2016
#Quote to SHARE by Mother Teresa "Don’t expect your friend to be a perfect person. But, help your to be a..."
"Don’t expect your friend to be a perfect person. But, help your friend to become a perfect person. That’s true friendship." Mother Teresa
#PopeFrancis “God made us free" #Homily
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said on Tuesday that "persecution is the Church’s daily bread”.
Speaking during morning Mass at the Casa Santa Marta, the Pope recalled the first Christian martyr – Stephen – and said that “still today so many Christians are killed or persecuted for their faith in Christ”.
Listen to the report by Linda Bordoni:
Pope Francis said “there are bloody persecutions, like being torn to pieces by wild beasts to the delight of the audience in the stands or being blown up by a bomb at the end of Mass” and there are “velvet-gloved” persecutions that are “cloaked in politeness": the ones that marginalize you, take your job away if you fail to adapt to laws that "go against God the Creator."
The story of the martyrdom of Stephen, described in the Acts of the Apostles in the liturgy of the day, led the Pope to remark on how persecution is a reality that has been part of the history of Christian faith for 2000 years.
"Persecution, I would say, is the daily bread of the Church. Jesus said so himself” he said.
"Persecution, I would say, is the daily bread of the Church. Jesus said so himself” he said.
He pointed out that there are tourist sites in Rome like the Colosseum which remind us of the martyrs who were killed there by lions. But – he said – they are not the only ones. There are ordinary men and women of today:
“Today, on Easter Sunday, just three weeks ago… Those Christians who were celebrating Easter in Pakistan were martyred because they were celebrating the Risen Christ. Thus, the history of the Church goes ahead with its martyrs” he said.
Pope Francis pointed out that the martyrdom of Stephen sparked a cruel anti-Christian persecution in Jerusalem similar to the persecution suffered by those who are not free to profess their faith in Jesus today.
“But – he noted - there is another persecution which is not much spoken about," a persecution "camouflaged by culture, by modernity, by progress in disguise":
"It is a persecution I would 'ironically describe as polite” he said.
It’s when someone is persecuted – he explained - for wanting to manifest the values of the Gospel: “It’s persecution against God the Creator in the person of his children!”
And the Pope said that every day the powers that be promulgate laws that oblige one to take certain routes and that nations that do not follow these indications or do not want them to be part of their legislation, are accused and politely persecuted. It’s the kind of the persecution that deprives one of freedom, and of the possibility of conscientious objection.
“This – Pope Francis said - is the persecution of the world" that "takes away freedom" whilst “God made us free" to bear witness to "the Father who created us and to Christ who saved us.”
This persecution he said is perpetrated by the prince of this world.
Referring to the “great apostasy” the Pope said that the life of Christians goes ahead notwithstanding these two persecutions.
Urging the faithful to "be careful,” to not fall into the spirit of the world, Pope Francis assured us of his closeness: “I will be with you” he said.
(Linda Bordoni) Today's Mass Readings and Video : Tues. April 12, 2016
Tuesday of the Third Week of Easter
Lectionary: 274
Reading 1ACTS 7:51—8:1A
Stephen said to the people, the elders, and the scribes:
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears,
you always oppose the Holy Spirit;
you are just like your ancestors.
Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?
They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one,
whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
You received the law as transmitted by angels,
but you did not observe it.”
When they heard this, they were infuriated,
and they ground their teeth at him.
But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit,
looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
and Stephen said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
But they cried out in a loud voice,
covered their ears, and rushed upon him together.
They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him.
The witnesses laid down their cloaks
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”;
and when he said this, he fell asleep.
Now Saul was consenting to his execution.
“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears,
you always oppose the Holy Spirit;
you are just like your ancestors.
Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?
They put to death those who foretold the coming of the righteous one,
whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
You received the law as transmitted by angels,
but you did not observe it.”
When they heard this, they were infuriated,
and they ground their teeth at him.
But Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit,
looked up intently to heaven and saw the glory of God
and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
and Stephen said, “Behold, I see the heavens opened
and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
But they cried out in a loud voice,
covered their ears, and rushed upon him together.
They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him.
The witnesses laid down their cloaks
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
As they were stoning Stephen, he called out,
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice,
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them”;
and when he said this, he fell asleep.
Now Saul was consenting to his execution.
Responsorial PsalmPS 31:3CD-4, 6 AND 7B AND 8A, 17 AND 21AB
R. (6a) Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Be my rock of refuge,
a stronghold to give me safety.
You are my rock and my fortress;
for your name’s sake you will lead and guide me.
R. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.
My trust is in the LORD;
I will rejoice and be glad of your mercy.
R. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your kindness.
You hide them in the shelter of your presence
from the plottings of men.
R. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
I am the bread of life, says the Lord;
whoever comes to me will never hunger.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Be my rock of refuge,
a stronghold to give me safety.
You are my rock and my fortress;
for your name’s sake you will lead and guide me.
R. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Into your hands I commend my spirit;
you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.
My trust is in the LORD;
I will rejoice and be glad of your mercy.
R. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Let your face shine upon your servant;
save me in your kindness.
You hide them in the shelter of your presence
from the plottings of men.
R. Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
or:
R. Alleluia.
AlleluiaJN 6:35AB
R. Alleluia, alleluia.I am the bread of life, says the Lord;
whoever comes to me will never hunger.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
GospelJN 6:30-35
The crowd said to Jesus:
“What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:
He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
So Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;
my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.”
So they said to Jesus,
“Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
“What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you?
What can you do?
Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written:
He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”
So Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;
my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven
and gives life to the world.”
So they said to Jesus,
“Sir, give us this bread always.”
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life;
whoever comes to me will never hunger,
and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
#BreakingNews 21 Christians Killed by ISIS while others held Captives - Please PRAY
Al-Qaryatayn: 21 Christians killed by Islamic State, others still in the hands of the jihadists
The news first denounced by the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II. The killings date back to the time of the siege of the town and in the following weeks. Fr. Michel: "Ongoing negotiations to free the hostages, but the situation is confusing." Uncertainty over their fate. The militia reported to have tried to sell the Christian women as slaves.
 Homs (AsiaNews) - The Christian victims in the hands of the Islamic state were killed at the time of the "siege" of Al-Qaryatayn and "weeks after" the seizure of power of the jihadists. This is what is denounced to AsiaNews by Fr. Michel Noman, a priest in Homs. His diocese is home to the town that was recently freed by the Syrian army with the help of Russian air raids.
Yesterday in an interview with the BBC, the Syrian Orthodox Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II said that at least 21 Christians were killed by Islamic State (IS) in al-Qaryatayn (central Syria); some of them were killed in an escape attempt; others killed for refusing to convert to Islam. The victims include three women.
Fr. Michel adds that there is still "a group of Christians in the hands of the Islamic State. There are ongoing behind the scenes negotiations – he continues - to try to free them, but the situation is complicated. We do not even know for sure if they are still alive, or dead. " The priest also stresses that "it is difficult" to understand why the jihadists have killed the Christians, perhaps "because they put up opposition, or for other reasons. Things are getting confused with the IS".
Al-Qaryatayn ( "The two villages" in Arabic) is located in the governorate of Homs, in central Syria, a country battered by five years of civil war that has caused 260 thousand deaths and millions of refugees. In August, the militias of the Islamic State conquered the area, causing serious damage to the monastery of Mar Elian, an ancient building of the Christian tradition, which houses the relics of this saint who was martyred by the Romans for not having renounced his faith.
The monastery, demolished with bulldozers by jihadists who posted images of the destruction online, had long been under the guidance of Fr. Jacques Mourad, a priest of the Syrian Catholic Church, who was kidnapped and held for months by the IS militias. In recent days, a Christian delegation visited the area, telling AsiaNews of a "total devastation" with damage everywhere, "in the church, the monastery, the center" for visitors and pilgrims.
In the words of the Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II, the 300 Christians left in the city after the capture of Daesh [Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, ed] were immediately subjected to abuse and violence by the jihadists. Those who tried to escape, or would not convert to Islam or submit to the rules of the "Caliphate" were killed.
The militiamen also reportedly attempted to sell the Christian girls as "slaves"; according to some sources, there are Christians missing, but hopes of finding them alive are almost nil.
Al-Qaryatayn, which once had 30 thousand inhabitants, of which a thousand Christians, has long been a symbol of religious coexistence although today it is a ghost town, the shops destroyed, buildings damaged or collapsed under the intense fighting. According to legend with the arrival of the Arabs in the region in the sixth century A.D. one of the two most important families of the city converted to Islam, while the other remained Christian, with the aim to protect each other from external attacks. Today the area is considered a strategic hub of Homs province and is rich in subsoil deposits.
Shared From AsiaNewsIT
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Saint April 12 : St. Zeno : Patron of #Fishermen , Newborn #Babies
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St. Zeno
BISHOP & CONFESSOR
Feast: April 12
Information:
| Entered in the Roman Martyrology on 12 April as a Bishop of Verona martyred under Gallienus. Probably, however, he was a confessor who governed the Church of Verona from 362-380. At Verona a basilica, San Zenone, is dedicated to his honour, and some thirty churches and chapels bear his name. In the basilica his statue, bearing the episcopal insignia, is prominent in the choir; coins with his likeness and an inscription were in use. On 21 May and 6 Dec. the translation of his body and his consecration were formerly commemorated. In "De viris illust." Of St. Jerome and Gennadius, Zeno is not mentioned, but St. Ambrose (Ep. v) speaks of him as an episcopus sanctae memoriae, and St. Gregory (Dial., III, 19) relates a miracle wrought at the Church of St. Zeno at Verona. Mabillon ("Vetera analecta", Paris, 1675) published an anonymous poem, "De landibus Veronae", taken from the writing of Ratherius, Bishop of Verona (d. 974), found in the abbey at Lobbes in Belgium (P.L., XI, 154, 225), which gives a list of the bishops of Verona and makes Zeno eighth. In the Monastery di Classe at Ravenna was found an eighth-century chasuble (casula diptycha) with the names and pictures of thirty-five bishops of Verona on its front and back; among them was that of Zeno. This list was accepted by Gams in his "Series episcoporum" (Bigelmair, p. 27). Zeno had not been known as a writer before 1508, when two Dominicans, Albertus Castellanus and Jacobus de Leuco, edited at Venice 105 tractatus or sermons found in the episcopal library of Verona fifty years earlier. In 1739 the brothers Ballerini published "S. Zenonis episcopi Veronae sermones", with an elaborate prolegomena. From these it appears that Zeno was a native of Africa, eighth Bishop of Verona (362-80), an able speaker, and an untiring champion of Christianity against the heathens and of orthodoxy against the Arians. Much controversy arose as to the time at which St. Zeno lives, whether two bishops of Verona of this name were to be admitted or but one, and on the authorship of the sermons. Various opinions were held by Sixtus of Siena, Baronius, Ughelli, Dupin, Tillemont, Fabricius, and others. Of the 105 sermons 12 have been rejected as belonging to other authors. Of the rest 16 are larger sermons, the others merely sketches or perhaps fragments. They contain valuable material on Catholic doctrine, practice, and liturgy; they treat of God, creation, the Blessed Virgin, Holy Scriptures, the Church, the sacraments, etc., and warn against the vices of the day. |
Saint April 12 : St. Julius I : Pope
Pope St. Julius I
POPE
Feast: April 12
Information:
|
The immediate successor of Pope Silvester, Arcus, ruled the Roman Church for only a very short period — from 18 January to 7 October, 336 — and after his death the papal chair remained vacant for four months. What occasioned this comparatively long vacancy is unknown. On 6 Feb., 337, Julius, son of Rustics and a native of Rome, was elected pope. His pontificate is chiefly celebrated for his judicious and firm intervention in the Arian controversies, about which we have abundant sources of information. After the death of Constantine the Great (22 May, 337), his son Constantine II, Governor of Gaul, permitted the exiled Athanasius to return to his See of Alexandria (see ATHANASIUS). The Arians in Egypt, however, set up a rival bishop in the person of Pistus, and sent an embassy to Julius asking him to admit Pistus into communion with Rome, and delivering to the pope the decisions of the Council of Tyre (335) to prove that Athanasius had been validly deposed. On his side Athanasius likewise sent envoys to Rome to deliver to Julius a synodal letter of the Egyptian bishops, containing a complete justification of their patriarch. On the arrival of the Athanasian envoys in Rome, Macarius, the head of the Arian representatives, left the city; the two remaining Arian envoys, with the Athanasian deputies, were summoned by Pope Julius. The Arian envoys now begged the pope to assemble a great synod before which both parties should present their case for decision.
Julius convened the synod at Rome, having dispatched two envoys to bear a letter of invitation to the Eastern bishops. Under the leadership of Eusebius, who had been raised from Nicomedia to the See of Constantinople, the Arian bishops had meanwhile held a council at Antioch, and elected George of Cappadocia Bishop of Alexandria in the place of Pistus. George was intruded forcibly into his see, and Athanasius, being again exiled, made his way to Rome. Many other Eastern bishops removed by the Arian party, among them Marcellus of Ancyra, also came to Rome. In a letter couched in haughty terms, however, the Arian bishops of the party of Eusebius refused to attend the synod summoned by Julius. The synod was held in the autumn of 340 or 341, under the presidency of the pope, in the titular church of the presbyter Vitus. After a detailed examination of the documents, Athanasius and Marcellus of Ancyra, who had made a satisfactory profession of faith, were exonerated and re-established in their episcopal rights. Pope Julius communicated this decision in a very notable and able letter to the bishops of the Eusebian party. In this letter he justifies his proceedings in the case, defends in detail his action in reinstating Athanasius, and animadverts strongly on the non-appearance of the Eastern bishops at the council, the convening of which they themselves had suggested. Even if Athanasius and his companions were somewhat to blame, the letter runs, the Alexandrian Church should first have written to the pope. "Can you be ignorant," writes the pope, "that this is the custom, that we should be written to first, so that from here what is just may be defined" (Julii ep. ad Antiochenos, c. xxii). After his victory over his brother Constantine II, Emperor Constans was ruler over the greater part of the Empire. He was entirely orthodox in his views, and, at the request of the pope and other Western bishops, interceded with his brother Constantius, Emperor of the East, in favour of the bishops who had been deposed and persecuted by the Arian party. Both rulers agreed that there should be convened a general council of the Western and Eastern bishops at Sardica, the principal city of the Province of Dacia Mediterranea (the modern Sofia). It took place in the autumn of 342 or 343, Julius sending as his representatives the priests Archidamus and Philoxenus and the deacon Leo. Although the Eastern bishops of the Arian party did not join in the council, but held their assembly separate and then departed, the synod nevertheless accomplished its task. Through the important canons iii, iv, and v (vii in the Latin text) of this council, the procedure against accused bishops was more exactly regulated, and the manner of the papal intervention in the condemnation of bishops was definitely established.
At the close of its transactions the synod communicated its decisions to the pope in a dutiful letter. Notwithstanding the reaffirmation of his innocence by the Synod of Sardica, St. Athanasius was not restored to his see by Emperor Constantius until after the death of George, the rival Bishop of Alexandria, in 346. Pope Julius took this occasion to write a letter, which is still extant, to the priests, deacons, and the faithful of Alexandria, to congratulate them on the return of their great pastor. The two bishops Ursacius of Singidunum and Valens of Mursia, who, on account of their Arianism, had been deposed by the Council of Sardica, now made a formal recantation of their error to Julius, who, having summoned them to an audience and received a signed confession of faith, restored to them their episcopal sees. Concerning the inner life of the Roman Church during the pontificate of Julius we have no exact information; all agree, however, that there was a rapid increase in the number of the faithful in Rome, where Julius had two new basilicas erected: the titular church of Julius (now S. Maria in Trastevere) and the Basilica Julia (now the Church of the Twelve Apostles). Beside these he built three churches over cemeteries outside the walls of Rome: one on the road to Porto, a second on the Via Aurelia, and a third on the Via Flaminia at the tomb of the martyr St. Valentine. The ruins of the last-mentioned have been discovered. The veneration of the faithful for the tombs of the martyrs continued to spread rapidly. Under the pontificate of Julius, if not earlier, catalogues of feast-days of saints came into use — the Roman feast-calendar of Philocalus dates from the year 336.
Through St. Athanasius, who remained in Rome several years subsequent to 339, the Egyptian monastic life became well-known in the capital, and the example of the hermits of the Egyptian deserts found many imitators in the Roman Church. Julius died on 12 April, 352, and was buried in the catacombs of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way, and, very soon after his death, was honoured as a saint. His body was later transported to S. Maria in Trastevere, the church which he had built. His feast is celebrated on 12 April.
(Taken From Catholic Encyclopedia) |
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