Edith Stein co-Patronesses Euro

Edith Stein, Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

One question ANSWERS one, and a LEADING article of topical interest.

1. Edith Stein is Doctor of Philosophy and later one of 3 Co-Patronesses of Europe but NOT, so far, Doctor of the Church.

2. As the Queen opens the new Parliament , Joe Egerton urges us to reflect on what Edith Stein.

Edith Stein Co-Patroness of Europe POPE JOHN PAUL II APOSTOLIC LETTER ISSUED MOTU PROPRIO PROCLAIMING SAINT BRIDGET OF SWEDEN SAINT CATHERINE OF SIENA AND SAINT TERESA BENEDICTA OF THE CROSS CO-PATRONESSES OF EUROPE Reflection: Reform, Morality and the Coalition

ICN NEWS: Posted: Tuesday, May 25, 2010 11:36 pm

Edith Stein As the Queen opens the new Parliament, Joe Egerton urges us to reflect on what Edith Stein, twentieth century philosopher, martyr and canonised saint, had to say about the morality of government, and recognise that the Members of the House of Commons are elected to be above all the guardians of virtue in public life. Read his piece on Thinking Faith: www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20100525_1.htm The Coalition is a momentous political change. As Anthony Carroll observed in Thinking Faith, our politics are adjusting to the end of tribal Britain[1]. He is only one of a number of thoughtful commentators to recognise a seismic – and beneficial – shift in our politics[2]. Comparisons are inevitably being drawn with earlier coalitions, including that of 1918 -1922[3]. We need to re-think the relationship between electorate, parties and the state, and to ask what we mean by morality in politics. It is this question that was addressed in 1921 by the philosopher Edith Stein. Stein on morality and the state The political background to Stein’s work was the collapse of Imperial Germany and the emergence of the democratic Weimar Republic, which involved a shift in the relationship between the individual and the state. The intellectual background was Edith Stein’s own work on the conception of the individual and the community. We will need to return to some of her questions, but at this stage I focus on the position she took on the relationship between the state and ethical norms and values. ‘The state is not an abstract entity. It acts and suffers only as those individual agents through whose actions the functions of the state are discharged act and suffer. And it is their actions that conform to or violate norms and values.... the state is just or unjust, protective to those whom it ought to protect, and scrupulous or unscrupulous in its dealings with other states, only insofar as the relevant individual persons have these characteristics. Moral predicates apply to the state only insofar as they apply to the relevant individuals.' ... Contd.

33 Doctors of the Church

COMMENT
The Post on Venerable Bede is admirable.
It may be as well to clarify on the quote, "Bede is the only monk who is named a doctor of the Church ..."
The Roman Catholic Church has, to date, named 33 Doctors of the Church.
Among monk Doctors immediately come to mind is, St. Bernard, Doctor Mellifluus.
It may be an addtion, the 34th, in the name of Edith Stein.
We need to check.

List of Doctors of the Church

Name	Born	Died	Promoted	Ethnicity	Post
St. Gregory the Great *	c. 540	March 12, 604	1298	Italian	Pope
St. Ambrose *	c. 340	April 4, 397	1298	Italian	Bishop of Milan
St. Augustine, Doctor Gratiae *	November 13, 354	August 28, 430	1298	Numidian	Bishop of Hippo
St. Jerome *	c. 347	September 30, 420	1298	Dalmatian	Priest, monk
St. John Chrysostom *	347	407	1568	Syrian	Archbishop of Constantinople
St. Basil *	330	January 1, 379	1568	Cappadocian	Bishop of Caesarea
St. Gregory Nazianzus *	329	January 25, 389	1568	Cappadocian	Archbishop of Constantinople
St. Athanasius *	298	May 2, 373	1568	Egyptian	Patriarch of Alexandria
St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis	1225	March 7, 1274	1568	Italian	Priest, Theologian, O.P.
St. Bonaventure, Doctor Seraphicus	1221	July 15, 1274	1588	Italian	Cardinal Bishop of Albano, theologian, O.F.M.
St. Anselm, Doctor Magnificus	1033 or 1034	April 21, 1109	1720	Italian	Archbishop of Canterbury
St. Isidore *	560	April 4, 636	1722	Spanish	Bishop of Seville
St. Peter Chrysologus *	406	450	1729	Italian	Archbishop of Ravenna
St. Leo the Great *	400	November 10, 461	1754	Italian	Pope
St. Peter Damian	1007	February 21/22,1072	1828	Italian	Cardinal (Catholicism) Bishop of Ostia, monk, O.S.B.
St. Bernard, Doctor Mellifluus	1090	August 21, 1153	1830	French	Priest, O.Cist.
St. Hilary of Poitiers *	300	367	1851	French	Bishop of Poitiers
St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor Zelantissimus	September 27, 1696	August 1, 1787	1871	Italian	Bishop of Sant'Agata de' Goti, Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer
St. Francis de Sales	August 21, 1567	December 28, 1622	1877	French	Bishop of Geneva
St. Cyril of Alexandria, Doctor Incarnationis *	376	June 27, 444	1883	Egyptian	Patriarch of Alexandria
St. Cyril of Jerusalem *	315	386	1883	Jerusalem	Bishop of Jerusalem
St. John Damascene *	676	December 5, 749	1883	Syrian	Priest, monk
St. Bede the Venerable *	672	May 27, 735	1899	English	Priest, monk
St. Ephrem *	306	373	1920	Syrian	Deacon
St. Peter Canisius	May 8, 1521	December 21, 1597	1925	Dutch	priest, S.J.
St. John of the Cross, Doctor Mysticus	June 24, 1542	December 14, 1591	1926	Spanish	Priest, mystic, Discalced Carmelites (Founder)
St. Robert Bellarmine	October 4, 1542	September 17, 1621	1931	Italian	Archbishop of Capua, theologian,Society of Jesus
St. Albertus Magnus, Doctor Universalis	1193	November 15,1280	1931	German	Bishop, theologian, Dominican Order
St. Anthony of Padua and Lisbon,Doctor Evangelicus	August 15, 1195	June 13, 1231	1946	Portuguese	Priest, Franciscan
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, Doctor Apostolicus	July 22, 1559	July 22, 1619	1959	NItalian	Priest, diplomat, Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
St. Teresa of Ávila	March 28, 1515	October 4, 1582	1970	Spanish	Mystic, Discalced Carmelites (Founder)
St. Catherine of Siena	March 25, 1347	April 29, 1380	1970	Italian	Mystic, Dominican Order
St. Thérèse of Lisieux	January 2, 1873	September 30, 1897	1997	French	Discalced Carmelites (Nun)

Cistercian Junior Course at Caldey

Cistercian Junior Course at Caldey

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Daniel van Santvoort
To: nunrawdonald@yahoo.com
Sent: Sat, 22 May, 2010 11:06:05
Subject: Re: Junior Course

Dear Donald,

Thank you for your e-mail.

The Junior Course over here went very well!
There were 15 participants on the course:

• Br Adam and Br Andrew of MSB
• Br Cornelius, Br Augustine and Br Raphael of Mellifont
• Sr Christina of Tautra (unfortunately Sr Rina as not able to come because of Visa problems)
• Sr Fiachra, Sr Marie-Therese and Sr Mairead of Glencairn
• Sr Mary Johanna of Brownshill
• Br Vianney of Portglenone
• Br Malachy of Roscrea
• Br Luca, Br Benedict and Fr Jan of Caldey

The lectures were given by Fr John Farrell OP, the Provincial of the Dominicans, London

The topic was the relationship between Holy Scripture and Liturgy.

The over-all atmosphere was really good.
The participants were very enthusiastic about the island, the lectures and the day-trip to St Davids and its cathedral on the West-Coast of Pembrokeshire.

Our Brother Gildas was the tour guide and he (as always) did an excellent job.

The weather was favourable. As you know: that is always the worry we have.
Too much wind prevents every crossing to and from the island - but, Thank God, all were able to arrive on time (Monday 3rd May) and also were able to depart on Tuesday 11th May.
It was a very uplifting experience - to have full choir-stalls and to hear quite a number of very good voices! The last evening we had a get-together in our Refectory with plenty to eat, whilst a number of the participants entertained us with dance and music. For me these experiences are invaluable, and they show us the deeper meaning of being part of the Region. They had very good lectures, yes, but perhaps more important: they could meet each other in a different place and were able to taste something of our way of being Cistercians in the context of island-life with its own specific blessings and obviously its limitations...

Thank you, Donald, for allowing me to share something to the wider public.

Have a blessed Pentecost!

Daniel, Caldey

Bede Polymath

Feast of Venerable Bede, Saint, Doctor of the Church.

The Night Office Reading had a biographical note and the Introduction to the Mass was interesting to monks native to the native place of Bede in Jarrow, Tyne and Weir.
Following, the first trawling the Net with the bait of "Bede Polymath" immediately caught this gem from Stanford Univerity.

Stanford Report, November 19, 2009

Stanford celebrates the 'Father of English History' Venerable Bede

"Bedemeister" George Brown has published a new book on England's earliest polymath, and Stanford's library is celebrating recent Bedan acquisitions.

L.A. Cicero

English Professor Emeritus George Brown

BY CYNTHIA HAVEN

Chaos had reigned in the northern kingdom, and chaos would come again. But for a few short decades, peace had a toehold. In these years, one of history's greatest minds flourished.

The Northumbrian monk known as "Venerable Bede" (c.672-735) has been called "the teacher of the whole Middle Ages" and "the father of English history." For English Professor Emeritus George Hardin Brown, one of the world's leading Bede scholars and author of the newly published Companion to Bede, he is something more: The early scholar has been Brown's lifetime's work.

Bede was the ultimate polymath – a master of every subject of his time: poetic principles and practice, mathematics, astronomy, history, theology, grammar. Most famously, he is the author of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, considered one of the most important sources on Anglo-Saxon history.

"The reason I have worked with him and his works for years is that it takes a long time to cover all he did and the history he made," Brown said at a "Bede Celebration" recently at Green Library, which also showcased recent Bedan acquisitions. "Others have written on him as an historian, or computist, or scripture scholar, and so forth. I'm one of the few who has tried to encompass all he wrote, and I have tried to digest that knowledge succinctly in this book."

L.A. Cicero

At a recent celebration, Special Collections displayed about two dozen Bedan volumes from its holdings.

Scholar of many subjects

Bede was the author of more than 40 works. "In his time, there was no one like him," said Brown of the largely self-taught author of biblical commentaries, saints' lives and homilies, as well as works of science and mathematics and the "reckoning of time."

He not only wrote and taught, but he made the copies as well."I myself am at once my own dictator, stenographer and copyist," Bede wrote to a friend.

Brown is the founder of Stanford's Medieval Studies program, which he chaired for a dozen years. He was recently named a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, in addition to being a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. But the title he cherishes most is an unofficial one: "Bedemeister."

Brown's prominence at Stanford triggered a series of library acquisitions. "With an eminent Bede scholar such as George Brown here on our faculty, important antiquarian editions of Bede seemed very sound acquisitions for us," said John Mustain, rare books librarian and classics bibliographer at the Stanford University Libraries.

Although the collection remains "relatively modest" at less than two dozen volumes, all on display at the celebration, the library has added them "fairly aggressively over the past 10 years, as part of an effort to strengthen our holdings in antiquarian editions of medieval authors in general, and antiquarian editions of Bede in particular," Mustain said.

Bede likely would have approved. He was, as English Department Chair Jennifer Summit said, "a creature of the library." Book collections are not usually associated in the public mind to the rough world of Beowulf, a work that may have come from this period, yet Bede was privy to a library that included nearly 300 books, making it one of the best in Europe. "It was a terrific library. Because of it, Bede was able to read and write his work," said Brown.

L.A. Cicero

A study of Bede's scholarship has been Professor Emeritus George Brown's lifetime's work.

Rare time of peace

There was hardly any need to leave home: In his lifetime, Bede stayed within 30 miles of his base at the remote but well-endowed Northumbrian monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow. Although murder and treachery had been the norm during the time Britain was governed by warring chieftains, Brown said that the years Bede lived were uncommonly safe. Bede himself wrote that a woman and child could walk across England unmolested.

The goal of Bede's quiet life was to "bring people close to God," said Brown. "He wasn't going out preaching – but it was the message in everything that he was doing. Everything was directed to the Kingdom of God."

Peace didn't last long. By the end of the eighth century, Wearmouth-Jarrow was the second target of the Vikings, after the island jewel of Lindisfarne. "They all got bumped by the Vikings. They were easy marks, with undefended wealth," said Brown. Within decades after that, the Danes would demolish what was left of Bede's monastery.

Many of his original manuscripts were destroyed, but the Vikings were too late to destroy his legacy. Bede's work had been in high-demand since his death, and his popularity ensured survival.

Bede's renowned saintliness created a few other distinctions in the ensuing centuries: He is the only monk who is named a doctor of the Church – and Dante made him the only Englishman in Paradiso. He's in Canto X, the "Circle of the Sun" – one of three men "who in contemplation exceeded Man."

With thanks to Stanford Univ. NEWS

PENTECOST 2

PENTECOST Night Office Reading (Selection fitting for this 9th centenary year of Aelred) From a sermon by Saint Aelred of Rievaulx (Talbot 1, 112-114) This reading shows the cosmic dimensions of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was active at the beginning of creation; since Pentecost he has been active in the work of recreation in the waters of baptism. Today's holy solemnity puts new heart into us, for not only do we revere its dignity, we also experience it as delightful. On this feast it is love that we specially honour, and among human beings there is no word pleasanter to the ear, no thought more tenderly dwelt on, than love. The love we celebrate is nothing other than the goodness, kindness, and charity of God; for God himself is goodness, kindness, and charity. His goodness is identical with his Spirit, with God himself. In his work of disposing all things the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world from the beginning, reaching from end to end of the earth in strength, and delicately disposing everything; but as sanctifier the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole world since Pentecost, for on this day the gracious Spirit himself was sent by the Father and the Son on a new mission, in a new mode, by a new manifestation of his mighty power, for the sanctification of every creature. Before this day the Spirit had not been given, for Jesus was not yet glorified, but today he came forth from his heavenly throne to give himself in all his abundant riches to the human race, so that the divine outpouring might pervade the whole wide world and be manifested in a variety of spiritual endowments. It is surely right that this overflowing delight should come down to us from heaven, since it was heaven that a few days earlier received from our fertile earth a fruit of wonderful sweetness. When has our land ever yielded a fruit more pleasant, sweeter, holier, or more delectable? Indeed, faithfulness has sprung up from the earth. A few days ago we sent Christ on ahead to the heavenly kingdom, so that in all fairness we might have in return whatever heaven held that should be sweet to our desire. The full sweetness of earth is Christ's humanity, the full sweetness of heaven Christ's Spirit. Thus a more profitable bargain was struck: Christ's human nature ascended from us to heaven, and on us today Christ's Spirit has come down. Now indeed the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole earth, and all creation recognizes his voice. Everywhere the Spirit is at work, everywhere he speaks. To be sure, the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples before our Lord's ascension when he said, Receive the Holy Spirit: if you forgive anyone's sins they are forgiven, if you withhold forgiveness, unforgiven they shall be; but before the day of Pentecost the Spirit's voice was still in a sense unheard. His power had not yet leaped forth, nor had the disciples truly come to know him, for they were not yet confirmed by his might; they were still in the grip of fear, cowering behind closed doors. From this day onward, however, the voice of the Lord has resounded over the waters; the God of majesty has thundered and the Lord makes his voice echo over the flood. From now on the voice of the Lord speaks with strength, the voice of the Lord in majesty, the voice of the Lord fells the cedars, the voice of the Lord strikes flaring fire, the voice of the Lord shakes the desert, stirring the wilderness of Kadesh, the voice of the Lord strips the forest bare, and all will cry out, "Glory!" Responsory John 3:24; Sirach 1:9-10 All who keep God's commandments live in God and God lives in them. —We know that he dwells in us, by the Spirit he has given us, alleluia. In his holy Spirit God created wisdom, which he has poured forth upon all creation and has offered to those who love him. —We know that...

Pentecost

The Descent of the Holy Spirit The Spirit comes to the community and through the community. The Spirit creates in us the bond of love which establishes the Church. Mary, the Mother of the Church, holds her hands in prayer and leads the apostles in prayer. Many of the apostles are confused and perhaps even frightened by the descent of the Holy Spirit. But Mary is calm, prayerful and open, and her conduct comforts them and reminds them of her Son. She reminds them - and us - to pray. There is an old man in the centre of the icon. Surrounded by Mary and the apostles, he symbolizes the world. He is there to remind us that we do not pray for ourselves alone, but for the entire world. The Holy Spirit descends on the apostles, and on us in Chrismation (Confirmation), so that we can carry the Spirit into the world. Our prayer helps to transform not only ourselves, but also our friends, our neighbours, our world. M. Tataryn. ‘How to Pray Icons’, Gracewing 1997 Icons from Ukrainian Church, Rome.