Catholic News World : Friday March 27, 2015 - Share!

 2015

RIP 150 Killed in German Plane Crash - including 16 Students and 2 Babies

#PopeFrancis Worldwide Prayer for #Peace "...we learn to ask for forgiveness so that peace may grow in the world."

Today's Mass Readings : Friday March 27, 2015

RIP Mar Dinkha IV, Patriarch of Assyrian Church

Saint March 27 : St. Rupert of Salzburg

  Germanwings Flight 9525, an Airbus A320, departed Barcelona en route to Dusseldorf on Tuesday, March 24, 2015 in the morning. Around 30 minutes into the flight, the plane began to descend and crashed in the French Alps. Andreas Lubitz, age 28, from Montabaur, Germany, was the co-pilot who crashed the plane. He had been concealing a medical illness from his employers. On the plane were 16 students Joseph-König-Gymnasium in Haltern (Pictured above), there were also 2 babies aboard plane. Germanwings was a low cost plane of Lufthansa.   All 150 passengers and crew are thought to have died.   They were from 18 countries, according to Germanwings. Of the victims 72 were from Germany and 35 from Spain.  3 Americans were killed in the plane crash.

There were two each from Australia, Argentina, Iran, the United States and Venezuela, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Israel, Mexico, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom had one passenger each. The ministry of Chile reported one victim from its country. A chapel was set up near the crash site. Among the victims were two Iranian sports reporters; Milad Hojjatoleslami and Hossein Javadi. A mother and daughter from northern Virginia. Opera singers;  the 2 German Opera singers -- Oleg Bryjak and Maria Radner --who had just performed in "Siegfried" in Barcelona. (pictured below)

 An architect from Colombia, an Australian nurse on vacation with her son.  Mother, daughter from Virginia among passengers:Yvonne Selke and her daughter, Emily, from Nokesville, Virginia.
(Emily pictured Below)
 Radner had a husband and child -- both of whom died with her on the Germanwings flight.  From Colombia there was 36-year-old Luis Eduardo Medrano an architect and the other Colombian victim is María del Pilar Tejada, a 33-year-old economist.  Carol Friday, 68, and her son Greig, 29, were the two Australians believed killed in the crash,  (pictured below)

Paul Andrew Bramley, a native of the English city of Hull, Martyn Matthews, 50, was a senior quality manager from Wolverhampton. Marina Bandres Lopez-Belio, 37, and her 7-month-old son, Julian Pracz-Bandres, were also among the victims. (Images Source Google Images Share)

#PopeFrancis Worldwide Prayer for #Peace "...we learn to ask for forgiveness so that peace may grow in the world."

Pope Francis with the Superior General of the Discalced Carmelite Order, Father Saverio Cannestrà at Santa Marta - OSS_ROM

26/03/2015 12:

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Thursday morning began a special prayer for peace as part of the 500 centenary celebrations marking the birth of St Teresa of Avila. The Pope led the hour of prayer at the Casa Santa Marta before saying Mass along with the Superior General of the Discalced Carmelite Order, Father Saverio Cannestrà.

The worldwide Teresian family is participating in this initiative including Carmelite priest Fr Eugene McCaffrey from the Avila Carmelite Centre in Dublin, Ireland, who is also written on St Teresa.“We’re delighted with the whole initiative and a little taken by surprise… and we’re joining with the Holy Father and with the whole Church…”

Father McCaffrey said that St Teresa “spent her whole life not just teaching prayer but praying and drawing people into the great mystery of the relationship with God. He added that his community would be having a “Birthday Party” to celebrate this milestone in the life of this Saint and Doctor of the Church.

Below please find World Prayer for Peace, proposed to the Holy Father Pope Francis

Dear brothers and sisters:

The Order of Discalced Carmelites, friars, nuns, and seculars, the entire Teresian family, in union with the whole Church, today celebrates the 500th anniversary of the birth of its foundress, Saint Teresa of Jesus, Doctor of the Church.

At the request of the Father General of the Order, during the span of this day a world hour of prayer for peace will take place in all convents, monasteries, and fraternities. I unite myself joyfully to this initiative and begin with these words our supplication to God, Father of all of us, so that, through the intercession of Christ Jesus, he will pour his Spirit over all the nations, so that dialogue among men will triumph over violence and the conflicts that scourge our world. To this prayer I invite all faithful Catholics, all Christians of other denominations, and also members of other religions and men and women of good will.

"The world is all in flames [...] and are we to waste time asking for things that if God were to give them we would have one soul less in heaven? No, my Sisters, this is not the time to be discussing with God matters that have little importance" (Teresa of Jesus, Way of Perfection 1,5).

The world is all in flames is the sorrowful cry of Teresa as she contemplates the conflicts, wars, and divisions in society and the Church of her time. Today we also make this our cry and present it to Jesus as a supplication: Lord, the world is all in flames!

We, like Saint Teresa, know that by our own efforts we will not attain the precious gift of peace. Therefore, with our petition let us hold tightly to the power of the redeeming Cross of Christ: "Oh my Lord and my Mercy, my only Good! What more do I seek in this life than a union so close to you, that there can be no distinction between you and me? With such a companion, what can be difficult? With you so close to me, what dare I not attempt for your sake?"

Joined to the Cross of Christ and from the hand of the Virgin, his Mother and our Mother, and from the hand of Teresa, we beseech God to increase the opportunities for dialogue and encounter among men, that we learn to ask for forgiveness so that peace may grow in the world like the fruit of the reconciliation that he has come to bring to us.

Let us pray:

Today's Mass Readings : Friday March 27, 2015

Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent
Lectionary: 255

Mass Video added Later

Reading 1JER 20:10-13

I hear the whisperings of many:
“Terror on every side!
Denounce! let us denounce him!”
All those who were my friends
are on the watch for any misstep of mine.
“Perhaps he will be trapped; then we can prevail,
and take our vengeance on him.”
But the LORD is with me, like a mighty champion:
my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph.
In their failure they will be put to utter shame,
to lasting, unforgettable confusion.
O LORD of hosts, you who test the just,
who probe mind and heart,
Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause.
Sing to the LORD,
praise the LORD,
For he has rescued the life of the poor
from the power of the wicked!

Responsorial PsalmPS 18:2-3A, 3BC-4, 5-6, 7

R. (see 7) In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.
I love you, O LORD, my strength,
O LORD, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.
R. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.
My God, my rock of refuge,
my shield, the horn of my salvation, my stronghold!
Praised be the LORD, I exclaim,
and I am safe from my enemies.
R. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.
The breakers of death surged round about me,
the destroying floods overwhelmed me;
The cords of the nether world enmeshed me,
the snares of death overtook me.
R. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.
In my distress I called upon the LORD
and cried out to my God;
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.
R. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice.

Verse Before The GospelSEE JN 6:63C, 68C

Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life;
you have the words of everlasting life.

GospelJN 10:31-42

The Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus.
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father.
For which of these are you trying to stone me?”
The Jews answered him,
“We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy.
You, a man, are making yourself God.”
Jesus answered them,
“Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, ‘You are gods”‘?
If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came,
and Scripture cannot be set aside,
can you say that the one
whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world
blasphemes because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
If I do not perform my Father’s works, do not believe me;
but if I perform them, even if you do not believe me,
believe the works, so that you may realize and understand
that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”
Then they tried again to arrest him;
but he escaped from their power.

He went back across the Jordan
to the place where John first baptized, and there he remained.
Many came to him and said,
“John performed no sign,
but everything John said about this man was true.”
And many there began to believe in him.

RIP Mar Dinkha IV, Patriarch of Assyrian Church

Mar Dinkha IV, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, has died
He was responsible for the rebuilding of his Church and overcoming old divisions. Fond of ecumenical dialogue, on 11 November 1994, he signed a Joint Declaration on Christology with John Paul II, which recognized that the Assyrian Church of the East and the Catholic Church confess the same faith in Christ. 
Rome (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Mar Dinkha IV, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East died yesterday at a clinic in Rochester, Minnesota (USA).
Born in Iraq September 15, 1935, Mar Dinkha was ordained priest in Urmia, Iran in 1957 and was consecrated bishop in 1962.
October 17, 1976 he became the 111th patriarch of his Church. His election - the first non-hereditary succession after seven centuries - put an end to divisions and violence. His predecessor, Patriarch Eshai Shimun had been murdered in that same year.
Patriarch Dinkha was responsible for rebuilding the Assyrian Church of the East, which has pacified and modernized translating parts of the liturgy into modern Assyrian. Since his election he moved the seat of the Patriarchate from Iraqi Kurdistan to Morton Grove, a suburb of Chicago, since most of its approximately 500 thousand faithful are concentrated in diaspora communities scattered among America, Europe and Oceania, with only a tiny minority still living in the Middle East.
Faced with the dramatic worsening of the situation, the Patriarch had sided in favor of the creation of a "Christian" region in the Nineveh Plain, in Iraq.
Overcoming old divisions and ecumenism were one of the characteristics of Mar Dinkha’s mission. In the long years of his ministry he met John Paul II with whom, on 11 November 1994, he signed a Joint Declaration on Christology, which recognized that the Assyrian Church of the East and the Catholic Church confess the same faith in Christ and that the Christological controversies of the past were largely due to misunderstandings.
The patriarch also met Benedict XVI and Francis (pictured). The latter, receiving him on October 2, 2014, said that "our meeting is marked by suffering that we share for the wars in the different regions of the Middle East and in particular the violence that is affecting Christians and members of other religious minorities, especially in Iraq and Syria. How many of our brothers and sisters are suffering daily persecution! When we think of their suffering, it is natural to go beyond the distinction of ritual or confession: for theirs is the body of Christ, which, even today, is wounded, attacked, humiliated. There are no religious, political or economic reasons that can justify what is happening to hundreds of thousands of men, women and innocent children. We feel deeply united in intercessory prayer and action of charity towards those members of the body of Christ who are suffering".

Mar Dinkha IV’s funeral will be celebrated on April 8 in St. George’s Church, in Chicago.
Shared from AsiaNewsIT

Saint March 27 : St. Rupert of Salzburg

St. Rupert of Salzburg

BISHOP, MISSIONARY

Feast: March 27

Information: Feast Day: March 27 Died: 27 March 710, Salzburg, Austria Patron of: Salzburg, The State of Salzburg

First Bishop of Salzburg, contemporary of Childebert III, king of the Franks (695-711), date of birth unknown; d. at Salzburg, Easter Sunday, 27 March, 718. According to an old tradition, he was a scion of the Frankish Merovingian family. The assumption of 660 as the year of his birth is merely legendary. According to the oldest short biographical notices in the "Mon. Germ. Script.", XI, 1-15, Rupert was noted for simplicity, prudence, and the fear of God; he was a lover of truth in his discourse, upright in opinion, cautious in counsel, energetic in action, far-seeing in his charity, and in all his conduct a glorious model of rectitude. While he was Bishop of Worms, the fame of his learning and piety drew many from far and wide. The report of the bishop's ability reached Duke Theodo II of Bavaria, who had placed himself at the head of the current ecclesiastical movement in Bavaria. Theodo sent Rupert messengers with the request that, he should come to Bavaria to revive, confirm, and propagate the spirit of Christianity there. Despite the work of early missionaries, Bavaria was only superficially Christian; its very Christianity was indeed to some extent Arian, while heathen customs and views were most closely interwoven with the external Christianity which it had retained. St. Rupert acceded to Theodo's request, after he had by messengers made himself familiar with the land and people of Bavaria. St. Rupert was received with great honour and ceremony by Theodo in the old residential town of Ratisbon (696). He entered immediately upon his apostolic labours, which extended from the territory of the Danube to the borders of Lower Pannonia, and upon his missionary journey came to Lorch. Thence he travelled to the lonely shores of the Wallersee, where he built a church in honour of Saint Peter, thereby laying the foundation of the present market-town of Seekirchen in the Newmarket district of Salzburg. From the Roman colony there Rupert obtained an account of the ancient Roman town of Juvavum, upon the site of which there still remained many more or less dilapidated buildings, overgrown with briars and brushwood. Having personally verified the accuracy of this account concerning the place and position, Rupert requested Theodo, in the interests of his apostolic mission to the country, to give him the territory of Juvavum (which was still a place of considerable commerce) for the erection of a monastery and an episcopal see. The duke granted this petition, bequeathing the territory of Juvavum (the modern Salzburg), two square miles in area, to St. Rupert and his successors. At the foot of the precipice of the Monchberg, where once St. Maximus, a disciple of St. Severin, had suffered martyrdom with his companions (476), St. Rupert erected the first church in Salzburg, the Church of St. Peter, in honour of the Prince of the Apostles, as well as a monastery. Upon the lofty prominences (Nonnberg) to the southeast of the town, where the old Roman fortress once towered, he established a convent of nuns which, like the monastery of the Mönchberg, he placed under the protection and Rule of St. Benedict. To set his institutions upon a solid basis, Rupert repaired home, and returned with twelve companions besides his niece Ehrentraud (Erindruda), whom he made abbess over the Benedictine Convent of Nonnberg, while he with his twelve companions formed the first congregation of the famous Benedictine Monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg, which remains to the present day. St. Rupert thenceforth devoted himself entirely to the work of salvation and conversion which he had already begun, founding in connection therewith manny churches and monasteries — e.g., Maxglan, near Salzburg, Maximilianszelle (now Bischofshofen in Pongau), Altotting, and others. After a life of extraordinarily successful activity, he died at Salzburg, aided by the prayers of his brethren in the order; his body reposed in the St. Peterskirche until 24 Sept., 774, when his disciple and successor, Abbot-Bishop St. Virgil, had a portion of his remains removed to the cathedral. On 24 Sept., 1628, these relics were interred by Archbishop Paris von Ladron (1619-54) under the high altar of the new cathedral. Since then the town and district of Salzburg solemnize the feast of St. Rupert, Apostle of Bavaria and Carlnthia, on 24 September. In Christian art St. Rupert is portrayed with a vessel of salt in his hand, symbolizing the universal tradition according to which Rupert inaugurated salt-mining at Salzburg; this portrayal of St. Rupert is generally found upon the coins of the Duchy of Salzburg and Carinthia. St. Rupert is also represented baptizing Duke Theodo; this scene has no historical foundation. St. Rupert was the first Abbot-Bishop of Salzburg, for, as he established his foundations after the manner of the Irish monks, he combined in his own person the dignities of abbot and bishop. A similar combination of dignities existed also in Ratisbon and Freising. This twofold character of the bishop continued in Salzburg for nearly 300 years until the separation of the dignities was effected in 987 by Archbishop Friedrich I of Salzburg, Count of Chiemgau, the twenty-first Abbot of the Monastery of St. Peter. The period of St. Rupert's activity was until very lately a matter of great discussion. Formerly the opinion was held that the end of the fifth and beginning of the sixth centuries was the age of his missionary work, but, according to the most exhaustive and reliable investigations, the late seventh and early eighth centuries formed the period of his activity. This fact is established especially by the "Brevesnotitiae Salzburgenses", a catalogue of the donations made to the Church of Salzburg, with notices from the ninth century. In these latter Bishop St. Virgil, whose ministry is referred to 745-84, appears as a direct disciple of St. Rupert. It is forthwith evident that the assumption of the end of the sixth and beginning of the seventh centuries as the period of Rupert's activity is extremely doubtful, even apart from the fact that this view also involves the rejection of the catalogue of the bishops of Salzburg and of Easter Sunday as the day of Rupert's death. Many churches and places bearing Rupert's name, serve as surviving memorials of his missionary activity. A successor of St. Rupert, the present scholarly Abbot of St. Peters in Salzburg, Willibald Hauthaler, has written an interesting work upon this subject entitled "Die dem hl. Rupertus Apostel von Bayern geweihten Kirchen und Kapellen" (with map, Salzburg,  1885). (Taken from Catholic Encyclopedia)

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