What Amy Was Doing Yesterday

Besides waiting at O'Hare late into the night to return home...

From The Courrier Post:

Following the remarks by the bishop, author and daily blogger Amy Welborn
echoed Galante's quest to listen to the laity, by asking reporters to do the
same.
The northern Indiana resident admonished the media to do a better job
of reporting what is going on within the Catholic Church.
The author of
De-Coding Da Vinci: The Facts Behind the Fiction of the Da Vinci Code said
reporters should talk more with parishioners, rather than focusing on a handful
of church experts.
Welborn said her 5-year-old blog (www.amywelborn.com) receives
about 10,000 unique visitors a day.
The response to her blog is a raw and
unedited look at what Catholic people around the world are thinking.
She
said her "hyperinformed Catholic" community of readers want journalists "to let
Catholics tell their own story."
If they had the chance, Catholics would
tell the media to "stop trying to label us as either conservative or liberal,"
Welborn said. "Stop trying to put labels to Catholic theological
questions."

From The Great Temptor

Visit his page and you'll find out what Augustine really didn't say too!

From What Does the Prayer Really Say:

His Eminence Dionigi Card. Tettamanzi wrote a book on “The Great Tempter” entitled in the original Italian Il Grande Tentatore (Edizioni Piemme, 2001). In this useful little volume, indeed on the book’s back cover, Card. Tettamanzi gives us ten salutary points by way of a “decalogue against temptation”:
1. Do not forget that the devil exists.
2. Do not forget that the devil is a tempter.
3. Do not forget that the devil is very intelligent and astute.
4. Be vigilant concerning your eyes and heart. Be strong in spirit and virtue.
5. Believe firmly in the victory of Christ over the tempter.
6. Remember that Christ makes you a participant in His victory.
7. Listen carefully to the word of God.
8. Be humble and love mortification.
9. Pray without flagging.
10. Love the Lord your God and offer worship to Him only.

Recommended Books

First for Apologetics:


For a modern Biblical understanding of St. Paul:



The Book that is outselling the Da Vinci Code in Paraguay:



And an excellent primer on Opus Dei by Scott Hahn (I read a galley of it):

Because of Heat, Pope Abbreviates

He's on the road to being a great one too!

He seemed a little hoarse and looked flushed toward the end of the Audience.

From Ansa Italy:

The heat on Wednesday got to Pope Benedict XVI, who cut short his address to a packed St. Peter's Square because of the soaring temperatures .

"Because it's too hot, I would like to abbreviate," the 79-year-old pope said .

His words were applauded by the some 25,000 sun-baked pilgrims gathered in the piazza for the pontiff's midweek audience .

The German-born pope's short homily focused on St. James the apostle .

Benedict urged Christians to "be ready to follow Christ, even when he asks us to leave the boat of our human securities" .

"If we follow Christ as St. James did, then we know that even when we encounter difficulties, we are on the right road," the pope concluded .

1. Et cum Spiritu tuo..."And with your spirit"

From the New Testament texts... Galatians 6:18 "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen" and 2 Timothy 4:22 "The Lord be with your spirit."


Fr. Joseph Jungman S. J. had two footnotes about the origin of this, one in which he called the phrase a Semitism that simply meant "and also with you" (which obviously is what the original ICEL translators focused on to arrive at the translation that we have been using over these past years). Yet another footnote alludes to the fact that this reply in the usage of the Church's liturgy was given only to a priest or bishop and that the implication was that the greeting was to the Holy Spirit that the ordained minister had received upon their ordination. St. John Chrysostom mentioned this in a homily and an early Council of the Church reinforced its meaning.

What saying "And With Your Spirit" can teach us...

The Liturgy is the work of the Holy Spirit, not the individual presider. In fact there is no "individuals" in the liturgy save the Body of Christ. Our response acknowledges the one Holy Spirit poured upon the presider and reminds us that the work we witness in this Eucharist is the Opus Dei...the work of God.

And with your Spirit...

Approved

Catechise your parish now...A New Translation of the Mass Prayers?

And it is about the Bible!!!

A Glimpse Inside the Conclave

From Cardinal Anthony Okogie of Lagos as reported in Catholic News:

Reminiscing on his first Conclave experience, the Cardinal said that if he was elected Pope he would have collapsed, explaining that to be elected Pope one must be able to speak more than four international languages.

"That place they call Conclave is a top secret place and I was going there for the first time, like many of the cardinals. I was filled with big awe. I felt as if I wasn't really in the world especially when they said 'everybody out of the room.'

"You will swear and after that they will read the rules and regulations and thereafter the ballot papers are distributed. There is no nomination," he explained.

Cardinal Okogie said that they were free to interact with anybody until the order is given for all that non-eligible electors to go out as the papers are distributed to the electors.

"I believe really that there is something supernatural about the Conclave," he said, wondering how everybody could be backing one particular individual but after the first ballot, that person's name would suddenly disappear.