Subject: VISnews120905
From: Vatican Information Service - Eng - txt
--Boundary_(ID_OPH7a6xjsFgkEHm5r51rmQ)
Content-type: text/plain; CHARSETUS-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° 155
DATE 05-09-2012
Summary:
- PRAYER IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION
- IRREPLACEABLE ROLE OF THE LAY FAITHFUL IN MAKING AFRICA THE CONTINENT OF
HOPE
- STATISTICS FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LEBANON
- AUDIENCES
___________________________________________________________
PRAYER IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - Benedict XVI today resumed his general
audiences in the Vatican, having held them at Castelgandolfo during the month
of August. Meeting with faithful in the Paul VI Hall he turned his attention
to prayer in the
Book of Revelation which, he explained, "presents us with the living breathing
prayer of the Christian assembly, gathered together 'on the Lord's day'".
Revelation, Pope Benedict went on, "is a difficult book, but one of great
richness. ... In it a reader presents the assembly with a message entrusted by
God to John the Evangelist. ... From the dialogue between them a symphony of
prayer arises which is
then developed in many different forms up until the conclusion".
The first part of Revelation presents us with the assembly in prayer in three
successive phases. The first of these highlights how "prayer is, above all, a
listening to God Who speaks. Engulfed as we are by so many words we are little
used to listening,
and especially to adopting an interior and exterior attitude of silence so as
to attend to what the Lord wishes to say to us. These verses also teach us
that our prayers, often merely prayers of request, must in fact be first and
foremost prayers of
praise to God for His love, for the gift of Jesus Christ which brought us
strength, hope and salvation. ... God, Who reveals Himself as the beginning
and the end of the story, welcomes and takes to heart the assembly's request".
This first phase also includes another important element. "Constant prayer
revives in us a sense of the Lord's presence in our life and history. His
presence supports us, guides us and gives us great hope. ... Prayer, even that
pronounced in the most
extreme solitude, is never a form of isolation and it is never sterile, it is
a vital lymph which nourishes an increasingly committed and coherent Christian
existence".
In the second phase of the prayer of the assembly "the relationship with Jesus
Christ is developed further. The Lord makes Himself visible, He speaks and
acts, and the community, increasingly close to Him, listens, reacts and
accepts".
In the third phase "the Church in prayer, accepting the word of the Lord, is
transformed. ... The assembly listens to the message, and receives a stimulus
for repentance, conversion, perseverance, growth in love and guidance for the
journey".
"The Revelation", Benedict XVI concluded, "presents us with a community
gathered in prayer, because it is in prayer that we gain an increasing
awareness of Jesus' presence with us and within us. The more and the better we
prayer with constancy and
intensity, the more we are assimilated to Him, and the more He enters into our
lives to guide them and give them joy and peace. And the more we know, love
and follow Jesus, the more we feel the need to dwell in prayer with Him,
receiving serenity, hope
and strength for our lives".
___________________________________________________________
IRREPLACEABLE ROLE OF THE LAY FAITHFUL IN MAKING AFRICA THE CONTINENT OF HOPE
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - Africa is called to be the "continent
of hope" says Benedict XVI in a letter written to Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko,
president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, for the occasion of the Pan
African Congress for
Catholic Laity. The congress is taking place in Yaounde, Cameroon, from 4 to 9
September on the theme: "Being witnesses of Jesus Christ in Africa today.
'Salt of the earth ... light of the World".
Hope, the Holy Father writes, "indicates the bright horizon which opens up
before the eyes of faith" despite the many spiritual and material problems
facing the African continent and the African Church. "Even the best
traditional values of African
culture are today threatened by secularisation, which gives rise to
disorientation, rends the fibre of personal and social life, exacerbates
tribalism, violence and corruption in public life, leads to the humiliation
and exploitation of women and
children, and increases poverty and hunger. To this must be added the threat
of fundamentalist terrorism which has recently targeted Christian communities
in a number of African countries".
In spite of all this, the people of Africa possess "a great wealth of
spiritual resources, which are very valuable in our time: love for life and
the family, a sense of joy and of sharing, enthusiasm in living their faith in
the Lord. ... Never let the
dark mentality of relativism and nihilism, which affects various parts of your
world, open a breach in your lives", the Pope says. "With renewed energy
accept and spread the message of joy and of hope which Christ brings, a
message capable of purifying
and strengthening the great values of your culture. ... Making Africa the
'continent of hope' must be the goal that guides the mission of African lay
faithful today, just as it must guide the congress you are celebrating".
This mission "arises from the faith, a gift of God which must be welcomed,
nourished and developed, because 'we cannot accept that salt should become
tasteless or the light be kept hidden'. ... In this transformation of all
society, which is so urgent
for Africa today, the lay faithful have an irreplaceable role to play. ...
Women and men, young and old, children, families and all of society: today all
of Africa awaits the 'ambassadors' of the Good News". These ambassadors are
"the lay faithful in
parishes, ... ecclesial movements and new communities, enamoured of Christ and
the Church, full of joy and gratitude for the Baptism they have received,
courageous workers for peace and announcers of authentic hope".
___________________________________________________________
STATISTICS FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LEBANON
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - For the occasion of Benedict XVI's
forthcoming apostolic trip to Lebanon, due to take place from 14 to 16
September and during which he will sign and issue the Post-Synodal Apostolic
Exhortation of the Special
Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, statistics concerning
the Catholic Church in that country have been published.
The information, updated to 31 December 2011, comes from the Central
Statistical Office of the Church.
Lebanon has a surface area of 10,400 square kilometres and a population of
4,039,000 of whom 2,148,000 (53.18 per cent) are Catholic. There are 24
ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 1,126 parishes and 39 pastoral centres of
other kinds. Currently, there
are 53 bishops, 1,543 priests, 2,797 religious, 2 members of secular
institutes, 2,301 lay missionaries and 483 catechists. Minor seminarians
number 62 and major seminarians 390.
A total of 427,180 children and young people attend 907 centres of Catholic
education, from kindergartens to universities, as well as 28 centres for
special education. Other institutions belonging to the Church or run by
priests or religious in Lebanon
include 30 hospitals, 168 clinics, 39 homes for the elderly or disabled, 63
orphanages and nurseries, 22 family counselling centres and other pro-life
centres, and 28 institutions of other kinds.
___________________________________________________________
AUDIENCES
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - This afternoon in the Apostolic Palace
at Castelgandolfo the Holy Father is scheduled to receive in audience Cardinal
Marc Ouellet P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
___________________________________________________________
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_OPH7a6xjsFgkEHm5r51rmQ)
Content-type: text/html; CHARSETUS-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
VISnews120905
VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE YEAR XXII - N° 155DATE 05-09-2012
Summary: - PRAYER IN THE BOOK OF
REVELATION - IRREPLACEABLE ROLE
OF THE LAY FAITHFUL IN MAKING AFRICA THE CONTINENT OF HOPE - STATISTICS
FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LEBANON - AUDIENCES
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - Benedict XVI today resumed his
general audiences in the Vatican, having held them at Castelgandolfo during
the month of August. Meeting with faithful in the Paul VI Hall he turned his
attention to prayer in the
Book of Revelation which, he explained, "presents us with the living breathing
prayer of the Christian assembly, gathered together 'on the Lord's day'".
Revelation, Pope Benedict went on, "is a difficult book, but one of great
richness. ... In it a reader presents the assembly with a message entrusted by
God to John the Evangelist. ... From the dialogue between them a symphony of
prayer arises which
is then developed in many different forms up until the conclusion".
The first part of Revelation presents us with the assembly in prayer in
three successive phases. The first of these highlights how "prayer is, above
all, a listening to God Who speaks. Engulfed as we are by so many words we are
little used to
listening, and especially to adopting an interior and exterior attitude of
silence so as to attend to what the Lord wishes to say to us. These verses
also teach us that our prayers, often merely prayers of request, must in fact
be first and foremost
prayers of praise to God for His love, for the gift of Jesus Christ which
brought us strength, hope and salvation. ... God, Who reveals Himself as the
beginning and the end of the story, welcomes and takes to heart the assembly's
request".
This first phase also includes another important element. "Constant prayer
revives in us a sense of the Lord's presence in our life and history. His
presence supports us, guides us and gives us great hope. ... Prayer, even that
pronounced in the most
extreme solitude, is never a form of isolation and it is never sterile, it is
a vital lymph which nourishes an increasingly committed and coherent Christian
existence".
In the second phase of the prayer of the assembly "the relationship with
Jesus Christ is developed further. The Lord makes Himself visible, He speaks
and acts, and the community, increasingly close to Him, listens, reacts and
accepts".
In the third phase "the Church in prayer, accepting the word of the Lord,
is transformed. ... The assembly listens to the message, and receives a
stimulus for repentance, conversion, perseverance, growth in love and guidance
for the journey".
"The Revelation", Benedict XVI concluded, "presents us with a community
gathered in prayer, because it is in prayer that we gain an increasing
awareness of Jesus' presence with us and within us. The more and the better we
prayer with constancy and
intensity, the more we are assimilated to Him, and the more He enters into our
lives to guide them and give them joy and peace. And the more we know, love
and follow Jesus, the more we feel the need to dwell in prayer with Him,
receiving serenity, hope
and strength for our lives".
IRREPLACEABLE ROLE OF THE LAY FAITHFUL IN MAKING AFRICA THE CONTINENT OF
HOPE
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - Africa is called to be the
"continent of hope" says Benedict XVI in a letter written to Cardinal
Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, for the
occasion of the Pan African Congress
for Catholic Laity. The congress is taking place in Yaounde, Cameroon, from 4
to 9 September on the theme: "Being witnesses of Jesus Christ in Africa today.
'Salt of the earth ... light of the World".
Hope, the Holy Father writes, "indicates the bright horizon which opens up
before the eyes of faith" despite the many spiritual and material problems
facing the African continent and the African Church. "Even the best
traditional values of African
culture are today threatened by secularisation, which gives rise to
disorientation, rends the fibre of personal and social life, exacerbates
tribalism, violence and corruption in public life, leads to the humiliation
and exploitation of women and
children, and increases poverty and hunger. To this must be added the threat
of fundamentalist terrorism which has recently targeted Christian communities
in a number of African countries".
In spite of all this, the people of Africa possess "a great wealth of
spiritual resources, which are very valuable in our time: love for life and
the family, a sense of joy and of sharing, enthusiasm in living their faith in
the Lord. ... Never let
the dark mentality of relativism and nihilism, which affects various parts of
your world, open a breach in your lives", the Pope says. "With renewed energy
accept and spread the message of joy and of hope which Christ brings, a
message capable of
purifying and strengthening the great values of your culture. ... Making
Africa the 'continent of hope' must be the goal that guides the mission of
African lay faithful today, just as it must guide the congress you are
celebrating".
This mission "arises from the faith, a gift of God which must be welcomed,
nourished and developed, because 'we cannot accept that salt should become
tasteless or the light be kept hidden'. ... In this transformation of all
society, which is so
urgent for Africa today, the lay faithful have an irreplaceable role to play.
... Women and men, young and old, children, families and all of society: today
all of Africa awaits the 'ambassadors' of the Good News". These ambassadors
are "the lay
faithful in parishes, ... ecclesial movements and new communities, enamoured
of Christ and the Church, full of joy and gratitude for the Baptism they have
received, courageous workers for peace and announcers of authentic hope".
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - For the occasion of Benedict XVI's
forthcoming apostolic trip to Lebanon, due to take place from 14 to 16
September and during which he will sign and issue the Post-Synodal Apostolic
Exhortation of the Special
Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, statistics concerning
the Catholic Church in that country have been published.
The information, updated to 31 December 2011, comes from the Central
Statistical Office of the Church.
Lebanon has a surface area of 10,400 square kilometres and a population of
4,039,000 of whom 2,148,000 (53.18 per cent) are Catholic. There are 24
ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 1,126 parishes and 39 pastoral centres of
other kinds. Currently,
there are 53 bishops, 1,543 priests, 2,797 religious, 2 members of secular
institutes, 2,301 lay missionaries and 483 catechists. Minor seminarians
number 62 and major seminarians 390.
A total of 427,180 children and young people attend 907 centres of Catholic
education, from kindergartens to universities, as well as 28 centres for
special education. Other institutions belonging to the Church or run by
priests or religious in
Lebanon include 30 hospitals, 168 clinics, 39 homes for the elderly or
disabled, 63 orphanages and nurseries, 22 family counselling centres and other
pro-life centres, and 28 institutions of other kinds.
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - This afternoon in the Apostolic
Palace at Castelgandolfo the Holy Father is scheduled to receive in audience
Cardinal Marc Ouellet P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
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/vi
/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_OPH7a6xjsFgkEHm5r51rmQ)--
--- NetMgr/2 1.0y+
* Origin: NetMgr+ @ Sursum Corda! BBS Meridian MS USA (1:396/45)
