Posted in Amy Welborn, Lent, Life, Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, tagged faith, Lent, Pope Benedict XVI, religion, spirituality on February 17, 2013 | 4 Comments »
Source: AP
Source: Vatican Radio English Facebook page – go “like” them!
Source: Vatican Radio English Facebook page.
Source
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.
Posted in 7 Quick Takes, Amy Welborn, Pope, Pope Benedict XVI on February 15, 2013 | 3 Comments »
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..
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.
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.
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!
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.
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….
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.
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.
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.
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
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Posted in Amy Welborn, Books, Catholicism, Good Friday, Lent, Pinterest, Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Saints, Writing, tagged books, Lent, Pope Benedict XVI, Reading on February 12, 2013 | 1 Comment »
Posted in Amy Welborn, Jesus, Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, Saints, Spirituality on January 24, 2013 | 2 Comments »
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.
Posted in Amy Welborn, Catholicism, Current Events, Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, tagged Happy New Year, Pope Benedict XVI on December 31, 2012 | 1 Comment »
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.
Posted in Amy Welborn, Catholicism, Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion on December 25, 2012 |
Again and again the beauty of this Gospel touches our hearts: a beauty that is the splendour of truth. Again and again it astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we may dare to love him, and as a child trustingly lets himself be taken into our arms. It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you, and that you are trying to assert yourself in the face of
my grandeur. So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me.
I am also repeatedly struck by the Gospel writer’s almost casual remark that there was no room for them at the inn. Inevitably the question arises, what would happen if Mary and Joseph were to knock at my door. Would there be room for them? And then it occurs to us that Saint John takes up this seemingly chance comment about the lack of room at the inn, which drove the Holy Family into the stable; he explores it more deeply and arrives at the heart of the matter when he writes: “he came to his own home, and his own people received him not” (Jn 1:11). The great moral question of our attitude towards the homeless, towards refugees and migrants, takes on a deeper dimension: do we really have room for God when he seeks to enter under our roof? Do we have time and space for him? Do we not actually turn away God himself? We begin to do so when we have no time for God. The faster we can move, the more efficient our time-saving appliances become, the less time we have. And God? The question of God never seems urgent. Our time is already completely full. But matters go deeper still. Does God actually have a place in our thinking? Our process of thinking is structured in such a way that he simply ought not to exist. Even if he seems to knock at the door of our thinking, he has to be explained away. If thinking is to be taken seriously, it must be structured in such a way that the “God hypothesis” becomes superfluous. There is no room for him. Not even in our feelings and desires is there any room for him. We want ourselves. We want what we can seize hold of, we want happiness that is within our reach, we want our plans and purposes to succeed. We are so “full” of ourselves that there is no room left for God. And that means there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger. By reflecting on that one simple saying about the lack of room at the inn, we have come to see how much we need to listen to Saint Paul’s exhortation: “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2). Paul speaks of renewal, the opening up of our intellect (nous), of the whole way we view the world and ourselves. The conversion that we need must truly reach into the depths of our relationship with reality. Let us ask the Lord that we may become vigilant for his presence, that we may hear how softly yet insistently he knocks at the door of our being and willing. Let us ask that we may make room for him within ourselves, that we may recognize him also in those through whom he speaks to us: children, the suffering, the abandoned, those who are excluded and the poor of this world.
Posted in Amy Welborn, Books, Pope on November 26, 2012 |
As I noted a couple of days ago, Be Saints is now out...Ann Engelhart will be doing a lot of radio over the next couple of weeks, talking about the book and her artwork:
Monday, Nov. 26 @ 12 noon EST - Bob Dunning, The Bishop’s Radio Hour, Sacramento.10-15 minutes, live.
Tuesday, Nov. 27 @ 8:10am EST - Brian Patrick, Son Rise Morning Show. 10 minutes, live.
Thursday, Nov. 29 @10am –EST- Kris McGregor, Spirit Morning Show, Spirit Catholic Radio.
Wednesday, Dec. 5 @ 7:30am EST - Sean Herriot, Morning Air, Relevant Radio. 20-30 minutes, live.
Friday, Dec. 14 @ 2pm. EST - Wendy Wiese, On Call, Relevant Radio. 30 minutes, live.
Posted in Amy Welborn, Catholicism, Italy, Pope, tagged Amy Welborn, Italy, Pope Benedict XVI, Rome, travel on November 26, 2012 | 2 Comments »
….guess I should have read the schedule more closely.
Since we’re a five minute walk away, and since it’s Sunday, we thought we’d go to Mass at St. Peter’s Sunday morning, and then stay for the Angelus. The regular schedule indicates a 10:30 Mass. So we got there about 10:15, in order to get through the security line, which was quite long….on the screens outside, the Pope was…talking…inside St. Peter’s. I was thinking that perhaps it was a replay of yesterday’s Consistory, but then we hit the door, and the sounds inside matched the sounds outside (the Credo by that point)…so, um, there we were inside St. Peter’s, halfway through Mass being celebrated by the Pope.
There were no seats of course, so we tried to find various vantage points from which we could see something besides the ceiling – no such luck. No one was moving from their hard-won SRO positions against the barriers, not even for angelic-looking children. We wandered to the back, eventually, and stayed there since it occurred to me that from there, we could see the Holy Father as he processed out – well, we could, sort of, although he turned away to go through the curtains before he got to us – the boys saw his face, though. Following are some photos – next post will be a couple of videos from the Angelus.
Waiting to get into the Basilica
Took this holding the camera over my head I never actually saw the altar with my own eyes.
Waiting at the end of Mass
And…there he goes.
Cardinal Rigali
Many men and women were wearing these, in honor of the new Cardinal from Nigeria
At the end of every church event, someone has to stack the chairs.
Texts:
Posted in Amy Welborn, Books, Pope, Religion, Writing, tagged Catholic, faith, Pope Benedict XVI, religion on November 23, 2012 |
I’ve forgotten to mention that the “new” book is out – not exactly new, since it’s US edition of a book originally published in the UK.
It’s Be Saints! An Invitation from Pope Benedict XVI.
Originally published by the Catholic Truth Society, it is now available through Ignatius Press in the US and Canada. Ann Kissane Engelhart created the paintings to accompany excerpts from Pope Benedict’s talk to youth at the “Big Assembly” during his visit to England in 2010.
Here’s the Ignatius Press page for the book.
And you can purchase it through any Catholic bookseller (I hope) – here’s the link for Aquinas and More.
Posted in Amy Welborn, Pope, Religion on August 25, 2012 |
You know that for several Sundays the Liturgy has proposed for our reflection Chapter Six of John’s Gospel, in which Jesus presents himself as the “Bread of life… which came down from Heaven”, and, he adds: “if anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever: and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn 6: 51). To the Jews who were arguing heatedly among themselves, questioning: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (v. 52) and the world still debates it Jesus replies in every age: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you” (v. 53). We too should reflect on whether we have really understood this message. Today, the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, let us meditate on the last part of this chapter in which the Fourth Evangelist mentions the reaction of the people and of the disciples themselves. They were shocked by the Lord’s words to the point that having followed him until then they exclaimed: “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” (v. 60). After this, “many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him” (v. 66) and the same thing has happened over and over again in various periods of history. One might expect Jesus to seek compromises to make himself better understood, but he does not mitigate what he says. On the contrary, he turns directly to the Twelve and asks them: “Will you also go away?” (v. 67).
Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?
This provocative question is not addressed only to the people of that time, but to the believers and men of every age. Today too, not a few are scandalized by the paradox of the Christian faith. Jesus’ teaching seems “hard,” too difficult to put into practice. There are thus those who reject it and abandon Christ; there are those who try to “adapt” the word to the fashions of the times, distorting its meaning and value.
“Do you also wish to leave?” This disturbing provocation resounds in our hearts and awaits a personal response from each person. Jesus in fact is not satisfied with a superficial and formal following, a first and enthusiastic adhesion is not sufficient for him; on the contrary, we must take part “in his thinking and in his willing” all of our lives. Following him fills the heart with joy and gives complete meaning to our existence, but it brings difficulties and renunciations because very often we must go against the current.
Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go?
Dear brothers and sisters, we too can repeat Peter’s answer, aware of course of our human fragility, but confident in the power of the Holy Spirit, who expresses himself and manifests himself in communion with Jesus. Faith is a gift of God to man and it is, at the same t6/ime, man’s free and total entrusting of himself to God; faith is the docile listening to the word of the Lord, that is the “lamp” for our steps and the “light” on our way (cf. Psalm 119:105).
If we open our hearts to Christ with confidence, if we let ourselves be conquered by him, we too can experience, together with the Curé d’Ars, “that our only happiness on this earth is to love God and to know that he loves us.” Pope Benedict XVI 8/23/2009
Photo: Caswell Beach, NC. 8/26/2012
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