Pope's Angelus: Pray for Me

...that his journey to Turkey may bear the fruit God desires, also elaborates on today's Feast of Christ the King

From Asia News Italy:

Just two days before his trip to Turkey, Benedict XVI today asked an enormous crowd of pilgrims gathered in St Peter’s Square for the Angelus to accompany him “in prayer, so that this pilgrimage may bear all the fruits that God desires”. The voyage of the pope to Ankara, Ephesus and Istanbul is presenting problems, given the opposition voiced by a section of Turkish opinion linked to Islamist and nationalist ideology, and certain hesitation on the part of the Ankara government. The pope has bypassed these tensions: “From now, I want to send cordial greetings to the dear Turkish people, rich in history and culture; to these people and its representatives, I express sentiments of respect and sincere friendship.” As a mark of this respect, the organizers of the papal trip are trying to fit a visit to Istanbul’s Blue Mosque into the pontiff’s already packed schedule. Anyhow, the aim of the trip is to participate in celebrations for the feast of St Andrew on 30 November together with the Greek-Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I. The pope continued: “With great emotion, I look forward to meeting the small Catholic community, which is always in my heart, and to uniting fraternally with the Orthodox Church on the occasion of the feast of the apostle St Andrew. With confidence, I follow in the footsteps of my venerated predecessors Paul VI and John Paul II and I invoke the heavenly protection of the Blessed John XXIII who for 10 years was Apostolic Delegate in Turkey and who fostered affection and respect for that nation.”

Before, Benedict XVI dwelt upon the meaning of today’s feast: Christ, King of the universe.

The pope said: “He did not come to dominate peoples and lands, but to free men from the slavery of sin and to reconcile them with God.” The pontiff turned to the gospel of today’s Mass, which presents the dialogue between Jesus and Pilate, during which the scourged Jesus claims for himself the title of king and witness of truth. “But what is the ‘truth’ that Christ came to testify to in the world?” asked the pope. “His entire existence reveals that God is love: this then is the truth to which He bore full witness with the sacrifice of his very life on Calvary. The Cross is the ‘throne’ from which he revealed the sublime royalty of God Love: offering himself in expiation for the sins of the world, He defeated the dominion of ‘the prince of this world’ (Jn 12:31) and he installed the Kingdom of God definitively. A Kingdom that would manifest itself fully at the end of time, after all its enemies, finishing with death, would have been destroyed (cfr 1 Cor 15:25, 26).

The way to “enter” into God’s Kingdom “does not permit shortcuts”; rather, “every person must freely welcome the truth of the love of God. He is Love and Truth and both love and truth never impose themselves: they knock at the door of the heart and mind and, wherever they may enter, they bring peace and joy. This is God’s way of reigning; this is his project of salvation, a ‘mystery’ in the biblical sense of the word, which is a plan that is revealed little by little throughout history.”

Benedict XVI added: “The sovereignty of Christ has been associated in a most singular way with the Virgin Mary. God asked Her, the humble girl from Nazareth, to become the Mother of the Messiah, and Mary responded to this call with all of herself, uniting her unconditional ‘yes’ with that of the Son Jesus, making herself obedient with Him to the extent of sacrifice. For this, God exalted her above all creatures and Christ crowned her Queen of Heaven and earth. We entrust the Church and all humanity to her intercession, that God’s love may reign in all hearts and that his plan of justice and peace may be done.”

Looking for the Perfect Christ-Mass Gift?

This Christmas, let's keep the "Mass" in Christmas...and Christ will reign supreme!

An excellent time of the year to catechize why this celebration is named after the central act of worship in the Catholic Church...

Give a personalized copy of The How-To Book of the Mass or How to Get the Most Out of the Eucharist...for more details go here.

"Nativity" Premiere at Vatican, Pope will Not Attend

Neither will pregnant sixteen year old actress who plays Mary in the movie ...

From the Times Online:

The plot of The Nativity Story is familiar enough. But the parallels between the lives of the Virgin Mary and the teenage actress who plays her in the first feature film to be premiered at the Vatican are causing controversy.

The Pope, upon whose doorstep the first showing takes place on Sunday, will not be attending. Nor will Keisha Castle-Hughes, the 16-year-old unmarried actress who plays Mary and who is expecting her first child in the spring.

Castle-Hughes, who said she was “thrilled” to be pregnant”, said she had made the film “in a state of grace”. Playing Mary, a “sweet, strong and courageous” figure, had been “a source of spiritual richness”.

A Vatican spokesman said yesterday that the Pope “never was going to attend. The surprise would have been if he had.” His decision had nothing to do with the film. He is 79 and preparing for a visit to Turkey on Tuesday.

Wisdom on Praying from Evagrius

From Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary : Ancient Wisdom for Today's World (Cistercian Studies, No 148):

• Pray that the Lord may soften the hardness of your soul.
• Pray that the Lord may forgive the sins you confess to him.
• Don't pray that what you want may come to pass. It does not necessarily coincide with the will of God.
• Pray rather as you have been taught, saying "Your will be done in me!"
• Pray that the will of God may be done in everything. He, in fact, wants what is good and useful for your soul, while you are not always seeking that and only that.

Pope May Visit Mosque in Turkey

The "Blue" Mosque is in the same neigborhood as the Hagia Sophia. I've been there a couple of times--you have to leave your shoes in the courtyard, but someone will probably carry the pope's shoes, don't you think? You also make ablutions at the fountain before entering--similar (but not the same) to Catholics blessing themselves with holy water when entering a church-actually the priest washing his hands may be a more apt metaphor to what one does when entering a Mosque.

From Reuters UK:

Pope Benedict, who drew fire from Muslims over his comments on Islam, is likely to make a hastily added stop at Istanbul's Blue Mosque on his trip to Turkey next week, the Vatican said on Saturday.

It would be his first visit to a mosque. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, made the first visit by a pontiff to a mosque during a trip to Damascus in 2001.

Benedict Calendar

Not the Italian one....

New Abbot at Mepkin

A new era dawns at Mepkin Abbey

After Tennis: Life as an Anglican Dominican

Tennis Star Andrea Jaeger's New Life as a Nun

Sales of Pope Murder Book Soar in Turkey

But still only 10,000 copies have sold...(media generated story?)

From ADN Kronos International:

Yuvel Kaya's book, which features Benedict XVI in front of a burning cross with a bearded gunman aiming a rocket launcher at him, is on sale at major Turkish bookstores such as D&R, Kabalci, Pandora.

Despite the absence of any promotional campaign - no billboards, posters or pamphlets at bookstores - sales are rapidly picking up, according to Lale Yilmaz from Kabalci, one the country's biggest book stores. However she told Adnkronos International (AKI) exact sales figures could not be released to the public.

"More copies of the book have been bought over the last 10 days than any other time," Zeynep Yaman an employee with Alfa Dagitim, one of the six companies distributing the books, told AKI.

Protecting the Sacred

Catholic activist battles online sale of relics

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Let all men know your forbearance. The Lord is at hand.Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

Philippians 4:5-6

The Pope in the News

Meets with Anglican Primate

Condom Use in the News Again

The Ghosts of Past Pope's Haunts Papal Trip to Turkey which includes this:

"My readers were, for the most part, very supportive and pleased with what Benedict said in Regensburg," said Amy Welborn, who runs the popular US Catholic blog Open Book.

They also appreciated his call to Western Christians to reject a narrow, modern version of reason that he said shuts out faith and strips away the ethical foundations of society itself.

"They would like to see more Muslims have the same attitude toward their own faith, and particularly how that faith is lived out in the modern world," she said.

It should be noted that Ms. Welborn's husband lived in Turkey for one year of his life and frequently joined Muslims in a cup of chai (tea) and was edified by their fidelity to their beliefs. "In the Muslim's faithfulness, we can see how far we have become secularized in our beliefs," he said. (Not in the story but pertinent.)

Calendar Goes on Sale in Italy

The Brits: Pope Questions his Infallibility (about the Jesus book--and obviously reflecting total ignorance on what infallibility is)

Anti-pope protest planned for Istanbul this Sunday

Kissinger to Advise Pope?

From the National Catholic Register:

According to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Pope Benedict XVI has invited the 83-year-old former adviser to Richard Nixon to be a political consultant, and Kissinger has accepted.

Quoting an “authoritative” diplomatic source at the Holy See, the paper reported Nov. 4 that the Nobel laureate was asked at a recent private audience with the Holy Father to form part of a papal “advisory board” on foreign and political affairs.

Something to Give Thanks for...

That I didn't go to Florida for Thanksgiving, looking for relief from the cold...

Snow! Flakes spotted in Central Florida

The "Rain" of Pope Benedict XVI

Today's audience held in the wind and rain at St. Peter's...

1. New book on Jesus.
2. Will be accompanied by 2,000 Journalists on trip to Turkey
3. Prays for rain to stop:
   

   “Let us hope that the Lord is propitious and makes this rain stop,” said the pope, whose words were followed shortly afterwards by a timid ray of sun. “I would like to thank the Lord for giving us a moment of light and a break from the rain,” he added jokingly at the end of the audience.

   
   
   

Grace Acts on People in Different Ways

Great wisdom from Isaac of Nineveh (modern Iraq), especially because we often judge spirituality from our own perspective, rather than from God's. God has created us all differently and God's grace acts in a similar manner:

Some, spurred on by great enthusiasm, redouble the number of their prayers. Others, on the contrary, are led by innner peace to reduce the number of their prayers until they are saying one.

From Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary : Ancient Wisdom for Today's World (Cistercian Studies, No 148)

Feast of the Presentation of Mary

From the Office of Readings (A Homily of St. Augustine):

Stretching out his hand over his disciples, the Lord Christ declared: Here are my mother and my brothers; anyone who does the will of my Father who sent me is my brother and sister and my mother. I would urge you to ponder these words. Did the Virgin Mary, who believed by faith and conceived by faith, who was the chosen one from whom our Saviour was born among men, who was created by Christ before Christ was created in her – did she not do the will of the Father? Indeed the blessed Mary certainly did the Father’s will, and so it was for her a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood. Hers was the happiness of first bearing in her womb him whom she would obey as her master.
Now listen and see if the words of Scripture do not agree with what I have said. The Lord was passing by and crowds were following him. His miracles gave proof of divine power. and a woman cried out: Happy is the womb that bore you, blessed is that womb! But the Lord, not wishing people to seek happiness in a purely physical relationship, replied: More blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Mary heard God’s word and kept it, and so she is blessed. She kept God’s truth in her mind, a nobler thing than carrying his body in her womb. The truth and the body were both Christ: he was kept in Mary’s mind insofar as he is truth, he was carried in her womb insofar as he is man; but what is kept in the mind is of a higher order than what is carried in the womb.
The Virgin Mary is both holy and blessed, and yet the Church is greater than she. Mary is a part of the Church, a member of the Church, a holy, an eminent – the most eminent – member, but still only a member of the entire body. The body undoubtedly is greater than she, one of its members. This body has the Lord for its head, and head and body together make up the whole Christ. In other words, our head is divine – our head is God.
Now, beloved, give me your whole attention, for you also are members of Christ; you also are the body of Christ. Consider how you yourselves can be among those of whom the Lord said: Here are my mother and my brothers. Do you wonder how you can be the mother of Christ? He himself said: Whoever hears and fulfils the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and my sister and my mother. As for our being the brothers and sisters of Christ, we can understand this because although there is only one inheritance and Christ is the only Son, his mercy would not allow him to remain alone. It was his wish that we too should be heirs of the Father, and co-heirs with himself.
Now having said that all of you are brothers of Christ, shall I not dare to call you his mother? Much less would I dare to deny his own words. Tell me how Mary became the mother of Christ, if it was not by giving birth to the members of Christ? You, to whom I am speaking, are the members of Christ. Of whom were you born? “Of Mother Church”, I hear the reply of your hearts. You became sons of this mother at your baptism, you came to birth then as members of Christ. Now you in your turn must draw to the font of baptism as many as you possibly can. You became sons when you were born there yourselves, and now by bringing others to birth in the same way, you have it in your power to become the mothers of Christ.

Benedict on the Cover of Time

I think there is a sense that the West is desperate for a voice to be raised against Islam's violent adherents...

From Time:

Benedict XVI's journey to Istanbul, formerly Constantinople, is laden with the wounds of history both ancient and painfully contemporary. The Pope's controversial Sept. 12 lecture in Regensburg, Germany, quoted a 14th century exchange between a Byzantine Christian Emperor and a Muslim intellectual in which the Emperor made some distinctly uncomplimentary observations about Islam. The Pope admitted that the Emperor's statement was brusque. But his point in reaching so far back into history was to demonstrate that problems between the Christian West and Islam long precede today's "war on terrorism."

Prayers Answered!

When you compile a book of prayers, you hope that they will be prayed--and more importantly that those praying will experience the power of prayer in their lives. That is what makes this blog post so important--it is a witness to the power of prayer.

Thanks also for the recommendation:

Besides thanking God for my son's health and speedy recovery, I'd like to thank all my family, friends and fellow bloggers who offered up prayers on his behalf. Most especially, I'd like to acknowledge the celestial assistance of two saints: St. Apollonia, the patron of tooth problems who will continue to be petitioned by me for her prayers until Fritz's adult teeth grow in properly, and St. John Newmann to whom our family prayed a novena before Fritz's biopsy when we feared he had cancer. I found the novena in a book I love: (Mention Your Request Here): The Church's Most Powerful Novenas by Michael Dubruiel. This book has been updated and is due for re-release later this month. I highly recommend it.

And now, back to life as usual. I wonder what fantastic, miraculous gift God will give me today...

Just a note on the revision...
The cover is more of a burgundy, than the brown shown in the image on Amazon. The revision includes added novenas and their history, including:

Mother Teresa's express novena, the rosary novena, the novena to the Precious Blood and Padre Pio's Sacred Heart Novena.

Praise for Father Joe Classen's Book

From the National Catholic Register:

Often, when my wife and I reach a mountain summit after a good three- or four-hour climb, I’m so elated over the accomplishment — and so awestruck by the view — that I want to start singing that line from the Latin Sanctus: Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua! “Heaven and earth are full of your glory!”

Father Joseph Classen would understand.

While not primarily a hiker or mountain climber, this young priest of the Archdiocese of St. Louis spends a lot of time in the wilderness and appreciates its beauty as the work of the Creator. Here he takes us along on his expeditions in the various hunting and fishing seasons of the year: stalking deer with a bow and arrow, casting his line into trout streams and chasing elusive wild turkey. The trips are leavened with self-effacing humor as he lets us see how God uses nature to check his pride.

And from the Catholic News Service:

His spirituality developed when he was a boy spending time in the outdoors and he thought about the priesthood, but later those thoughts faded. Just as many others do, he went through a period of questioning his faith. In college, he returned to the church, he said.

Hunting and fishing, he said, is hands-on stewardship and a way of taking an active role in the food chain. People who hunt and fish have a deep respect for food, he added.

In a message on a Web site promoting the book Father Classen said he doesn't consider hunting or fishing a sport but a way to sustain life and feed others, as it was intended. He quotes the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that it is legitimate to use animals for food and clothing