On October 7, at the beginning of the Synod on the New Evangelization, Pope Benedict XVI will declare St. Hildegard von Bingen and St. John of Avila Doctors of the Church. On this special edition of Inside the Pages I talk with Dr. Matthew Bunson about the significance of this declaration. We talk about the lives and work of both saints and how their teachings can touch our lives today.
How can you pack the richness of Fatima into a little ol’blog post here?
I discerned….you can’t. There is just so much for us to take in and ponder. For a fuller explanation of the approved private revelation I found this wikipedia article gives a fairly balanced presentation – Our Lady of Fatima.
The year is 1917: a dancing sun, an abundance of miracles, and so much more, were all given to wake up an aching world to the consequences of sin and the need to return to the heart and love of the Father, through the beautiful Immaculate Heart of Our Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. A message was given to 3 shepherd children…a message basically consisting of prayer, penance and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. If we can enter into these basic of all practices, our hearts would ultimately find their way “home”…to heaven and to the embrace of our loving Father. Practice of the first five Saturday devotion, frequent recitation of Our Lady’s rosary, and devotion to the Eucharist are all central elements to the experience of Fatima.
Many Roman Catholics recite prayers based on Our Lady of Fátima. Lucia later revealed that she and her cousins had had several visions of an angel in 1916. Calling himself the “Angel of Portugal” and the “Angel of Peace,” he taught them to bow with their heads to the ground and to say “O God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love you.” Lucia later set this prayer to music and a recording exists of her singing it. Sometime later he returned and taught them a Eucharistic devotion now known as the Angel Prayer.
Lucia said that the Lady emphasized Acts of Reparation and prayers to console Jesus for the sins of the world. Lucia said Mary’s words were “When you make some sacrifice, say ‘O Jesus, it is for your love, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.‘” At the first apparition, Lucia wrote, the children were so moved by the radiance they perceived that they involuntarily said “Most Holy Trinity, I adore you! My God, my God, I love you in the Most Blessed Sacrament.”Lucia also heard Mary ask for these words to be added to the Rosary, after the Gloria Patri prayer: “O my Jesus, pardon us, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need.”
In the tradition of Marian visitations, the “conversion of sinners” is not necessarily religious conversion to the Roman Catholic Church, but general repentance and attempt to amend one’s life according to the teachings of Jesus.Lucia wrote that she and her cousins defined “sinners” not as non-Catholics but as those who had fallen away from the Church or, more specifically, willfully indulged in sinful activity, particularly “sins of the flesh” and “acts of injustice and a lack of charity towards the poor, widows and orphans, the ignorant and the helpless” which she saidwere even worse than sins of impurity. – wikipedia
How much the Father loves us all! To allow, through the action of the Holy Spirit, an encounter with Our Blessed Mother, especially one that is so loving and nurturing. Praise God for the grace of courage, perseverance, fortitude and so much more, poured out to those 3 little children who communicated that message to the world. I am reminded of what Jesus once conveyed to St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church…that He uses the humble (like uneducated fisherman, simple women and little children) to communicate a message from heaven in order to confound the arrogant and to bring an opportunity of humility to us all.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us My favorite movie surrounding the mystical experience of Fatima is “The 13th Day” distributed by Ignatius Press. Here is another video. film “The Miracle of Fatima”
How can you pack the richness of Fatima into a little ol’blog post here?
I discerned….you can’t. There is just so much for us to take in and ponder. For a fuller explanation of the approved private revelation I found this wikipedia article gives a fairly balanced presentation – Our Lady of Fatima.
The year is 1917: a dancing sun, an abundance of miracles, and so much more, were all given to wake up an aching world to the consequences of sin and the need to return to the heart and love of the Father, through the beautiful Immaculate Heart of Our Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. A message was given to 3 shepherd children…a message basically consisting of prayer, penance and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. If we can enter into these basic of all practices, our hearts would ultimately find their way “home”…to heaven and to the embrace of our loving Father. Practice of the first five Saturday devotion, frequent recitation of Our Lady’s rosary, and devotion to the Eucharist are all central elements to the experience of Fatima.
Many Roman Catholics recite prayers based on Our Lady of Fátima. Lucia later revealed that she and her cousins had had several visions of an angel in 1916. Calling himself the “Angel of Portugal” and the “Angel of Peace,” he taught them to bow with their heads to the ground and to say “O God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love you. I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love you.” Lucia later set this prayer to music and a recording exists of her singing it. Sometime later he returned and taught them a Eucharistic devotion now known as the Angel Prayer.
Lucia said that the Lady emphasized Acts of Reparation and prayers to console Jesus for the sins of the world. Lucia said Mary’s words were “When you make some sacrifice, say ‘O Jesus, it is for your love, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.‘” At the first apparition, Lucia wrote, the children were so moved by the radiance they perceived that they involuntarily said “Most Holy Trinity, I adore you! My God, my God, I love you in the Most Blessed Sacrament.”Lucia also heard Mary ask for these words to be added to the Rosary, after the Gloria Patri prayer: “O my Jesus, pardon us, save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need.”
In the tradition of Marian visitations, the “conversion of sinners” is not necessarily religious conversion to the Roman Catholic Church, but general repentance and attempt to amend one’s life according to the teachings of Jesus.Lucia wrote that she and her cousins defined “sinners” not as non-Catholics but as those who had fallen away from the Church or, more specifically, willfully indulged in sinful activity, particularly “sins of the flesh” and “acts of injustice and a lack of charity towards the poor, widows and orphans, the ignorant and the helpless” which she saidwere even worse than sins of impurity. – wikipedia
How much the Father loves us all! To allow, through the action of the Holy Spirit, an encounter with Our Blessed Mother, especially one that is so loving and nurturing. Praise God for the grace of courage, perseverance, fortitude and so much more, poured out to those 3 little children who communicated that message to the world. I am reminded of what Jesus once conveyed to St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church…that He uses the humble (like uneducated fisherman, simple women and little children) to communicate a message from heaven in order to confound the arrogant and to bring an opportunity of humility to us all.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us My favorite movie surrounding the mystical experience of Fatima is “The 13th Day” distributed by Ignatius Press. Here is another video. film “The Miracle of Fatima”
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the last catechesis I began speaking about one of the privileged sources of Christian prayer: the sacred liturgy, which – as the Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms – is “participation in Christ’s own prayer addressed to the Father in the Holy Spirit” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1073). In the liturgy, all Christian prayer finds its source and goal.”(n. 1073). Today I would like us to ask ourselves: in my life, do I reserve enough space for prayer and, above all, what place does liturgical prayer have in my relationship with God, especially the Mass, as participation in the common prayer of the Body of Christ which is the Church ?
In answering this question we must first remember that prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit (cf. ibid., 2565). Therefore, the life of prayer lies in habitually being in the presence of God and being conscious of it, in living our relationship with God just as we live the usual relationships of our lives, those with close family members, and with real friends; indeed our relationship with the Lord gives light to all of our other relationships. This communion of life with God, One and Triune, is possible because, through Baptism we have been inserted into Christ, we have begun to be one with Him (cf. Rom 6:5).
In fact, only in Christ we can talk to God the Father as children, otherwise it is not possible, but in communion with the Son, we too can say, as he said “Abba”, because only in communion with Christ, can we know God as our true Father (cf. Mt 11:27). For this Christian prayer lies in constantly looking, in an ever new way, at Christ, talking with Him, being in silence with Him, listening to Him, acting and suffering with Him. The Christian rediscovers his true identity in Christ, “the firstborn of every creature », in whom all things were created (cf. Col 1:15 ff). By identifying with Him, being one with Him, I discover my personal identity, that of the true child who sees God as a Father full of love.
But do not forget: we discover Christ, we know him as a living Person, in the Church. It is “his Body.” This embodiment can be understood from the biblical words on man and woman: the two shall become one flesh (cf. Gen 2:24, Ephesians 5.30 ff. 1 Cor 6.16 s). The unbreakable bond between Christ and the Church, through the unifying power of love, does not negate the ‘you’ or ‘I’, but raises them to their most profound unity. Finding one’s true identity in Christ means achieving communion with him, that does not cancel me out, but raises me to the highest dignity, that of a child of God in Christ, “the love-story between God and man consists in the very fact that this communion of will increases in a communion of thought and sentiment, and thus our will and God’s will increasingly coincide “(Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, 17). To pray means to rising towards the heights of God through a necessary gradual transformation of our being.
Thus, participating in the liturgy, we make ours the language of the Mother Church, we learn to speak it and for it. Of course, as I have already said, this takes place in a gradual manner, little by little. I have to progressively immerge myself in the words of the Church, with my prayer, my life, my suffering, my joy, my thoughts. It is a journey that transforms us.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the ecology, was a Roman Catholic saint who took the gospel literally by following all Jesus said and did.
Who Was St. Francis?
by Leonard Foley, O.F.M.
Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally—not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit and without a mite of self-importance.
Serious illness brought the young Francis to see the emptiness of his frolicking life as leader of Assisi’s youth. Prayer—lengthy and difficult—led him to a self-emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by embracing a leper he met on the road. It symbolized his complete obedience to what he had heard in prayer: “Francis! Everything you have loved and desired in the flesh it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun this, all that now seems sweet and lovely to you will become intolerable and bitter, but all that you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy.”
From the cross in the neglected field-chapel of San Damiano, Christ told him, “Francis, go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down.” Francis became the totally poor and humble workman.
He must have suspected a deeper meaning to “build up my house.” But he would have been content to be for the rest of his life the poor “nothing” man actually putting brick on brick in abandoned chapels. He gave up every material thing he had, piling even his clothes before his earthly father (who was demanding restitution for Francis’ “gifts” to the poor) so that he would be totally free to say, “Our Father in heaven.” He was, for a time, considered to be a religious “nut,” begging from door to door when he could not get money for his work, bringing sadness or disgust to the hearts of his former friends, ridicule from the unthinking.
But genuineness will tell. A few people began to realize that this man was actually trying to be Christian. He really believed what Jesus said: “Announce the kingdom! Possess no gold or silver or copper in your purses, no traveling bag, no sandals, no staff” (see Luke 9:1-3).
Francis’ first rule for his followers was a collection of texts from the Gospels. He had no idea of founding an order, but once it began he protected it and accepted all the legal structures needed to support it. His devotion and loyalty to the Church were absolute and highly exemplary at a time when various movements of reform tended to break the Church’s unity.
He was torn between a life devoted entirely to prayer and a life of active preaching of the Good News. He decided in favor of the latter, but always returned to solitude when he could. He wanted to be a missionary in Syria or in Africa, but was prevented by shipwreck and illness in both cases. He did try to convert the sultan of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade.
During the last years of his relatively short life (he died at 44) he was half blind and seriously ill. Two years before his death, he received the stigmata, the real and painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side.
On his deathbed, he said over and over again the last addition to his Canticle of the Sun, “Be praised, O Lord, for our Sister Death.” He sang Psalm 141, and at the end asked his superior to have his clothes removed when the last hour came and for permission to expire lying naked on the earth, in imitation of his Lord. From Saint of the Day
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the ecology, was a Roman Catholic saint who took the gospel literally by following all Jesus said and did.
Who Was St. Francis?
by Leonard Foley, O.F.M.
Francis of Assisi was a poor little man who astounded and inspired the Church by taking the gospel literally—not in a narrow fundamentalist sense, but by actually following all that Jesus said and did, joyfully, without limit and without a mite of self-importance.
Serious illness brought the young Francis to see the emptiness of his frolicking life as leader of Assisi’s youth. Prayer—lengthy and difficult—led him to a self-emptying like that of Christ, climaxed by embracing a leper he met on the road. It symbolized his complete obedience to what he had heard in prayer: “Francis! Everything you have loved and desired in the flesh it is your duty to despise and hate, if you wish to know my will. And when you have begun this, all that now seems sweet and lovely to you will become intolerable and bitter, but all that you used to avoid will turn itself to great sweetness and exceeding joy.”
From the cross in the neglected field-chapel of San Damiano, Christ told him, “Francis, go out and build up my house, for it is nearly falling down.” Francis became the totally poor and humble workman.
He must have suspected a deeper meaning to “build up my house.” But he would have been content to be for the rest of his life the poor “nothing” man actually putting brick on brick in abandoned chapels. He gave up every material thing he had, piling even his clothes before his earthly father (who was demanding restitution for Francis’ “gifts” to the poor) so that he would be totally free to say, “Our Father in heaven.” He was, for a time, considered to be a religious “nut,” begging from door to door when he could not get money for his work, bringing sadness or disgust to the hearts of his former friends, ridicule from the unthinking.
But genuineness will tell. A few people began to realize that this man was actually trying to be Christian. He really believed what Jesus said: “Announce the kingdom! Possess no gold or silver or copper in your purses, no traveling bag, no sandals, no staff” (see Luke 9:1-3).
Francis’ first rule for his followers was a collection of texts from the Gospels. He had no idea of founding an order, but once it began he protected it and accepted all the legal structures needed to support it. His devotion and loyalty to the Church were absolute and highly exemplary at a time when various movements of reform tended to break the Church’s unity.
He was torn between a life devoted entirely to prayer and a life of active preaching of the Good News. He decided in favor of the latter, but always returned to solitude when he could. He wanted to be a missionary in Syria or in Africa, but was prevented by shipwreck and illness in both cases. He did try to convert the sultan of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade.
During the last years of his relatively short life (he died at 44) he was half blind and seriously ill. Two years before his death, he received the stigmata, the real and painful wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side.
On his deathbed, he said over and over again the last addition to his Canticle of the Sun, “Be praised, O Lord, for our Sister Death.” He sang Psalm 141, and at the end asked his superior to have his clothes removed when the last hour came and for permission to expire lying naked on the earth, in imitation of his Lord. From Saint of the Day
How can you not just love the holy angels of God, and in particular the Archangels: Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael?
(I’ll answer that: You just have to love them…they’re too AWESOME!)
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Prayer to St. Michael
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May GOD rebuke him we humbly pray, and do thou o’ prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of GOD cast into hell satan and all the evil spirits who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. A St. Michael Website
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Prayer to the Archangel St. Gabriel
O God, who from among all your angels chose the Archangel Gabriel to announce the mystery of the Incarnation, mercifully grant that we who solemnly remember him on earth may feel the benefit of his patronage in heaven, with Jesus who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen. A St. Gabriel Website
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Prayer to the Archangel Raphael
Glorious Archangel St. Raphael, great prince of the heavenly court, your are illustrious for your gifts of wisdom and grace. You are a guide of those who journey by land or sea or air, consoler of the afflicted, and refuge of sinners. I beg you, assist me in all my needs and in all the sufferings of this life, as once you helped the young Tobias on his travels. Because you are the “medicine of God”, I humbly pray you to heal the many infirmities of my soul and the ills that afflict my body. I especially ask of you the favor
(name it) and the great grace of purity to prepare me to be the temple of the Holy Spirit. Amen. A St. Raphael Website
Fr. Samir Khalil Samir is one of the world’s leading experts on Islam. Bruce and I had the blessing to be able to speak with him about the religious and political tensions between east and west, and in particular between Christianity and Islam. His thoughtful insight helped us greatly to appreciate the realities that exist between us culturally and what hope there might be for peace and coexistence in the future.
How was Islam born? What does the Koran represent for Muslims? What relationship has developed between Islam and violence, between Islamic culture and the West? How can a real integration of Islam take place in European societies? What are the conditions for a constructive encounter between Christians and Muslims?
(Vatican Radio) – The Liturgy is the school of prayer where God Himself teaches us to pray. But in order to celebrate the Liturgy well, to really experience the re-enactment of Christ’s Paschal Mystery we must make our hearts God’s Altar and understand that the Liturgy is the action of God and of man, as the Second Vatican Council teaches us. In his latest instalment in his cycle on the School of Prayer, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated his Wednesday audience to prayer and the liturgy. Emer McCarthy reports:
Below a Vatican Radio translation of the Holy Father’s catechesis:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
in recent months we have made a journey in the light of the Word of God, to learn to pray in a more authentic way by looking at some great figures in the Old Testament, the Psalms, the Letters of St. Paul and the Book of Revelation, but also looking at unique and fundamental experience of Jesus in his relationship with the Heavenly Father. In fact, only in Christ, is man enabled to unite himself to God with the depth and intimacy of a child before a father who loves him, only in Him can we turn in all truth to God and lovingly call Him “Abba! ! Father. ” Like the Apostles, we too have repeated and we still repeat to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Lk 11:1).
In addition, in order to live our personal relationship with God more intensely, we have learned to invoke the Holy Spirit, the first gift of the Risen Christ to believers, because it is he who “comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought,”(Romans 8:26).
At this point we can ask: how can I allow myself to be formed by the Holy Spirit? What is the school in which he teaches me to pray and helps me in my difficulties to turn to God in the right way? The first school of prayer which we have covered in the last few weeks is the Word of God, Sacred Scripture, Sacred Scripture in permanent dialogue between God and man, an ongoing dialogue in which God reveals Himself ever closer to us. We can better familiarize ourselves with his face, his voice, his being and the man learns to accept and to know God, to talk to God. So in recent weeks, reading Sacred Scripture, we looked for this ongoing dialogue in Scripture to learn how we can enter into contact with God.
There is another precious “space”, another valuable “source” to grow in prayer, a source of living water in close relation with the previous one. I refer to the liturgy, which is a privileged area in which God speaks to each of us, here and now, and awaits our response.
What is the liturgy? If we open the Catechism of the Catholic Church – an always valuable and indispensable aid especially in the Year of Faith, which is about to begin – we read that originally the word “liturgy” means ” service in the name of/on behalf of the people” (No. 1069) . If Christian theology took this word from the Greek world, it did so obviously thinking of the new People of God born from Christ opened his arms on the Cross to unite people in the peace of the one God. “service on behalf of the people ” a people that does not exist by itself, but that has been formed through the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. In fact, the People of God does not exist through ties of blood, territory or nation, but is always born from the work of the Son of God and communion with the Father that He obtains for us.
The Catechism also states that “in Christian tradition (the word” liturgy “) means the participation of the People of God in “the work of God.” Because the people of God as such exists only through the action of God.
Msgr. Esseff shares some of his insights on an article he is preparing on St. Padre Pio and the Theology of the Body. There’s a fascinating connection that can be made. He begins by offering a detailed sharing of his first encounters with St. Pio and then discusses how his stigmata and gifts relate to our understanding of our relationship with Christ.
Pope Benedict XVI will declare St. Hildegard von Bingen and St. John of Avila Doctors of the Church. On this special edition of Inside the Pages I talk with Dr. Matthew Bunson about the significance of this declaration. We talk about the lives and work of both saints and how their teachings can touch our lives today.
