Thursday, June 20, 2013

Vatican theologians ‘have approved second John Paul II miracle’

 

By on Wednesday, 19 June 2013
John Paul II was beatified on May 1 2011 (CNS)
John Paul II was beatified on May 1 2011 (CNS)
 
Italian media are reporting that the canonisation of Blessed John Paul II is another step closer.

Although the process is not complete and is supposed to be secret at this point, the Italian news agency ANSA and many Italian papers say Vatican sources confirmed yesterday that the theological consultants to the Congregation for Saints’ Causes affirmed that the description of prayers and events surrounding an alleged miracle provide evidence that the healing was accomplished through the intercession of the late pope.

The congregation’s board of physicians had said in April that there was no natural, medical explanation for the healing, which apparently involves a woman from Latin America healed on May 1 2011, just hours after Blessed John Paul was beatified.

Even if the news about the theological consultants is true, the cardinals who are members of the congregation still must vote on whether to recommend that the Pope recognise the healing as a miracle. The papal decree is needed before a canonisation date can be set.

Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz of Kraków, Blessed John Paul’s secretary, and many others are hoping the canonisation can be celebrated in October around the 35th anniversary of Pope John Paul’s election on October 16 1978.

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Taken from:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/06/19/vatican-theologians-have-approved-second-john-paul-ii-miracle/

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Pope Francis To G8 Global Leaders: Goal of Economics is to Serve Humanity


Pope Francis challenges an age losing its soul to a fresh, new way that is neither left nor right, but rather human and humane

The goal of economics and politics is to serve humanity, beginning with the poorest and most vulnerable wherever they may be, even in their mothers' wombs. Every economic and political theory or action must set about providing each inhabitant of the planet with the minimum wherewithal to live in dignity and freedom, with the possibility of supporting a family, educating children, praising God and developing one's own human potential. This is the main thing; in the absence of such a vision, all economic activity is meaningless. (Pope Francis)


VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online) - I derive such joy from the message of this Pope named Francis. I also love the manner in which he is delivering them. He is keeping observers off balance as they attempt to put him in one of their contrived boxes and try to label him.
The text of a letter which he sent to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in advance of the G8 Meeting was released this weekend. It is one more example of shaking things up! It can be read in its entirety on the Vatican Website. Here is a quote:
"The goal of economics and politics is to serve humanity"
"The goal of economics and politics is to serve humanity, beginning with the poorest and most vulnerable wherever they may be, even in their mothers' wombs. Every economic and political theory or action must set about providing each inhabitant of the planet with the minimum wherewithal to live in dignity and freedom, with the possibility of supporting a family, educating children, praising God and developing one's own human potential. This is the main thing; in the absence of such a vision, all economic activity is meaningless."
"In this sense, the various grave economic and political challenges facing today's world require a courageous change of attitude that will restore to the end (the human person) and to the means (economics and politics) their proper place. Money and other political and economic means must serve, not rule, bearing in mind that, in a seemingly paradoxical way, free and disinterested solidarity is the key to the smooth functioning of the global economy."
Some are already parsing these words in an attempt to criticize market capitalism. Others will attempt to use the comments to attach the Pope to a planned economy approach, to connect him to a particular economic theory. Yet, I suggest his comments were not really about economic applications.
These comments were a reaffirmation of what must precede and inform all economic theory, the human person.
Catholic social doctrine begins with the human person and promotes what the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church calls a solidary and integral humanism. It insists upon the recognition of the human dignity which is present in every person because they are created in the Image of God.
This solidary and integral humanism demands that every human life, whether in the first home of the womb, a wheelchair, a jail cell, a hospital room, a hospice, a senior center or a soup kitchen, be recognized as having human dignity and never used as an end or an object. It is this vision of the human person which must form the foundation of economics.
Catholic social doctrine does not propose or endorse any particular economic theory. Rather it insists that the economic order must be placed at the service of the human person, the family and the common good. That is what Pope Francis reminded the Prime Minister and the G8 leaders of in his letter.
The social teaching of the Catholic Church offers principles to be worked into the loaf of human culture which are meant to assist us in our work of building a more just and human society. That means we need to understand them and seek to apply them. They include principles which can help us to humanize and order our economies.
However, because they are principles, they leave room for the application of prudential judgment.
The Church challenges any notion of human freedom which begins and ends with the isolated, atomistic, person as the measure of its application. We are by nature and grace called to relationship. Only in communion can we be fully human.
Human freedom must be ordered toward choosing what is good and what is true. In other words, there is always a moral basis to freedom, uncluding economic freedom. Our freedom must be exercised in deference toward our neighbor because we have obligations in solidarity to one another - we are our brother and sisters keeper. This is the principle of solidarity or social charity.
The Church calls us to what is called a preferential option or, I prefer a love of preference, for the poor. This is the kind of love which the Lord Himself shows in his identification with the poor. The implications of our response to this command are expounded upon in the 25th chapter of the Gospel of St Matthew.
We are to show in our social relations a concern for their well being. This invites as well the development of a social and economic order which includes them within its embrace and promise of advancement. This is why the Church upholds the dignity of all human work and promotes a living, just or family wage.
In recent papal encyclicals and
magisterial teaching the market economy is recognized as having a potential for promoting all of these goods - when properly understood and morally structured. However, the Catholic Church does not take a position on which economic theory is the best among many.
She prophetically stood against the materialism of the atheistic Marxist system. She prophetically cautions Nations which have adopted a form of liberal capitalism that there are dangers in any form of economism or materialism which promotes the use of persons as products and fails to recognize the value of being over acquiring.
She reminds our consumerist western culture that the market economy must be at the service the person, the family and the common good, lest capitalism conflate its claims to offering freedom and become what Blessed John Paul II once referred to as "savage" in its application, thereby promoting practices which devolve into greed and use of persons.
The Church's social doctrine holds that authentically human social relationships of friendship, solidarity and reciprocity can be conducted within economic activity, and not only outside it or after it. The Church also warns against and rejects collectivism and statist over control of the political or economic order.
As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote in Charity in Truth , "The economic sphere is neither ethically neutral, nor inherently inhuman and opposed to society. It is part and parcel of human activity and precisely because it is human, it must be structured and governed in an ethical manner."
Contrary to what some tried to claim, that letter neither endorsed nor rejected capitalism. As the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church has done in the past it simply did not use the term, preferring the term market economy or free economy. That is because the market is made for man and not man for the market.

Freedom is a good of the person and a free market must be moral, keeping the person, the family and the common good at the forefront. In that letter Benedict addressed economic challenges presented by globalism. He called for the application of a social and economic ordering principle the Church has long proposed, the principle of subsidiarity, within these new contexts.
The word subsidiarity is derived from the Latin word meaning to provide assistance or help, not control. The Pope wrote it is a principle of "inalienable human freedom. Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person via the autonomy of intermediate bodies."
He explained, "Such assistance is offered when individuals or groups are unable to accomplish something on their own, and it is always designed to achieve their emancipation, because it fosters freedom and participation through assumption of responsibility."
He continued, "Subsidiarity respects personal dignity by recognizing in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others. By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it is to be a human being, subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state." (#57)
Benedict asserted the inextricable link between the principle of subsidiarity and the principle of solidarity which affirms that we are our brother's (and sister's) keeper.
When that Encyclical was released some observers attempted to read it through the prism of political categories such as left and right, liberal and conservative, just as are doing with the comments of Pope Francis with which I began. Efforts to pigeonhole the insights offered in that letter as "for or against capitalism" when it did not even use the word capitalism, missed the directions offered within it. So they do as well when they mischaracterize the insights of Pope Francis on economic development.
Markets can only be free when free people are engaged in them. Freedom is a good of the person. A free economy should also seek to continually expand by opening the way for the participation for as many people as possible, while promoting enterprise and initiative.
Also, though we should show a love of preference for the poor, recognizing our solidarity with them, this call to solidarity is to be applied through the application of the principle of subsidiarity, rejecting all forms of dehumanizing collectivism. Subsidiarity in governance and economic participation rejects the usurping by a larger entity of participation which can be done at the lowest practicable level.
The West, with all of its promise of freedom, flirts with an instrumentalist materialism devoid of any understanding that the market was made for man not man for the market. In this mistaken approach to a free market economic order the accumulation of capital can come to be viewed as prior to the flourishing of the person, the family and the common good. In its wake, the poor can be forgotten and peace threatened.
Pope Emeritus Benedict properly addressed this errant approach to the market economy as do these words from Pope Francis. The market economy can be a force for good when humanized and expanded to offer participation to more and more men and women. However, if Francis and Benedict's words caused a stir, when Blessed John Paul II addressed the same danger, was even stronger in his language.
On the hundreth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's encyclical on economic concerns, he wrote:
"Returning now to the initial question: can it perhaps be said that, after the failure of Communism, capitalism is the victorious social system, and that capitalism should be the goal of the countries now making efforts to rebuild their economy and society? Is this the model, which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World, which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress? The answer is obviously complex."
"If by capitalism is meant an economic system, which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a `business economy,' `market economy,' or simply `free economy'.
"But, if by `capitalism' is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality and sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative."(Centesimus Annus, n. 42)
Our task as Catholic citizens is not to put literal or figurative proof texts from Catholic Social Teaching around political, social or economic theories rooted in a flawed or limited notion of the person, the primacy of the family, our obligations in solidarity, or a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity.
We must start with Catholic teaching and then inform both our thought and our action. Starting with a political, an economic or a pet social theory and then building a kind of "catholic" proof text for it too often ends up betraying our prophetic call. It can further fail to present the beauty of Catholic Social Teaching as a unified whole.
Pope Francis challenges an age losing its soul to a fresh, new way that is neither left nor right, but rather human and humane.

- - -

Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention:
The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

Keywords: G8, Global Leaders, Economics, Pope Francis, David Cameron, Catholic Social Thought, Social Justice, capitalism, market economy, Deacon Keith Fournier

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Pope Francis Is Good for the Jews

untitled

A repair process that began with John Paul II just might be completed by the new pope.



Vatican City

Nearly half a century ago, the Second Vatican Council corrected the Roman Catholic Church's historical attitude toward Jews with the document "Nostra Aetate," which exonerated the Jewish people of any collective guilt for the killing of Jesus and affirmed that God's covenant with them had never been abrogated.
The document remains a source of controversy among Catholics, particularly over the question of whether they should ever seek to convert Jews, or merely, as "Nostra Aetate" says, await "that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord with a single voice." Yet the 1965 document unquestionably opened a period of unprecedented dialogue and dramatic overtures by Catholic leaders—a movement that promises to continue, and even rise to another level, under Pope Francis.
While Jews have an obvious interest in communication and harmony with the world's largest church, the interest for Catholics is more complex. Dialogue allows the church to repudiate the anti-Semitism encouraged or tolerated by its leaders and members over the centuries, and to acknowledge what "Nostra Aetate" called its "sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles." A Catholicism that regards the people of its divine founder with anything other than love and honor is a religion profoundly at odds with itself.
Pope John Paul II, who grew up with friends from Poland's large prewar Jewish community, became in 1986 the first pope of modern times to visit a synagogue—in the very Roman Ghetto where his predecessors had kept Jews confined until the late 19th century. The pope visited Jerusalem in 2000 and prayed at the Western Wall, expressing sadness for past injuries to Jews. John Paul also opened full diplomatic relations between Israel and the Holy See.
Pope Benedict XVI followed John Paul's lead, also visiting the Rome synagogue and Israel, and he reiterated and elaborated on Vatican II's denial that the Jewish people were culpable for Jesus' death. Benedict also modified John Paul's famous description of Jews as Christians' "elder brothers," in favor of what he deemed a more unambiguously reverent term, "fathers in the faith." When Benedict's decision in 2009 to readmit to the Catholic Church an excommunicated traditionalist bishop who turned out to be a public Holocaust denier stirred an international furor, the pope pointedly thanked "our Jewish friends" for their support.
Benedict's words and gestures, coming from a German who had served (unwillingly) in the Hitler Youth and then his country's military during World War II, had a special historical resonance. They also indicated that friendship with the Jews was a principle of church teaching rather than merely the inclination of a given pontiff.
Nevertheless, given the rising urgency of pursuing a dialogue with Islam, it was hardly obvious that Benedict's successor in Rome would promote the church's relationship with Judaism with the same focus and zeal, especially if the new pope came from outside Europe.
As it turned out, the College of Cardinals could not have elected a man with a clearer commitment to Catholic-Jewish relations than Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he had celebrated Rosh Hashanah and Hannukah in local synagogues, voiced solidarity with Jewish victims of terrorism, and co-written a book with a prominent rabbi. Touching on one of the most sensitive points in the relationship between Catholics and Jews, Bergoglio had called for the Vatican to open its archives from the pontificate of Pius XII, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, to address lingering questions about whether the wartime pope had done or said enough to oppose the Nazi genocide.
It is relevant in this connection that the new pope comes from Buenos Aires, the city with the largest Jewish community in the Southern Hemisphere. No pope since the church's early centuries has come from a society as culturally diverse as modern Argentina, which Francis has celebrated for its blend of ethnicities and religions.
This background helps explain the strikingly matter-of-fact and unselfconscious character of his book-length conversation with Rabbi Abraham Skorka of Buenos Aires, published in Spanish three years ago and recently brought out in English under the title "On Heaven and Earth." Only a few pages of the discussion between the then-cardinal and the rabbi touch on the historical tensions between Catholics and Jews or how they might be resolved—questions that have traditionally loomed large in Catholic-Jewish exchanges.
Instead, the book presents two religious leaders reflecting together as friends on topics as varied as feminism, globalization and same-sex marriage. The two men compare notes on the approaches of their respective traditions, often agreeing yet not hesitating to note differences. In the (future) pope's own words: "With Skorka I never had to compromise my Catholic identity, just as he never did with his Jewish identity, and this was not only because of the respect we have for each other, but also because that is how we understand interreligious dialogue."
Half a century after Vatican II, following John Paul's pioneering opening to Judaism and its confirmation under Benedict, Pope Francis's pontificate now offers the prospect of an achievement no less historic for Catholic-Jewish relations: normalcy.

Mr. Rocca is the Rome bureau chief of Catholic News Service.

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Taken from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324063304578525432914777890.html

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Pope Francis admits 'gay lobby' in Vatican


More:
 
POPE Francis has admitted the existence of a "gay lobby" inside the Vatican's secretive administration, the Roman Curia.

Back in February Italian media claimed that a secret report by cardinals investigating the leaks included allegations of corruption and blackmail attempts against gay Vatican clergymen, and on the other hand, favouritism based on gay relationships.
"In the Curia, there are truly some saints, but there is also a current of corruption," the pope is quoted as having said during an audience last week with CLAR (the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Religious Men and Women).
"There is talk of a 'gay lobby' and it's true, it exists. We have to see what can be done," the 76-year-old pontiff is quoted as saying on the Reflection and Liberation website, which was flagged up by religious news agencies on Tuesday.
Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told AFP: "It was a private meeting, I have no comment to make."
It was unclear what Francis meant when he was translated as saying, "we have to see what can be done."
The secret report compiled by a committee of three cardinals for the pope's eyes only was the result of a broad inquiry into leaks of secret Vatican papers last year - a scandal known as "Vatileaks".
The cardinals questioned dozens of Vatican officials and presented the pope with their final report in December 2012.
Just days before pope Benedict XVI's resignation in February, the Panorama news weekly and the Repubblica daily said that the report contained allegations of blackmail attempts and gay favouritism - though Lombardi insisted at the time they were "conjectures, fictions and opinions."
The Argentine pope has made reforming the Roman Curia - the heavily criticised and intrigue-filled administration of the Roman Catholic Church - a priority of his papacy, but said it would be "difficult".
"I cannot carry out the reforms myself," he said, because "I am very disorganised".
The task will be handled by a commission of eight cardinals from around the world whom Francis appointed in April to help him govern the Catholic Church, set to meet for the first time in October.
"Pray for me, for me to make as few errors as possible," the pope said.
 
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-news/pope-francis-admits-gay-lobby-in-vatican/story-fndir2ev-1226662195214#ixzz2VwtvxJOx

Monday, June 10, 2013

West Not A Cultural Unity




Frits Albers (RIP) Wrote in Five Smooth Stones:

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Evolution has failed. It has failed modern man. It has failed the modern scientist, the modernist Priest, the Teilhard de Chardin Nun, the liberal bishop, the biased college professor, the liberated women, the marxist social worker, the humanist catechist, the secular politician.
"Through means of psychological behaviourism, man is left with nothing that transcends his experiences. He has no values left and no morals, and his life becomes sheer practice without theory. But he consoles himself with the thought that life should be experimental. Modern man feels he should try all ideas since he will acknowledge no basis or yardstick by which to evaluate any idea, except trial and error which is strictly groping in the dark, which makes him essentially an irrational animal let loose in nature. In net: modern man is pathetically susceptible to making all the mistakes of these who went before him simply because he does not know enough history, enough tested principles, enough religion...."
(John N. Moore, Ed.D., in "Neo-Darwinism and Society" paraphrasing Prof. Richard Weaver's book "Ideas Have Consequences")
A man without a philosophy worthy of that name; without training in thinking: a man without the discipline of the mind.... A man without the proper foundation on which a supernatural edifice of Faith can be built. An irrational animal no longer chiming in with Revelation. Or differently put by a man who should know:
"I am baffled by the way people still speak of the West as if it were at least a cultural unity against communism. But the West is divided, not only politically, but by an invisible cleavage. On one side are the voiceless masses with their own subdivisions and fractures. On the other side is the enligh-tened, articulate elite which to one degree or other has rejected the religious roots of the civilization ‑ the roots without which it is no longer Western civilization, but a new order of beliefs, attitudes and mandates. In short, this is the order of which communism is one logical expression. Not originating in Russia, but in the cultural capitals of the West, reaching Russia by clandestine delivery via the old underground centres in Cracow, Vienna, Berne, Zurich and Geneva. It is a Western body of beliefs that now threatens the West from-Russia. As a body of Western beliefs: secular, materialistic, and rationalistic, the intelligentsia of the West share it, and are therefore always committed to a secret, emotional complicity with communism, of which they dislike, not the communism, but only what, by chance of history, Russia has specially added to it: slave-labour camps, purges, MVD et alia. And that, not because the Western intellectuals find them unjustifiable, but because they are afraid of being caught in them. If they could have communism without the brutalities of overlording that the Russian experience bred, they have only marginal objections. Why should they object? What else is Socialism but Communism with the claws retracted? (Note retracted, not removed)."
(Whittaker Chambers, in ‘COLD FRIDAY’, 1964, pp. 225, 226).
Yes, evolution has failed both modern man and modern woman. It has taken from the West any ideological weapon against the advancement of a new collec-tivism (totalitarianism) depriving the West of its wealth.
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Taken from: http://users.pipeline.com.au/~rossj/5_smooth_stones_4.html

Friday, June 7, 2013

Transubstantiation into the Immaculate, in the Thought of St. Maximilian Kolbe


05FridayApr 2013

Posted by in Spirituality

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Transformation into Our Lady has been spoken of by the saints for many centuries. In True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, St. Louis de Montfort, repeats the words of St. Ambrose, writing, “The soul of Mary will be communicated to you to glorify the Lord. Her spirit will take the place of yours to rejoice in God, her Savior…”(1). It is St. Maximilian, however, who has given this transforming union its boldest and most descriptive formulation: “transubstantiation into the Immaculate.”
The Eucharistic terminology is very enlightening. St. Maximilian speaks of Mary’s devotees being changed, as it were, into Our Lady. One becomes, “in a certain sense, her living, speaking and working in this world” (2). Negatively, this means the uprooting of sin and imperfection. Positively, it entails growth in Charity and sanctity. “Let yourselves be led by the Immaculate, let Her form you with an ever greater freedom and you will become like Her, because She will make you ever more immaculate and She will nourish you with the milk of Her grace” (3).
At a certain point, this transforming union becomes so radical, the term “transubstantiation,” used analogously, becomes a very descriptive and accurate way to express the extent of Marianization. St. Maximilian writes, “We want to be so much the Immaculate’s that there remains nothing in us that is not Hers, that instead we come to be annihilated in Her, changed into Her, transubstantiated into Her, that She herself alone remains. That we might be thus Hers, as She is God’s” (4).
St. Maximilian thus draws an analogy between the relationship we seek to have with Our Lady, and her own union with God. Describing this union, he gives the Latin formulation: Filius incarnatus est: Jesus Christus. Spiritus Sanctus quasi incarnatus est: Immaculata (5). That is, “The Son is incarnate: Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is quasi incarnate: the Immaculata.” St. Maximilian elaborates:
The Holy Spirit manifests his share in the work of Redemption through the Immaculate Virgin who, although she is a person entirely distinct from him, is so intimately associated with him that our minds cannot understand it. So, while their union is not of the same order as the hypostatic union linking the human and divine natures in Christ, it remains true to say that Mary’s action is the very action of the Holy Spirit (6).
Mary’s actions are the very actions of the Holy Spirit, and as St. Maximilian points out elsewhere, the Holy Spirit acts always (by His own divine decree) through Mary. These two persons operate as if they are, so to speak, one person. This union is founded on the grace of the Immaculate Conception: Our Lady’s first grace, and that which radically conforms her to her Spouse, such that, in the words of St. Maximilian, she is the created Immaculate Conception, whereas the Holy Spirit is the Uncreated Immaculate Conception (7). The Blessed Virgin is a manifestation of her Spouse. St. Maximilian writes, “Just as the Son, to show us how great his love is, became a man, so too the third Person, God-who-is-Love, willed to show his mediation… by means of a concrete sign. This sign is the heart of the Immaculate Virgin…” (8).
Transubstantiation into the Immaculate means being changed into her, such that one’s actions are truly hers. We become concrete manifestations of the Blessed Virgin, “in a certain sense, her living, speaking and working in this world” (9). In this way, we become hers, as she is God’s.
Both the positive and negative dimensions of this transubstantiation are achieved through total consecration to the Immaculate. Such a consecration means entrusting ourselves to her maternal Heart; placing all of our goods, corporeal and spiritual, at her disposal; and doing everything for her honor. It further entails a real striving to imitate Our Lady interiorly and exteriorly, and to fulfill her will in all things. “Let us strive to live in such a way that every day, every moment, we become ever more the property of the Immaculate, fulfilling always more perfectly the will of the Immaculate” (10).
It is interesting to note that St. Maximilian promoted total consecration without having knowledge of St. Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion. He became familiar with this classic little treatise only later in life. Instead, his devotion is drawn from the Franciscan tradition, which profoundly shaped all of his theological insights. He wrote to a confrere:
For seven centuries we strove for the recognition of the truth of the Immaculate Conception, and our efforts were crowned with the proclamation of the dogma and the apparition of the Immaculate at Lourdes. Now we move on to the second part of the story: the sowing of the seed of this truth in souls, fostering its growth and ensuring that it produce fruits of sanctity. And this in all souls who are and who will be until the end of the world (11).
In St. Maximilian’s view, the Immaculate Conception may be likened to a blueprint. In the first chapter of Franciscan history, the order strove to make this blueprint known by all the Church‒ an effort which ended with a definitive victory in 1854. Now, according to St. Maximilian, the blueprint must be implemented throughout the Church by means of Marian consecration. With this consecration, lived out authentically, the faithful can be increasingly transubstantiated into the Immaculate, and thus, patterned ever more closely on the Immaculate Conception‒ Our Lady herself.
The more this transformation takes hold, the more one becomes, as it were, an extension of Mary. The soul acquires an increasingly profound insertion into the depths of the Holy Trinity. Exteriorly, however, the person appears no different from any other. Here we see again, how carefully chosen and enlightening St. Maximilian’s terminology really is. At Holy Mass, the accidents of bread and wine remain in place, even after the consecration. Likewise, transubstantiation into the Immaculate entails a radical change, but leaves the exterior appearance intact. No one could guess, simply by looking at a true Marian devotee, the degree to which his soul is flooded with grace.
The analogy is likewise instructive as to the proper mode of evangelization for Catholics. If one’s sanctity consists in being Marianized, then hiding the truth about Our Lady amounts to concealing the means of sanctification. Obfuscating Mary’s necessity, beauty, and queenship, can be likened to hiding the truth about the Blessed Sacrament.
St. Maximilian’s formulation, “transubstantiation into the Immaculate,” also draws attention to the relationship between the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin. Eucharistic mediation is profoundly Marian, and Marian mediation cannot be other than Eucharistic. Jesus and Mary are indissolubly united, including in the Blessed Sacrament and, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate,” (12).
The Church and Our Lord are united in a spousal manner. As in all spousal unions, however, a real distinction remains. The Personhood of Christ is that of the Son of God, while the personality of the Church is strictly Marian. Herein lays the distinction between Christ and the Church. Reflection on this point cannot fail, however, to also shed light on the union between Christ and His Church, since, “Jesus and Mary always go together,” as St. Bernadette puts it.
The genius of St. Maximilian’s terminology lies, in part, in his succinctly locating the Christification of the Church (we might say, transubstantiation into the Eucharist), and each of its members, precisely in Marianization. The Holy Spirit is the “Soul” of the Church, and Our Lady is the Spouse, or better still, Quasi-Incarnation, of the Holy Spirit. This accounts for the Marian presence which pervades the entire Church, which Bl. John Paul II writes of in Redemptoris Mater. It also illustrates why sanctification‒ that is, Christification‒ can only mean Marianization.
The reflections and insights of the Franciscan saints on Our Lady have developed within a unique, yet thoroughly Catholic tradition. The thought of St. Maximilian is no exception. His insights, like those of St. Bonaventure, Bl. John Duns Scotus, St. Bernardine of Siena, and St. Leonard of Port Maurice, have developed in a manner congruous with the charism and spirituality of the Seraphic Father. It has rightly been said that Franciscan theology flows from the stigmatized heart of St. Francis.
The content of Franciscan Mariology can be found in the thought of St. Francis himself, albeit, stripped of academic terminology. He calls Our Lady the “Spouse of the Holy Spirit” rather than the Immaculate Conception; instead of Co-redemptrix, “Handmaid”; and rather than Type or Exemplar of the Church, “Virgin made Church.” These themes have formed the core of Franciscan Mariological thought, centered on the Immaculate Conception as the metaphysical basis for Marian mediation‒ both in its mode (virginal-maternal, whether we speak of the objective or subjective redemption) and in its end, namely, the growth of the Church and each of its members into the likeness of the Immaculate.
The thought of St. Maximilian represents a simple development in this Mariology. At San Damiano, Christ gave St. Francis, and the Franciscan Order, a mission: “Rebuild my Church.” Franciscans of every age have held that Mary, qua Immaculate Conception, is both the blueprint to be followed and the means of success in this mission.

Notes
(1) Bay Shore, NY: Montfort Publications, 2001, p. 112
(2) SK# 486
(3) SK# 1334
(4) SK# 508
(5) Bonamy, 63, quoting from Sketch by Kolbe, 1940
(6) Miles Immaculatae. I, 1938. Emphasis added
(7) H. M. Manteau-Bonamy, O.P., Immaculatae Conception and the Holy Spirit, trans. Richard Arnandez, F.S.C. (Kenosha, Wisc.: Prow Books/Franciscan Marytown Press, 1977), 2-3, quoting from Final Sketch
(8) Miles Immaculatae. I, 1938
(9) SK# 486
(10) SK# 1232
(11) SK# 485
(12) Mark 10:9

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

“I still have demons inside me”.


Man who Pope Francis allegedly performed an exorcism on claims to be still possessed - VIDEO

Mexican father-of-two says, “I still have demons inside me,” despite 30 exorcisms by 10 exorcists



Pope Francis I laying his hands on Mexican father-of-two, Angel V, at the Vatican on May 19. The Mexican man claims he is still possessed by demons.
Pope Francis I laying his hands on Mexican father-of-two, Angel V, at the Vatican on May 19. The Mexican man claims he is still possessed by demons.
Photo by TV2000




The 43-year-old Mexican father-of-two, identified only as Angel V, who Pope Francis prayed over at the Vatican on May 19, claims he is still possessed by demons.

Media and experts alike believed that the newly elected Pope had performed an exorcism of sorts on the then unidentified man, at St Peter’s Square in Rome. However the Pope’s prayers seem to have been in vain, the Mexican man told the Spanish Language newspaper, El Mundo.

Angel V said, “I still have demons inside me, they have not gone away.” He added that he did feel better since the Pope prayed over him.

He told the newspaper that he has undergone 30 exorcisms by ten exorcists to no avail. These exorcists included the renowned Roman exorcist Reverend Gabriel Amorth.

The father-of-two is able to walk but was in a wheelchair on that particular day, captured by TV2000, on Pentecost Sunday.

An exorcism is a casting out of evil spirits using a precise ritual.

On May 19 Pope Francis was seen “laying his hands” on Angel V. This is a very ancient practice going back to the Old Testament.

When the Pope laid his hands on Angel V his facial expressions and the fact that he was known to be possessed made it appear to be an exorcism. The Vatican denied this and said the Pope “did not intend to perform any exorcism" but prayed "for a suffering person who had been brought before him."

Angel V is married and lives in the state of Michoacán. He claims he has been possessed by demons since 1999.

Reverend Juan Rivas, a well-known Mexican priest, accompanied Angel V to Rome. He was with him when the Pope laid his hands on the allegedly possessed man.

He told El Mundo, “the demons that live in him do not want to leave him.”

Rivas, a member of the Legionaries of Christ, said Angel V kissed Pope Francis’ ring and then fell into a trance.

He said, “The Pope then laid his hands on his head and at that moment a terrible sound was heard (from him), like the roar of a lion.

“All those who were there heard it perfectly well. The Pope for sure heard it [but] he continued with his prayer, as if he had faced similar situations before.”

The Mexican father told El Mundo how he came to be possessed. He was on a bus in 1999 when he felt “an energy” enter the bus.

“I did not see it with my eyes, but I perceived it.

“I noted that it came close to me, and then stopped in front of me. Then, suddenly, I noted that something like a stake pierced my chest and, little by little, I had the sensation that it was opening my ribs.”

He said he thought he would die and thought he was having a heart attack.

From that day on his health deteriorated. He couldn’t keep food down, felt pain and needles all over. Then he began to have difficulty walking and breathing.

“I could not sleep, and when I managed to sleep I had terrible nightmares connected with the evil one,” he explained

Angel V also began falling into trances. While in these trances he would blaspheme and speak in tongues.

He said doctors “could not get to the cause of my problems.”

Priests gave Angel V the Extreme Unction (a sacrament administered to the sick) four times. Although it relieved his symptoms for a short while it did not remove them.

Angel V, still a strong Catholic, believes that the power of God will help him.

He said he lives with “much fear” and feels “very dirty at the thought that there was an evildoer within me.”

Over the past few years he has sought out exorcists but none of them have cast out his demons.

He said the possession has turned into a nightmare. He has lost his publicity business and some real estate. Happily his family have stood by him.

"Fortunately, my children have never seen me in a trance, though they know I am ill,” he explained.

Rev. Gabriel Amorth, an expert in exorcism who is based in Rome, believes that Angel V is possesed.

He said, “Not only is he possessed, but the devil who lives in him finds himself obliged by God to transmit a message," he said.

Amorth continued, “Angel is a good man. He has been chosen by the Lord to give a message to the Mexican clergy and to tell the bishops that they have to do an act of reparation for the law on abortion that was approved in Mexico City in 2007, which was an insult to the Virgin.

“Until they . . . do this, Angel will not be liberated.”

Here’s the clip:



Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Man-who-Pope-Francis-allegedly-performed-an-exorcism-on-claims-to-be-still-possessed----VIDEO-210049301.html#ixzz2VJMFOprA
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Monday, June 3, 2013

"Under the Sun" and the Rule of Time



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One of the fascinating things about the developing Covenant Creation model of Genesis creation is how theologians from virtually every background and tradition confirm, in various ways, the Covenant Creation approach.
The following excerpt is from an article published in the Catholic Biblical Quarterly (CBQ) in 2008. Consider how the author, Gerald Janzen, recognizes that “under the sun” in Ecclesiastes draws on Genesis 1 to describe “the sun’s delegated rule over time.” Of course, those who view the prophecy of Isaiah 60 (and Revelation 22) as fulfilled will recognize a covenant context that relates directly to Genesis 1. What is most remarkable is that this connection seems to be explicitly assumed by the author.
We think students of Covenant Creation will appreciate the following citation:
“It is as though God has revoked the rule over time that in Genesis 1 was delegated to the sun and the moon. While ‘darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples’ (v. 2), Israel is to dwell in the “everlasting light” of God’s direct rule over Israel’s times. One is reminded again of how, in Deut 32:8-9, God had delegated rule over the other nations to the gods whom those nations worshiped; how, in Psalm 82, that delegated rule is revoked as God assumes direct rule over the whole world; and then again, how the geopolitical arrangements in place for so long in the ancient Near East are brought to judgment in the cosmic trial scenes in Second Isaiah. That the image in Isa 60:19-20, in which God replaces the sun as Israel’s light, remains alive as an eschatological trope is evident from its reappearance in Rev 22:5, which says, ‘Night shall be no more; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.’”
-- Gerald Jansen
(Editor's Note: An interesting parallel passage to consider is Jeremiah 31:35-36.)
 
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