RC#2 – The Resilient Church with Mike Aquilina

Episode 2 – The Martyr’s Cup

The Resilient Church with Mike Aquilina, offers a fascinating look at the trials and triumphs of the Catholic Church over the past two thousand years. Fast-paced sketches of critical periods in church history give readers perspective on the challenges faced by the church today. Mike Aquilina does not shrink from the realities of the past, including badly behaved leaders and those who betrayed the Lord. Yet he also leaves us all with well-founded hope for the future: God remains faithful in every circumstance and fulfills his promise to remain with his church always. Hosted by Kris McGregor

Pick up a copy of Mke’s book. You’ll find so much more and invaluable references and resoources, as well

Also visit Mike’s “Discerning Hearts” page for more audio downloads and information!

IP#89 Fr. Joseph Fessio S.J. – Introduction to Christianity on Inside the Pages

“Introduction to Christianity” by Cardinal Joseph Ratizinger (Pope Benedict XVI) is a modern day classic! Fr. Joseph Fessio S.J., founder of Ignatius Press and student of Pope Benedict, joins us to break open the gift of insight and wisdom contained in this inspirational work of our Holy Father.  As the Pope Benedict states in the preface in the 2nd edition of the book, that approach, taken in the book, puts the question of God and the question about Christ in the very center, which leads to a “narrative Christology” and demonstrates that the place for faith is in the Church.  It is an excellent edition to all Christian libraries and a must for anyone seeking a richer appreciation of the teachings of faith.  Pope Benedict uses the Old and New Testament, the teachings of the Fathers of the Church and generations of Saints, as well as the beauty of the Church’s Tradition to ponder the reality of Christ.  It’s beautiful!

 

For more information on this work as well as all the books by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), go to  www.ignatius.com

RC#1 – The Resilient Church with Mike Aquilina

Episode 1 – History, with Arms Upraised

The Resilient Church with Mike Aquilina, offers a fascinating look at the trials and triumphs of the Catholic Church over the past two thousand years. Fast-paced sketches of critical periods in church history give readers perspective on the challenges faced by the church today. Mike Aquilina does not shrink from the realities of the past, including badly behaved leaders and those who betrayed the Lord. Yet he also leaves us all with well-founded hope for the future: God remains faithful in every circumstance and fulfills his promise to remain with his church always. Hosted by Kris McGregor

Pick up a copy of Mke’s book. You’ll find so much more and invaluable references and resoources, as well

Also visit Mike’s “Discerning Hearts” page for more audio downloads and information!

IP#80 Dr. Scott Hahn – Signs of Life on Inside the Pages

Dr. Scott Hahn has led so many into the heart of the Church through his great sharing of Holy Scripture. With “Signs of Scott Hahn Signs of LifeLife: 40 Catholic Customs and Their Biblical Roots” he takes us into the various “chambers of our home”, the Roman Catholic Church. He helps to understand the devotions, prayers, customs and many other spiritual practices which enrich our faith life. The book includes chapters including: the Sign of the Cross, the Mass, the Sacraments, praying with the saints, guardian angels, sacred images and relics, the celebration of Easter, Christmas, and other holidays, daily prayers, and much more. This work has helped me so much, and it’s the gift I give to anyone I know coming into full communion with Church. It’s fantastic!!!!

Be sure to visit Dr. Hahn’s website for the St. Paul Center of Biblical Theology at Scott Hahn Signs of Lifewww.salvationhistory.com

 Check out the book here

“Professor Hahn’s purpose is both devotional and apologetic.  In showing how Catholic popular piety is scripturally grounded, he explains practices that shape Catholic life and help us grow in grace.  This is a book that will be helpful to individuals and to the Church as a whole.” — Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago

“Lifelong Catholics realize that it usually takes a convert to help us appreciate and better understand the customs and practices we too often take for granted. Scott Hahn does just that in this immensely reable yet substantive loving look at Catholic prayer, devotions, and beliefs.” — Most Reverend Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York

IP#79 Fr. Dwight Longenecker – More Christianity on Inside the Pages

Fr. Dwight Longenecker is Catholic priest and writer who has experienced an interesting journey of faith. Born into a Evanglical Christian family in Pennsylvania, graduate from fundamentalist Bob Jones University in Florida, and he would later become an Anglican priest serving as  a curate, a chaplain at Cambridge, and a country parson.  Then, in 1995, he and his wife and family were received into the Roman Catholic Church.  He spent the next ten years working as a freelance Catholic writer, contributing to over twenty-five magazines, papers and journals in Britain, Ireland and the USA.

Fr. Longenecker has expanded and revised his book “More Christianity:   where he invites the readers to move from “Mere Christianity” to “More Christianity” in the Roman Catholic faith.  Filled with every major aspect of our Catholic faith, Fr. Longenecker book serves, not only as resource to help Evangelicals to understand the Catholic faith, but also is excellent for Catholics who wish to deepen their own knowledge of the faith we profess.

Visit Fr. Longenecker’s blog “Standing on My Head” to learn more about this and other books, as well as so much more

IP#70 Michael Flannery – Alfred Russel Wallace on Inside the Pages

“Alfred Russel Wallace: A Rediscovered Life” is a fascinating story of the life, times and work of  a man some have dubbed as “the forgotten naturalist”.   The provocative thesis of Michael Flannery’s new biography is that Wallace, in developing his unique brand of evolution, presaged modern intelligent design theory.  Wallace’s devotion to discovering the truths of nature brought him through a lifetime of research to see genuine design in the natural world. This was Wallace’s ultimate heresy, a heresy that exposed the metaphysical underpinnings of the emerging Darwinian paradigm.  A thought provocative read.


Find out more about the book here

IP#67 Mike Aquilina – The Mass on Inside the Pages

“The Mass:  The Glory, The Mystery, The Tradition” is absolutely fantastic! This is the book so many of us have been waiting for and leave it to Mike Aquilina, along with co-author, his eminence, Cardinal Donald Wuerl to bring  it to us.  Every Catholic household should have a copy of this richly satisfying primer to the great prayer of the Church…The Holy Mass!  Beautiful pictures, historical background, the essential how, what, where, why of every aspect of the mass, this work is neither too “light” nor too “heavy”, but just right to deeply educate us all on the celebration, while encouraging us all to dive deeper into it’s mysteries.  And with changes coming to the Mass in late 2011, now is the time to pick this up!  No excuses…this is a must!

Check out the book here

Also check out more by Mike Aquilina on his Discerning Hearts page

St. Joan of Arc “Bringing the Light of the Gospel Into History”

<

VATICAN CITY, 26 JAN 2011 (vatican.va) – Today I would like to talk to you about Joan of Arc, a young Saint who lived at the end of the Middle Ages who died at the age of 19, in 1431. This French Saint, mentioned several times in theCatechism of the Catholic Church, is particularly close to St Catherine of Siena, Patroness of Italy and of Europe, of whom I spoke in a recent Catechesis. They were in fact two young women of the people, lay women consecrated in virginity, two committed mystics, not in the cloister, but in the midst of the most dramatic reality of the Church and the world of their time. They are perhaps the most representative of those “strong women” who, at the end of the Middle Ages, fearlessly bore the great light of the Gospel in the complex events of history. We could liken them to the holy women who stayed on Calvary, close to the Crucified Jesus and to Mary his Mother, while the Apostles had fled and Peter himself had denied him three times. The Church in that period was going through the profound crisis of the great schism of the West, which lasted almost 40 years. In 1380, when Catherine of Siena died, there was not only a Pope but also an antipope; when Joan was born, in 1412, there was a Pope as well as two antipopes. In addition to this internal laceration in the Church, were the continuous fratricidal wars among the Christian peoples of Europe, the most dramatic of which was the protracted Hundred Years’ War between France and England. Joan of Arc did not know how to read or write, but the depths of her soul can be known thanks to two sources of exceptional historical value: the two Trials that concern her. The first, the Trial of Condemnation (PCon), contains the transcription of the long and numerous interrogations to which Joan was subjected in the last months of her life (February-May 1431) and reports the Saint’s own words. The second, the Trial of Nullity of the Condemnation or of “rehabilitation” (PNul), contains the depositions of about 120 eyewitnesses of all the periods of her life (cfProcès de Condamnation de Jeanne d’Arc, 3 vol. and Procès en Nullité de la Condamnation de Jeanne d’Arc, 5 vol., ed. Klincksieck, Paris, 1960-1989). Joan was born at Domremy, a little village on the border between France and Lorraine. Her parents were well-off peasants, known to all as good Christians. From them she received a sound religious upbringing, considerably influenced by the spirituality of the Name of Jesus, taught by St Bernardine of Siena and spread in Europe by the Franciscans. The Name of Mary was always associated with the Name of Jesus and thus, against the background of popular piety, Joan’s spirituality was profoundly Christocentric and Marian. From childhood, she showed great love and compassion for the poorest, the sick and all the suffering, in the dramatic context of the war. We know from Joan’s own words that her religious life developed as a mystical experience from the time when she was 13 (PCon, I, p. 47-48). Through the “voice” of St Michael the Archangel, Joan felt called by the Lord to intensify her Christian life and also to commit herself in the first person to the liberation of her people. Her immediate response, her “yes”, was her vow of virginity, with a new commitment to sacramental life and to prayer: daily participation in Mass, frequent Confession and Communion and long periods of silent prayer before the Crucified One or the image of Our Lady. The young French peasant girl’s compassion and dedication in the face of her people’s suffering were intensified by her mystical relationship with God. One of the most original aspects of this young woman’s holiness was precisely this link between mystical experience and political mission. The years of her hidden life and her interior development were followed by the brief but intense two years of her public life: a year of action and a year of passion. At the beginning of 1429, Joan began her work of liberation. The many witnesses show us this young woman who was only 17 years old as a very strong and determined person, able to convince people who felt insecure and discouraged. Overcoming all obstacles, she met the Dauphin of France, the future King Charles VII, who subjected her to an examination in Poitiers by some theologians of the university. Their opinion was positive: they saw in her nothing evil, only a good Christian. On 22 March 1429 Joan dictated an important letter to the King of England and to his men at arms who were besieging the city of Orléans (ibid., pp. 221-222). Hers was a true proposal of peace in justice between the two Christian peoples in light of the Name of Jesus and Mary, but it was rejected and Joan had to gird herself to fight for the city’s liberation which took place on 8 May. The other culminating moment of her political action was the coronation of King Charles VII in Rheims on 17 July 1429. For a whole year, Joan lived with the soldiers, carrying out among them a true mission of evangelization. Many of them testified to her goodness, her courage and her extraordinary purity. She was called by all and by herself “La pucelle” (“the Maid”), that is, virgin. Joan’s passion began on 23 May 1430, when she fell into enemy hands and was taken prisoner. On 23 December she was led to the city of Rouen. There the long and dramatic Trial of Condemnation took place, that began in February 1431 and ended on 30 May with her being burned at the stake.

It was a great and solemn Trial, at which two ecclesiastical judges presided, Bishop Pierre Cauchon and the Inquisitor Jean le Maistre, but in fact it was conducted entirely by a large group of theologians from the renowned University of Paris, who took part in the Trial as assessors. They were French clerics, who, on the side politically opposed to Joan’s, had a priori a negative opinion of both her and her mission. This Trial is a distressing page in the history of holiness and also an illuminating page on the mystery of the Church which, according to the words of the Second Vatican Council, is “at once holy and always in need of purification” (Lumen Gentium, n. 8).

The Trial was the dramatic encounter between this Saint and her judges, who were clerics. Joan was accused and convicted by them, even condemned as a heretic and sent to the terrible death of being burned at the stake. Unlike the holy theologians who had illuminated the University of Paris, such as St Bonaventure, St Thomas Aquinas and Bl. Duns Scotus, of whom I have spoken in several Catecheses, these judges were theologians who lacked charity and the humility to see God’s action in this young woman. The words of Jesus, who said that God’s mysteries are revealed to those who have a child’s heart while they remain hidden to the learned and the wise who have no humility (cf. Lk 10:21), spring to mind. Thus, Joan’s judges were radically incapable of understanding her or of perceiving the beauty of her soul. They did not know that they were condemning a Saint. Joan’s appeal to the Pope, on 24 May, was rejected by the tribunal. On the morning of 30 May, in prison, she received Holy Communion for the last time and was immediately led to her torture in the Old Market Square. She asked one of the priests to hold up a processional Cross in front of the stake. Thus she died, her gaze fixed upon the Crucified Jesus and crying out several times the Name of Jesus (PNul, I, p. 457; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 435). About 25 years later the Trial of Nullity, which opened under the authority of Pope Calixtus III, ended with a solemn sentence that declared the condemnation null and void (7 July 1456; PNul, II, pp. 604-610). This long trial, which collected the evidence of witnesses and the opinions of many theologians, all favourable to Joan, sheds light on her innocence and on her perfect fidelity to the Church. Joan of Arc was subsequently canonized by Benedict XV in 1920. Dear brothers and sisters, the Name of Jesus, invoked by our Saint until the very last moments of her earthly life was like the continuous breathing of her soul, like the beating of her heart, the centre of her whole life. The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc which so fascinated the poet Charles Péguy was this total love for Jesus and for her neighbour in Jesus and for Jesus. This Saint had understood that Love embraces the whole of the reality of God and of the human being, of Heaven and of earth, of the Church and of the world. Jesus always had pride of place in her life, in accordance to her beautiful affirmation: “We must serve God first” (PCon, I, p. 288; cf. Catechismo della Chiesa Cattolica, n. 223). Loving him means always doing his will. She declared with total surrendur and trust: “I entrust myself to God my Creator, I love him with my whole my heart” (PCon, I, p. 337). With the vow of virginity, Joan consecrated her whole being exclusively to the one Love of Jesus: “it was the promise that she made to Our Lord to preserve the virginity of her body and her mind well” (PCon, I, pp. 149-150). Virginity of soul is the state of grace, a supreme value, for her more precious than life. It is a gift of God which is to be received and preserved with humility and trust. One of the best known texts of the first Trial concerns precisely this: “Asked if she knew that she was in God’s grace, she replied: ‘If I am not, may it please God to put me in it; if I am, may it please God to keep me there’” (ibid., p. 62; cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2005).

Our Saint lived prayer in the form of a continuous dialogue with the Lord who also illuminated her dialogue with the judges and gave her peace and security. She asked him with trust: Sweetest God, in honour of your holy Passion, I ask you, if you love me, to show me how I must answer these men of the Church” (PCon, I, p. 252). Joan saw Jesus as the “King of Heaven and of the earth”. She therefore had painted on her standard the image of “Our Lord holding the world” (ibid., p. 172): the emblem of her political mission. The liberation of her people was a work of human justice which Joan carried out in charity, for love of Jesus. Her holiness is a beautiful example for lay people engaged in politics, especially in the most difficult situations. Faith is the light that guides every decision, as a century later another great Saint, the Englishman Thomas More, was to testify.

In Jesus Joan contemplated the whole reality of the Church, the “Church triumphant” of Heaven, as well as the “Church militant” on earth. According to her words, “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing” (ibid., p. 166). This affirmation, cited in theCatechism of the Catholic Church (n. 795), has a truly heroic character in the context of theTrial of Condemnation, before her judges, men of the Church who were persecuting and condemning her. In the Love of Jesus Joan found the strength to love the Church to the very end, even at the moment she was sentenced. I like to recall that St Joan of Arc had a profound influence on a young Saint of the modern age: Thérèse of the Child Jesus. In the context of a completely different life, spent in the cloister, the Carmelite of Lisieux felt very close to Joan, living in the heart of the Church and participating in Christ’s suffering for the world’s salvation. The Church has brought them together as Patronesses of France, after the Virgin Mary. St Thérèse expressed her desire to die, like Joan, with the Name of Jesus on her lips (Manoscritto B, 3r), and she was motivated by the same great love for Jesus and her neighbour, lived in consecrated virginity. Dear brothers and sisters, with her luminous witness St Joan of Arc invites us to a high standard of Christian living: to make prayer the guiding motive of our days; to have full trust in doing God’s will, whatever it may be; to live charity without favouritism, without limits and drawing, like her, from the Love of Jesus a profound love for the Church. Thank you.

RN-Special1 – “You see Holy Father, it is not a fantasy. It is not a fantasy after all.” – Discerning Hearts

It’s a story of a young man named Giovanni, a pope named Pius IX and a time when….well I’ll let Omar Guiterrez tell the story...(he’s the best kind of  “storyteller” because his stories are exciting, poignant, compelling and…true)

An excerpt from Omar’s Regnum Novum post entitled “Giovanni and His Rome Beneath the Surface”:

It would behoove you to know that at this time in history, not too much unlike our own, the idea that the Catholic Church as we know it actually existed before the Middle Ages was an idea largely held to be ridiculous. Certainly there was a Christianity. But surely nothing like the Church of Rome. The scathing writing of the Enlightenment thinkers from the late 18th and throughout the 19th centuries had convinced most people that the priesthood, and much more so the papacy, was a Roman Catholic myth, invented to justify their inherently corrupting hold on power. Any notion from the average man that these existed before the stupefyingly dark ages of Medieval ignorance was mere pious idiocy. Even before this time, Martin Luther wrote, in his book titled Against the Roman Papacy Instituted by the Devil (catchy title no?),

I am content to be able to say, since I have seen it and heard it at Rome, that it is unknown where in the city the bodies of Saint Peter and Paul are located, or even whether they are there at all. Even the Pope and the cardinals know very well that they do not know.

Yet, in this world of legends and stories Giovanni lived in youthful and pious bliss. So it was that one fine Spring day in 1849, the same year that the Communist Manifesto was published, and at the ripe old age of 22, whilst the Roman birds sung their sweet songs of vernal joy to travelers on the ancient Appian road, Giovanni came across a piece of marble, which looked something very much like this:

Pieces of marble were constantly being found by farmers in the area. It is just a part of living in that world where history grows from the ground like the leaves of the acanthus plant that decorates the Mediterranean. This marble was probably dug up by the farmer attempting to ready his field for planting, and he tossed it toward the road. As fate – or should I say God’s good grace – would have it Giovanni, with all his peculiar knowledge, came across it on this day and at this hour. He examined the thing and began to wonder, as only a youthful lad can and does.

He recalled from his vast reading the legend of a Pope Cornelius who had been sentenced to exile by the new emperor Gallus. The emperor was a useless fellow, who had been put into power by the Roman army after the death of the Christian-hating Decius only to be killed by that same army two years later. Poor Pope Cornelius died in exile but was referred to in the martyrologies as not just a confessor but as a martyr. Furthermore, this Pope Cornelius, who reigned as the vicar of Christ from 251-253 was said to have been brought back to Rome and buried in the legendary Crypt of the Popes in the catacomb of St. Callistus. So perhaps, thought the youthful Italian lad, perhaps this is a marker for Pope Cornelius’ grave, which would mean that he’s buried in that field somewhere, which would mean that underneath lies not just the mythic Crypt of the Popes but also the original burial place of St. Cecilia, who was later moved to the Church in Trastevere that still bears her name, and all sorts of wonders within the famed – but never discovered – catacomb of St. Callistus. Yes, this was the reasoning of young Giovanni. This was the thought process of a young lad who had not lived long enough to know that silly dreams of an ancient Church were passé and never mentioned in polite company. These were the musings of a boy who dreamed to discover something true in an age of cynical doubting. And these were the notions that Giovanni Battista de Rossi took to Pope Pius IX.

To hear the whole story take a listen, and then visit Regnum Novum for the complete text and images…it’s get’s better…it’s SO touching and compelling…and it’s true

IP#61 Mark Brumley – The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics on Inside the Pages

Mark Brumley is one of the masters of today’s Catholic apologetics, so if he recommends a book to help us convey the faith to others, we should take note! “The Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith” is a fantastic resource for any and all who wish to communicate the faith more clearly.  It’s also for those who desire to deepen and grow in their own understanding of Catholic faith.  Mark does a great job in this interview talking about some of those teachings, as well as, addressing today’s current issues.

Check out the book here!