Wednesday 23 January 2013

COMMENT: Christian Unity




Dear William,
Thank you for Christian Unity sharing.
This evening, the Chapter Room, the Abbot's talk quoted from a Subiaco Benedictine  of Chilworth. "The good monk is is the best balance life if he has a 'chip' in both shoulders!" The Abbot was talking about the life of silence in the monastic life.
Maybe, there is an application here in the communion of Christian life.
And your words lead on to the Sirit of tenderheartedness.
 "Come and take My infinite tenderness. - '...dans Ma douceur infie'." (He AND i).
Yours ...
Donald

----- Forwarded Message -----
From:
 William W....
To:
 Donald....
Sent:
 Wednesday, 23 January 2013, 16:32
Subject:
 Christian unity ... abandon the cause, embrace the reality

Dear Father Donald,

This may not be a welcome comment [so please forgive and ignore me], but it arises too often for me not to present it to someone, and this is the only 'forum' I know:  I have a belief in a loving devotion to Our Lord regardless of whichever 'church' to which one 'belongs'... but to fulfil this bond of unity one thing greatly troubles me:

Christian Unity.... cannot be forged on the basis of dogma. The principles of disunity are the 'definitions' (especially over the 'Eucharist') and the 'devotions' (particularly 'Marian') and 'liturgical' (formalisation) - I experienced all three in becoming a Catholic. The 'poles apart' are extremes only observed at the level of heirarchy, or through dependant conservatism in the rank and file.

In the pews, where warm hearts welcome others, there are no such 'certainties' (!) on either side, rather all is determined by an individual's devotional response to Our Lord, which often is affected by upbringing and example, education and culture. Yes, each Church must needs 'define' its beliefs, but it is only at the deep intellectual level that the differences can form a barrier to unity. Intellectual arguments seldom agree (!), but those should not stand in the way of unity. Unity is the voice of the people, the crowds before the mount of the Beatitudes.

I have never walked into a room full of people who might agree on all matters of opinion (which is the common word for forms of belief), yet goodwill and acceptance of another's views draw all men together as a united humanity. Could the Church never allow personal devotion - well versed in its catechism, in its own belief - over the strictures of definitions?

Let us imagine that we together greet Our Lord on the shores of Galilee: we will all approach him in varied ways: there will be those who 'formalise' him, those who greet him with 'emotion', those who deeply 'reflect' on his presence. Why can't we all meet him, greet him, worship him together in our own way as the Spirit gives us? We are there, he is present, with no one analysing their system of belief.

The Eucharist is for me uniquely special, for my neighbour a memorial, for the other a sharing in the loaves and the fishes: but we can receive him all together in our own way?

Simplistically,
William

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity Day Seven: Walking in Solidarity



Ordinary Time: January 24th

Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, bishop and doctor; Optional memorial of Our Lady of Peace




The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
Day Seven: Walking in Solidarity
To walk humbly with God means walking in solidarity with all who struggle for justice and peace. Walking in solidarity has implications not just for individual believers, but for the very nature and mission of the whole Christian community. The Church is called and empowered to share the suffering of all by advocacy and care for the poor, the needy and the marginalised. Such is implicit in our prayer for Christian unity this week.   
Our Lady of Peace
Our Lady Queen of Peace has been the patroness of the Catholic Church in Hawaii since 1827. The first Catholic missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands arrived at Honolulu Bay on July 7, 1827. These missionaries were members of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and of Perpetual Adoration and upon their arrival in the islands dedicated their labors to the patroness of the Congregation, Our Lady Queen of Peace and placed the Islands under her protection. It was in her honor that these missionaries erected the first Catholic Church.
After more than a decade of contentious relations with the Hawaiian government, the missionaries were finally allowed to proceed with their evangelization work. In thanksgiving, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace was erected. Completed in 1843, a statue of Our Lady Queen of Peace was placed in the niche above the main altar. The Cathedral was solemnly blessed and dedicated to Our Lady of Peace on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1843.
The original statue of Our Lady Queen of Peace is located in the Convent Chapel of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts in Picpus, France. During ...    
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2013-01-24

James Quinn S.J. The Church, The Churches and the World



 
Entrance of the church on Lauriston Street
www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=15970
Apr 14, 2010 – The hymns of Father James Quinn SJ are found in almost every contemporary English language hymnal, taken from the collection New Hymns ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Quinn_(hymnwriter)
For other people of the same name, see James Quinn (disambiguation). James J.Quinn SJ (21 April 1919 – 8 April 2010) was a Scottish Jesuit priest, ...
You visited this page on 22/01/13.
stmungomusic.org.uk/music/.../salve-regina-james-quinn-sj/
Salve Regina: James Quinn SJ




Ecuminism 1987
The Clergy Review January 1987
Editor, Questions raised by the present state of ecumenism, 11 Articles

The Church, The Churches and the World
By James Quinn, S.J.
Church of the Sacred Heart, 28 Lauriston Street, Edinburgh, Scotland

I The Church
The manifold life of the Church
THE CHURCH is the creation of the Holy Spirit, the covenanted sphere of his operations in the world. The Church is essentially a mystery, not simply an object of study as a 'religious phenomenon'. It is a mystery of faith, part of the mystery of faith that is Christ, true God and true man, the one mediator between God and mankind, the Head of his mystical Body which is the Church.
The Church can indeed be studied as a religious society. Part of its organization is time conditioned, subject to change: this is what we may call its ecclesiastical life. But its true life, what makes it distinctively ecclesia or Church, is its God-given endowment as the foretaste, the promise and the instrument of its final fulfilment in heaven. We may call this its ecclesial life. This is not open to change.
The Church is therefore at once visible and invisible: one may say that it is sacramental. Like Christ, the great and original sacrament, revealing and communicating the divine life, the Church reveals and communicates God's truth and love and life through outward signs. The church is not wholly invisible, though its true life can be recognized only by the eyes of faith.
To stress the human, visible side of the Church can result in a false understanding of the meaning of the people of God, as if the Church were modelled on a human community essentially unstructured and democratic. The Church is a unique creation, 'not of this world', though com­posed of human beings with all their frailty. But sinful humanity is called by God into a special relationship with himself: they are a people brought into being in the Holy Spirit, a covenanted community whose members are given an individual vocation to holiness and assigned different functions within the one Church, in par­ticular the essential functions of Pope, bishops, priests, deacons and the unordained faithful.
But we must not underestimate the ecclesiastical life of the Church. Human beings need structures. There is a particular human value in a certain degree of uniformity: in ritual, in the discipline of Christian life, in customary devotions .. These 'incarnate' the Gospel in a living and human way, but they can degenerate into lifeless routine. Change is important when the pattern ceases to be a true expression of the essential life of the Church, when the routine no longer sup­ports and deepens the living of the Christian life in fidelity to the Gospel.

The formula of the Nicene Creed
The Creed drawn up by the Councils of Nicaea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 A.D.) is ir, regular and frequent use in the Catholic Church. It contains a summary of the 'marks' of the Church: 'We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church'.
The Church is one. Its unity is a reflection or. a sharing in, the unity of the Blessed Trinity. The Church is a supernatural communion of faith, hope and love. This communion is basically sacramental, centred on Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Order. These sacraments create the eucharistic community: that is the simplest and most profound description of the nature of the Church. The Church gathered at the Eucharist ;, the fullest expression of the Church's life, where Word and Eucharist together form the source of the Church's vitality and the high point of its ac­tivity. The Eucharist is the celebration of the Church's unity.
The Church is holy. The holiness of the Church is not only the holiness of its members but tr.; holiness that is her essential endowment: she is 'our holy Mother the Church'. The Holy Spirit entrusts her with the distribution of his many", gifts: faith, hope and charity; prayer; the sacraments; the prayerful study and authentic, proclamation of God's Word; the means to h: the Christian life in fidelity to God's plan for human nature; the many and varied 'charisms' of individuals and communities,
The Church is catholic. It is catholic. i.e. universal, in its mission, in its teaching (embracing the fullness of the faith). There is an identity, an equation, between the local Church (i,e, the diocese) and the universal (i.e. the catholic) Church. The local Church is catholic because of its sacramental relationship to the Pope and the college of bishops (of which the Pope is the head) through the person of its own bishop.
The Church is apostolic. It is in continuity with the apostolic Church through its possession of the same apostolic authority, the same content of faith, the same power of sanctification. There can be development, but without addition, subtraction or distortion.

The Church and the Eucharist
The great activity of the Church (i.e. of the Body of Christ in head and members) is the Eucharist, the apex and the source of the Christian life.
Before the Eucharist can be celebrated there must be formed the priestly people through Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Order.
Baptism creates the active priesthood of the whole people of God.
Confirmation reinforces this.
Holy Order creates the specific priesthood of the ordained, which enables the baptized (and the confirmed) to exercise their 'common' priesthood in union with Christ and the ordained priest. Holy Order makes the priest an instrument in the hands of Christ (in persona Christi in offering (as part of the whole Church) the sacrifice of Christ the High Priest.
The Eucharist is the sacramental celebration of the Paschal Mystery of Christ. The presence of Christ the High Priest is the key to understanding the sacrifice of the Mass. There is an upward movement of self-offering (of Christ, of the Church, of the priest, of the congregation) before there is the downward movement in which the Father returns to us in Communion the gift of his Son. The Eucharist is not only God's gift to us but also our gift to God through, with and in Christ. 'Our gift' is the gift of the totus Christus, of the whole Christ, of the whole Church.

11 The Churches
The will of Christ
At the Last Supper Christ prayed for his Church, that it might be one. Unity among all his .followers is clearly his great desire. This unity is to be complete and perfect, having as its source and model the unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
But Christians, though accepting Christ as their Lord, find themselves divided from each other in different ways. In obedience to Christ we must do all in our power to undo division- among Christians, and in their place to build up true Christian unity.
The Second Vatican Council, in its Decree on Ecumenism, points out that work for Christian unity is a duty of every Catholic. It is a work for the whole Church, not for bishops and priests only. Each parish should have its own contribution to make towards the Church's commitment in this field.
The ecumenical movement is essentially a meeting of Churches, through their members. But it must not be simply the enthusiasm of the few: it must be the responsibility of all, according to each one's talents and opportunities.
The way of renewal
The Decree on Ecumenism also points out that the way to Christian unity is through spiritual renewal within each Church, and in the life of every Christian.
The unity of the Church is the gift of the Holy Spirit, the bond of love. It is therefore a work that demands our co-operation through prayer. Prayer is the first and necessary condition of work for Christian unity.
Work for Christian unity requires also the fruits of prayer in our individual lives and in the life of the whole Church. It demands spiritual renewal, holiness of life, fidelity to Christ.
It asks for a spirit of penitence for sins against charity. There arc many personal and community barriers - suspicion, prejudice, lack of charity, bad example - which must be removed before the Holy Spirit can heal our divisions.

The spirit of unity
If we are to grow together into the fullness of unity, we must first want unity. We must want it, not for our own glory but in humble obedience to Christ.
We should want other Christians to be one with us because we miss their presence and feel somehow incomplete without them. We must see them, not as rivals or strangers, still less as enemies, but as fellow-pilgrims who belong to us in a very real sense, through our spiritual kinship with them by baptism.
There should be a spirit of forgiveness where we may think that other Christians have wronged us. There should be a spirit of repentance for our own sins against other Christians.
Above all, we should not live in the past but in the reality of the present, and in hope of a more Christian future.

The Eucharist and Christian unity
The Church is essentially a communion of faith, hope and love. It is a communion with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as a com­munion with all its members in the Body of Christ.
Baptism is the basic, initial sacrament of Christian unity. It establishes a sacramental bond among all who have been baptized.
Holy Communion is the crowning sacrament of Christian unity, setting the seal on perfect unity.
The supernatural communion which is the Church must be seen as a true community in itself, but also as a community seeking to welcome into its unity the whole family of mankind.
The Church can be its true self, the community of love, only through its own unity in the Spirit, centred above all on the Eucharist, the sign and focus of love, and the goal of Christian unity.
It is at the Eucharist that all prayer for Chris­tian unity must begin, and in God's good time receive its perfect answer.

Christian Unity. Day Six: Walking Beyond Barriers



Ordinary Time: January 23rd

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
Day Six: Walking Beyond Barriers
Walking with God means walking beyond barriers that divide and damage the children of God. The biblical readings on this day look at various ways in which human barriers are overcome, culminating in St Paul’s teaching that “As many of you were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Night Office - The Spirit of Unity by Fr. James Quinn S.J.
(from an article in the Clergy Review January 1987.)

The spirit of unity
If we are to grow together into the fullness of unity, we must first want unity. We must want it, not for our own glory but in humble obedience to Christ.
We should want other Christians to be one with us because we miss their presence and feel somehow incomplete without them. We must see them, not as rivals or strangers, still less as enemies, but as fellow-pilgrims who belong to us in a very real sense, through our spiritual kinship with them by baptism.
There should be a spirit of forgiveness where we may think that other Christians have wronged us. There should be a spirit of repentance for our own sins against other Christians.
Above all, we should not live in the past but in the reality of the present, and in hope of a more Christian future.

The Eucharist and Christian unity
The Church is essentially a communion of faith, hope and love. It is a communion with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as a communion with all its members in the Body of Christ.
Baptism is the basic, initial sacrament of Christian unity. It establishes a sacramental bond among all who have been baptized.
Holy Communion is the crowning sacrament of Christian unity, setting the seal on perfect unity.
The supernatural communion which is the Church must be seen as a true community in itself, but also as a community seeking to welcome into its unity the whole family of mankind. 

Tuesday 22 January 2013

Cardinal von Balthasar (+ 1988) "Jesus refuses to interpret the metaphor of God's rest"


Tuesday Community Mass Intro; Fr. Aelred
Vatican’s Decree on Ecumenism says, ‘there can be no ecumenism worthy the name without a change of heart’. So our first and greatest contribution to reunion is a renewal of our own Christian lives, and a renewal of the Catholic Church. This can only come about by earnest prayer to the Holy Spirit, the principle of the Church’s unity.
- - - -
Almighty God, help us, little by little, to overcome the obstructions that, prevent a common celebration of the Eucharist. We ask this through ...   

H U von Balthasar 1905-1988
MAGNIFICAT com  
Gospel Mk 2:23-28. The Sabbath was for man not man for the Sabbath. v28.
MEDITATION   OF THE     DAY
By HAN5 UR5 VON BALTHASAR

The Son of Man and the Sabbath
Jesus refuses to interpret the metaphor of God's rest as an image of God's inactivity and thus refuses to imitate God's supposed inactivity: "My Father is working still, and I too am working" (In 5:17), precisely on the Sabbath, the day on which men are not supposed to do their work but to take time to pay attention to God's work-which for the Jews meant paying attention to the foundational act of salvation, namely, redemption from Egypt.

In this sense Jesus says that "the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath" (Mk 2:27). It is intended to make the one at rest aware of God's sav­ing activity. To do that he must elevate his authority above that of the rigid and vacuous Tradition: 'Therefore [because he has authority to make this determination] the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath" (Mk 2:28).

All of this becomes fully comprehensible only if one moves from the contemplative rest of the Old Testament (including rest for the purpose of reflection) to the New Testament's contemplative rest, an active repose in the Holy Spirit that gazes on the constantly active Father and Son. It is a quietness that does not merely look at the inward, eternal vitality of God but that is indeed drawn into that activity through the Spirit. That is the only way to understand how genuine Christian con­templation can be so active and fruitful. To explain his work on the Sabbath, Jesus says that the Father loves the Son and reveals to him all that he does (In 5:20), and this not merely standing side by side but in an incom­prehensible intermingling: 'The Father who dwells in me completes his works" (In 14:10).

Cardinal von Balthasar (+ 1988) was an eminent Swiss Catholic theologian and co-founder of a religious community. His extensive writings were an important influence on Blessed John Paul II.
From: You Have Words of Eternal Life. Scripture Meditations  1991. Ignatius.



Monday 21 January 2013

Unity Week Day Five: Walking as Friends of Jesus


The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity  
Day Five: Walking as Friends of Jesus
Today we reflect on the biblical images of human friendship and love as models for God’s love for every human being. Understanding ourselves as beloved friends of God has consequences for relationships within the community of Jesus. Within the Church, all barriers of exclusion are inconsistent within a community in which all are equally the beloved friends of Jesus.


Night Office 
Christian Unity 1981
A Reading about Christian Unity and Prayer for Unity
by Dom Robert Petitpierre

Visible unity will come only according to his will and by the means he chooses to use. This will and these means may well prove to be very different from those we envisage. Yet we can be sure that the will and the means involve in­evitably for us the process of growth. We have to grow up into the one new man. It is fatal and easy for christians to refuse to grow into Christ. We think we are good enough. We are sure that we have learnt all that we need to know about the ways of God. We have found a certain stability (it may be a stability of mediocrity) to move from which would make us feel unsafe. So we resist the loving care of the Lord of the body. We reject new experiences of grace and worship and christian fellowship. We close our minds to new apprehensions of truth, being determined to make do with what we have already received .. We avoid a fresh inflow of grace for fear it may (as it must) involve fresh effort. We do not wish for sanctification, but only for a passport to heaven. Yet we cannot stop growing; we are human. If we do not grow with our fellow-christians into Christ, then we shall grow out of him. To resist the loving care of the Lord is to promote disunity.

The habit of prayer is the essential condition of right response to the will of Christ, and the habit of prayer is linked always with the sanctification, the purifying and hallowing, which he who is the saviour of the body gives as its life to the Church. It is in the measure that christians and christian Confessions are sanctified that they enter into the will and purposes of Jesus the Christ of God.
Christian prayer is always personal; but, unlike pagan prayer, it is never private. The christian never prays alone, but always as a member of the Body of Christ and there­fore with and on behalf of all his fellow-christians. But the head of the body is Christ, and he ever lives to pray with and for us. The moment that we start to pray, we find that Jesus our Head is ahead of us. Our personal prayers have but to be joined to his prayer to reach the throne of God. Here again all christians find a unity which the Lord pro­vides. In him all our praying is knit into one prayer. Wherever prayer is offered in his name, there he is in the midst, and all his body with him. He leads our prayers, teaching us what to pray and how to pray; the whole art of surrender to the will of God. We then who pray for the visible unity of all christians do so with him. He prays for his disciples 'that they may all be one.' Our prayer is but the humble, inadequate entry into that impassioned sup­plication. By our praying we draw near to the flame of love, and the flame purges our selfish desires, enlightens our limited vision, warms the coolness of our hope, and strengthens us to act and to suffer according to his prayer and his will.

————————————————————————————————
One in Christ (Faith Press, Lndon, 1958, pp. 78-79.)



COMMENT: St. Agnes. Tre Fontane Abbey

L'Abbazia delle Tre Fontane
This morning, the introduction of the Mass of Saint Agnes, Fr. Raymond had an interesting memory from Tre Fontane Abbey.
He was working as one of the Secretaries after the General Chapter 1989.
On the 21st January he was invited to present the traditional of the lambs of St Agnes to the Pope for the Paliums for Archbishops.
He was delighted for the occasion only to his dismay to realize that he was to depart  from 
Ciampino Airport on the same day.
__________________
__________________________
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tre Fontane Abbey (English: Three Fountains Abbey; LatinAbbatia trium fontium ad Aquas Salvias), or the Abbey of Saints Vincent and Anastasius, is a Roman Catholic abbey in Rome, currently held by the Trappist Fathers of the Cistercian Order. It is known for raising the lambs whose wool is used to weave the pallia of new metropolitan archbishops. The Pope blesses the lambs on the Feast of Saint Agnes on January 21. The wool is prepared, and he gives the pallia to the new archbishops on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the Holy Apostles.

Orbis Catholicus Secundus: Tre Fontane in Rome Where St. Paul ...  

orbiscatholicussecundus.blogspot.com/.../tre-fontane-in-rome-...Share
Oct 6, 2009 – Thomas Merton wrote of Tre Fontane and the Trappist monks there in the... and the two lambs were presented to the Pope on StAgnes' Feastday. ... If you are interested in advertising on this blog, please send an email to ask ...
  1. The lambs are from the Sisters in Trastevere?

    Thomas Merton wrote of Tre Fontane and the Trappist monks there in the Seven Storey Mountain.
    Reply
  2. I think the lambs came from this Trappist/Cistercian Abbey of Tre Fontane, and the two lambs were presented to the Pope on St. Agnes' Feastday.
    Then the lams were shorn of their wool by the Benedictine Nuns of St. Cecilia...in Trastevere, and the wool was woven by them into the pallium and given to the Pope to present to new Bishops.

    The cloistered Benedictine nuns still weave the pallium, but I think either the Canons of St. Peter's, or another monastic group have the responsibility for the lambs now.
    Reply
  3. I do know that the Monks at Tre Fontaine were presenting as late as two years ago as I have a picture of Father Graham Touche,o.s.c.o. of Our Lady of Calvary Abbey in Rogersville, NB, Canada participating in the ceremony of presentation to the Holy Father. Father Graham was completing his studies in Rome at the time and was a resident at Tre Fontaine
    Reply
  4. VATICAN CITY, 21 JAN 2010 (VIS) - This morning, in keeping with the
    tradition for today's feast of St. Agnes, the Pope blessed a number of lambs
    in the Urban VIII Chapel of the Vatican Apostolic Palace.

    The wool of the lambs is used to make the palliums bestowed on new
    metropolitan archbishops on June 29, Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul,
    Apostles.

    The lambs are raised by the Trappist Fathers of the Abbey of the Three
    Fountains in Rome and the palliums are made from the newly-shorn wool by the
    sisters of St. Cecilia.

Sunday 20 January 2013

St. Agnes 21st January


Ordinary Time: January 21st

Memorial of St. Agnes, virgin and martyr



The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
Day Four: Walking as Children of the Earth
Awareness of our place in God’s creation draws us together, as we realize our interdependence upon one another and the earth. Contemplating the urgent calls to environmental care, and to proper sharing and justice with regard to the fruits of the earth, Christians are called into lives of active witness, in the spirit of the year of Jubilee.