Sunday, June 30, 2013
New-media evangelist Father Robert Barron says the dream of Vatican II is still unrealized: that Catholics in every walk of life embrace the missionary call to proclaim Jesus Christ to the world outside their doorsteps.
Father Barron, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, theologian and the founder of the media apostolate Word on Fire Ministry, has followed up his 10-part award-winning documentary series Catholicism.
The second part, called Catholicism: The New Evangelization, will debut this fall and addresses both the challenges the Catholic Church faces in bringing the Gospel to contemporary society and the innovative ways Catholics are helping others encounter Jesus Christ.
Father Barron spoke with the Register June 19 at the Catholic Media Conference in Denver, where he was the keynote speaker, and he shared his thoughts about the New Evangelization and why discovering the authentic spirit of Vatican II is the key to its success.
Father, one thing that’s been on the minds of many Catholics is the “New Evangelization.” We talk about it, but many of us really still don’t quite understand what it means. What do you think is the essence of the New Evangelization?
I agree with you. I think that term has been floating around for a long time, but it’s vaguely defined. What I’ve done is follow John Paul II, who, in 1983, said the New Evangelization is the Old Evangelization — meaning declaring Jesus Christ is Lord — but it’s new in ardor, new in expression and new in method.
The new ardor — I think [John Paul II] saw a new recovery of Vatican II’s missionary spirit. I came of age right after Vatican II, so I know the Church was not an ardent Church. It was dissenting, doubting, wondering about itself and unsure about itself. John Paul, I think, sensed that and said we needed a new ardor, a new fire, a new confidence: the Vatican II missionary spirit.
New in expression — and this is something I think about a lot in dealing with the secular culture, the New Atheists and all that. You have to find new ways to express the age-old faith: so certain areas like how to understand God and Jesus, how to express the Church and how to express salvation in a way that people today are going to find compelling.
What attitude should we have in order to keep the New Evangelization “new” or fresh?
We should have that confidence or conviction that we are entering mission territory whenever we step outside our own homes, even in the United States of America. We have to have this ardor born of the faith in the Resurrection and be finding new ways to express this age-old faith.
Like with technology?
No, that’s more methods. That’s the third step. I would say this one is more theological.
Really?
Yes. How do you say that God is worthwhile to a culture that thinks God is a medieval superstition or an afterthought? How do you say the Bible is the central book of your life to a culture that says the Bible is just old superstitions? How do you say that the Church’s sexual teaching is liberating when the culture sees it is as enslaving? So that’s the challenge: to read the cultural signs and, working with those, find a new way to say it.
How is it new in method?
That’s where the media come in, I think. We’ve had this explosion of media, the greatest that’s happened in 500 years. The Church has to be willing and able to use all these methods of communication to get the message out.
So in the video [Catholicism: The New Evangelization], I explore and present a number of those approaches.
You would say the Church ignores these new methods to its peril, right?
Oh, absolutely. We have to be on the cutting edge of it. We shouldn’t be just catching up, and for too long — even though Fulton Sheen was the pioneer — we got behind. I want the Catholic Church to be on the cutting edge of new technology.
It’s interesting. You’ve mentioned how the vision of the Second Vatican Council has not been realized yet, but being on the cutting edge of communications is exactly what Vatican II talked about in Inter Mirifica, the decree on social communications. Why are we so behind?
I think what happened is we lost the missionary verve of the Council and turned inward. Vatican II was an outward-looking Council. It was trying to get the Church to be a more apt vehicle for the “Christofication” of the world. But its focus was not so much inside, but outside. What happened though, in the wake of the Council, for all kinds of reasons, is that we tended to turn inward.
That self-referential Church Pope Francis has been talking about?
Exactly. When I was a kid, it looked like “unsure of this, unsure of that; we’re reassessing this; we’re re-examining that. What do we hold about sex, authority, Jesus?” ... That’s not what Vatican II wanted. If you read the texts themselves, you see this missionary élan, this missionary spirit. And I think that’s the new ardor that John Paul insisted upon.
What did you decide would make Word on Fire Ministries different from existing, traditional Catholic evangelization efforts?
I guess it was the use of the new media. There were some presence of Catholics on radio and TV — and, obviously, EWTN [parent company of the Register] made a huge contribution there — but the new media was not being exploited adequately, and I thought Word on Fire could do that.
How should we see the relationship between the bishops and the laity in the New Evangelization? If the old model was “pray, pay and obey,” then what does Pope Francis and the Council expect of laypeople?
To be a great Catholic businessman, to be a great Catholic businesswoman, to be a great Catholic journalist, a great Catholic doctor, a great Catholic nurse, a great Catholic politician. Not just in name, but that it informs everything that you’re doing.
Bishops and priests can’t do that. We’re priests, prophets and kings: We teach, sanctify and govern, but the governance, the teaching and the sanctifying is for the sake of sending: “Go; now you’ve been sanctified, taught and governed. Go into the world and change it.” But again, that, too, has been unrealized.
Who’s a good patron saint for the New Evangelization?
Ours is [St. Thérèse] the Little Flower. I think she is a saint for the New Evangelization. She wanted to be a missionary. She had that heart of love to carry it out into the world. Fulton Sheen — we have a picture of him in our Word on Fire office — he’s a great patron saint, obviously, for the use of the media.
At Mundelein [Seminary, where Father Barron is rector], we’re redoing our house chapel, which has never been named for a saint, and I’m naming it for John Paul II, and I’m going to fill the windows with 16 evangelists who have some connection to him.
So I claim those three: the Little Flower, Fulton Sheen and John Paul II.
You were appointed rector at Mundelein Seminary. How is that going so far?
So far, so good. I’ve liked it. I wasn’t expecting it at all. It was a complete surprise. We had just come out with the Catholicism series, we were planning this new video, and the office was going strong — when the Cardinal [Francis George] asked me to come out and be rector of the seminary.
But I honestly have enjoyed it.
Any challenges?
Yeah, a lot of challenges. We’d actually changed a lot and done a lot the first year. What I’ve tried to do is give the whole seminary a New Evangelization focus. That’s what we’re about: We’re creating priests for the New Evangelization — so the formation program and the academic program I’ve kind of revamped to get them ordered that way.
The John Paul II Chapel has been a big priority of mine. We’ve also changed from a quarter system to a semester system to make it more contemplative. So (there are) a lot of things we’ve done to give it that New Evangelization focus.
We’ve talked a lot about truth in the New Evangelization, but what’s the role of beauty?
I think we should lead with beauty. It’s the Catholic strong suit, and it’s the transcendental that has the least offensive quality today. I think when you lead with the true and the good, people today tend to get defensive in a postmodern context.
But if you lead with beauty, it’s less threatening. It’s more winsome, and that’s our strong suit. We are a beautiful religion.
Thank you so much, Father. And good luck on the second Catholicism series on the New Evangelization. Do you have plans for a third in the future?
Thank you! We have one that we are cooking that I’m calling “the Pivotal Players.” This will take me around the world again to talk about the 10 or 12 key figures in Catholic history who have shaped the Catholic imagination. So that’s something we're thinking about, and we’re looking forward to it.
The following comes from the American Catholic site:
There were Christians in Rome within a dozen or so years after the death of Jesus, though they were not the converts of the “Apostle of the Gentiles” (Romans 15:20). Paul had not yet visited them at the time he wrote his great letter in a.d. 57-58.
There was a large Jewish population in Rome. Probably as a result of controversy between Jews and Jewish Christians, the Emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from Rome in 49-50 A.D. Suetonius the historian says that the expulsion was due to disturbances in the city “caused by the certain Chrestus” [Christ]. Perhaps many came back after Claudius’s death in 54 A.D. Paul’s letter was addressed to a Church with members from Jewish and Gentile backgrounds.
In July of 64 A.D., more than half of Rome was destroyed by fire. Rumor blamed the tragedy on Nero, who wanted to enlarge his palace. He shifted the blame by accusing the Christians. According to the historian Tacitus, many Christians were put to death because of their “hatred of the human race.” Peter and Paul were probably among the victims.
Threatened by an army revolt and condemned to death by the senate, Nero committed suicide in 68 A.D. at the age of 31.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
After processing into the basilica with the thirty-four new metropolitans and hearing the readings, Pope Francis delivered a homily in which he focused on the mystery of the Petrine ministry as one particularly ordered to confirming all Christians everywhere in faith, love and unity. “Faith in Christ,” said Pope Francis, “is the light of our life as Christians.“ Addressing himself to the new metropolitans, the Pope said, “To confess the Lord by letting oneself be taught by God; to be consumed by love for Christ and his Gospel; to be servants of unity. These, dear brother bishops, are the tasks which the holy apostles Peter and Paul entrust to each of us, so that they can be lived by every Christian.”
This was a theme to which the Holy Father returned after Mass, in remarks to the faithful gathered in St Peter's square for the Angelus prayer. “What a joy it is to believe in a God who is all Love, all Grace,” he said. Also at the Angelus, Pope Francis also greeted the delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, led by Metropolitan Ioannis Zizoulas. “Let us not forget that Peter had a brother, Andrew,” said Pope Francis, “who met Jesus first, spoke of Him to Peter and took Peter to meet [the Lord].”
Then Pope Francis asked all the gathered faithful to join him in praying a Hail Mary for Patriarch Bartholomew.
In conclusion, the Holy Father greeted all the pilgrim faithful who, from every part of the world, were come to celebrate the feast in Rome.
The following comes from the CNA:On Tuesday, June 29, the Church will celebrate the feast day of Sts. Peter & Paul. As early as the year 258, there is evidence of an already lengthy tradition of celebrating the solemnities of both Saint Peter and Saint Paul on the same day. Together, the two saints are the founders of the See of Rome, through their preaching, ministry and martyrdom there.
Peter, who was named Simon, was a fisherman of Galilee and was introduced to the Lord Jesus by his brother Andrew, also a fisherman. Jesus gave him the name Cephas (Petrus in Latin), which means ‘Rock,’ because he was to become the rock upon which Christ would build His Church.
Peter was a bold follower of the Lord. He was the first to recognize that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” and eagerly pledged his fidelity until death. In his boldness, he also made many mistakes, however, such as losing faith when walking on water with Christ and betraying the Lord on the night of His passion.
Yet despite his human weaknesses, Peter was chosen to shepherd God's flock. The Acts of the Apostles illustrates his role as head of the Church after the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. Peter led the Apostles as the first Pope and ensured that the disciples kept the true faith.
St. Peter spent his last years in Rome, leading the Church through persecution and eventually being martyred in the year 64. He was crucified upside-down at his own request, because he claimed he was not worthy to die as his Lord.
He was buried on Vatican hill, and St. Peter's Basilica is built over his tomb.
St. Paul was the Apostle of the Gentiles. His letters are included in the writings of the New Testament, and through them we learn much about his life and the faith of the early Church.
Before receiving the name Paul, he was Saul, a Jewish pharisee who zealously persecuted Christians in Jerusalem. Scripture records that Saul was present at the martyrdom of St. Stephen.
Saul's conversion took place as he was on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christian community there. As he was traveling along the road, he was suddenly surrounded by a great light from heaven. He was blinded and fell off his horse. He then heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” He answered: “Who are you, Lord?” Christ said: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
Saul continued to Damascus, where he was baptized and his sight was restored. He took the name Paul and spent the remainder of his life preaching the Gospel tirelessly to the Gentiles of the Mediterranean world.
Paul was imprisoned and taken to Rome, where he was beheaded in the year 67.
He is buried in Rome in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
In a sermon in the year 295, St. Augustine of Hippo said of Sts. Peter and Paul: “Both apostles share the same feast day, for these two were one; and even though they suffered on different days, they were as one. Peter went first, and Paul followed. And so we celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles' blood. Let us embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.”
Friday, June 28, 2013
In the question period after a talk I’d given on my new book, American Church, a woman raised an important point: “If the Church in the U.S. faces as many problems as you say, why is it doing so much better here than in much of Europe?”
Great question. My answer–which I also give in the book–was along these lines:
“It has a lot to do with the First Amendment principle of separation of Church and State. Yes, I know–’separation’ sometimes is used as a club by secularists who want to drive religion out of the public square. But on the whole it’s been a great blessing for the Church and for religion in America.
“For one thing, church-state separation has generally kept government out of religious affairs, while also keeping clerics out of inappropriate involvement in politics. In combination with Cardinal Gibbons’ wise decision to embrace the emerging labor movement in the late 19th century, this spared the Church the sort of virulent anticlericalism found in countries like France, Spain, and even ‘Catholic’ Ireland as a reaction against the political clericalism of the not so distant past.”
Almost always, I might have added, clericalism breeds anticlericalism. That we’ve largely escaped the worst sort of clericalism in America means we’ve also been spared the worst sort of anticlericalism.
But granted all that, the situation of the Catholic Church in America today is increasingly perilous. American Church explains why. In brief, the explanation goes like this:
Nearly 40 years ago, reacting to the Supreme Court’s then-recent decision legalizing abortion as well as other social and political developments, I published a magazine article with the title “The Alienation of American Catholics.”
The point I was making was that American secular culture had lately shifted in directions radically opposed to central Catholic values and beliefs. Hence the rising sense of alienation from that culture being experienced by Catholics like me.
What I wasn’t so conscious of then was that millions of my fellow Catholics had for years been becoming part of this hostile culture–accepting and adopting as their own its world view, its value system, its patterns of behavior, even when these clashed with their Catholic faith.
This was painfully apparent in matters of sexual morality, but it also applied to marriage and the family, many issues of social justice, capital punishment, abortion, and the whole bourgeois consumerist lifestyle. More and more, Catholics were becoming nearly indistinguishable from other Americans on questions like these.
Looking for an explanation for what was happening, I hit upon the process that sociologists call cultural assimilation–in this case, assimilation into American secular culture–that Catholics had experienced since the 19th century and, with great rapidity and in huge numbers, especially since World War II.
It’s a complex, fascinating tale, not well understood by many Catholics themselves, yet central to the situation in which the Church now finds itself. The subtitle of my book sums it up: “The remarkable rise, meteoric fall, and uncertain future of Catholicism in America.”
There’s a solution, but it isn’t easy. It requires rebuilding a strong Catholic subculture committed to sustaining the religious identity of American Catholics and forming them for the task of evangelizing America. Can that be done? Perhaps. Will it be attempted? That has yet to be seen.
This 4th of July, say a prayer that it is. Remember to say thanks for church-state separation. Things would be a lot worse without it.
By Father George Rutler at New Advent:
Our parish is blessed with a shrine to Saint Thomas More. The young artist who painted it after Holbein was a refugee from communist Eastern Europe. He did such a good job that Cardinal Egan, dedicating it, said that he would not be surprised if this were the original.
We recently celebrated the joint feasts of Thomas More, who was Chancellor of England, and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester. Their personalities were different in many ways, and it was almost a miracle that an Oxford man and a Cambridge man got on so well and eventually were canonized together. The Act of Succession and the Act of Supremacy were the challenges that King Henry VIII threw at them, and the saints returned the challenge. The issues were rooted in natural law: the meaning of marriage and the claims of government. These are the same issues that loom large today. Whatever our courts of law may decide about these matters, Saint Thomas says: “I am not bound, my lord, to conform my conscience to the council of one realm against the General Council of Christendom.” In 1919, G. K. Chesterton predicted with powerful precision that great as More’s witness was then, “he is not quite so important as he will be in a hundred years’ time.”
For every courageous saint back then, there were many who instead took the safe path of complacency. More’s own family begged him to find some loophole, and — after the sudden deaths of eight other bishops — Fisher was the only one left who acted like an apostle. Those who opted for comfort and wove the lies of their world into a simulation of truth had a banal and shallow faith that Pope Francis has called “rose water.” It is a good image, for rose water is not blood and cannot wash away sin.
The “Man for All Seasons” wrote to his beloved Margaret from his cell in the Tower of London: “And, therefore, my own good daughter, do not let your mind be troubled over anything that shall happen to me in this world. Nothing can come but what God wills. And I am very sure that whatever that be, however bad it may seem, it shall indeed be the best.”
The “Fortnight for Freedom” extended from the vigil of the feasts of Fisher and More to July 4, but its prayers continue, as the Church’s many charitable and evangelical works are threatened by our present government’s disdain for the religious conscience, most immediately evident in the Health and Human Services mandate and the redefinition of marriage. In 1534 Henry VIII’s arrogation of authority over the Church was quickly followed by a Treasons Act which made it a high crime to criticize the King. In contemporary America as in Tudor England, the surest way to let that happen is to say, “It can't happen here.”
The Lord slowly enters the life of Abraham, who is 99 years old when He promises him a son. Instead He immediately enters the life of the leper, Jesus listens to his prayer, touches him and preforms a miracle. Pope Francis went on to speak of how the Lord chooses to become involved "in our lives, in the lives of His people." The lives of Abraham and the leper. "When the Lord intervenes - said the Pope– He does not always do so in the same way. There is no ‘set protocol’ of action of God in our life", "it does not exist ". Once, he added, "He intervenes is one way, another time in a different way” but He always intervenes. There is "always - he said - this meeting between us and the Lord".
"The Lord always chooses His way to enter into our lives. Often He does so slowly, so much so, we are in danger of losing our 'patience', a little. But Lord, when? 'And we pray, we pray ... And He doesn’t intervene in our lives. Other times, when we think of what the Lord has promised us, that it such a huge thing, we don’t believe it, we are a little skeptical, like Abraham – and we smile a little to ourselves ... This is what it says in the First Reading, Abraham hid his face and smiled ... A bit 'of skepticism:' What? Me? I am almost a hundred years old, I will have a son and my wife at 90 will have a son? '.
Sarah is equally skeptical, the Pope recalled, at the Oaks of Mamre, when the three angels say the same thing to Abraham. "How often, when the Lord does not intervene, does not perform a, does not do what we want Him to do, do we become impatient or skeptical?"
"But He does not, He cannot for skeptics. The Lord takes his time. But even He, in this relationship with us, has a lot of patience. Not only do we have to have patience: He has! He waits for us! And He waits for us until the end of life! Think of the good thief, right at the end, at the very end, he acknowledged God. The Lord walks with us, but often does not reveal Himself, as in the case of the disciples of Emmaus. The Lord is involved in our lives - that's for sure! - But often we do not see. This demands our patience. But the Lord who walks with us, He also has a lot of patience with us. "
The Pope turned his thoughts to "the mystery of God's patience, who in walking, walks at our pace." Sometimes in life, he noted, "things become so dark, there is so much darkness, that we want - if we are in trouble - to come down from the cross." This, he said, "is the precise moment: the night is at its darkest, when dawn is about to break. And when we come down from the Cross, we always do so just five minutes before our liberation comes, at the very moment when our impatience is greatest ".
"Jesus on the Cross, heard them challenging him: 'Come down, come down! Come '. Patience until the end, because He has patience with us. He always enters, He is involved with us, but He does so in His own way and when He thinks it's best. He tells us exactly what He told Abraham: Walk in my presence and be blameless', be above reproach, this is exactly the right word. Walk in my presence and try to be above reproach. This is the journey with the Lord and He intervenes, but we have to wait, wait for the moment, walking always in His presence and trying to be beyond reproach. We ask this grace from the Lord, to always walk in His presence, trying to be blameless'.
I am inspired by the stories of the English Martyrs and today is the feast of one o them. St. John Southworth was born in 1592 at Lancashire, England. St. John studied and was ordained at the English College, Douai, France. He returned to England on 13 October 1619 to minister to covert Catholics and was arrested and condemned to death for his faith in Lancashire in 1627; he was held in various prisons, and at one point hearing the final confession of Saint Edmund Arrowsmith just before that martyr was led to the gallows. Through the intercession of Queen Henrietta Maria, he and fifteen other priests were turned over to the French ambassador on 11 April 1630 to be sent into exile in France.Father John soon returned to England and began working with Saint Henry Morse. They worked tirelessly and fearlessly with the sick during a plague outbreak in 1636. He was arrested again for his faith in Westminster on 28 November 1637. He was held in various prisons until 16 July, 1640 when he was released due to the mitigating circumstances of his good works.
However he was arrested again on 2 December, 1640; he pled guilty to the crime of priesthood, and was condemned to death. After 14 years in prison, during which he worked with any prisoners who showed interest, he was executed by orders of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. He is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
He was hanged, drawn, and quartered on 28 June, 1654 at Tyburn, England; remains purchased by the Spanish ambassador to England, and sent to the English College at Douai, France; they were hidden to prevent destruction during the French Revolution, and were rediscovered in 1927. They and are now housed at Westminster Cathedral, London. Pope Paul VI canonized him in 1970.
The following comes from Catholic Online: The writings of St. Irenaeus entitle him to a high place among the fathers of the Church, for they not only laid the foundations of Christian theology but, by exposing and refuting the errors of the gnostics, they delivered the Catholic Faith from the real danger of the doctrines of those heretics.
He was probably born about the year 125, in one of those maritime provinces of Asia Minor where thememory of the apostles was still cherished and where Christians were numerous. He was most influenced bySt. Polycarp who had known the apostles or their immediate disciples
Many Asian priests and missionaries brought the gospel to the pagan Gauls and founded a local church. To this church of Lyon, Irenaeus came to serve as a priest under its first bishop, St. Pothinus, an oriental like himself. In the year 177, Irenaeus was sent to Rome. This mission explains how it was that he was not called upon to share in the martyrdom of St Pothinus during the terrible persecution in Lyons. When he returned to Lyons it was to occupy the vacant bishopric. By this time, the persecution was over. It was the spread of gnosticism in Gaul, and the ravages it was making among the Christians of his diocese, that inspired him to undertake the task of exposing its errors. He produced a treatise in five books in which he sets forth fully the inner doctrines of the various sects, and afterwards contrasts them with the teaching of the Apostles and the text of the Holy Scripture. His work, written in Greek but quickly translated to Latin, was widely circulated and succeeded in dealing a death-blow to gnosticism. At any rate, from that time onwards, it ceased to offer a serious menace to the Catholic faith.
The date of death of St. Irenaeus is not known, but it is believed to be in the year 202. The bodily remains of St. Irenaeus were buried in a crypt under the altar of what was then called the church of St. John, but was later known by the name of St. Irenaeus himself. This tomb or shrine was destroyed by the Calvinists in 1562, and all trace of his relics seems to have perished.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
St. Paul once wrote that “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, [then] we are of all men most to be pitied” (1 Cor 15:17-19).
Those are strong words for a happy gathering like this one, on a beautiful day, on a vacation island like Mallorca, in a year dedicated to the virtue of faith. But they’re exactly the right words to begin our discussion today. Francis of Assisi was not a man known for his dissembling about the Gospel. And Junipero Serra, his spiritual son, had the same burning zeal in all things related to Jesus Christ. The key question facing every Christian in every age isn’t whether the Christian faith is socially useful, or consoles us when we’re sad, or makes us nicer people. The key question is whether our faith is true.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead – and I don’t mean “metaphorically” rise, as a kind of shared emotional experience of the Apostles; but rise in his crucified body, glorified by his Father – then we’re misleading ourselves with a fairytale. But if he did rise, then the Gospel is true. And then all of creation, and the eternity of every living man and woman, depends on Christ’s Good News being preached. So in the Gospel of Matthew, when Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (28:19-20), he’s not merely offering an invitation. He’s also binding a commission, a mandate, to every one of his disciples.
Francis of Assisi heard the Gospel, and believed, and acted on it. Junipero Serra heard the Gospel, and believed, and acted on it. And now for us, the whole point of the Year of Faith boils down to the same questions: Do we really believe; and if we do, then what are we going to do about it?
This year marks the third centenary of the birth of Father Serra. He was an extraordinary man. I don’t think we can properly measure him unless we divide his story into three parts. So first, I’ll talk about the world he was born into, and what he achieved in it. Second, I’ll talk about the kind of world we face today. And finally, I’ll talk about whether and how Serra has any continuing importance for the Church in a very different age.
The context of a person’s life helps to shape its course. And so it was with Serra. We know Mallorca today as a very pleasant tourist destination. Hannibal knew it as a source of warriors; slingers who could kill a man with a stone or a dart at more than 300 yards.
Mallorca was fought over by Carthage, Rome, the Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs and finally Christian Spain. Serra was born in 1713 into a world without electricity or modern medicine, primitive communications and transportation, and a maximum average lifespan of about 50. For most people, life was brief and hard. Death couldn’t be ignored; it was an everyday reality. The high water mark of Muslim invasion in Europe had been reached and turned back just 30 years before at the Battle of Vienna. The Great Powers, both Catholic and Protestant, were now locked in a struggle for colonies and souls in Asia and the New World.
At the same time, Europe was experiencing an explosion of wealth, discovery and human knowledge without precedent in history. The backdrop of Serra’s life thus had the texture of intense religious and political competition, and huge economic expansion. So he really did live at a pivotal moment in the history of our Church and culture.
Serra’s life story is well known. But a few details are worth remembering here. He was born Miguel Joseph Serra in the Mallorcan town of Petra. He entered the Franciscans as a teenager and took the name “Junipero,” after the early friend and companion of St. Francis. Serra had a supple, inquisitive, brilliant mind combined with tremendous personal energy. He became an accomplished theologian and philosopher. He had a successful career as a university lecturer and scholar until the age of 36, when he felt a calling to the missions and left for Mexico.
Early in his Mexican service Serra suffered a leg wound, probably a snake or insect bite, that pained him for the rest of his life. But he still walked thousands of miles in his mission work with the native peoples of Baja and Alta California. He founded Mission San Diego de Alcala – the first mission in the modern state of California – in 1769 at the ripe old age of 56. He went on to found eight more California missions personally. He also developed the system that would eventually include 21 California missions spanning hundreds of miles and many thousands of native converts to the Catholic faith.
In his years of mission leadership, he fought many times with military and political leaders in New Spain who sought to abuse or exploit the Indian population. He could be a demanding father to his native converts, but he was fierce in defending their dignity from the colonial authorities. He also had remarkable organizational skills. He was a shrewd manager of the missions’ material resources. He identified and cultivated his own successor years in advance. And he introduced products like grapes, lemons, oranges, sheep and cattle that later became key to the state’s agricultural economy. He died in 1784, at the age of 70, at the Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel. Today both state and federal authorities in the United States honor his memory for the impact he had on the development of modern California.
Serra’s life can be summed up in the qualities that set him apart. First, he had humility. As an adult, Serra was a respected man of learning; a revered and comfortable university professor. He put all that aside — in a century when 36 was middle aged — for a life of uncertainty and hardship on the other side of the world. That’s humility. Second, he was a man of audacity. I almost said “courage,” and Serra certainly had courage. But courage is too small a word. Serra had courage married to imagination, confidence and ambition; an ambition for God, not for personal glory. That’s audacity. That’s the kind of courage that transforms lives and history. He also had foresight in his planning,endurance in making those plans happen, political skill in dealing with authority, and superior leadership ability with a very limited mix of people and resources under brutally difficult conditions. That’s a kind of genius.
He also had one other quality that animated all the others: a zealous Franciscan faith. But we’ll come back to that later. Meanwhile I want to turn to the second part of our task in measuring Serra the man. And that requires us to understand the pastoral terrain we face as Christians right now, today. We should probably start by realizing that some of the same civil authorities that once happily honored Father Serra with statues in Golden Gate Park and the U.S. Capitol building now work even harder to restrict the freedom of American religious communities, force the Church out of public debate, and impose same-sex “marriage” as the law. Father Serra gave his life to the task of bringing the Gospel to the New World. But the “new world” we actually have in A.D. 2013 is alien to almost anything Serra could have imagined.
Blessed Pope John Paul II saw the outline of our new “new world” more than 30 years ago. And following his lead, the Church has been calling Catholics to the work of a “new evangelization” ever since. But there’s a natural human tendency to attach magic powers to slogans, which then replace serious thought and effort — as if saying the slogan, or talking about it, actually makes mission work happen. In practice, the words “new evangelization” are overused and underthought. Unless we reconfigure our lives to understanding and acting on it, the “new evangelization” is just another pious intention – well meaning, but ultimately infertile.
Read the rest here!
On June 27, Roman Catholics will honor St. Cyril of Alexandria. An Egyptian bishop and theologian, he is best known for his role in the Council of Ephesus, where the Church confirmed that Christ is both God and man in one person. The Eastern churches celebrate St. Cyril of Alexandria on June 9.
Cyril was most likely born in Alexandria, the metropolis of ancient Egypt, between 370 and 380. From his writings, it appears he received a solid literary and theological education. Along with his uncle, Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria, he played a role in an early fifth-century dispute between the Egyptian and Greek churches. There is evidence he may have been a monk before becoming a bishop.
When Theophilus died in 412, Cyril was chosen to succeed him at the head of the Egyptian Church. He continued his uncle's policy of insisting on Alexandria's preeminence within the Church over Constantinople, despite the political prominence of the imperial capital. The two Eastern churches eventually re-established communion in approximately 418.
Ten years later, however, a theological dispute caused a new break between Alexandria and Constantinople. Cyril's reputation as a theologian, and later Doctor of the Church, arose from his defense of Catholic orthodoxy during this time.
In 428, a monk named Nestorius became the new Patriarch of Constantinople. It became clear that Nestorius was not willing to use the term “Mother of God” (“Theotokos”) to describe the Virgin Mary. Instead, he insisted on the term “Mother of Christ” (“Christotokos”).
During the fourth century, the Greek Church had already held two ecumenical councils to confirm Christ's eternal preexistence as God prior to his incarnation as a man. From this perennial belief, it followed logically that Mary was the mother of God. Veneration of Mary as “Theotokos” confirmed the doctrine of the incarnation, and Christ's status as equal to the God the Father.
Nestorius insisted that he, too, held these doctrines. But to Cyril, and many others, his refusal to acknowledge Mary as the Mother of God seemed to reveal a heretical view of Christ which would split him into two united but distinct persons: one fully human and born of Mary, the other fully divine and not subject to birth or death.
Cyril responded to this heretical tendency first through a series of letters to Nestorius (which are still in existence and studied today), then through an appeal to the Pope, and finally through the summoning of an ecumenical council in 431. Cyril presided over this council, stating that he was “filling the place of the most holy and blessed Archbishop of the Roman Church,” Pope Celestine, who had authorized it.
The council was a tumultuous affair. Patriarch John of Antioch, a friend of Nestorius, came to the city and convened a rival council which sought to condemn and depose Cyril. Tension between the advocates of Cyril and Nestorius erupted into physical violence at times, and both parties sought to convince the emperor in Constantinople to back their position.
During the council, which ran from June 22 to July 31 of the year 431, Cyril brilliantly defended the orthodox belief in Christ as a single eternally divine person who also became incarnate as a man. The council condemned Nestorius, who was deposed as patriarch and later suffered exile. Cyril, however, reconciled with John and many of the other Antiochian theologians who once supported Nestorius.
St. Cyril of Alexandria died on June 27, 444, having been a bishop for nearly 32 years. Long celebrated as a saint, particularly in the Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, he was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1883.
Today the Church remembers Our Lady of Perpetual Help. The following comes from the Patron Saints Index:The picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is painted on wood, with background of gold. It is Byzantine in style and is supposed to have been painted in the thirteenth century. It represents the Mother of God holding the Divine Child while the Archangels Michael and Gabriel present before Him the instruments of His Passion. Over the figures in the picture are some Greek letters which form the abbreviated words Mother of God, Jesus Christ, Archangel Michael, and Archangel Gabriel respectively.
It was brought to Rome towards the end of the fifteenth century by a pious merchant, who, dying there, ordered by his will that the picture should be exposed in a church for public veneration. It was exposed in the church of San Matteo, Via Merulana, between Saint Mary Major and Saint John Lateran. Crowds flocked to this church, and for nearly three hundred years many graces were obtained through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The picture was then popularly called the Madonna di San Matteo. The church was served for a time by the Hermits of Saint Augustine, who had sheltered their Irish brethren in their distress.
These Augustinians were still in charge when the French invaded Rome, Italy in 1812 and destroyed the church. The picture disappeared; it remained hidden and neglected for over forty years, but a series of providential circumstances between 1863 and 1865 led to its discovery in an oratory of the Augustinian Fathers at Santa Maria in Posterula. The pope, Pius IX, who as a boy had prayed before the picture in San Matteo, became interested in the discovery and in a letter dated 11 Dececember 1865 to Father General Mauron, C.SS.R., ordered that Our Lady of Perpetual Succour should be again publicly venerated in Via Merulana, and this time at the new church of Saint Alphonsus. The ruins of San Matteo were in the grounds of the Redemptorist Convent. This was but the first favour of the Holy Father towards the picture. He approved of the solemn translation of the picture (26 April 1866), and its coronation by the Vatican Chapter (23 June 1867). He fixed the feast as duplex secundae classis, on the Sunday before the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, and by a decree dated May 1876, approved of a special office and Mass for the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. This favour later on was also granted to others. Learning that the devotion to Our Lady under this title had spread far and wide, Pius IX raised a confraternity of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour and Saint Alphonsus, which had been erected in Rome, to the rank of an arch-confraternity and enriched it with many privileges and indulgences. He was among the first to visit the picture in its new home, and his name is the first in the register of the arch-confraternity.
Two thousand three hundred facsimiles of the Holy Picture have been sent from Saint Alphonsus’s church in Rome to every part of the world. At the present day not only altars, but churches and dioceses (e.g. in England, Leeds and Middlesbrough; in the United States, Savannah) are dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour. In some places, as in the United States, the title has been translated Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
The following comes from John Thavis:
The first 100 days of a pope are not like the first 100 days of a president or prime minister or a CEO. A pope thinks long-term, and is under less pressure to put forward a series of short-term goals or programs. Most of the issues facing a pope transcend the pragmatic and the political. They require careful thought, prayer and consultation, not a string of policy statements.
For journalists, though, 100 days is a marker that requires evaluation and commentary. It was certainly the hot topic at the Catholic Media Conference this week in Denver, where I gave a talk this morning to several hundred Catholic communicators.
So what do we know about Pope Francis after 100 days in office? We’ve had no important documents, few significant appointments and no earth-shaking reforms of the Roman Curia.
But we do have a healthy dose of papal thinking and papal preaching – on everything ranging from clerical careerism to sweatshop employment. And we have a number of papal gestures that speak volumes to people inside and outside the church.
I don't want to recap Pope Francis’ 100-day “greatest hits” here. Instead, I’d like to identify a few core characteristics and directions that seem to be emerging:
1. Francis has relocated the papacy outside the Roman Curia.
First, choosing to live in the less formal Vatican guesthouse instead of the papal apartments has turned out to be a crucial decision, because geography counts at the Vatican. The papal apartments are surrounded by Roman Curia offices, deep inside the Apostolic Palace, and Francis would have been much more isolated there. He is a people person, after all.
Second, the pope has named a group of eight cardinals – now to be expanded to nine – to advise him on matters of church governance and Roman Curia reform. Only one is a member of the Roman Curia. Nothing said more clearly that Francis intends to rely less on Vatican insiders and more on the world’s bishops when it comes to governing.
Third, much of the pope’s preaching has come in morning Masses at the Vatican guesthouse, in off-the-cuff homilies that are brief, insightful and sharply worded. The Vatican bureaucracy doesn't even consider these homilies part of the pope’s real Magisterium, and has yet to publish full texts. One reason, I think, is that unlike formal papal speeches, these extemporized talks don’t go through the usual bureaucratic machinery. They are less controlled by the Curia.
2. Francis has begun his “reform” of the Vatican by evangelizing.
The people who attend the pope’s morning Masses are groups of Vatican officials and employees, and his words are directed at them in a particular way. In that sense, Pope Francis’ reform of the Vatican has already begun. Not in the way the world was expecting, through high-profile appointments of Roman Curia heads – though that will come in due time. Instead, the pope is evangelizing the Vatican. He’s laying the spiritual groundwork for reform, by preaching the Gospel in his own back yard. For him, “new evangelization” begins at home.
3. The pope’s vision of the church’s role is less about internal identity and more about external influence.
He wants the church to be present in people’s lives. For priests, that means getting out with their faithful and sharing their problems – as he put it in his memorable and earthy phrase, pastors should have “the odor of sheep.” For bishops, it means an end to careerism (today he told nuncios that when evaluating candidates for bishop, they should avoid ambitious prelates and choose pastors who are close to the people.)
For lay Catholics, it means being willing to live the Gospel and proclaim it joyfully in word and deed, especially to those who are suffering. Although this takes courage, evangelization is not a burden, and shouldn't seem like one, the pope said.
4. The pope’s social justice agenda is slowly taking center stage.
His sharply worded challenges to the global economic system (“We live in a world where money rules … “We need to flip things over, like a tortilla: Money is not the image and likeness of God.”) indicate that his planned encyclical, “Blessed Are the Poor,” will not be easily spun by the defenders of an unrestricted free-market economy.
But his economic Gospel is not merely aimed at international agencies and power brokers. He wants the church to embody concern for the poor and suffering, and has cautioned priests and bishops to resist the lure of the business model. “Proclaiming the Gospel must take the road of poverty.” He understands that practicing what one preaches is the key to church credibility in the eyes of many people today.
5. He has confidence in his own spontaneity.
So far, he’s willing to be unscripted in “safe” settings like the morning Mass or an audience with children, but also in “unsafe” settings like his conversation with the officials of the Latin American Conference of Religious. I’ve seen other popes go down this path (even Benedict like to extemporize at first) but top Vatican officials would pretty quickly convince them that a prepared text is better for everyone. It seems to me that Francis has decided otherwise, and I think the reason is that, for him, being a pastor is not the same as being a speechgiver.
At 100 days, I think we’re beyond the “honeymoon” period. We’re settling into a fascinating pontificate.
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