Lex Anteinternet: A Papal Homily.

Lex Anteinternet: A Papal Homily.:  

A Papal Homily.

 CAPPELLA PAPALE

MASS

«PRO ELIGENDO ROMANO PONTIFICE»

HOMILY OF HIS EMINENCE CARD. JOSEPH RATZINGER

DEAN OF THE COLLEGE OF CARDINALS

Vatican Basilica

Monday 18 April 2005

At this moment of great responsibility, let us listen with special attention to what the Lord says to us in his own words. I would like to examine just a few passages from the three readings that concern us directly at this time.

The first one offers us a prophetic portrait of the person of the Messiah - a portrait that receives its full meaning from the moment when Jesus reads the text in the synagogue at Nazareth and says, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing" (Lk 4: 21).

At the core of the prophetic text we find a word which seems contradictory, at least at first sight. The Messiah, speaking of himself, says that he was sent "to announce a year of favour from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God" (Is 61: 2). We hear with joy the news of a year of favour: divine mercy puts a limit on evil, as the Holy Father told us. Jesus Christ is divine mercy in person: encountering Christ means encountering God's mercy.

Christ's mandate has become our mandate through the priestly anointing. We are called to proclaim, not only with our words but also with our lives and with the valuable signs of the sacraments, "the year of favour from the Lord".

But what does the prophet Isaiah mean when he announces "the day of vindication by our God"? At Nazareth, Jesus omitted these words in his reading of the prophet's text; he concluded by announcing the year of favour. Might this have been the reason for the outburst of scandal after his preaching? We do not know.

In any case, the Lord offered a genuine commentary on these words by being put to death on the cross. St Peter says: "In his own body he brought your sins to the cross" (I Pt 2: 24). And St Paul writes in his Letter to the Galatians: "Christ has delivered us from the power of the law's curse by himself becoming a curse for us, as it is written, "Accursed is anyone who is hanged on a tree'. This happened so that through Christ Jesus the blessing bestowed on Abraham might descend on the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, thereby making it possible for us to receive the promised Spirit through faith" (Gal 3: 13f.).

Christ's mercy is not a grace that comes cheap, nor does it imply the trivialization of evil. Christ carries the full weight of evil and all its destructive force in his body and in his soul. He burns and transforms evil in suffering, in the fire of his suffering love. The day of vindication and the year of favour converge in the Paschal Mystery, in the dead and Risen Christ. This is the vengeance of God: he himself suffers for us, in the person of his Son. The more deeply stirred we are by the Lord's mercy, the greater the solidarity we feel with his suffering - and we become willing to complete in our own flesh "what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Col 1: 24).

Let us move on to the second reading, the letter to the Ephesians. Here we see essentially three aspects: first of all, the ministries and charisms in the Church as gifts of the Lord who rose and ascended into heaven; then, the maturing of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God as the condition and content of unity in the Body of Christ; and lastly, our common participation in the growth of the Body of Christ, that is, the transformation of the world into communion with the Lord.

Let us dwell on only two points. The first is the journey towards "the maturity of Christ", as the Italian text says, simplifying it slightly. More precisely, in accordance with the Greek text, we should speak of the "measure of the fullness of Christ" that we are called to attain if we are to be true adults in the faith. We must not remain children in faith, in the condition of minors. And what does it mean to be children in faith? St Paul answers: it means being "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine" (Eph 4: 14). This description is very timely!

How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true.

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.

We, however, have a different goal: the Son of God, the true man. He is the measure of true humanism. An "adult" faith is not a faith that follows the trends of fashion and the latest novelty; a mature adult faith is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ. It is this friendship that opens us up to all that is good and gives us a criterion by which to distinguish the true from the false, and deceipt from truth.

We must develop this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith - only faith - that creates unity and is fulfilled in love.

On this theme, St Paul offers us as a fundamental formula for Christian existence some beautiful words, in contrast to the continual vicissitudes of those who, like children, are tossed about by the waves: make truth in love. Truth and love coincide in Christ. To the extent that we draw close to Christ, in our own lives too, truth and love are blended. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like "a clanging cymbal" (I Cor 13: 1).

Let us now look at the Gospel, from whose riches I would like to draw only two small observations. The Lord addresses these wonderful words to us: "I no longer speak of you as slaves.... Instead, I call you friends" (Jn 15: 15). We so often feel, and it is true, that we are only useless servants (cf. Lk 17: 10).

Yet, in spite of this, the Lord calls us friends, he makes us his friends, he gives us his friendship. The Lord gives friendship a dual definition. There are no secrets between friends: Christ tells us all that he hears from the Father; he gives us his full trust and with trust, also knowledge. He reveals his face and his heart to us. He shows us the tenderness he feels for us, his passionate love that goes even as far as the folly of the Cross. He entrusts himself to us, he gives us the power to speak in his name: "this is my body...", "I forgive you...". He entrusts his Body, the Church, to us.

To our weak minds, to our weak hands, he entrusts his truth - the mystery of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the mystery of God who "so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (Jn 3: 16). He made us his friends - and how do we respond?

The second element Jesus uses to define friendship is the communion of wills. For the Romans "Idem velle - idem nolle" [same desires, same dislikes] was also the definition of friendship. "You are my friends if you do what I command you" (Jn 15: 14). Friendship with Christ coincides with the third request of the Our Father: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". At his hour in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus transformed our rebellious human will into a will conformed and united with the divine will. He suffered the whole drama of our autonomy - and precisely by placing our will in God's hands, he gives us true freedom: "Not as I will, but as you will" (Mt 26: 39).

Our redemption is brought about in this communion of wills: being friends of Jesus, to become friends of God. The more we love Jesus, the more we know him, the more our true freedom develops and our joy in being redeemed flourishes. Thank you, Jesus, for your friendship!

The other element of the Gospel to which I wanted to refer is Jesus' teaching on bearing fruit: "It was I who chose you to go forth and bear fruit. Your fruit must endure" (Jn 15: 16).

It is here that appears the dynamism of the life of a Christian, an apostle: I chose you to go forth. We must be enlivened by a holy restlessness: a restlessness to bring to everyone the gift of faith, of friendship with Christ. Truly, the love and friendship of God was given to us so that it might also be shared with others. We have received the faith to give it to others - we are priests in order to serve others. And we must bear fruit that will endure.

All people desire to leave a lasting mark. But what endures? Money does not. Even buildings do not, nor books. After a certain time, longer or shorter, all these things disappear. The only thing that lasts for ever is the human soul, the human person created by God for eternity.

The fruit that endures is therefore all that we have sown in human souls: love, knowledge, a gesture capable of touching hearts, words that open the soul to joy in the Lord. So let us go and pray to the Lord to help us bear fruit that endures. Only in this way will the earth be changed from a valley of tears to a garden of God.

To conclude, let us return once again to the Letter to the Ephesians. The Letter says, with words from Psalm 68, that Christ, ascending into heaven, "gave gifts to men" (Eph 4: 8). The victor offers gifts. And these gifts are apostles, pro-phets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Our ministry is a gift of Christ to humankind, to build up his body - the new world. We live out our ministry in this way, as a gift of Christ to humanity!

At this time, however, let us above all pray insistently to the Lord that after his great gift of Pope John Paul II, he will once again give us a Pastor according to his own heart, a Pastor who will guide us to knowledge of Christ, to his love and to true joy. Amen.

From the Vatican Website, emphais added..

Blog Mirror: Lex Anteinternet: Our Lady Derzhavnaya, Icon, found in Kolomenskoye, Russia after having been lost during the Napoleonic invasion

Our Lady Derzhavnaya, Icon, found in Kolomenskoye, Russia after having been lost during Napoleonic invasion.

Our Lady Derzhavnaya, icon.

The Our Lady Derzhavnaya, "the Reigning Icon" was found on this date in 1917 in  Kolomenskoye, Russia.

The icon is believed to have been painted in the 18th Century by an unknown iconographer.  It was removed from Ascension Convent in Moscow province during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia  and hidden in the village church in Kolomenskoye, where it was forgotten.  On this date, in 1917, peasant woman Evdokia Adrianova, from the village of Pererva in Moscow Province, related that she had a dream in which the Blessed Virgin appeared and instructed her to go to the village of Kolomenskoye, where she would find an old icon which, "will change color from black to red."  She did in fact travel to Kolomenskoye and related her story to the village priest who accepted her story and helped her search. They found the icon, which was covered with candle soot, and discovered upon taking it outside that the icon depicted the Blessed Virgin wearing a red robe and with regal symbols.  Because of the day of the event, Russian Orthodox faithful have interpreted the appearance in connection with the abdication of Czar Nicholas II on the same day.

The icon has also been associated by some with the Marian apparitions at Fatima that commenced on May 13, 1917.  This is so much the case that the the Reigning Icon and the Theotokos of Port Arthur icon have been twice taken to Fatima, once in 2003 and once in 2014, a fairly remarkable effort given their age and the degree of attachment to them by the Russian Orthodox, particularly Russian Orthodox emigres, and all the more remarkable given Fatima's strong association with Catholicism..  The icon today is installed in the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral.

Theotokos of Port Arthur icon, which also was taken to Fatima in 2003 and 2014 by Russian Orthodox faithful and which had also been lost.  It was found in 1998 by Russian Orthodox pilgrims in a Jerusalem antique shop.

Catholic Co Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Houston Texas

This is  the new Co Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, which replaced the old one in 2005.  The new cathedral is a very large church located just one block from the old cathedral.

St. Anthony's Tri-Parish School, Casper Wyoming

This is not a church, but it is a school that includes a chapel. This is the current St. Anthony's Tri-Parish school, a grade school and middle school.

The original St. Anthony's School was located in the downtown area of Casper, but that school, having been built in 1927, was worn out by the 2000s. The new school, built with substantial private donations, is a much more modern school and quite a bit larger. Located on the grounds where Our Lady of Fatima Church is located, this structure is an impressive modern school.

The photo above is the old school, which is no longer used.

Cornerstone at the old St. Anthony's school with the phrase "For God and Country" in Latin. This also gives the year of construction, 1927, but that is difficult to see in this photograph.

Peace pole at the old St. Anthony's school.

Updated:  December 7, 2014.

Private Chapel, Pathfinder Ranch, Wyoming

Private churches or chapels were once common in England, but they're rare in the United States, and particularly rare in the Western United Statas, but here's an example, a private chapel on the large Pathfinder Ranch in Natrona and Carbon Counties, Wyoming.

These photographs were taken from just off the highway, when I had to stop to make a cell phone call, and are taken with two different lenses, one being the Pentax lens my K-x came equipped with, and the other being a Vivitar telephoto lens built for a Pentax film camera. Pentax digital DSLs will use the old Pentax bayonet mount lenses if the camera is set on the manual settings.

Unknown Church, Centerra Colorado

These are terrible photographs, but they sort of demonstrate a current trend in American life. This is a very large church, just off of Interstate 25, near Centerra Colorado.

Centerra is an area north of Denver that's being developed heavily, and which features shopping just off the Interstate. This church must serve the local community, adn I dn't knkow anything else about it.

St. James the Less Catholic Church, Ulupalakua, Maui Hawaii

This is St. James the Less Catholic Church in Ulupalakua, Maui, Hawaii.  It's a mission church served by Our Lady Queen of Angels, which is actually fairly close to it on the same highway.  Being used to the large distances of most rural areas of the West, to find two churches of the same faith so close together is surprising, but even in such locations as Denver Colorado that still occurs, so perhaps this should not be surprising.  This church is actually older that Our Lady Queen of Angels and the original church built in this location was constructed at least as early as 1875, with missionary activity having dated back to the 1850s.  The current structure was built in 1950 and renovated in 2002.

Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, Casper Wyoming

This Church was put in place in the early 1950s due to the expansion of the City of Casper, and has an unusual history.

The church itself was built during World War Two, and served as the Casper Air Base chapel, at what is now the Natrona County International Airport. When the population of Casper expanded in the 1940s, making a second Catholic church necessary, the real property where this church was located was purchased from Harry Yesness, with 10 acres of ground being acquired. The church itself was moved from the airport to this location in 1953.

Upon being moved, the church was substantially reconstructed and remodeled. Additionally, remodeling occurred in the past decade, given the church it's current appearance. The substantial grounds upon which the church is located originally included a small rectory, an office building, and a very small school. However, the school was never used as such. More recently (last year) St. Anthony's Tri Parish School was built on these grounds, and the city's only Catholic school is, therefore, located on the Our Lady of Fatima grounds.

Interior, Christmas Eve Mass, December 24, 2023.

Epilog:

I recently ran across this photograph of what is now Our Lady of Fatima at the Wyoming Veterans Museum at the Natrona County International Airport.   This photograph depicts the church as it appeared at the time it was an Army Air Corps Base Chapel.

This is an item, also as the Wyoming Veterans Museum, for base services. 

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, Fort Collins Colorado.

I had the digital SLR on a completely incorrect setting at the time this photograph was taken, so it's a truly horrible photograph, which is unfortunate as this is a very impressive church. I'd really hoped to get a good photograph of this church, and I should have checked the stored photo before ceasing to take further photographs.

This is a very new church, was built in 2005, and is very modern, and my guess would be that it is less than 20 years old.

The following photo, taken at this church, was taken with an Ipod.

Mary Queen of Heaven Roman Catholic Church, Chugwater Wyoming

This is Mary Queen of Heaven Roman Catholic Church in Chugwater, Wyoming. Chugwater is a small ranching town in southeastern Wyoming and this church is served by the priest in Wheatland Wyoming, which is some distance to the north.

This is a fairly new church, having been built in 1999-2000, replacing an older church built in the 1920s.