Flashback to December

Palm Sunday and the Pope's Appeal to the World

Pope Benedict appeals to the world to look to Christ:

“If God’s words and the Church’s message leave you indifferent – then look to me, to the God who made himself flesh to suffer for you and with you, - see that I suffer for your love and open yourself to me and God the Father”.

A summary of his homily...

First of all, the procession of the Palms, is “an expression of joy because we can know Christ, because he allows us to be his friends and gifts us the key to life”. The Pope added “Yes, we have seen and still see the wonders of Christ, how He leads men and women to give up the comfort of their own lives and put themselves completely at the service of those who are suffering, how He gives men and women the courage to oppose violence and lies and make room in the world for truth; how He, in secret, leads men and women to do good for others to seek reconciliation where there was hate, to make peace were there was conflict”. The Pope said that the procession is a profession of “Jesus Christ King”, asking for the “grace to follow Him”.

The Pope then explained “what “following Christ” means in concrete terms”. He said “It means changing our interior existence. It requires us not to close in on ourselves considering our own relationship with the exterior world our principal reason for living. It requires that we gift ourselves to Another – for truth, for love, for God who, in Christ precedes us and shows us the way. It means making the fundamental decisions to no longer consider utility and earnings, career and success as the ultimate aim of my life, but rather to recognise as authentic criteria truth and love. It means deciding between a lives spent living for oneself or a life gifted – for a greater cause. It means taken into serious consideration that truth and love are not abstract values; they became flesh in Christ. By losing myself in Him, I find myself”.

Benedict XVI then commented on one of the hymns sung during the procession of the Palms, psalm 24 [23], which speaks of “going up the mountain of the Lord”, as an expression of going up towards God, in an “interior” and “exterior” sense. The Pope highlighted the “two essential conditions” to in becoming a disciple of Christ, and to “go up the mountain of the Lord”. The first is to “search for God, to look for his Face”. He referred himself particularly to the young people “Dear young friends – how important this is in today’s world: don’t let yourselves be simply led without direction in life; don’t content yourselves with what others think or say or do. Look intently around yourselves in your search for God. Don’t allow the call to God to dissolves itself in your souls. Desire that which is the greatest of all. Desire to know Him – his Face”.

“The other concrete condition in rising up to God is this: only those of “innocent hands and pure heart” may stay in the holy place. Innocent hands - are hands that are not used for acts ofviolence they are hands that are not sullied by corruption and bribes. Pure hearts – when is a heart pure? Hearts are pure when they are not stained by lies and hypocrisy. Which remains as clear as spring water because it does not know duality. A heart is pure when it is estranged from the intoxication of pleasure; a heart for which love is true and not just the passion of a moment. Innocent hands and clean heart: if we walk together with Christ, we will rise and find the purifications which truly bring us to that height to which man is destined: friendship with God Himself.

Benedict XVI then recalled another symbol – now no longer in use – of the Palm Sunday procession, when the priest on his arrival at the door “smote the closed door with the processional cross, which then opened before him” . The Pope explained “the image beautifully depicted the mystery of Christ who, with the wood of his cross, the strength of his love gifted to us, knocked from the world on God’s door; a world that was failing to find access to God”.

The Pontiff concluded “with the cross Christ burst open the door to God, the door between God and humankind. Now it is open. But also from the other side our Lord is knocking with his cross: he is knocking on the world’s door, on the door to our hearts, which all too often and often in great numbers remains closed to God”.

Almost in an appeal to all of the world’s “indifferent” – made so by too much science or too much pain – Benedict XVI added that Christ “ speaks to us more or less in this way: if the proof that God gives you of His existence in creation fails to open you to Him; if God’s word and the Church’s message leave you indifferent – then look at me, at the God who made himself flesh to suffer for you, with you – see that I suffer for your love and open yourself to me and God the Father”.

Rapping Catholic Priest hits Brisbane

From Brisbane Times:

A rapping Catholic priest from New York will be "wording it up" to the converted in Brisbane tonight and Sydney on Sunday.

Father Stan Fortuna, from New York's South Bronx district, brings his Activ8 concerts to warm up Australia prior to the World Youth Day event in Sydney in July next year.

Father Stan is known for his "unique musical style and inspirational lyrics".

His musical style is said to draw inspiration from contemporary jazz, folk, reggae and rap.

Vatican Treasures Found In Illinois House?

From CBS Channel 2 in Chicago:

There's something strange going on in a west suburban neighborhood. As CBS 2’s Rafael Romo reports, rumors are flying that priceless art from the Vatican may be inside a Berwyn home.

“By the time I came home from work the place was just swarming with police inside and out and they've been staking the place out each and every night since then,” said Greg Baroni, who lives next door to the house that may be holding a mystery.

Berwyn police have been standing guard outside the house, on Elmwood Avenue, for the last three days.But they are not saying what has been found inside the home that belonged to an Italian man in his late 70s who died last Thursday.

“He was a bank teller at Taylor Street for his whole life, as far as I know. I think he came here in the late 50s and I believe he owned the house since 1963,” Baroni said.

Search Inside My Novena Book

I would recommend taking a look inside my novena prayer book and reading the history behind some of these prayers...

Go to...

The Church's Most Powerful Novenas

Then do a search of:

St. Gaspar

Rosary Novena

Mother Teresa's Quick Novena

I think you'll be impressed and see that this isn't your normal prayer book.

"I was ill and now I am cured"

The irony that the miracle would be a cure from Parkinsons, from which the pope suffered himself, horribly.

From Monsters and Critics:

'I was ill and now I am cured,' French Catholic nun Sister Marie Simon-Pierre said Friday as she recounted how praying to the late Pope John Paul II helped cure her of Parkinson's disease in 2005.

'I am cured. It is the work of God through the intercession of John Paul II,' the 46-year-old woman told journalists in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence. 'It is something very powerful, very difficult to put into words.'

Sister Marie's recovery from the degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, for which no known cure exists, is to be described as a miracle that the late pope performed, two months after his death, and could be used as a basis for his eventual beatification.

On Sunday, an announcement to that effect is scheduled to be made in Sister Marie's diocese of Aix-en-Provence.

Sister Marie, who is a member of an order of nuns working in Catholic maternity hospitals, was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2002. She said Friday that her disease worsened after Pope John Paul II's death, on April 2, 2005.

She went on to say how she and her entire order then prayed for her continuously, using the late pope as an intermediary, and how she was suddenly cured on the night of June 2, two months after John Paul II died.

'It is up to the Church to make a declaration and to acknowledge that it is a miracle,' Sister Marie said.

The Way of the Cross from Brooklyn to Manhattan

From The Brooklyn Paper:

Walking from Brooklyn to Manhattan is always an experience. On April 6, however, a procession over the bridge will be a religious one.

The Catholic lay group Communion and Liberation will, for the 12th year, bring the “Good Friday Way of the Cross Procession” from St. James Cathedral to St. Peter’s in Lower Manhattan.

The march is led by Brooklyn’s Bishop Ignatius Catanello and Bay Ridge resident Jonathan Fields, who will carry a four-foot, 10-pound wooden cross across the bridge. Along the way, it will include songs from the Communion and Liberation choir as well as readings from the Gospels.