Saturday, April 26, 2014

Four Popes in one Holy Mass

NEWS: Benedict XVI to concelebrate at canonization mass

Four popes in one Mass. If only Benedict XVI would give the homily.. how I wish.

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/benedict-xvi-to-concelebrate-at-canonization-mass/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+catholicnewsagency%2Fdailynews+%28CNA+Daily+News%29&utm_term=daily+news


Thursday, April 24, 2014

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer for the Unborn

Lord Jesus,

You who faithfully visit and fulfill with your Presence the Church and the history of men; You who in the miraculous Sacrament of your Body and Blood render us participants in divine Life and allow us a foretaste of the joy of eternal Life; We adore and bless you.

Prostrated before You, source and lover of Life, truly present and alive among us, we beg you.

Reawaken in us respect for every unborn life, make us capable of seeing in the fruit of the maternal womb the miraculous work of the Creator, open our hearts to generously welcoming every child that comes into life.

Bless all families, sanctify the union of spouses, render fruitful their love.

Accompany the choices of legislative assemblies with the light of your Spirit,so that peoples and nations may recognize and respect the sacred nature of life, of every human life.

Guide the work of scientists and doctors, so that all progress contributes to the integral well-being of the person, and no one endures suppression or injustice.

Give creative charity to administrators and economists, so they may realize and promote sufficient conditions so that young families can serenely embrace the birth of new children.

Console the married couples who suffer because they are unable to have children and in Your goodness provide for them.

Teach us all to care for orphaned or abandoned children, so they may experience the warmth of your Charity, the consolation of your divine Heart.

Together with Mary, Your Mother, the great believer, in whose womb you took on our human nature, we wait to receive from You, our Only True Good and Savior, the strength to love and serve life, in anticipation of living forever in You, in communion with the Blessed Trinity.

Repentance and Forgiveness



Monday, April 21, 2014

Jesus Weeps


It's Easter but there are still tears to shed.
From Benoit et Moi is an article from Roberto de Mattei .
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Easter Jesus weeps over Jerusalem
by Roberto de Mattei

This is a moment that should be of supreme joy. Jesus enters Jerusalem greeted by cheers and enthusiasm of the crowd. Today He is the most popular man in Jerusalem. But Jesus does not let himself be deceived by flattery. The world applauded, but He does not praise himself, nor revel in that success. While the triumphal procession down to the Temple, along the western slope of the Mount of Olives, Jesus contemplates high Jerusalem, where the places of his impending Passion: the dazzling mass of the Temple, the glittering palace Herod; austere quadrilateral Antonine tower, headquarters of the Roman garrison.

And ut appropinquavit, videns civitatem Flevit super illam (Lk 19, 41) [As he approached the city, seeing her, he wept over it].
Unexpectedly, seeing the city of Jerusalem, Jesus weeps over her.

The crying is not just any man, and not even a supreme earthly authority: this is the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Word made flesh, the God-man, in which all the history is summarized. His tears have meaning throughout the history of all ages. Jesus wept, child in the manger in Bethlehem and Bethany had witnessed the tears that had welled in the death of Lazarus. Tears accompany his Passion. But this time it's a different cry. He weeps for the city that is before him; This is not a city like any other: it is Jerusalem, the holy city of the chosen people, the spiritual center of the world. Jesus weeps for the punishment which threatens Jerusalem, but the cause of His tears, it is mainly sins, offenses against God are the cause of the death penalty. The smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God and obscures the eyes of the High Priests. And Jesus in the midst of tears and sobs, cries: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, if you too had recognized this day which gives peace! But now it is hidden from thine eyes."

It's like saying if you knew the things that I know, you probably will cry like I cry now. But all that is hidden from you as punishment for your sins. And that's why you do not cry, you do not repent, and thou shalt not repent of your errings and your pain.
The hosannas of the crowd, Jesus then responds with the prophecy of the inevitable punishment of the unfaithful city: "There will come upon you when your enemies trench about thee, thee round, and keep thee in on every side; they will dash you and your children within you, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another, because thou hast not known the time when you were seen "(Lk. 19, 42-44).

Jesus knows the terrible trials ahead. But this is not the reason for his tears. He does not cry for himself, for the pain he knows he must face for the passion that awaits, but for the fate of the holy city. What greater proof of his love for Jerusalem? However, this immense love can not reverse the infinite justice of God. God is not only infinitely merciful, but he is infinitely just, because He is infinitely holy. And Jerusalem will not be spared because of his sins.

Today, there is another city to cry. It is the city that we speak of in the third secret of Fatima. This "big city half in ruins" through which the Pope, "half trembling, with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow," praying "for the souls of the corpses he met on his way" What. Repeprésente the mysterious ruined city? Is it a city, a civilization, or Church of Christ? Only the future will reveal the dramatic mystery. Today is the time for tears.

Tears involve gravity and interpenetration of the dramatic situation in which the world pays. This is not the time of euphoria and illusions, but this is not the time for sarcasm or irreverent sterile polemics between Christians. This is the time of sadness and tears. Tears born of pain. And if tears are a gift, pain is a feeling that must be supplied by the knowledge of the things that concern us, so do not fail to exercise our reason, but support our faith with reason and enlighten our reason with faith .
Mary, grant us this grace at the time of the Passion of Christ and the Church.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

A Mother's Tears

I have not met a mother who had not shed tears for her child. My sister cried on the phone because her son told her that he doesn't really believe in God or prayers and that his religion was just imposed on him in his infancy.

Tears are part of caring and when a mother cries over her child, it is like a bleeding heart. Yet, it is a heart that is not broken; It is a heart softened by love.

During the passion of Christ, Mama Mary was there as Jesus carried the cross. She was there, too, at the foot of the cross. The Bible did not really say if she cried but I think she did.

A mother has a COMMUNION OF PAIN with the child she carried in her womb. There is an invisible umbilical cord that can never be severed. She knows the unspoken pain and, at the same time, she has an intuition of what lies ahead.

Rarely would mothers outlive their children, majority would have to trust in a future they can help shape. There would be many influences in a child's life, and one could only trust that the power of love may prevail.

The words "the child of those [mother's] tears shall never perish" said to St. Monica at a time when St. Augustine was living in with a woman and was also involved in the Manichaean cult did come true for her. I think it would, too, for so many mothers. Those tears may hold pain but they also hold a lot of love.