Saturday, August 28, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
THE HOLY SPIRIT
Pope Benedict XVI, Shepherd of Truth
Notable quotations from Pope Benedict XVI and official
teachings of the Roman Catholic Church
"A SAILBOAT WITHOUT THE WIND"
The Church ... lives constantly from the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, without which she would exhaust her own strength, like a sailboat without the wind.
MARY AND PENTECOST
... There is no Church without Pentecost... I would like to add that there is no Pentecost without the Virgin Mary... Wherever Christians gather in prayer with Mary, the Lord grants His Spirit.
A GIFT FROM JESUS
The Spirit is ... the gift that Jesus asked and continues to ask of His Father for His friends: the first and principal gift that He obtained for us through His Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.
UNITED BY THE SPIRIT
The Spirit triggers a process of reunification of the divided and dispersed parts of the human family. People, often reduced to individuals in competition or in conflict with each other, when touched by the Spirit of Christ open themselves to the experience of communion...
"THE FIRE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT"
The fire of God, the fire of the Holy Spirit, is that of the bush that burned but was not consumed... It is a flame that blazes but does not destroy, on the contrary, that, in burning, brings out the better and truer part of man, as in a fusion it elicits his interior form, his vocation to truth and to love.
TRANSFORMED BY THE SPIRIT
The flame of the Holy Spirit ...enacts a transformation, and thus must also consume something in man, the waste that corrupts him and hinders his relations with God and neighbor.
FRIGHTENED BY THE FIRE
This effect of the divine fire ... frightens us; we are afraid of being "scorched" and prefer to stay just as we are. This is because our life is often based on the logic of having, of possessing and not the logic of self-gift.
"COME, HOLY SPIRIT!"
Come, Holy Spirit! Enkindle in us the fire of Your love! We know that this is a bold prayer, with which we ask to be touched by God's flame; but ... we know that this flame and it alone has the power to save us... We need the fire of the Holy Spirit, because only Love redeems.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Understanding the Scriptures
- Ch. 1 – What Is the Bible?
- Ch. 2 – The Old Testament
- Ch. 3 – The Creation of the World
- Ch. 4 -Th
e Early World
- Ch. 5 – Abraham, Our Father
- Ch. 6 – The Patriarchs
- Ch. 7 – The Exodus
- Ch. 8 – The Law
- Ch. 9 – The Rise of the Kingdom
- Ch. 10 – The Kingdom of David
- Ch. 11 – Wise King Solomon
- Ch. 12 – The Divided Kingdom
- Ch. 13 – Conquest and Exile
- Ch. 14 – A Remnant Returns
- Ch. 15 – Revolt of the Maccabees
- Ch. 16 – The World of the New Testament
- Ch. 17 – The New Testament
- Ch. 18 – The Incarnation
- Ch. 19 – What Jesus Did
- Ch. 20 – What Jesus Taught
- Ch. 21 – The Cup of Consummation
- Ch. 22 – The Resurrection
- Ch. 23 – Jesus Fulfills the Old Testament
- Ch. 24 – The Birth of the Church
- Ch. 25 – Reaching Out to All Nations
- Ch. 26 – Paul, An Apostle
- Ch. 27 – The New Kingdom
- Ch. 28 – The Catholic Church in Scripture
- Ch. 29 – The End of History
- Ch. 30 – How to Read the Bible
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) 8/9
Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation to use his or her unique gifts. God calls each one of us to be a saint. Click here to receive Saint of the Day in your email.
August 9
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)
(1891-1942)
Born into a prominent Jewish family in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), Edith abandoned Judaism in her teens. As a student at the University of Göttingen, she became fascinated by phenomenology, an approach to philosophy. Excelling as a protégé of Edmund Husserl, one of the leading phenomenologists, Edith earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1916. She continued as a university teacher until 1922 when she moved to a Dominican school in Speyer; her appointment as lecturer at the Educational Institute of Munich ended under pressure from the Nazis.
After living in the Cologne Carmel (1934-38), she moved to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands. The Nazis occupied that country in 1940. In retaliation for being denounced by the Dutch bishops, the Nazis arrested all Dutch Jews who had become Christians. Teresa Benedicta and her sister Rosa, also a Catholic, died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.
Pope John Paul II beatified Teresa Benedicta in 1987 and canonized her 12 years later.
The writings of Edith Stein fill 17 volumes, many of which have been translated into English. A woman of integrity, she followed the truth wherever it led her. After becoming a Catholic, Edith continued to honor her mother’s Jewish faith. Sister Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D. , translator of several of Edith’s books, sums up this saint with the phrase, “Learn to live at God’s hands.”
In his homily at the canonization Mass, Pope John Paul II said: “Because she was Jewish, Edith Stein was taken with her sister Rosa and many other Catholics and Jews from the Netherlands to the concentration camp in Auschwitz, where she died with them in the gas chambers. Today we remember them all with deep respect. A few days before her deportation, the woman religious had dismissed the question about a possible rescue: ‘Do not do it! Why should I be spared? Is it not right that I should gain no advantage from my Baptism? If I cannot share the lot of my brothers and sisters, my life, in a certain sense, is destroyed.’”
Addressing himself to the young people gathered for the canonization, the pope said: “Your life is not an endless series of open doors! Listen to your heart! Do not stay on the surface but go to the heart of things! And when the time is right, have the courage to decide! The Lord is waiting for you to put your freedom in his good hands.”
Saint of the DayLives, Lessons and Feast
By Leonard Foley, O.F.M.; revised by Pat McCloskey, O.F.M.
