Readings & Reflections: Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time & Sts. Louis Martin & Zelie Guerin, September 25,2017
Whoever belongs to any part of God’s people is instructed by King Cyrus to go up and help build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem. Jesus teaches us: “To anyone who has, more will be given.” The sign of belonging to God’s people is the lavish self-donation and generosity that we exhibit. By giving of ourselves, we make room to receive more of Christ.
“God Wants All to Work for His Kingdom; He Wants to Give All the Same Recompense: Salvation and Eternal Life”
Angelus / Foto: Francesco Sforza – © PHOTO.VA – OSSERVATORE ROMANO
Here is a ZENIT translation of the address Pope Francis gave today, before and after praying the midday Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
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Before the Angelus:
Dear Brothers and Sisters, good morning!
In today’s evangelical page (Cf. Matthew 20:1-16) we have the parable of the labourers called for the day, which Jesus recounts to communicate two aspects of the Kingdom of God: the first, that God wants to call all to work for His Kingdom; the second, that at the end He wants to give all the same recompense, namely, salvation, eternal life.
.- Amid the ongoing debate surrounding “Amoris Laetitia,” dubia author Cardinal Raymond Burke said in a new interview that he’s wrongly depicted as the “enemy” of Pope Francis, but he stressed that current division in the Church demands an answer to requests for clarity.
by Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D. • ChurchMilitant.com • September 23, 2017
VILLANOVA, Pa. (ChurchMilitant.com) – Jesuit Fr. James Martin, well-known for his attempts to normalize homosexuality in the Church, claims ex-gays lead a less “integrated life” than current gays.
In an August 29 interview with Brandon Ambrosino, a gay man engaged to his male partner, Martin said:
I know just for the record that a lot of the people who are critiquing me online are self-professed … former gays. So it’s a lot of former gay people. And I would say that there’s a lot of conflict going on. So it’s sad because what happens is their own junk inside gets focused outwards on people who are actually trying to live a more integrated life.
For Catholics around the world, the wait continues for the two remaining” Dubia Cardinals” to issue the promised “formal correction” to Pope Francis as regards Amoris Laetitia. Today, however, in what is being described as an “epoch-making act” unlike any taken “since the Middle Ages,” a group of Catholic clergy and lay scholars have taken a similar measure of their own, making public a “Filial Correction” that was first delivered to the pope on August 11th. The occasion of the publication of this document is today’s Feast of Our Lady of Ransom and of Our Lady of Walsingham. Versions of this correctioare now available in English, Spanish, French, and Italian, along with supporting documents and a list of signatories, on a new website created to support this effort: correctiofilialis.org
Readings & Reflections with Cardinal Tagle’s video: Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time A & Blessed John Henry Newman, September 24,2017
What is most striking about the landowner is the relentless way he himself goes out to find laborers (five times), his willingness to hire the “rejects,” and his desire to pay them a full day’s wage. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of heaven is like this landowner. The love of heaven takes the initiative in seeking us out. The love of heaven is lavish in its self-gift to us. To love the Kingdom of heaven is to love this landowner and the way he acts. The temptation is for us to measure our life and the “the way things should be” by a standard at odds with God. Instead, “seek the Lord while he may be found, call him while he is near,” because for us, “life is Christ.”
Readings & Reflections: Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time & St. Pius of Pietrelcina, September 23,2017
Pius was born Francesco, of poor farm workers in Pietrelcina, Italy. From a young age, he longed to become a Capuchin. His father traveled to America to earn the money to support his son’s vocation. In 1903 he took the Capuchin habit, and was ordained seven years later. From 1918 to his death, Padre Pio bore the visible stigmata, the wounds of Christ – a gift he prayed to have removed, but finally accepted. His famed spread widely, and with this came suspicion, false accusations, and repeated investigation by the Holy Office. “It is under the cross that one learns to love,” he said. Pius of Pietrelcina is renowned as a stigmatist, a “living image of Christ suffering and risen” (St. John Paul II). The Capuchin friar first received the visible wounds of Christ in 1918 after offering himself in response to Pope Benedict XV’s call for prayer to end World War 1. For fifty years he carried on his priestly ministry at San Giovanni Rotondo, saying Mass and hearing confessions, sometimes for up to eighteen hours. Afflicted himself by many physical ailment, he established the Homes for the Relief of Suffering and prayer groups to sustain them spiritually. Entrusting himself to Our Lady of Grace – “my little Blessed Mother” he called her. “Pray, hope, and don’t worry,” he counseled. “Worry is useless. God is merciful and he will hear your prayer. Padre Pio died in 1968 A.D. and canonized in 2002. Over six million pilgrims visit his shrine each year.
A privileged occasion to proclaim Jesus Christ
ACN – Aid To The Church In Need
Pope Francis said September 22, 2017 that the Church must offer “maternal love” to migrants and refugees and that helping them was a “privileged occasion to proclaim Jesus Christ.”
His comments came in an address to the participants in the meeting promoted by the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) underway in Rome at the Bonus Pastor, from September 21-23, 2017. The event was held in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace.
by David Nussman • ChurchMilitant.com • September 19, 2017
The service is slated for September 24 at 5 p.m. at St. Matthew Parish in Flint, Michigan. The event is called “From Conflict to Communion: Together in Hope.” The parish bulletin describes it as a “Joint Lutheran and Catholic Commemoration of the Reformation.”
Part of a community of four parishes in the town of Flint, St. Matthew’s weekly schedule includes a Traditional Latin Mass at 3 p.m. on Sundays.
Faithful Catholics in Flint are concerned about the upcoming interfaith service because it implies that Catholicism and Lutheranism are equally valid options — a notion which contradicts the Church’s self-understanding as the One True Faith.
by David Nussman • ChurchMilitant.com • September 20, 2017 4 Comments
In his speech, the cardinal noted the lack of proper theological training among Latin American theologians. His address also mentioned the modern Church’s de-emphasis of sound theology in favor of politics and diplomacy. At one point, he recounted what St. Robert Bellarmine said to Pope Clement VIII about theology: “You do not understand that.”
Some interpret the cardinal’s remarks as a veiled criticism of Pope Francis, From Argentina and the first Latin-American pope.