Subject: VISnews120613
From: Vatican Information Service - Eng - txt
--Boundary_(ID_B0/hnW00ZdJzHcYLWrT7Og)
Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
body, html { font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;
color: #000000; }
.txt { font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; color:
#000000; }
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE
YEAR XXII - N° 116
DATE 13-06-2012
Summary:
- CONTEMPLATION OF CHRIST DOES NOT DISTANCE US FROM REALITY
- PRAYERS FOR THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS IN IRELAND
- BAPTISM FREES US FROM ISOLATION
- CELEBRATIONS TO BE PRESIDED BY THE POPE: JULY - SEPTEMBER
- OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
___________________________________________________________
CONTEMPLATION OF CHRIST DOES NOT DISTANCE US FROM REALITY
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - St. Paul's experience of contemplation and
the power of prayer, as recounted in his Second Letter to the Corinthians,
provided the central theme of Benedict XVI's catechesis, during his general
audience held this
morning in the Paul VI Hall.
Paul did not respond to the voices questioning the legitimacy of his
apostolate by enumerating the communities he had founded, nor did he limit
himself to recounting the difficulties he had had to face in announcing the
Gospel. Rather, the Pope
explained, "he pointed to his relationship with the Lord, ... which was so
intense as to be marked by moments of ecstasy and profound contemplation".
Indeed, the Apostle says: "I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so
that the power of Christ
may dwell in me".
Thus the Apostle of the Gentiles helps us to understand "that all the
difficulties we meet in following Christ and bearing witness to His Gospel can
be overcome by opening ourselves trustingly to the action of the Lord. ... St.
Paul clearly understood
how to face and experience each event in his life, especially those involving
suffering, difficulty and persecution: at the moment we feel our own weakness
the power of God becomes manifest, a power which does not abandon or leave us
alone but becomes
our support and our strength".
"As our union with the Lord grows and our prayer becomes more intense, we too
come to focus on the essential and to understand that it is not the power of
our own means that creates the Kingdom of God, but God Who works miracles
through our very
weakness", the Pope said.
The intense contemplation of God which St. Paul experienced was, like that of
the disciples on Mount Tabor, "enthralling and tremendous". Contemplating the
Lord is "enthralling because He draws us to Himself, seizing our hearts and
carrying them aloft
to His heights were we experience the peace and beauty of His love. It is
tremendous because it exposes our human frailty and inadequacy, the fatigue of
defeating the Evil One who ensnares our lives".
"In a world in which we risk relying only on the power of human means, we are
called to rediscover and bear witness to the power of prayer, through which we
grow day by day as our lives are conformed to that of Christ", said the Holy
Father. He then
went on to recall the Nobel Prize-winner and Protestant theologian Albert
Schweitzer who said that "'Paul is a mystic and nothing more than a mystic', a
man truly enamoured of Christ and so united to Him as to able to say: Christ
lives in me. St. Paul's
mysticism was not founded only on the exceptional events of his life, but also
on his intense daily relationship with the Lord, Who always supported him with
His Grace.
"In our own life of prayer we too may experience moments of particular
intensity in which we feel the Lord's presence more keenly", Benedict XVI
added. "But it is important to remain constant and faithful in our
relationship with God, especially in
moments of aridity, difficulty and suffering. Only if we are seized by the
love of Christ will we be able to face adversity, as Paul did, in the
conviction that we can do all things through Him Who gives us strength".
The Holy Father went on: "The more space we give to prayer, the more we will
see our lives transformed and animated by the real power of God's love. This
is what happened, for example, to Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta who, in
contemplating Jesus,
discovered the ultimate reason and incredible strength to recognise Him in the
poor and abandoned, despite her fragile figure.
"The contemplation of Christ in our life does not distance us from reality",
the Pope concluded. "It makes us even more involved in human affairs, because
the Lord, drawing us to Himself in prayer, enables us to remain close to all
our brothers and
sisters in His love".
___________________________________________________________
PRAYERS FOR THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS IN IRELAND
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - At the end of his catechesis this morning,
Benedict XVI dedicated some remarks to the fiftieth International Eucharistic
Congress, which is currently being held in the Irish capital Dublin on the
theme: "The Eucharist.
Communion with Christ and with One Another".
The congress, the Holy Father said, "is an important opportunity to reaffirm
the central place of the Eucharist in the life of the Church. Jesus, Who is
truly present in the Sacrament of the altar, with the supreme Sacrifice of
love on the cross gives
Himself to us, He becomes our food in order to assimilate us to Him, to bring
us into communion with Him. Through this communion we are also united among
ourselves, we become a single object in Him, members of one another.
"I invite you to remain spiritually united to Christians in Ireland and the
world, praying for the work of the congress, that the Eucharist may always be
the pulsating heart of all Church life", he concluded.
___________________________________________________________
BAPTISM FREES US FROM ISOLATION
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - On the evening of Monday 11 June in the
basilica of St. John Lateran, Benedict XVI inaugurated the diocesan ecclesial
congress of Rome, which comes to an end today. During the three-day event
participants discussed the
importance of Baptism in the context of the theme of the gathering: "Go and
make disciples, baptising and teaching. Let us rediscover the beauty of
Baptism".
Extracts from the Pope's off-the-cuff inaugural address are given below:
"Baptism means being united to God in a new and unique existence. ... Thinking
about this, we immediately see that it has certain consequences. The first of
these is that God is no longer distant from us. ... We are in God and God is
in us. The
priority, the central place of God in our lives is a first consequence of
Baptism".
"A second consequence ... is that we become Christian. ... Of course, my own
decision is also necessary, but above all it is an action of God with me. ...
I am assumed by God ... and, by saying 'yes' to this action by God, I become
Christian. ... A
third element ... is that, by being immersed in God, I am naturally united to
my brothers and sisters, because everyone else is also in God and, if I am
drawn out of my isolation, ... then I am immersed in communion with others".
"This rite, like the rite of nearly all the Sacraments, is made up of two
elements: matter (water) and word. ... Christianity is not something purely
spiritual. ... God is the creator of all matter, ... and that is why it is
very important for matter to
be part of our faith. ... The other element is the word, which takes three
forms: renunciations, promises and invocations. It is important that these
words ... mark our life journey".
"Let us examine the renunciations. They are three in number and I will first
consider the second: 'Do you renounce the lure of evil?' ... In the early
Church ... they used the phrase: 'Do you renounce the pomp of the devil'. ...
The pomp of the devil
referred to the brutal public shows in which cruelty became a form of
entertainment, in which killing men became a spectacle. ... Yet, beyond this
immediate meaning, ... the phrase also referred to a certain kind of culture,
... and Baptism
fundamentally means ... freeing oneself from that culture. Today too we see
cultures in which the truth does not count. In which all that counts is the
spirit of calumny and destruction. A culture which does not seek goodness, a
culture which uses its
morality as a mask to confuse and destroy. To this culture in which falsehood
is disguised as truth and information, to this culture which seeks only
material wealth and denies God, we say 'no'".
"The first renunciation is: 'Do you renounce sin to live in the freedom of the
children of God?' Today freedom and Christian life ... seem to move in
opposite directions. Being Christian is taken to mean a kind of slavery and
freedom is seen as
emancipation from Christian faith, in the final analysis emancipation from
God. ... Yet God made Himself vulnerable ... because He loves us. ... Our
first concern must be ... not to destroy His love, ... because to do so is to
go against our own selves
and our own freedom".
"And ultimately: 'Do you renounce Satan?' This tells us that there is a 'yes'
to God and a 'no' to the power of the Evil One, who ... wishes to become god
of this world".
"Finally there remains the question ... of the Baptism of children. Is it
right to do so or would it be better for them to follow a catechumenal journey
before Baptism? The other question that always arises is: Can we impose a
religion upon children?
... Yet the true question is, in fact: Is it right to give life in this world
without having received consent? ... I would say that it is possible and right
to do so only if, along with life, we also give the guarantee that life,
despite all the
problems of the world, is good ... and protected by God. ... Only the
anticipation of the meaning can justify the anticipation of life. Therefore
Baptism as a guarantee of God's goodness, as an anticipation of meaning, as an
anticipation of God's 'yes'
which protects this life, justifies the anticipation of life".
___________________________________________________________
CELEBRATIONS TO BE PRESIDED BY THE POPE: JULY - SEPTEMBER
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - Given below is the calendar of liturgical
celebrations due to be presided over by the Holy Father between the months of
July and September.
JULY
- Sunday 15. Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Pastoral visit to Frascati.
Mass at 9.30 a.m.
AUGUST
- Wednesday 15: Solemnity of the Assumption, Mass at 8 a.m. in the parish
church of St. Thomas of Villanova in Castelgandolfo.
SEPTEMBER
- Friday 14 to to Sunday 16: Apostolic trip to Lebanon.
___________________________________________________________
OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Fr. Marcello
Romano of the clergy of the diocese of Guanhaes, Brazil, diocesan
administrator, as bishop of Aracuai (area 23,526, population 416,000,
Catholics 277,000, priests 34, religious
40), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Conceicao do Mato Dentro, Brazil in
1965 and ordained a priest in 1994. He has served as pastor in a number of
different parishes.
___________________________________________________________
Per ulteriori informazioni e per la ricerca di documenti consultare il
sito: www.wisnews.org e www.vatican.va
Il servizio del VIS viene inviato soltanto agli indirizzi di posta
elettronica che ne hanno fatto richiesta. Se per qualunque motivo
non si desidera continuare a riceverlo, si prega di visitare nostra pagina
dinizio:
http://212.77.1.245/news_services/press/vis/italinde.php
Copyright (VIS): Le notizie contenute nei servizi del Vatican
Information Service possono essere riprodotte parzialmente o totalmente
citando la fonte: V.I.S. - Vatican Information Service.
--Boundary_(ID_B0/hnW00ZdJzHcYLWrT7Og)
Content-type: text/html; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
VISnews120613
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE YEAR XXII - N° 116DATE 13-06-2012
Summary: - CONTEMPLATION OF CHRIST DOES NOT
DISTANCE US FROM REALITY - PRAYERS FOR THE EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS IN IRELAND - BAPTISM FREES US
FROM ISOLATION - CELEBRATIONS TO BE PRESIDED BY THE POPE: JULY -
SEPTEMBER - OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS ___________________________________________________________
CONTEMPLATION OF CHRIST DOES NOT DISTANCE US FROM REALITY
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - St. Paul's experience of contemplation
and the power of prayer, as recounted in his Second Letter to the Corinthians,
provided the central theme of Benedict XVI's catechesis, during his general
audience held this
morning in the Paul VI Hall.
Paul did not respond to the voices questioning the legitimacy of his
apostolate by enumerating the communities he had founded, nor did he limit
himself to recounting the difficulties he had had to face in announcing the
Gospel. Rather, the Pope
explained, "he pointed to his relationship with the Lord, ... which was so
intense as to be marked by moments of ecstasy and profound contemplation".
Indeed, the Apostle says: "I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so
that the power of Christ
may dwell in me".
Thus the Apostle of the Gentiles helps us to understand "that all the
difficulties we meet in following Christ and bearing witness to His Gospel can
be overcome by opening ourselves trustingly to the action of the Lord. ... St.
Paul clearly
understood how to face and experience each event in his life, especially those
involving suffering, difficulty and persecution: at the moment we feel our own
weakness the power of God becomes manifest, a power which does not abandon or
leave us alone
but becomes our support and our strength".
"As our union with the Lord grows and our prayer becomes more intense, we
too come to focus on the essential and to understand that it is not the power
of our own means that creates the Kingdom of God, but God Who works miracles
through our very
weakness", the Pope said.
The intense contemplation of God which St. Paul experienced was, like that
of the disciples on Mount Tabor, "enthralling and tremendous". Contemplating
the Lord is "enthralling because He draws us to Himself, seizing our hearts
and carrying them
aloft to His heights were we experience the peace and beauty of His love. It
is tremendous because it exposes our human frailty and inadequacy, the fatigue
of defeating the Evil One who ensnares our lives".
"In a world in which we risk relying only on the power of human means, we
are called to rediscover and bear witness to the power of prayer, through
which we grow day by day as our lives are conformed to that of Christ", said
the Holy Father. He then
went on to recall the Nobel Prize-winner and Protestant theologian Albert
Schweitzer who said that "'Paul is a mystic and nothing more than a mystic', a
man truly enamoured of Christ and so united to Him as to able to say: Christ
lives in me. St. Paul's
mysticism was not founded only on the exceptional events of his life, but also
on his intense daily relationship with the Lord, Who always supported him with
His Grace.
"In our own life of prayer we too may experience moments of particular
intensity in which we feel the Lord's presence more keenly", Benedict XVI
added. "But it is important to remain constant and faithful in our
relationship with God, especially in
moments of aridity, difficulty and suffering. Only if we are seized by the
love of Christ will we be able to face adversity, as Paul did, in the
conviction that we can do all things through Him Who gives us strength".
The Holy Father went on: "The more space we give to prayer, the more we
will see our lives transformed and animated by the real power of God's love.
This is what happened, for example, to Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta who,
in contemplating Jesus,
discovered the ultimate reason and incredible strength to recognise Him in the
poor and abandoned, despite her fragile figure.
"The contemplation of Christ in our life does not distance us from
reality", the Pope concluded. "It makes us even more involved in human
affairs, because the Lord, drawing us to Himself in prayer, enables us to
remain close to all our brothers and
sisters in His love".
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - At the end of his catechesis this
morning, Benedict XVI dedicated some remarks to the fiftieth International
Eucharistic Congress, which is currently being held in the Irish capital
Dublin on the theme: "The
Eucharist. Communion with Christ and with One Another".
The congress, the Holy Father said, "is an important opportunity to
reaffirm the central place of the Eucharist in the life of the Church. Jesus,
Who is truly present in the Sacrament of the altar, with the supreme Sacrifice
of love on the cross
gives Himself to us, He becomes our food in order to assimilate us to Him, to
bring us into communion with Him. Through this communion we are also united
among ourselves, we become a single object in Him, members of one another.
"I invite you to remain spiritually united to Christians in Ireland and the
world, praying for the work of the congress, that the Eucharist may always be
the pulsating heart of all Church life", he concluded.
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - On the evening of Monday 11 June in the
basilica of St. John Lateran, Benedict XVI inaugurated the diocesan ecclesial
congress of Rome, which comes to an end today. During the three-day event
participants discussed
the importance of Baptism in the context of the theme of the gathering: "Go
and make disciples, baptising and teaching. Let us rediscover the beauty of
Baptism".
Extracts from the Pope's off-the-cuff inaugural address are given below:
"Baptism means being united to God in a new and unique existence. ...
Thinking about this, we immediately see that it has certain consequences. The
first of these is that God is no longer distant from us. ... We are in God and
God is in us. The
priority, the central place of God in our lives is a first consequence of
Baptism".
"A second consequence ... is that we become Christian. ... Of course, my
own decision is also necessary, but above all it is an action of God with me.
... I am assumed by God ... and, by saying 'yes' to this action by God, I
become Christian. ... A
third element ... is that, by being immersed in God, I am naturally united to
my brothers and sisters, because everyone else is also in God and, if I am
drawn out of my isolation, ... then I am immersed in communion with
others".
"This rite, like the rite of nearly all the Sacraments, is made up of two
elements: matter (water) and word. ... Christianity is not something purely
spiritual. ... God is the creator of all matter, ... and that is why it is
very important for matter
to be part of our faith. ... The other element is the word, which takes three
forms: renunciations, promises and invocations. It is important that these
words ... mark our life journey".
"Let us examine the renunciations. They are three in number and I will
first consider the second: 'Do you renounce the lure of evil?' ... In the
early Church ... they used the phrase: 'Do you renounce the pomp of the
devil'. ... The pomp of the devil
referred to the brutal public shows in which cruelty became a form of
entertainment, in which killing men became a spectacle. ... Yet, beyond this
immediate meaning, ... the phrase also referred to a certain kind of culture,
... and Baptism
fundamentally means ... freeing oneself from that culture. Today too we see
cultures in which the truth does not count. In which all that counts is the
spirit of calumny and destruction. A culture which does not seek goodness, a
culture which uses its
morality as a mask to confuse and destroy. To this culture in which falsehood
is disguised as truth and information, to this culture which seeks only
material wealth and denies God, we say
'no'".
"The first renunciation is: 'Do you renounce sin to live in the freedom of
the children of God?' Today freedom and Christian life ... seem to move in
opposite directions. Being Christian is taken to mean a kind of slavery and
freedom is seen as
emancipation from Christian faith, in the final analysis emancipation from
God. ... Yet God made Himself vulnerable ... because He loves us. ... Our
first concern must be ... not to destroy His love, ... because to do so is to
go against our own selves
and our own freedom".
"And ultimately: 'Do you renounce Satan?' This tells us that there is a
'yes' to God and a 'no' to the power of the Evil One, who ... wishes to become
god of this world".
"Finally there remains the question ... of the Baptism of children. Is it
right to do so or would it be better for them to follow a catechumenal journey
before Baptism? The other question that always arises is: Can we impose a
religion upon children?
... Yet the true question is, in fact: Is it right to give life in this world
without having received consent? ... I would say that it is possible and right
to do so only if, along with life, we also give the guarantee that life,
despite all the
problems of the world, is good ... and protected by God. ... Only the
anticipation of the meaning can justify the anticipation of life. Therefore
Baptism as a guarantee of God's goodness, as an anticipation of meaning, as an
anticipation of God's 'yes'
which protects this life, justifies the anticipation of life".
CELEBRATIONS TO BE PRESIDED BY THE POPE: JULY - SEPTEMBER
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - Given below is the calendar of
liturgical celebrations due to be presided over by the Holy Father between the
months of July and September.
JULY
- Sunday 15. Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Pastoral visit to Frascati.
Mass at 9.30 a.m.
AUGUST
- Wednesday 15: Solemnity of the Assumption, Mass at 8 a.m. in the parish
church of St. Thomas of Villanova in Castelgandolfo.
SEPTEMBER
- Friday 14 to to Sunday 16: Apostolic trip to Lebanon.
Vatican City, 13 June 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father appointed Fr. Marcello
Romano of the clergy of the diocese of Guanhaes, Brazil, diocesan
administrator, as bishop of Aracuai (area 23,526, population 416,000,
Catholics 277,000, priests 34, religious
40), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Conceicao do Mato Dentro, Brazil in
1965 and ordained a priest in 1994. He has served as pastor in a number of
different parishes.
Per ulteriori informazioni e per la ricerca di documenti consultare il
sito: www.wisnews.org e www.vatican.va Il servizio
del VIS viene inviato soltanto agli indirizzi di posta elettronica che
ne hanno
--- NetMgr/2 1.0y+
* Origin: NetMgr+ @ Sursum Corda! BBS Meridian MS USA (1:396/45)
