Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Begins Tomorrow!

Prayed from June 19-27th...(pages 156-159 of The Church's Most Powerful Novenas)

Father Mark reminds his readers at Vultus Christi:

I invite the readers of Vultus Christi to join me in making the Novena in Preparation for the Feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Help on June 27th. This is also the perfect moment to obtain an icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help and put it in in a place of honour in your home. Images of Our Mother of Perpetual Help are readily available from the Redemptorist Fathers nearest you.

Things change when a family, a community, or a person living alone, begin to live under the compassionate gaze of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. By accepting the icon of the Mother of God into our homes, we accept her also into our hearts and so fulfill what is written concerning Saint John, the Beloved Disciple of the Lord: "And from that hour, the disciple took her to his own" (Jn 19:27).

Cardinal Angelo Felici Dies

Pope Benedict will preside at the funeral Mass, from the Boston Herald:

The 87-year-old Vatican diplomat and former head of the Congregation for Saints Causes spent the greater part of his life in the Vatican’s foreign service. Born in a town near Rome, Felici studied Canon Law before joining the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, where he worked for 19 years.
In 1967, Pope Paul VI sent him on a mission to Jerusalem after the Six-Day War between Arabs and Israel is. Before heading the Vatican department responsible for candidates for sainthood, Felici served as papal nunzio, or Vatican ambassador in the Netherlands, Portugal and France. He was named a cardinal by Pope John Paul II in 1988.

Catholic School, Convent Desecrated in Gaza

From IOL:

A school and convent belonging to the Gaza Strip's tiny Roman Catholic community were ransacked, burned and looted during clashes around a major security headquarters, the head of the community said on Monday.
Crosses were broken, a statue of Jesus was damaged, and prayer books were burnt at the Rosary Sisters School and nearby convent, said Father Manuel Musallem, head of Gaza's Latin church.
The damage took place on Thursday, but wasn't reported until days later because of the chaos that has prevailed since Islamic Hamas militants wrested power in Gaza, Musallem said. The religious compound is located near a key security headquarters Hamas captured on Thursday on the final day of its Gaza takeover.

"Its All There"

Tony Soprano Didn't Just Get Whacked, He Practically Had a Funeral (Genius...inaccuracies about the Mass, but I think close to what was in Chase's mind).

The Pope in Assisi

I began to watch the live coverage of this at 4:00 a.m. this morning, but fell asleep during the Gospel, here is what I missed (and I suspect you did too)from Asia News Italy:

Francis’ conversion to Christ, “the desire to ‘transform himself’ in Him” is key to understanding the life of the saint from Assisi, which has become the model and ideal for the commitment on many modern day themes: “the search for peace, safeguarding nature, promotion of dialogue between men. Francis is a true master of all these things. But he is because based in Christ. Christ in fact is “our peace” (Eph 2, 14). Christ is the very centre of the cosmos, because through him all things were made ( Jn 1, 3)”.
By centring the Poor man from Assisi in Christ, Benedict XVI re-vindicated the figure of Francis from attempted ideological and religious manipulation, which tends to portray him as an ephemeral ecologist in love with nature, or as a “soft hearted” soul, open to everything and everyone, an “excessive interlocutor”, forgetful of his Christian identity and of the Gospel.
Since early this morning the Pontiff has been on a pilgrimage to the Franciscan sites of Assisi to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis’ conversion.
After a short pause at the Rivotorto, where St. Francis lived with the first brothers for about two years, he passed on to the sanctuary of St Damian, where Francis received the call of the cross to go and “make his Church whole again”, and the Church of St May Magdalene, the memorial of Saint Francis’ service to the lepers.
During the homily in the square below the basilica, the Pope traced the personality and conversion of Francis referring to the figures of the converted described today in liturgy of the word, on the XI Sunday of the year.
He recalled above all the personage and sin of David, fallen “low” and “blinded by his passion for Bethsabe”. Francis, continued Benedict XVI, perhaps did not sin as David, but – according to his own accounts as laid out in his testament - “above and beyond single episodes, his conceiving and pursuit of vain dreams of earthly glory was sinful”: His “naturally generous soul” did not allow him to dominate “the physical disgust” when faced with lepers. “By serving the lepers, by kissing them – underlined the Pope – he was not merely making a philanthropic gesture, it was not just a 'social conversion’, no, it was a religious experience, commanded by the initiative of God’s grace and by love for God….man is truly realised by the measure in which he lives with God and in God, recognising and loving him in his fellow man”.
The Pontiff then went on to compares Francis and the apostle Paul, the first who speaks of “stigmata” on his body, thus clearly marking the ecclesial nature of their commitment, not as simple bearers of good values or activists. “In the discussion over how to live in an upright way, or how to live the Gospel – affirmed the Pope – in the end, the arguments of thought to no twin; the reality of life has the final word, communion lived and suffered with Christ, not just in thoughts or in words, but to the very depths of existence involving the body and the flesh. The bruises which emerge from a long story of passion and torment are the witness of Christ’s cross on the body of Saint Paul, they are his stigmata”. And turning again to Francis he adds: “his journey was the daily strain to become like Christ. He fell in love with Christ. The wounds of the cross pained his heart, before they marked his body on the Verna. He really could say together with Paul: ‘I no longer live, it is Christ who lives in me’”:
The third figure recalled by the Pope is that of the sinner whom Christ forgives because “they have greatly loved”. “In Christ – adds the Pope – God gifts us love and asks us for love”. And he adds: “My dear brothers and sisters what else was the life of Francis converted if not a great gesture of love? His passionate prayers reveal this, rich in contemplation and praise, his tender embrace of the Child in Greccio, his contemplation of the passion in a Verna, his "living according to the way of the Sacred Gospel” (2 Test 14: FF 116), his choice of poverty and his search for Christ in the face of the poor. This is his conversion to Christ, to the very point of wanting to ‘transform himself’ into Him, becoming in him a complete image, which explains his typical way of life making it relevant in all times regarding the great themes of today, such as the search for peace, safeguarding nature, the promotion of dialogue between all men. Francis is a true master of these things. But he is because based in Christ. Christ in fact is “our peace” (Eph 2, 14). Christ is the very centre of the cosmos, because through him all things were made (Jn 1, 3)… Christ is the divine truth, the eternal "Logos", in which all "dia-logos" finds its foundation. Francis profoundly incarnates this “Christological” truth which is at the very root of human existence, of the cosmos and of History”.
Dwelling on this relationship between Logos and dialogue, Benedict XVI defined the sense of the Assisi meeting launched by John Paul II in October 1986, gathering together the representatives of the great religions to pray for peace. According to some that encounter was a “selling short” of the Christian identity in the name of an impossible unity with other religions; for others, the following development of the Church, and of the Church of Benedict XVI, so careful of Christian identity, was a “betrayal” of Assisi. According to the Pope, that encounter 20 years ago was a “prophetic intuition and a moment of grace”. “The choice of celebrating this encounter in Assisi – underscored the Pontiff – was suggested by the witness of Francis as a man of peace, whom many regard with esteem and affection, even those of other religions and cultures. At the same time the light of the Poor man from Assisi over that initiative was a guarantee of its Christian authenticity, in so far as his life and his message are visibly based on the choice of Christ, rejecting outright all temptations of religious indifference, which has nothing whatsoever to do with true inter-religious dialogue. The ‘spirit of Assisi’, which since that event has continued to spread throughout the world, opposes the spirit of violence, the abuse of religion as a pretext for violence. Assisi tells us that faithfulness to ones own religious convictions, faithfulness above all to Christ crucified and risen, is not expressed by violence and intolerance, but in sincere respect of the other, in dialogue, in a message which appeals for peace and reconciliation”. Saint Francis is thus a model for all Christians of a true evangelical behaviour, capable of “uniting acceptance, dialogue and respect for all with the certainty of faith which each Christian …..is called to cultivate, announcing Christ as the way, truth and life of mankind (Jn 14, 6), the true Saviour of the world”

Celebrating "Bridges"

As told by Rocco

Open Book/Annunciations Bestseller's List

For June 2007

(as of June 17, 2007)

What Books People who Read Amy's Open Book blog and Michael's Annunciation blog are buying this month.

1. Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI

2. The Apostles by Pope Benedict XVI

3. Loyola Kids Book of Saints (Loyola Kids) by Amy

4. The Secrets of Rome: Love and Death in the Eternal City by Corrado Augias

5. (tie) The How-To Book of the Mass: Everything You Need to Know but No One Ever Taught You by Michael

5. (tie) The Church's Most Powerful Novenas by Michael

Jewish author honored for book on friendship with pope

From Philadephia.com:

Several Roman Catholic Church leaders gathered for ceremonies to honor a Jewish author's friendship with the late Pope John Paul II and her ability to touch other's lives.
Lena Allen-Shore, of Philadelphia, an adjunct professor at Gratz College, began a close acquaintance with the pope when he responded to a letter she wrote in 1979, weeks after his election as the first Polish pope. They met several times, and she wrote "Building Bridges," about their childhoods outside Krakow, Poland, and their different paths, which did not cross until old age.
"She entered and survived the Holocaust," Cardinal William Keeler of Baltimore told a gathering at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C., marking the release of the third edition of "Building Bridges." Keeler recalled how Allen-Shore masqueraded as a Catholic in her native Poland during World War II, vowing to devote herself to "building bridges" if she survived.
Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal representative to the United States, described John Paul's account of childhood in Poland. "He said that when he was 15, he saw a great number of his Jewish friends disappearing" at the hands of the Nazis, "and he said, 'I could do nothing. But now I can do something,'" Sambi said.
The new edition of "Building Bridges" includes a note John Paul wrote when the first edition was published, saying, "Thank you for seeing deep into my thoughts and understanding the intentions guiding my actions," and praising Allen-Shore for writing "with heart."

The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

From Vultus Christi:

The gates forbiddenbecame the open portal,the lover’s embrace,the safeway, the only way, for no one comes to the Father (cf. Jn 14:6)except through this door’s thresholdof given-flesh and outpoured-blood.Here David’s song reveals the mystery:the house become a heart,the heart become a house.“It was there that Your people found a home,prepared in Your goodness, O God, for the poor” (Ps 67:11).
“Go out quickly to the streetsand lanes of the city,and bring in the poor and maimed and blind and lame” (Lk 14:21).“Go out to the highways and hedges,and compel people to come in” (Lk 14:23)that my house, my heart, may be filled.“The lost I will seek out,the strayed I will bring back,the injured I will bind up,the sick I will heal” (Ez 34:16).
Cross the threshold by night with faith’s unseen feet;with hope a lamp for your steps,enter by desire;dwell therein by love,and with John the beloved and those of his lineage“have power to comprehendwhat is the breadth and lengthand height and depth,and know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledgeto be filled with all the fullness of God” (cf. Eph 3:18-19).
The pierced Heartis Love’s last proof.“For while we were still weak,while we were yet sinners” (cf. Rom 5:6, 8),the door was opened in Love’s side.Plunge then, fearless, into the tide of water and of blood.Wash your soul’s disfigured facein the torrent of purity that to the image restores likeness,giving loveliness to the unlovely,There every bruise is bathed in love;there, every old, unsightly thingmade fresh, and new.This is love’s reparation,for only love can repair what Love has made.“Behold,” Love says, “I make all things new” (Rev 21:5).
Love’s joy is the one sheepsought and found and prized above all others“on a day of clouds and thick darkness” (Ez 34:12),Love’s joy is Love’s Heartopened for the sake of all, inhabited by the foolish to shame the wise,and by the weak to shame the strong (cf. 1 Cor 1:27).Love chose “what is low and despised in the world,even things that are not” (1 Cor 1:28)and in these is the mercy of His Heart displayed.
Others come knocking, saying, “Lord, Lord, open to us”but their greatness, their shining certitudes,not their sins, prevent their entering in.“Truly, I say to you, I do not know you” (Mt 25:12)who have not known my Heart of mercy,who have not needed my repairing,nor known nor believed in love (cf. 1 Jn 4:16).
Only this one thing does Love ask:that, “out of the depths” (Ps 129:1), we believe in Love,and, preserved by Love,never despair of Mercy’s Heart.These are “thoughts of His Heart to all generations” (Ps 32:11).Come, then, to the water that washes every impurityand quenches every thirst. Come, be repaired, restored in the Blood.If you would be delivered from death, come (cf. Ps 32:19).If you would be fed in famine, come (cf. Ps 32:19).If you would be loved, come.

Ruth Graham Dies

From The Washington Post:

Ruth Bell Graham, who pursued a vigorous if reclusive Christian ministry for six decades in the shadow of her famous husband, the Rev. Billy Graham, died June 14 at her home near Montreat, N.C. She was 87.

Mrs. Graham had been bedridden for two years and in recent days had suffered complications from pneumonia.

The Decline of the Sabbath

Less praying, more working and playing.

From the Wall Street Journal:

For many Americans, Sunday is unlike any other day of the week. They spend its luxurious hours curled up in bed with the paper, meeting friends for brunch, working off hangovers, watching golf, running errands and preparing themselves for the workweek ahead. But Sunday is also, for many, the Sabbath--a special day for religious reasons. Not that you would notice.

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," we are told in Exodus. Of all the gifts Jews gave the world, that of a weekly day of rest is certainly one to be cherished. And yet the Sabbath is now marked more by its neglect than its keeping. Or so says Christopher Ringwald in his new book "A Day Apart."

Mr. Ringwald notes that in the late 18th century, states banned entertainment, hunting or unnecessary travel on Sundays. The Second Great Awakening in the early 1800s spread Sabbath-keeping to the frontiers. Church membership doubled, Sunday schools proliferated and long sermons dominated the morning. It was unthinkable that the general store would remain open on the Sabbath. "Nothing strikes a foreigner on his arrival in America more forcibly than the regard paid to the Sabbath," Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in 1840. "Not only have all ceased to work, but they appear to have ceased to exist." The so-called blue laws that were a part of American culture--closing down bars and preventing the sale of liquor on Sunday--were commonplace well into the 20th century.

But the Sabbath today is at odds with commercial culture. To generalize shamelessly from personal experience: My brother-in-law, who manages a national retail store in Colorado, works on Sundays, following church. He was shocked recently to find out he is now required to open the store on Easter Sunday. Easter used to be the one Sunday each year when retail stores closed. No longer.

The Moral Implications of Ecology

Meeting between former Vice President Al Gore and Patriarch Bartholomew in Turkey. From Asia News Italy:

The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople was also present at the conference. He was the first religious leader to have initiated since 1991 various events to promote environmental protection. This role was underlined by Gore, who made a personal visit to the Phanar to speak with Bartholomew whom he described as “the green patriarch” thanking him for his example to Christians and the world as a whole.

Gore then quote the Patriarch, saying “the imposition of modern society which is totally disinterested in human impact on the environment not only impedes sustainable development it is also un just”. (NT)

Moscow Patriarch, Pope may Meet Next Year

From Catholic News:

Holy See spokesman on ecumenical issues, Cardinal Walter Kasper, says that there is hope that Pope Benedict may meet Moscow Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II in what would be a groundbreaking meeting.

The International Herald Tribune reports that the meeting could take place within a year according to Cardinal Kasper.

Latest Motu Proprio Date

From the Italian Petrus, Rorate Caeli gives us the translation:

The Papal "Motu Proprio" for the liberalization of the Latin Mass according to the Tridentine rite of Saint Pius V is ready, is about to be translated into several languages and will be published right before the departure of Benedict XVI for the summer vacation. [Rorate note: The Pope's early vacation this summer will be spent in a small villa owned by the Diocese of Treviso, in the tiny hamlet of Lorenzago di Cadore, Province of Belluno, in the Veneto region, in the July 9-27 period.]

For everyone who will be confused endlessly by this, Amy has a Motu Proprio Tip Sheet.

Rumors Floating About Pittsburgh's New Bishop

From the Post Gazette:

Some dark horses have surfaced through other sources. If the nuncio has consulted Pittsburgh priests, he has heard that auxiliary Bishop Paul Bradley has been doing an excellent job as administrator for the past year, and that the priests would choose him.

A source with ties to Rome says that the name of Bishop John Gaydos, 63, of Jefferson City, Mo., has been floated by at least one power broker there. The same goes for Bishop Robert Baker, 63, of Charleston, S.C. On the local front, Archabbot Douglas Nowicki, 62, of St. Vincent Archabbey gets buzz from Catholics involved with education, but the feedback from elsewhere is that the Benedictine Order wants to keep him in their own ranks.

Warning:Spoiler Alert---What Really Happens at the End of the Sopranos

Lots of theories, alternative endings on Youtube and then this:

The Last Sopranos Finale Review Ever

Debating the Embryo’s Fate

From the Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk in the Boston Pilot:

The debate over embryonic stem-cell research continues to escalate in our country, and remains a topic of significant public interest. Because of this growing public interest, I am often invited to participate in public debates on stem-cell research and cloning. My sparring partners are usually other scientists, politicians, or public policy experts. The debates are typically held at universities or colleges, and audiences generally have the opportunity to ask questions of both sides afterwards. Having participated in a number of these debates over the past few years, I’ve been surprised by how often certain arguments are trotted out with great solemnity, as if they were obviously right and true, even though a casual observer can quickly recognize their notable flaws and inadequacies.Recently I had the opportunity to debate a stem-cell researcher at a gathering of physicians at the New York Academy of Medicine. Our discussion was cordial and civil, even though we clearly disagreed with each other’s positions. Not infrequently, such discussions tend to take the form of a dispute over the relative merits of the two major categories of stem cells: adult vs. embryonic (adult stem-cell research does not require the destruction of young human embryos while embryonic stem-cell research generally does). I did my best to avoid letting our discussion slip into a polemic about what might work best, about efficiency, even though this was one of the key arguments used by my opponent. He stressed how embryonic stem cells appear to have certain desirable characteristics, and may one day be able to work better than adult stem cells, and if cures end up being derived from embryonic stem cells in the future, then, in effect, it must be ethical to do such research, and to destroy human embryos. This argument in one form or another has been put forward widely by the media, and has won over many Hollywood personalities, patient advocacy groups, and Washington politicians. In responding to this argument during our debate, I recounted a little story from when I traveled to the Philippines to give a lecture about stem cells. It was my first time in that country, and I was struck by the contrasts I saw. On the one hand, segments of the Philippine society were doing very well. On the other, I witnessed startling poverty. One day, as we drove along a boulevard lined with people living in hovels made out of cardboard boxes, I noticed a boy, a street child, rummaging through piles of trash for food. His clothes were dirty, and he seemed quite frail. It looked like he did this on a daily basis in order to survive. As I watched him, the rhetorical thought flashed through my mind, patterned on the language of embryonic stem cell advocates: “…he’s so small, so insignificant: what if a cure for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and diabetes could be developed to benefit all of suffering mankind, by promoting scientific research that depended on killing just a single little boy like him, who, after all, is living no better than an animal? He’s probably just going to die anyway in his difficult circumstances…” After sharing this Philippine experience with my audience at the debate, I asked them a question: “Could a scientific research program like that ever be ethical?” The obvious answer to that question reminds us how ethics must always come before efficiency. Taking the lives of young humans (whether as little boys or little embryos) cannot be pronounced ethical simply because it might result in huge benefits to older, more powerful, or more wealthy humans. The fact remains that objective moral limits constrain all areas of human endeavor, including the practice of the biological sciences. Whenever the siren-call of healing and progress is blaring in our ears, we are obliged to be particularly attentive to those absolute moral boundaries.A second argument that comes up quite often in debates about the embryo is the so-called argument from wastage. The starting point for this argument is the medical observation that most pregnancies don’t survive and are flushed from a woman’s body. One well-known embryology textbook summarizes it this way: “The total loss of conceptuses from fertilization to birth is believed to be considerable, perhaps even as high as 50 percent to nearly 80 percent.” The fact that most embryos don’t survive is then taken and used as a justification for destroying embryos to get stem cells. As another opponent of mine once put it during a debate at Southern Methodist University in Texas, “If Mother Nature destroys so many embryos naturally, why shouldn’t we be able to as well? Why get all worked up about using frozen embryos in research, when so many early embryos die naturally from miscarriages?” But the difference between a natural miscarriage and the intentional destruction of embryos is precisely the difference between the unfortunate case of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome vs. the unconscionable case of smothering an infant with a pillow. What Mother Nature does and what I freely choose to do as an acting person are two separate realities, not to be confused. To put it dramatically, the fact that Mother Nature sends tsunamis that claim the lives of thousands of victims doesn’t somehow make it OK for me to shoot a machine gun into a crowded stadium and claim thousands of victims of my own.Another tactic that is sometimes used during debates about the human embryo is to try to dissipate the energy of the argument over many options. I participated in a debate at Rutgers University in New Jersey where one of my opponents suggested that if I am so concerned about protecting embryonic humans, then I need to be equally concerned about protecting older humans by doing everything in my power to stop various wars and armed conflicts around the world. In my reply to his argument, I stressed the significant differences between the decision to go after an enemy during an armed conflict, and the decision to go after human embryos for their stem cells. Embryonic humans are always absolutely innocent and helpless, and therefore can never be willfully and directly targeted. In wartime, however, the situation is clearly more complex because the parties involved are no longer innocent, and self-defense has always been recognized as a legitimate moral choice when unjust aggression arises.

Feast of Saint Anthony

Dom Marco reports on his visit to a Roman Church dedicated to the saint:

Together with two good friends I went on a little pilgrimage this morning to the Basilica of Sant'Antonio on the Via Merulana. The church was full of devotees of Saint Anthony. There were lines at all the confessionals. At the entrance to the basilica was a Franciscan priest with an aspergillum, giving a blessing to the faithful as they entered. Blessed lilies were much in evidence but they were artificial ones in cellophane packaging! I said the Gloria Patri seven times in honour of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost in the life and works of Saint Anthony. And like the other pilgrims gathered around the statue of Saint Anthony in festal array, I presented my petitions to the glorious Wonderworker. Viva Sant'Antonio!

Does Watching TV Damage Character?

From Human Events:

The report, The Media Assault on American Values, reveals that media messages appear to be undermining the pillars of America’s cultural edifice: strength of character, sexual morality and respect for God. The report is based on findings of a major scientific survey commissioned by CMI, a division of the Media Research Center.

The National Cultural Values Survey reveals a striking correlation between greater exposure to television and permissive moral views. Heavy television viewers (four hours or more per evening) are less committed to character virtues like honesty and charity, and more permissive about sex, abortion and homosexuality. Light television viewers (one hour or less per evening) are more likely to attend religious services and live their lives by God’s principles.

New Book Answers Critic

One of Pope Benedict's loudest critics of his recent book Jesus of Nazareth is former Catholic (now Jewish) scholar Geza Vermes who wrote in his review of the book in the Times:

Another recurrent theme in Ratzinger’s perception of Christ is that Jesus
intended the Gospel to be preached to all the nations. If so, did he just forget
Jesus’ sayings that contradict the universality of the apostolic mission,
namely, that both Jesus and his disciples were sent only to the “lost sheep of
Israel” (Matthew x, 5-6; xv, 24).

In a new book that will be released in July and is now available for ordering on Amazon-- The Apostles. The Pope answers this criticism, as well as providing an excellent overview of what can be known from Scripture and Traditions about the first followers of Jesus--as well as what lessons we can derive from their example. Here is an excellent follow-up to Jesus of Nazareth.

If you go to The Apostles Amazon page, you can buy both Jesus of Nazareth and The Apostles for $25.14!