7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

What a strange week.  I would say “sad,” but – well, okay, I’ll go ahead and say “sad” – but let me qualify that.     I will miss Pope Benedict.  His resignation is really quite a sobering moment.  This is not a normal transition and I think it says quite a bit about the Church in 2013. I’m really interested to see how the College of Cardinals respond.

So, “sad” on a few different levels, but not a crisis or a tragedy.  It’s not time to wallow, it’s time to listen and look forward.  Eyes on Christ, just as he’s been telling us to do all this time.

THAT SAID – I’m going to fill up most of the rest of this space with a smattering  of some of my favorite quotes.  There are loads, and more to discover as I continue reading his work for years to come, but here are a few:

— 2 —

 But the Lord also knocks with his Cross from the other side:  he knocks at the door of the world, at the doors of our hearts, so many of which are so frequently closed to God. And he says to us something like this:  if the proof that God gives you of his existence in creation does not succeed in opening you to him, if the words of Scripture and the Church’s message leave you indifferent, then look at me – the God who let himself suffer for you, who personally suffers with you – and open yourself to me, your Lord and your God. (source)

— 3 —

To pray is not to step outside history and withdraw to our own private corner of happiness. When we pray properly we undergo a process of inner purification which opens us up to God and thus to our fellow human beings as well. In prayer we must learn what we can truly ask of God—what is worthy of God. We must learn that we cannot pray against others. We must learn that we cannot ask for the superficial and comfortable things that we desire at this moment—that meagre, misplaced hope that leads us away from God. We must learn to purify our desires and our hopes. We must free ourselves from the hidden lies with which we deceive ourselves. God sees through them, and when we come before God, we too are forced to recognize them. “But who can discern his errors? Clear me from hidden faults” prays the Psalmist (Ps 19:12 [18:13]). Failure to recognize my guilt, the illusion of my innocence, does not justify me and does not save me, because I am culpable for the numbness of my conscience and my incapacity to recognize the evil in me for what it is. If God does not exist, perhaps I have to seek refuge in these lies, because there is no one who can forgive me; no one who is the true criterion. Yet my encounter with God awakens my conscience in such a way that it no longer aims at self-justification, and is no longer a mere reflection of me and those of my contemporaries who shape my thinking, but it becomes a capacity for listening to the Good itself. (source)

— 4 —

In the procession we follow this sign and in this way we follow Christ himself. And we ask of him: Guide us on the paths of our history! Show the Church and her Pastors again and again the right path! Look at suffering humanity, cautiously seeking a way through so much doubt; look upon the physical and mental hunger that torments it! Give men and women bread for body and soul! Give them work! Give them light! Give them yourself! Purify and sanctify all of us! Make us understand that only through participation in your Passion, through “yes” to the cross, to self-denial, to the purifications that you impose upon us, our lives can mature and arrive at true fulfilment. Gather us together from all corners of the earth. Unite your Church, unite wounded humanity! Give us your salvation! Amen. (source)

— 5 —

Dear friends, life is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose  ! Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy. Do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer in a market of undifferentiated possibilities, where choice itself becomes the good, novelty usurps beauty, and subjective experience displaces truth.

Christ offers more! Indeed he offers everything! Only he who is the Truth can be the Way and hence also the Life. (source)

— 6 —

Friends, again I ask you, what about today? What are you seeking? What is God whispering to you? The hope which never disappoints is Jesus Christ. (source)

— 7 —

I will simply be a pilgrim who is beginning the last part of his pilgrimage on earth. (source)

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Read Full Post »

Be simple. But not naive.

Genoa, 2008.

 

Read Full Post »

Pope Benedict’s last General Audience

Source

Full text at Vatican Radio:

Here allow me to return once again to April 19, 2005. The gravity of the decision was precisely in the fact that from that moment on I was committed always and forever by the Lord. Always – he, who assumes the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and totally to everyone, to the whole Church. His life is, so to speak, totally deprived of the private sphere. I have felt, and I feel even in this very moment, that one receives one’s life precisely when he offers it as a gift. I said before that many people who love the Lord also love the Successor of Saint Peter and are fond of him, that the Pope has truly brothers and sisters, sons and daughters all over the world, and that he feels safe in the embrace of their communion, because he no longer belongs to himself, but he belongs to all and all are truly his own.

The “always” is also a “forever” – there is no returning to private life. My decision to forgo the exercise of active ministry, does not revoke this. I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences and so on. I do not abandon the cross, but remain in a new way near to the Crucified Lord. I no longer wield the power of the office for the government of the Church, but in the service of prayer I remain, so to speak, within St. Peter’s bounds. St. Benedict, whose name I bear as Pope, shall be a great example in this for me. He showed us the way to a life which, active or passive, belongs wholly to the work of God.

I thank each and every one of you for the respect and understanding with which you have welcomed this important decision. I continue to accompany the Church on her way through prayer and reflection, with the dedication to the Lord and to His Bride, which I have hitherto tried to live daily and that I would live forever. I ask you to remember me before God, and above all to pray for the Cardinals, who are called to so important a task, and for the new Successor of Peter, that the Lord might accompany him with the light and the power of His Spirit.

Let us invoke the maternal intercession of Mary, Mother of God and of the Church, that she might accompany each of us and the whole ecclesial community: to her we entrust ourselves, with deep trust.

Dear friends! God guides His Church, maintains her always, and especially in difficult times. Let us never lose this vision of faith, which is the only true vision of the way of the Church and the world. In our heart, in the heart of each of you, let there be always the joyous certainty that the Lord is near, that He does not abandon us, that He is near to us and that He surrounds us with His love. Thank you! 

Read Full Post »

Grazie

Source – BBC

 

 

 

Source: AP

 

 

 

Source: Vatican Radio English Facebook page – go “like” them!

 

 

 

Source: Vatican Radio English Facebook page.

 

 

 

 

Source

Today we contemplate Christ in the desert, fasting, praying, and being tempted. As we begin our Lenten journey, we join him and we ask him to give us strength to fight our weaknesses. Let me also thank you for the prayers and support you have shown me in these days. May God bless all of you!

By the way – you might have missed it, but on February 8, Pope Benedict spoke to the seminarians of Rome – his topic was Peter.  So his thoughts – on Peter, the Petrine ministry – given when he knew he was resigning, but before the rest of us did – are worth a look. 

Read Full Post »

7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

So, sure, the Pope….

Woke up Monday morning, checked e-mail.  At the top was from the e-mail list from the USCCB.  Title was “papal resignation” – just like that.  No caps.  I thought, “??”  Assumed it was some test run or that the item was a FAQ in answer to some hypotheticals.  Then a couple more down the list was from Ann..then saw I had a text from her…What?? 

Well, since no one else has commented on this, let me just say..

Kidding! 

This is one of those situations in which the only thing we know for sure is that we don’t know everything.  I think it’s fairly pointless to spend a lot of time on speculating why Benedict did this instead of exploring what it means for the papacy in general and looking to the future.  That said..

• As many have pointed out, Pope Benedict has spoken of a papal resignation/renunciation/abdication as a theoretical possibility.  His writings on the papacy are characterized by a broad and deep historical awareness as well as a servanthood model.  Although he is routinely and unjustly accused of inflexibility, his thought and his view of human existence, including human existence in the Church, is marked by an emphasis on freedom – the freedom that is the disciple’s, united to the loving heart of Christ.  
• My long-distant, barely informed opinion is that this is about: the Curia, the demands of the papacy in the 21st century and his sense of his own strength.  He saw what happened in John Paul II’s declining years and one of my guesses is that he is seeking to diminish the chances of similar scenarios in the event of his own decline.  Given current standards of medical care, even an 86-year old man could have a terribly debilitating health catastrophe, be alive but incommunicado for a very long time…and what then?
• There are countless other currents and issues.  Some claim that this is quite dire and marks a defeat for the Pope’s program of mending the breach between the Church’s past and present and refocusing us all on Christ.  Some say the opposite – that in doing this, Benedict has rather slyly pulled the rug out from under the feet of those in the Curia who don’t share his vision – by denying them the opportunity to increase their power if he falls into a weakened state, especially for a long period of time.   Who knows?  Perhaps it is none of this, some of it or all of it.
• Perhaps it is much simpler than we know.

Anyway.  There is no lack of thoughtful commentary out there.  No lack of stupid, ignorant commentary, either, shockingly. I’m just hesitant to put a lot of energy into attempting it since every day brings a new twist – the Holy Father’s quite candid talk to Rome priests today, for example – and because I know I don’t know anything, really.

But Sandro Magister does:

Over his nearly eight years of pontificate, Benedict XVI has been resolute and farsighted in indicating the destinations and keeping the rudder straight. But on the barque of Peter, the crew has not always been faithful to him.

This is what happened when he dictated a rigorous line of conduct in order to fight the scandal of pedophilia among the clergy, clashing with hypocritical and delayed implementations..

The same thing happened when he ordered cleanliness and transparency in ecclesiastical financial offices, seeing these disregarded.

This is what happened when he saw himself betrayed by his trusted butler, who violated his privacy and stole his most personal papers.

But there is more than that. Pope Ratzinger has fought first of all and above all to  revive the faith of the Church, to correct its waywardness in doctrine, morality, the sacraments, and the commandments. And here as well he has often found himself alone, opposed, misunderstood.

It has been, in short, an incomplete reform that Benedict XVI has pursued. In resigning, he has recognized that he can no longer move it forward with his diminished strength. And he has trusted the conclave to elect a new pope with the strength necessary to do the job.

His is a supernatural wager that recalls that of his predecessor John Paul in the last painful years of his life.

 

— 2 —

I’m going to miss him.  A lot. 

Every time my skeptical mind would start running in circles about something or other, usually a look at something by Joseph Ratzinger would give me a welcome pause, redirect my thinking and root me in that sense of open, sure faith in the love of God and heart of Jesus Christ.

We always talk about “pray for the Pope.”  ”Pray for the Holy Father,” we say.  ”Pray for his intentions.”

Do you see why now?

Ann wrote: …

….the next time I am in Rome I will climb to the top of the dome at St. Peter’s and look for an old priest with white hair and a cane feeding the goldfish. Although he will no longer appear at the apostolic window, we know that he is there, praying for the Church, still blessing us. 

In the spring of 2009, Ann had the opportunity to present a mock-up of our first book to Pope Benedict. He’s looking at the illustration above. I still remember her breathless phone call from Rome telling me about this!

— 3 —

Change gears.

Went to the Home & Garden show, which was mostly a big waste – half gutter guard companies, the other half As-Seen-On-TV cleaning devices and solutions.

But..I made a big mistake.  I (with my two assistants tagging along) stopped and talked to this woman for a few minutes.

Chickens?

To rent? 

Like…you can have the chickens for a while..and then they come take them away??

Could this maybe drown out the drumbeat of

canwepleasegetalizardcanwepleasegetadogWhycantwegetafishIreallywantabeardeddragon?

Hmmmmm….

— 4 —

Back to Pope Stuff. This is one of the weirder things I noticed this week.

I was leafing through the present issue of Living Faith for Kids.  Which was probably compiled about four months ago.

It opened to a special little extra “Catholic stuff to know” spread.  The topic was : “How do Catholics elect a Pope?”

Its placement in the issue?

The page  before February 28. 

— 5 —

When we were in Paris, we discovered the Horrible Histories series – published by Scholastic UK.  The boys gobbled them up, especially the 8-year old.  I’ve since discovered there are other in the “Horrible” genre, so we are slowly testing them.  Michael (8) has read the volume on the rainforest and is now reading the book on lakes - Monster Lakes.    They’re amusing and substantive – although a bit gross at times, as the titles make clear.

You can find them in a number of places, but I ordered mine from this fellow – he has really good prices and doesn’t charge shipping.  I ordered some geography titles and a few math.  We haven’t cracked the math yet, but will soon.

— 6 —

One of the features of Charlotte Mason schooling – which is part of my inspiration – is “narration” – that is, the child learning by telling you, the teacher, what he or she has read.  Younger children tell you, but the older they get, the more they write.

It’s something I am trying to work in, but (not surprisingly) am a little slow on.  I was feeling badly about that until today, when I was trying to do some of my own work and Michael came in approximately every 73 seconds, his finger holding his place in Bloomin Rainforests, saying “Did you know that ________________?”

I realized – narration? Check. Me, I get narrated at all day long. 

— 7 —

For the past month, every time I’ve passed the boxed Valentines section in a store, I’ve felt this tiny thrill:

We don’t have to do that this year!!! 

Yup.  It felt good. 

/Curmudgeon

#Beendoingthisforthirtyyearssogivemeabreakalready

For more Quick Takes, visit Conversion Diary!

Read Full Post »

On the Council

…well, this will get people talking….

Today Pope Benedict spoke to the priests of Rome.  He spoke extemporaneously.  There will probably be a cleaner copy at some point, but here is Vatican Radio’s summary and transcript.

It’s about the Second Vatican Council – his experience of it, his memories, and his take

Read Full Post »

“…looking at our daily reality with His eyes”

From the Holy Father’s last General Audience:

Overcoming the temptation to place God in submission to oneself and one’s own interests or to put Him in a corner and converting oneself to the proper order of priorities, giving God the first place, is a journey that every Christian must undergo. “Conversion”, an invitation that we will hear many times in Lent, means following Jesus in so that his Gospel is a real life guide, it means allowing God transform us, no longer thinking that we are the only protagonists of our existence, recognizing that we are creatures who depend on God, His love, and that only by “losing” our life in Him can we truly have it.

 

Pope Benedict mentioned three individuals in today’s address.  Who were they?

The Russian Orthodox Pavel Florensky.

The Jewish Etty Hillesum

The American Catholic Dorothy Day. 

 

Read Full Post »

Book Notes

• A  few years ago I wrote a very basic intro to Pope Benedict’s thought.  It went OOP last year, but if you would like to read or share it, I have it available for free reading online.  Two versions:  You can download a .pdf version here.  You can also read it at Scribd - to read it on the Scribd website is free, but to download will cost you.  It’s called Come Meet Jesus. 
• You can see on the sidebar over there on the right links to two children’s books based on the thought of Pope Benedict.
• One more Lent resources reminder:  I have a Pinterest board with some Lent resources – some of mine, most by others – here. 
• Reconciled to God, a daily devotional is available in a digital version for .99 here.
• The Biblical Stations of the Cross App is also .99 and available here. 
• The Power of the Cross is also available as a free download - here as a pdf and here through Scribd.
• (I see there are a few used copies of it at Amazon - I have only two, which of course I’m keeping – but looks like there are a few used copies under $10 out there.)

Read Full Post »

St. Francis de Sales

Doctor of the Church, Patron  of writers, educators and confessors.

Pope Benedict spoke of him at a General Audience in 2011.  Well worth your time:

The life of St Francis de Sales was a relatively short life but was lived with great intensity. The figure of this Saint radiates an impression of rare fullness, demonstrated in the serenity of his intellectual research, but also in the riches of his affection and the “sweetness” of his teachings, which had an important influence on the Christian conscience.

He embodied the different meanings of the word “humanity” which this term can assume today, as it could in the past: culture and courtesy, freedom and tenderness, nobility and solidarity. His appearance reflected something of the majesty of the landscape in which he lived and preserved its simplicity and naturalness. Moreover the words of the past and the images he used resonate unexpectedly in the ears of men and women today, as a native and familiar language.

To Philotea, the ideal person to whom he dedicated his Introduction to a Devout Life (1607),Francis de Sales addressed an invitation that might well have seemed revolutionary at the time. It is the invitation to belong completely to God, while living to the full her presence in the world and the tasks proper to her state. “My intention is to teach those who are living in towns, in the conjugal state, at court” (Preface to The Introduction to a Devout Life). The Document with which Pope Leo xiii, more than two centuries later, was to proclaim him a Doctor of the Church, would insist on this expansion of the call to perfection, to holiness.

It says: “[true piety] shone its light everywhere and gained entrance to the thrones of kings, the tents of generals, the courts of judges, custom houses, workshops, and even the huts of herdsmen” (cf. Brief, Dives in Misericordia, 16 November 1877).

Thus came into being the appeal to lay people and the care for the consecration of temporal things and for the sanctification of daily life on which the Second Vatican Council and the spirituality of our time were to insist.

The ideal of a reconciled humanity was expressed in the harmony between prayer and action in the world, between the search for perfection and the secular condition, with the help of God’s grace that permeates the human being and, without destroying him, purifies him, raising him to divine heights. To Theotimus, the spiritually mature Christian adult to whom a few years later he addressed his Treatise on the Love of God, St Francis de Sales offered a more complex lesson.

At the beginning it presents a precise vision of the human being, an anthropology: human “reason”, indeed “our soul in so far as it is reasonable”, is seen there as harmonious architecture, a temple, divided into various courts around a centre, which, together with the great mystics he calls the “extremity and summit of our soul, this highest point of our spirit”.

This is the point where reason, having ascended all its steps, “closes its eyes” and knowledge becomes one with love (cf. Book I, chapter XII). The fact that love in its theological and divine dimension, may be the raison d’être of all things, on an ascending ladder that does not seem to experience breaks or abysses, St Francis de Sales summed up in a famous sentence: “man is the perfection of the universe; the spirit is the perfection of man; love, that of the spirit; and charity, that of love” (ibid., Book X, chap. 1).

In an intensely flourishing season of mysticism The Treatise on the Love of God was a true and proper summa and at the same time a fascinating literary work. St Francis’ description of the journey towards God starts from recognition of the “natural inclination” (ibid., Book 1, chapter XVI), planted in man’s heart — although he is a sinner — to love God above all things.

According to the model of Sacred Scripture, St Francis de Sales speaks of the union between God and man, developing a whole series of images and interpersonal relationships. His God is Father and Lord, husband and friend, who has the characteristics of mother and of wet-nurse and is the sun of which even the night is a mysterious revelation. Such a God draws man to himself with bonds of love, namely, true freedom for: “love has neither convicts nor slaves, but brings all things under its obedience with a force so delightful, that as nothing is so strong as love nothing also is so sweet as its strength” (ibid., Book 1, chapter VI).

In our Saint’s Treatise we find a profound meditation on the human will and the description of its flowing, passing and dying in order to live (cf. ibid. Book IX, chapter XIII) in complete surrender not only to God’s will but also to what pleases him, to his “bon plaisir”, his good pleasure (cf. ibid.,Book IX, chapter I).

As well as by raptures of contemplative ecstasy, union with God is crowned by that reappearance of charitable action that is attentive to all the needs of others and which he calls “the ecstasy of action and life” (ibid., Book VII, chapter VI).

In reading his book on the love of God and especially his many letters of spiritual direction and friendship one clearly perceives that St Francis was well acquainted with the human heart. He wrote to St Jane de Chantal: “… this is the rule of our obedience, which I write for you in capital letters: do all through love, nothing through constraint; love obedience more than you fear disobedience. I leave you the spirit of freedom, not that which excludes obedience, which is the freedom of the world, but that liberty that excludes violence, anxiety and scruples” (Letter of 14 October 1604).

It is not for nothing that we rediscover traces precisely of this teacher at the origin of many contemporary paths of pedagogy and spirituality; without him neither St John Bosco nor the heroic “Little Way” of St Thérèse of Lisieux would have have come into being.

Dear brothers and sisters, in an age such as ours that seeks freedom, even with violence and unrest, the timeliness of this great teacher of spirituality and peace who gave his followers the “spirit of freedom”, the true spirit.

St Francis de Sales is an exemplary witness of Christian humanism; with his familiar style, with words which at times have a poetic touch, he reminds us that human beings have planted in their innermost depths the longing for God and that in him alone can they find true joy and the most complete fulfilment.

 

Read Full Post »

Te Deum

North Carolina coast, 8/2012

 

The “Te Deum” that we raise to the Lord this evening, at the end of a calendar year, is a hymn of thanksgiving that opens with the praise – “We praise you, O God, we proclaim you to be the Lord” – and ends with a profession of faith – “You are our hope, we will not be confounded forever.” For all that came to pass over the course of the year, whether easy or difficult, barren or fruitful, we give thanks to God. The Te Deum, in fact, contains a profound wisdom, the wisdom that makes us say that, despite everything, there is good in the world, and this good is destined to triumph, thanks God, the God of Jesus Christ, who became incarnate, died, and rose again. Certainly, it is difficult, sometimes, to accept this profound reality, since evil makes more noise than the good: a brutal murder, the spread of violence, serious injustices make the news. Gestures of love and service, on the contrary, daily struggles endured with patience and fidelity are often left in the shadows. And this is why we cannot rely solely on the news if we want to understand the world and life. We must be able to remain in silence, in meditation, in calm and prolonged reflection; we must know how to stop and think. In this way, our mind can find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life, can go deeper into the events that occur in our lives and in the world, and come to the knowledge that allows us to evaluate things with new eyes. Especially in the recollection of conscience, where God speaks to us, we learn to look truthfully at our own actions, even at the evil within us and around us, to begin a journey of conversion that makes us wiser and better, more capable of creating solidarity and communion, of overcoming evil with good. The Christian is a man of hope, even and especially in the face of the darkness that often exists in the world, not as a consequence of God’s plans, but because of the wrong choices of man, because the Christian knows that the power of faith can move mountains ( cf. Mt 17:20): the Lord can brighten even the deepest darkness.

 

-Pope Benedict XVI, homily, Vespers, 12/31/2012

Read Full Post »