arrival of the Birds"
Performed by The Cinematic Orchestra
Written by The Cinematic Orchestra
Produced by The Cinematic Orchestra
The Cinematic Orchestra appears courtesy of Disney Records
"Roll Away Your Stone"
Performed by Mumford and Sons
Written by Benjamin Lovett, Edward Dwane, Marcus Mumford, and Winston Marshall
Produced by Markus Dravs
Mumford and Sons appear courtesy of Glassnote Entertainment Group LLC
"On (Instrumental)"
Performed by Bloc Party
Written by Bloc Party
Produced by Jacknife Lee
Bloc Party appears courtesy of Vice Records
"A Dream within a Dream"
Performed by The Glitch Mob
The Glitch Mob appears courtesy of Glass Air
"I Can't Stop"
Performed by Flux Pavilion
Flux Pavilion appears courtesy of Circus Records Limited
AUSTRALIA : SUPPORT KONY INVISIBLE CHILDREN OF LRA
ARCHDIOCESE OF MELBOURNE REPORT:
Friday 9 March 2012 The Australian public can have, and is having, a real and
lasting impact on victims of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, which
has terrorised millions of people across four vulnerable African
nations.Hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced in northern Congo, northern Uganda, Central African Republic and South Sudan. Over nearly three decades the LRA has been responsible for horrific acts of cowardice and brutality, including the abduction of young girls and boys to work as sex slaves and soldiers, and forcing children to kill their own families. Speaking of the online campaign by Invisible Children 'Kony2012' which aims to bring Joseph Kony, leader of the LRA to justice, Caritas Australia's CEO Jack de Groot said, “Anything that brings attention to the plight of the people who have been harmed by Kony and the LRA is a good thing.” “But the most important issue right now is that the people of these nations need our support immediately. They need food, they need clean water, they need shelter, they need medical assistance, they need psychological support and they need to be protected from these terrible acts of violence,” Mr de Groot said. “These people have no idea where their next meal will come from. They are constantly on the move which makes it almost impossible to develop livelihoods, achieve food security, get an education and keep their children safe – all of the things we are able to take for granted.” Right now Caritas Australia has programs in the Congo where around 30,000 people from 5,000 families are receiving food, clean water, blankets and other basic necessities. In Uganda Caritas is assisting 800 farming households to develop sustainable crops, generate vital incomes and ensure they have access to clean water which dramatically reduces the spread of disease. “We need to understand that even if Kony and the LRA were to vaporise tomorrow, there would still be dramatic psychological, environmental, developmental and political issues to contend with,” Mr de Groot said. “The level of poverty and injustice which plagues these nations and all of these families is monumental. “But we do not believe in lost causes. We know that we can save lives and support people into prosperous futures so long as we have the support of the Australian people.” Media contact: Ryan Heffernan 0408 869 833 or ryanh@caritas.org.au Caritas Australia partnership programs: http://www.caritas.org.au/learn/countries/uganda http://www.caritas.org.au/learn/countries/sudan http://www.caritas.org.au/learn/countries/democratic-republic-of-congo |
EUROPE : GERMANY : 45000 EUROS RAISED - WISE GUYS SINGING FOR CHILDREN IN DELHI
In her "totalnight" the wise guys
singing 45,000 euro for the street children in Delhi
Up to one in the night, the band sang all songs of the last years.
Up to one in the night, the band sang all songs of the last years.
Photo: Guido
Kollmeier
It is the concert event of the year
for wise-guys-fans: the total night. For months, the event
was on the Saturday, 25.02., sold in the City Hall of Mülheim until to the last
place. The fans have traveled from all over Germany,
Austria and the Switzerland. Some of them camp already on
the eve before the Hall to get a good place.
To dress up waiting for them, the 2-Euro-Team from 11 o'clock to the 2-euro-coffee-stop gave out 200 cups of hot coffee and tea.
To dress up waiting for them, the 2-Euro-Team from 11 o'clock to the 2-euro-coffee-stop gave out 200 cups of hot coffee and tea.
"We sing all the songs of recent years
up to Ein am," explains the concept of the total night. "Then closes the Hall." It make incredibly fun, he
thinks, would be needed but also a long preparation time. "Carnival we have spent this year in the sample room and our
participation in the train is cancelled, so that we can fit vocally for the
total night." The Nile, which is only for two years, had to
develop are the songs of the past years. He finds "Clear, I
can not quite perfect, but for the butterflies use street children always worth".
There was even a small error on Saturday night. For each text, voice, or choreography Patzer, Eddi, Sari, Daen, Nils and ference threw a 2-euro coin in a small strip piggy bank with standing on the stage. An idea that ensures additional donations and laughs from the audience.
There was even a small error on Saturday night. For each text, voice, or choreography Patzer, Eddi, Sari, Daen, Nils and ference threw a 2-euro coin in a small strip piggy bank with standing on the stage. An idea that ensures additional donations and laughs from the audience.
The fans sang with the wise guys
through the night. 45,000 Euros and a strip of pork were
handed over at the end to pass on the butterflies of Eli Kleffner by MISEREOR.
With the money, the German A-capella group supports the
construction of a child protection House in Delhi. "In a
year we fly to Delhi to the street children, to stand together with them on the
stage." "We are very careful to see how far the
Kinderschutzhaus with our donation has developed," says
Eddie.
We, the street children of the butterflies and the employees of MISEREOR, are proud of the wise guys and the team of's total night and thank all those who have enabled this summer of the donation through their gratuitous use of heart!
INTERNET TRANSLATION http://www.misereor.de/aktionen/2-euro-helfen.html
We, the street children of the butterflies and the employees of MISEREOR, are proud of the wise guys and the team of's total night and thank all those who have enabled this summer of the donation through their gratuitous use of heart!
INTERNET TRANSLATION http://www.misereor.de/aktionen/2-euro-helfen.html
ASIA : PHILIPPINES : RIP CARDINAL SANCHEZ AGE 91
UCAN
REPORT:
Was the first
Filipino to served in more than one post at the Vatican
Cardinal Sanchez
Jose Cardinal Sanchez, who once served as Prefect
of the Congregation for the Clergy at the Vatican, died in Manila today. He was
91.
Sanchez died of multiple organ failure at the Cardinal Santos Memorial Medical Center, the Catholic bishops’ conference said in a message posted on its website.
He was a priest for over 65 years, a bishop for over 43 years and a cardinal for more than 20 years.
Born on March 17, 1920 in Pandan, Catanduanes, Cardinal Sanchez was ordained a priest in Sorsogon in 1946.
At the age of 47, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Caceres, then known as Nueva Caceres, in February 1968 and Titular Bishop of Lezvi.
Three years later he was named Coadjutor Bishop of Lucena before succeeding Bishop Alfredo Mario Obviar in September, 1976.
After serving as Lucena bishop for just over five years, he was named Archbishop of Nueva Segovia on January 12, 1982 and in October, 1985 appointed Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Pope John Paul II named him Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy on July 1, 1991 and he was appointed President of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.
Cardinal Sanchez was the first Filipino Churchman to have served in more than one capacity in the Holy See.
His Funeral Mass is expected to be held on Monday.
http://www.ucanews.com/2012/03/09/cardinal-sanchez-dies-at-age-91/
Sanchez died of multiple organ failure at the Cardinal Santos Memorial Medical Center, the Catholic bishops’ conference said in a message posted on its website.
He was a priest for over 65 years, a bishop for over 43 years and a cardinal for more than 20 years.
Born on March 17, 1920 in Pandan, Catanduanes, Cardinal Sanchez was ordained a priest in Sorsogon in 1946.
At the age of 47, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Caceres, then known as Nueva Caceres, in February 1968 and Titular Bishop of Lezvi.
Three years later he was named Coadjutor Bishop of Lucena before succeeding Bishop Alfredo Mario Obviar in September, 1976.
After serving as Lucena bishop for just over five years, he was named Archbishop of Nueva Segovia on January 12, 1982 and in October, 1985 appointed Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Pope John Paul II named him Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy on July 1, 1991 and he was appointed President of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See.
Cardinal Sanchez was the first Filipino Churchman to have served in more than one capacity in the Holy See.
His Funeral Mass is expected to be held on Monday.
http://www.ucanews.com/2012/03/09/cardinal-sanchez-dies-at-age-91/
AMERICA : POPE VISIT TO MEXICO + CUBA - LINKS FOR COVERAGE
Agenzia Fides REPORT - For the first time, after five visits of the Blessed John Paul II in Mexico, the Mexican Church will be responsible for full television coverage of the Pope Benedict XVI’s visit in Mexico. This huge effort will help more than 100 television channels to bring to their audience the forthcoming visit of the Holy Father.
As reported to Fides, telecommunications technicians are preparing every detail for the Pope's presence in the diocese of León. The international signal will be available to all the media who want to use live images. In this technological effort the Television Center of the Mexican state, and the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM) are collaborating.
Luis Carlos Frias, head of the Commission of the CEM, said: "The international signal will have no logo or brand for the transmission, it will be generated by a team of the Mexican television and distributed for the first time by the Catholic Church." The television network will be offered, fiber optic services, ground satellite unit, the International Broadcasting Center in high definition, the booking, the play-out. As far as technology is concerned, "for the first time, the Church will not see the Pope on television, but we will offer this service," said Frias.
In addition, the CEM has already provided a large infrastructure to cover and broadcast all over the world the Pope's visit to Mexico. In the Bicentennial Park in Guanajuato, where Benedict XVI will celebrate Mass with all the people, there will be 17 cameras to cover every aspect of the ceremony. There are also documentaries, feature films, interviews and video clips, prepared to meet the information needs of television channels, also on the situation of the Church in Mexico and around the world. These productions were carried out by agencies and Catholic institutions in Mexico, such as the "Guadalupe Communications" and the Pontifical Mission Societies. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 10/3/2012)
LINKS FOR VISITS
Schedule
News and Background
Pope Benedict XVI Biography
Vatican Site on Apostolic Visit. . .
Cuban Bishops' Papal Visit Web site. . .
Mexican Bishops' Papal Visit Web site. . .
TODAY'S MASS ONLINE : SUN. MARCH 11, 2012 - 3rd LENT
| Exodus
20: 1 - 17
| |
| 1 | And God spoke all these words, saying, |
| 2 | "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. |
| 3 | "You shall have no other gods before me. |
| 4 | "You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; |
| 5 | you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, |
| 6 | but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. |
| 7 | "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. |
| 8 | "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. |
| 9 | Six days you shall labor, and do all your work; |
| 10 | but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or the sojourner who is within your gates; |
| 11 | for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it. |
| 12 | "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you. |
| 13 | "You shall not kill. |
| 14 | "You shall not commit adultery. |
| 15 | "You shall not steal. |
| 16 | "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. |
| 17 | "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's." |
| Psalms
19: 8 - 11
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 8 | the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes; | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 9 | the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever; the ordinances of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 10 | More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11 | Moreover
by them is thy servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TODAY'S SAINT : MARCH 11 : ST. EULOGIUS
St. Eulogius
PRIEST, MARTYR
Feast: March 11
 Information:
|
Spanish martyr and writer who flourished during the reigns
of the Cordovan Caliphs, Abd-er-Rahman II and Mohammed I (822-886). It is not
certain on what date or in what year of the ninth century he was born; it must
have been previous to 819, because in 848 he was a priest highly esteemed among
the Christians of Catalonia and Navarre, and priesthood was then conferred only
on men thirty years of age. The family of the saint was of the nobility and held
land in Cordova from Roman times. The Mussulman rulers of Spain, at the
beginning of the eighth century, tolerated the creed of the Christians and left
them, with some restrictions, their civil rule, ecclesiastical hierarchy,
monasteries, and property, but made them feel the burden of subjection in the
shape of pecuniary exactions and military service. In the large cities like
Toledo and Cordova, the civil rule of the Christians did not differ from that of
the Visigothic epoch. The government was exercised by the comes (count),
president of the council of senators, among whom we meet a similarly named
ancestor of Eulogius. The saint, like his five brothers, received an excellent
education in accord with his good birth and under the guardianship of his mother
Isabel. The youngest of the brothers, Joseph, held a high office in the palace
of Abd-er-Rahman II; two other brothers, Alvarus and Isidore, were merchants and
traded on a large scale as far as Central Europe. Of his sisters, Niola and
Anulona, the first remained with her mother; the second was educated from
infancy in a monastery where she later became a nun.
After completing his studies in the monastery of St. Zoilus,
Eulogius continued to live with his family the better to care for his mother;
also, perhaps, to study with famous masters, one of whom was Abbot Speraindeo,
an illustrious writer of that time. In the meantime he found a friend in the
celebrated Alvarus Paulus, a fellow-student, and they cultivated together all
branches of science, sacred and profane, within their reach. Their
correspondence in prose and verse filled volumes; later they agreed to destroy
it as too exuberant and lacking in polish. Alvarus married, but Eulogius
preferred the ecclesiastical career, and was finally ordained a priest by Bishop
Recared of Cordova. Alvarus has left us a portrait of his friend: "Devoted", he
says, "from his infancy to the Scriptures, and growing daily in the practice of
virtue, he quickly reached perfection, surpassed in knowledge all his
contemporaries, and became the teacher even of his masters. Mature in
intelligence, though in body a child, he excelled them all in science even more
than they surpassed him in years. Fair in feature [clarus vultu], honest and
honourable, he shone by his eloquence, and yet more by his works. What books
escaped his avidity for reading? What works of Catholic writers, of heretics and
Gentiles, chiefly philosophers? Poets, historians, rare writings, all kinds of
books, especially sacred hymns, in the composition of which he was a master,
were read and digested by him; his humility was none the less remarkable and he
readily yielded to the judgment of others less learned than himself." This
humility shone particularly on two occasions. In his youth he had decided to
make a foot pilgrimage to Rome; notwithstanding his great fervour and his
devotion to the sepulchre of the Prince of the Apostles (a notable proof of the
union of the Mozarabic Church with the Holy See), he gave up his project,
yielding to the advice of prudent friends. Again, during the Saracenic
persecution, in 850, after reading a passage of the works of St. Epiphanius he
decided to refrain for a time from saying Mass that he might better defend the
cause of the martyrs; however, at the request of his bishop, Saul of Cordova, he
put aside his scruples. His extant writings are proof that Alvarus did not
exaggerate. They give an account of what is most important from 848 to 859 in
Spanish Christianity, both without and within the Mussulman dominions,
especially of the lives of the martyrs who suffered during the Saracenic
persecution, quorum para ipse magna fuit. He was elected Archbishop of Toledo
shortly before he was beheaded (11 March, 859). He left a perfect account of the
orthodox doctrine which he defended, the intellectual culture which he
propagated, the imprisonment and sufferings which he endured; in a word, his
writings show that he followed to the letter the exhortation of St. Paul:
Imitatores mei estote sicut et ego Christi. He is buried in the cathedral of
Oviedo.
(Taken from Catholic Encyclopedia) | |||||||||
source: http://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/E/steulogius.asp#ixzz1ooAUdYBm
