Touring the Vatican from Home
By Chris Erickson | September 1, 2010
Thanks to Villanova University of Pennsylvania faculty and students, Rome can now be brought to your home. At the Vatican website you can experience 360-degree images of the Sistine Chapel, and the Basilicas of St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. John Lateran, St. Peter, and St. Mary Major. The “virtual tour” uses high-resolution images to give the viewers a sense of being within the actual rooms. Associate Professor Frank Klassner in Villanova’s Computing Sciences Department led the project, using advanced powered cameras to take several thousand photographs, and then “digitally stitch them together.”
Topics: Vatican, Pilgrimage | No Comments »
The Holy Father’s Prayer Intentions for August
By admin | August 1, 2010
General That those who are without work or homes or who are otherwise in serious need may find understanding and welcome, as well as concrete help in overcoming their difficulties.
Mission That the Church may be a “home” for all people, ready to open its doors to any who are suffering from racial or religious discrimination, hunger, or wars forcing them to emigrate to other countries.
Topics: Prayer, Pope Benedict XVI | No Comments »
Prayer to St. Joseph for Home Renovations
By Sarah Rozman | July 23, 2010
A longtime CUF member shared the following prayer with us, which she wrote when working on house renovations.
Let us ask St. Joseph to bring these intentions before the throne of God.
Good St. Joseph, God the Father entrusted His Son, Jesus, to you. With confidence:
- I ask you now to watch over the renovation of our house and property.
- I pray for peace and unity for all who labor and enter there.
- I pray for the removal of all obstacles that might delay its completion.
- I pray for help, through the holy angels, to arrive at mutual agreements with any designer and in regard to furnishings and decorations.
You, Lord, know what is best. May your holy will be done.
May God’s peace descend upon this house and this property, and may God be glorified.
I ask all this in the Holy Name of Jesus and His blessed Mother as I pray,
Memorare to St. Joseph (versions of the Memorare can be found here and here)
Topics: St. Joseph, Prayer, Catholics United for the Faith | No Comments »
From the Pope
By Sarah Rozman | July 8, 2010
“The Lord always sets signs on our path to guide us according to His will to our own true good.”
–Pope Benedict XVI, from his general audience on St. Leonard Murialdo and St. Joseph Cottolengo, May 26, 2010
Topics: Words of Encouragment, Pope Benedict XVI | No Comments »
New articles at CUF.org
By Sarah Rozman | July 8, 2010
A new issue of Lay Witness means new online articles (and a new quiz!) too.
Our Summer Vocation
by Regis J. Flaherty
“Our vocations require from us a daily commitment. Each and every day we have the opportunity and obligation to again say ‘yes’ to God and choose to embrace the vocation that He has given us. So summer doesn’t change our call, but it does present most of us with different experiences. We can take the opportunities that summer presents to us to get a firmer grip on how we respond to God. Summer can be a time to grow in understanding God’s plan for our lives. We can renew our commitment and be strengthened so that we can better fulfill our vocations.” (full article)
Enough to Make a Difference
by Kathleen Swartz McQuaig
“An hour earlier, Carol and I dropped our sons off at scout camp. We had already headed home when we spotted a dirt lot and tables with would-be treasures. ‘MAKE AN OFFER’ said a large sign propped against a table leg. Carol and I exchanged eager glances. We were two hours from home in unexplored territory and delighted at the potential!…
“It was only after stepping from the car to take a closer look that Carol and I discovered how most items were broken or rusted beyond repair. Even the few salvageable pieces weren’t worth the money the owner expected to glean from them. Carol and I struggled to make sense of the rust we saw lying on the tables. But in the process, we failed to notice the angry eyes glaring at us. As the owner’s grumbling gave way to shouting, we pushed down our fears and high-tailed it back to the car.” (full article)
Topics: Lay Witness, Vocations, Evangelization | No Comments »
The Holy Father’s Prayer Intentions for July
By Sarah Rozman | July 1, 2010
General That in every nation of the world the election of officials may be carried out with justice, transparency, and honesty, respecting the free decisions of citizens.
Mission That Christians may strive to offer everywhere, but especially in great urban centers, an effective contribution to the promotion of education, justice, solidarity, and peace.
Topics: Prayer, Pope Benedict XVI | No Comments »
“Uphold me, Lord”
By Sarah Rozman | June 25, 2010
In the current (May/June) issue of Lay Witness is an article by Sr. Maria-Walburga, a member of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburga in Colorado, about the call to be a bride of Christ. Something she mentions is the posture of the monastics as they profess their vows–the “orans” stance. As Sr. Maria-Walburga says, “It’s an act of complete abandonment and a declaration of helplessness and trust….Almost like a child, we lift our arms to the heavens and cry out, ‘Hold me up, or I’ll fall. Love me, and I will be capable of love.’”
That was on my mind when I came across these pictures from the religious profession of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles. Here is an image of them with their arms uplifted in the “orans” stance.
Here’s the source for this picture and many more.
The profession was this past May. Here’s the news story: “Eleven espoused to Christ.”
Topics: Lay Witness, Generosity, Consecrated life | 1 Comment »
Is modern man capable of the liturgical act?
By Sarah Rozman | June 25, 2010
That’s the question Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., asked (and answered) at the Liturgical Institute of the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Illinois, where he delivered the Hildebrand Distinguished Lecture. His talk was entitled “Glorify God by your life: evangelization and the renewal of the liturgy.” A couple excerpts…
From early in the lecture, introducing his subject and defining the “liturgical act”:
I want to start our conversation in an unlikely place. The scene is Mainz, Germany, April 1964. Just a few months earlier, in December 1963, Vatican II had published its groundbreaking document on the liturgy. Sacrosanctum Concilium was rightly hailed as the distillation of the practical and theological genius of the liturgical movement.
These were heady days, and the group gathering in Mainz for the Third German Liturgical Conference was understandably in a self-congratulatory mood. One of their friends, a pioneering theologian in the continental liturgical movement, could not join them. That friend was Father Romano Guardini, author of the now classic work, The Spirit of the Liturgy.
Though he couldn’t be there, Guardini sent a long open letter that was read to the conference. In it, he praised the work of Vatican II as a testimony that the Holy Spirit was alive and guiding the Church. He saw Sacrosanctum Concilium opening a new phase in the liturgical movement.
But the bulk of his letter was a complex meditation on the meaning of worship. And in his final lines he offered an opinion that left people stunned. He wrote:
“Is not the liturgical act, and with it all that goes under the name ‘liturgy,’ so bound up with the historical background—antique or medieval or baroque—that it would be more honest to give it up altogether? Would it not be better to admit that man in this industrial and scientific age, with its new sociological structure, is no longer capable of the liturgical act?”i
Guardini’s remark caused quite a stir. But there’s no evidence that theologians or liturgists ever took his concerns seriously. Let me say that I do. I think he put his finger on one of the key questions of mission in his time, and also in ours.
What Guardini meant by the liturgical act was the transformation of personal prayer and piety into genuine corporate worship, the leitourgia, the public service that the Church offers to God. He recognized that the Church’s corporate prayer was very different from the private prayer of individual believers.
The liturgical act requires a new kind of consciousness, a “readiness toward God,” an inward awareness of the unity of the whole person, body and soul, with the spiritual body of the Church, present in heaven and on earth. It also requires an appreciation that the sacred signs and actions of the Mass — standing, kneeling, singing and so forth — are themselves “prayer.”
Guardini believed that the spirit of the modern world was undermining the beliefs that made this liturgical consciousness possible. His insight here is that our faith and worship don’t take place in a vacuum. We’re always to some extent products of our culture. Our frameworks of meaning, our perceptions of reality, are shaped by the culture in which we live – whether we like it or not.
And later, from his final point (”The liturgy is a school of sacrificial love.“)
We make our sacrifice of praise first and foremost in the Eucharist. This is the meaning behind the council’s call for the “active participation” of the laity in the liturgy.xv This expression unfortunately has been taken as a license for all sorts of external activity, commotion and busy-ness in our worship. That’s not at all what Vatican II had in mind.
“Active participation” refers to the inner movement of our souls, our interior participation in Christ’s action of offering of his Body and Blood. This requires silent spaces and “pauses” in our worship, in which we can collect our emotions and thoughts, and make a conscious act of self-dedication. We are to “lift up our hearts,” and in contrition and humility place them on the altar along with the bread and wine.
But our work does not stop in the Mass.
Everything in our days — our work, our sufferings, our prayer, our ministries — everything we do and experience is meant to be offered to God as a spiritual sacrifice. All of our work for the unborn child, the poor and the disabled; all of our work for immigration justice and the dignity of marriage and the family: All of it should be offered for the praise and glory of God’s name and for the salvation of our brothers and sisters.
This is another great teaching of the council that we have yet to integrate into ordinary Catholic spirituality. In Lumen Gentium, the council taught that all our works “together with the offering of the Lord’s Body … are most fittingly offered in the celebration of the Eucharist. Thus, as those everywhere who adore in holy activity, the laity consecrate the world itself to God.”xvi
All that we do — in the liturgy and in our life in the world — is meant to be in the service of consecrating this world to God.
Do give the whole talk a good read.
Topics: Archbishop Chaput, Mass, Evangelization, Vatican II, Liturgy | 1 Comment »
“This great drama of salvation”
By Sarah Rozman | June 2, 2010
A week ago Wednesday, Archbishop José Gomez was welcomed into the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as coadjutor archbishop. Formerly the archbishop of San Antonio, Archbishop Gomez will serve alongside Cardinal Roger Mahony until February 2011, when he will become the Archbishop of Los Angeles. (Whispers has some good commentary on Archbishop Gomez’s appointment.)
Below are just a few paragraphs from the Archbishop’s “emotional” closing remarks from the Mass of Welcome. You can read them in full here.
Our mission is the mission of Christ—to proclaim the Good News that this world has a Savior; that the love of God is stronger than sin and death. …
Now, allow me to say a few words to my brother priests. You are at the frontlines of this great drama of salvation. You are men of God and men of brave heart, and the bishops’ first collaborators in the apostolic work of the Church.
In your ministries you are the presence of Christ, bringing God to people and people to God. You show them the compassion of the Father who seeks to carry them home—no matter how far away they might have strayed from the paths he intended for their lives.
Brothers, my priesthood is the joy of my life and I’m humbled to be able to minister alongside you. I’m eager to get to know each of you and the people you serve.
I still cannot believe I am here, my friends! This is awesome! This is not a future I could have ever imagined for myself. But this God we serve is a God of surprises—un Dios de sorpresas—as well as a God of blessings and tender mercies! …
Recently, a good friend told me about one of the local unknown saints here, Maria Luisa de la Peña, a refugee from Mexico who founded the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles.
Venerable Mother Luisita would tell everyone: “For greater things you were born!”
That’s it, my friends! That’s the good news we are called to proclaim to our city, to our country, throughout this continent and world. [For great things we were born!]
Each of us has been made for love and for great and beautiful things. There is no soul that God does not long to touch with this message of his love! And he wants to touch those souls through us.
Topics: Bishops | No Comments »
The Holy Father’s Prayer Intentions for June
By Sarah Rozman | June 1, 2010
General That every national and transnational institution may strive to guarantee respect for human life from conception to natural death.
Mission That the churches in Asia, which constitute a “little flock” among non-Christian populations, may know how to communicate the Gospel and give joyful witness to their adherence to Christ.
Topics: Prayer, Pope Benedict XVI | No Comments »