No Greater Love Than This...

Jonathan Daniels remembered in Alabama From the Montgomery Advertiser:

Episcopalians from across the country gathered in Hayneville on Saturday to honor the memory of a seminary student who gave his life to protect a young black girl during the height of the civil rights movement.

His name was Jonathan Daniels and the fateful step he took that hot August day 46 years ago is memorialized every year in this Lowndes County town.

Named a martyr within the Episcopal Church, Daniels has become the focal point of a movement that claimed several lives in 1965 and eventually led to passage of the Voting Rights Act.

Daniels grew up in the small city where I was born. Amy and I visited Hayneville some years ago specifically to see where this had happened--the place looked frozen in history. Read Outside Agitator for the story.

Pope Gives Advice on How to Vacation

From Asia News Italy:

The pope did not fall short of giving some advice about how to utilize vacation time, an opportunity for “cultural meetings, for prolonged moments of prayer and contemplation in contact with nature or in monasteries or religious structures. Having more free time means one can dedicate oneself with greater ease to dialogue with God, to meditation of the Sacred Scripture and to reading some useful formative book. Who undergoes this experience of repose of the spirit knows how useful it is not to reduce the holidays merely to fun and enjoyment.”

Holidays are also a time to “spend more time with relatives, to rediscover family and friends” and to “nourish ourselves with the Eucharist”. The pope said: “The faithful participation in the Sunday Eucharistic celebration helps us... to feel an active part of the ecclesial community, even when one is away from one’s parish. Wherever we find ourselves, we always need to nourish ourselves with the Eucharist. We are reminded of this by the gospel pages this Sunday, which present Jesus as the Bread of Life. He himself, according to the evangelist John, proclaims that he is the ‘living bread from heaven’ (cfr Jn 6:31), the bread that nourishes our faith and feeds communion among all Christians.”

Happy 25th EWTN!

My picture on the right from my visit to Mother Angelica's Blessed Sacrament Monastery last January...
From Ventura County Star:

Twenty-five years ago, Mother Mary Angelica had a vision for Eternal Word Television Network, a channel offering nothing but Roman Catholic programming. She had little more than faith, $200 and a garage to use as a studio.

Now EWTN Global Catholic Network is available in 127 countries and more than 118 million households, and is capping a celebration of its founding in 1981. With viewers from Illinois to India, the satellite channel has grown to include radio and the Internet, and bills itself as the largest religious media network in the world.

Italian Bestseller Cause for Concern in Vatican

From the Times UK Online:

The former Communist, whose mother was a devout Catholic, outlines a philosophy of Indian spirituality, communion with nature and “the harmony of opposites” that he said helped him in his fight against cancer. He deplores the impact of Western materialism on Asia and describes how his growing pacifism made him a bitter opponent of war, and especially of the Bush Administration’s War on Terror.

This week Avvenire, Italy’s leading Catholic daily, accused Terzani of “leading people astray”. He had “completely lost sight of the incarnate and historical dimension of religious experience”. Alessandro Gnocchi, a Catholic author and television presenter, accused Terzani in the conservative newspaper Libero of peddling “a confused mixture of Oriental philosophy, Marxism and Christianity” that muddled “St Francis with Zen Buddhism”.

Vatican sources said that this was anathema to Pope Benedict XVI, who, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, warned of the dangers of trying to reconcile Oriental and New Age spirituality with Catholicism.

August 22nd Doomsday for Israel?

From Newsmax:

Noted Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis warns that Iran is preparing for
an apocalyptic "end of time” – and that it could come as soon as August 22.

The July 28 edition of NewsMax’s Insider Report pointed to the connection between that date, when Iran leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would respond to Western demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program, and a possible attack on Israel.

Now Lewis, professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton,
writes about that scenario. He notes in the Wall Street Journal that this year, August 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the night when Muhammad flew first to "the farthest mosque” – usually identified with Jerusalem – and then to heaven and back.

On a more hopeful note:
August 22nd is also the Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Electric Prayer Blog

Interesting blog by those who post the Liturgy texts online at universalis.com:

Electric Prayer

Christendom Conference on Pope Benedict

On liturgy, scripture with Cardinal Arinze, Fr. Groeschel, Hellen Hull Hitchcock and others...from Christendom College:

Fr. Benedict Groeschel, the internationally loved speaker and writer, presented a lecture on "Benedict XVI and Biblical Exegesis." Fr. Groeschel decried modern biblical exegesis that does not deal with Scripture on a theological plane. He cited the source of improper biblical exegesis as rationalism, which uses mathematical methods in philosophy, holding that only that which can be observed by the human senses and deduced by human reason is true.

"This way of thinking entered the schools of biblical scholars, resulting in a widespread skepticism, creating a desire to get rid of the mythological. But Catholics did not fall prey to this very easily. The dogmas of the Catholic faith from tradition held that the Word of God, the Scriptures, are unerring substantially and they are given to us, no matter their origins, to guide us on our way to salvation. Many Protestant churches did not have that anchor, so skepticism came in," he said.

"Scripture study grew further and further away from hermeneutics, which is the study of Scripture to make it an effective preaching and teaching tool," Groeschel continued. "Contemporary Scripture studies are about as scientific as examining the entrails of a dead chicken by the full moon in order to predict the weather the next day. It's not scientific!

"This way of thinking is dead!" Fr. Groeschel exclaimed. "Theories of a historical Jesus and a Christ of faith are not being taught in schools anymore. It is mentioned only in the pulpit these days, because people are not 'keeping up on things.' If you hear it from the pulpit you should approach the preacher and ask him if he believes in alchemy as well," Groeschel said.