Those Who Want Christ Without the Church ...

Msgr. Charles Pope
Archdiocese of Washington.

The video below is of Archbishop Timothy Dolan speaking on Dorothy Day.  ...

In the Sermon the Archbishop speaks of Dorothy Day’s love for the Church. He remarks that there are many people today who want Christ without the Church. For Dorothy Day and for us: No can do. Christ is found with his Church: warts and all, sinners and saints, even me, Oh Lord! Jesus Christ was found among sinners, such that it scandalized many. He was crucified between two thieves. He was found in very questionable company. Do you get it? You won’t find Christ by walking away from the company he keeps.
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Also, please read:

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted:
The Wondrous Mystery of the Lord Jesus - Part One: A Church without Christ?

Seminarian may owe his life to Cardinal Van Thuan's intercession

Denver, Colo., Nov 12, 2010 / 06:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Doctors said Joseph Nguyen was dead. His heart rate was dropping beyond recovery, and all brain activity was gone. But while they wrote his death certificate, Joseph's parents were asking an old family friend for help: a Vietnamese cardinal who is being considered for beatification.

Joseph Nguyen has since re-enrolled in seminary. He's seen his own death certificate, now stamped “VOID.” He has only two memories of the 32-day coma, which he says felt otherwise like a “great night's sleep.”

During the weeks that he hovered between life and death in 2009, Joseph says he had two encounters with Cardinal Francois-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan.

Read more »

God writes straight with our crooked lines

by Patricia Kasten
- The Compass


"What can I do? I'm just one person."
"I'm just a kid."
"I'm gettting old, you know."

Sometimes we feel small and helpless. Things seem too enormous for us. Today, problems of global proportion face us; tragedies of staggering numbers surround us. Yet, as followers of Christ, we are called to announce the Good News, to proclaim that God's Kingdom continues to break into our world.

Sometimes we feel like Zaccheus in this Sunday's Gospel (Lk 19:1-10) -- too small to see what is going on; too short to catch the great events passing by -- much less able to do anything to change them. Yet the message of Zaccheus tells us that we -- little, flawed, small in stature, weak in power -- can still be used by God to bring about the Kingdom.

There is an old Portugese saying to the effect that "God writes straight with crooked lines." The divine plan for salvation is a straight, unchanging line leading us, through Christ, to perfection with God. But God -- Father, Son and Spirit -- in infinite and unfathomable wisdom brings about that perfect salvation through very imperfect means: us. As sacramental theologian Fr. Nicholas Halligan, OP, said, "The Father begins the work of salvation in us and brings it to perfection. If we do anything, it is only because he does it in us."

Through the events of salvation history, we see God at work, writing salvation's story through the crooked lines of human history.

• Abraham, our father in faith. Genesis 21 tells us that Abraham was 100 years old, and Sarah 90 (Gn 18), when their only son Isaac was born. Both were old and frail, well past their productive ages. Yet, as pointed out in Heb 6:11, "there came forth from one man, himself as good as dead, descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as the sands on the seashore."

• Jacob, father of the tribes of Israel. Jacob did not start well in life. He stole his brother's birthright (Gn 27) and then ran off with his father-in-law's family and goods (Gn 30 and 31). But, in the end, Jacob mended his relations with both Laban and Esau, even risking his life by facing his brother alone (Gn 33).

• David, the greatest king of Israel, "a man after God's own heart" (1Sm 13:14). Yet David showed his human flaws, committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband, Uriah, killed (2Sm 11). Yet, when David repented, God fulfilled the promise to establish David's throne forever.

These people were Jesus' ancestors. And don't forget the women in his family tree: Tamar, who tricked Judah into fathering her twin sons; Rahab, the harlot, who saved Joshua's spies in the conquest of Jericho (Jos 2:1-18). Even Sarah laughed when God promised her a son (Gn 18:12).

Then there were Jesus' followers. They found many crooked lines in their lives too:

• Peter, big and good-hearted, sometimes at a loss for words, at others times, saying just the wrong thing. (Remember, "Get behind me Satan?") He even denied Jesus on that fateful night. But Peter ran to the tomb to learn the unimaginable truth and then -- three times -- declared his love for Christ.

• Paul (still called Saul), on fire for his faith, "persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it" (Gal 1:11). He had to be struck blind before he saw salvation's straight lines. But then to him, "the very least of all the holy ones, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ" (Eph 3:8).

And lest we think God's chosen ones, the crooked lines with which he writes straightly, have it easy even as they follow God's will, recall Paul's words to the Corinthians: "a thorn in the flesh was given to me... Three times I begged the Lord about this that it might leave me, but he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness'" (2Cor 12:7-9).

Divine power is made perfect in weakness. Crooked lines are made straight. A chief tax collector, the most despised of "governmental thieves," vows to give back anything he has wrongfully taken and more. And what happens? "Today, salvation has come to this house ... for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost."

Are we small like Zaccheus? Proud like Paul? Weak like David? Frail like Abraham? Old like Sarah? Doubting like Thomas?  Each of us has crooked lines. Zaccheus teaches us that crooked lines can be made straight. All we must do is be willing to offer ourselves to God's hand.

As Pope John Paul said in a homily on Zaccheus: "Thanks to the closeness of Jesus, of his words and of his teaching, this man's heart begins to be transformed... This opening of the heart in the encounter with Christ is a pledge of salvation... And just as he once did with Zaccheus, so at this moment Christ stands before the men and women of our age. He seems to say to each person individually: "I must stay at your house today" (June 9, 1999).

Zaccheus, a little man, despised by others, faced the enormity of all salvation offered to him. Overjoyed, he climbed down from his crooked tree limb and came straight home to salvation.

Source: The Compass, Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Nov. 2, 2001 Issue

Diocesan Process Opens for Cardinal Van Thuân

Source: Zenit

Prizes Honor Solidarity, Development Projects

ROME, OCT. 5, 2010 (Zenit.org).- This month the diocesan process will begin for the beatification of Servant of God Cardinal François Xavier Nguyen van Thuân (1928-2002).

The solemn opening of the diocesan investigation on the life, virtues and reputation for sanctity of the cardinal will take place Oct. 22, three years after the announcement of the launching of the cause of beatification.

The Vietnamese cardinal served as vice-president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 1994, and was its president from 1998 to 2002.

Before that, the prelate had been detained for 13 years in a Communist re-education camp in Vietnam. In 1988 he was liberated and forced into exile. Pope John Paul II welcomed him to Vatican City and entrusted him with responsibilities in the Roman Curia.

The opening ceremony for the diocesan investigation will take place at midday in the Conciliation Hall of the Lateran Palace in Rome.

The session will be presided over by Cardinal Agostino Vallini, the Pope's vicar for the Diocese of Rome, and Cardinal Peter Turkson, current president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

A communiqué from the pontifical council stated that it is organizing a series of events to remember the figure of the cardinal and highlight his reputation for sanctity, in cooperation with the St. Matthew Foundation in Memory of Cardinal Van Thuân and the Cardinal François Xavier Nguyen Van Thuân Foundation of the United States.

Also on Oct. 22, Cardinal Turkson will preside over a Eucharistic celebration in memory of the Servant of God in the Roman church of Santa Maria della Scala, of which he was the titular bishop. Attending the ceremony will be members of the dicastery, cardinals, bishops, relatives, friends and others who had the opportunity to know the cardinal during his life.

Awards

Moreover, the third edition of the Van Thuân Prizes, sponsored by the St. Matthew Foundation of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, will take place in the Pontifical Lateran University.

This year, the small statuette of St. Matthew, symbol of the award, will be given to Juan Somavía, director general of the International Labor Organization.

The "Van Thuân Prize -- Solidarity and Development" recognizes institutions, associations and entities that carry out humanitarian and work projects in developing countries to defend human rights through the promotion and diffusion of evangelical principles, following the directives of the social doctrine of the Church.

This recognition will be given this year to Archbishop Giuseppe Molinari of L'Aquila, Italy; to Brazilian Father Marcelo Rossi; to the St. Camille Foundation for its work in Burundi; and to communities of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in Haiti.

The day will end with a concert dedicated to Cardinal Van Thuân in the Roman Basilica of St. Anthony.

Karl Rahner - God of the living (Part 4/4)

0 silent God, God of the silent dead, living God of the living, who call to me through silence, 0 God of those who are silently summoning me to enter into Your Life, never let me forget my dead, my living. May my love and faithfulness to them be a pledge of my belief in You, the God of eternal life.

Let me not be deaf to the call of their silence, which is the surest and sincerest word of their love. May this word of theirs continue to accompany me, even after they have taken leave of me to enter into You, for thus their love comes all the closer to me. 0 my soul, never forget your dead, for they live. And the life they live, now unveiled in eternal light, is your own fife, which will one day be revealed also in you.

O God of the living, may Your living not forget me, as I still walk in the valley of death. You have granted them everything, even Yourself; grant them this too, that their silence may become the most eloquent word of their love for me. May it lead me home to the Kingdom they now possess, to the fife and light they now enjoy.

My waning life is becoming more and more a life with the dead. I live more and more with those who have gone before me into the dark night where no man can work. By Your life giving grace, 0 Lord, let it become ever more a life of faith in Your light, shining now dimly in this earthly night. Let me live with the living who have preceded me in the sign of faith, who have gone before me into the bright day of eternal life, when no man need work, because You Yourself are this day, the Fullness of all Reality, the God of the Living.

When I pray, "Grant them eternal rest, 0 Lord, and let Thy perpetual light shine upon them," let my words be only the echo of the prayer of love that they themselves are speaking for me in the silence of eternity: "0 Lord, grant unto him, whom we love in Your Love now as never before, grant unto him after his life's struggle Your eternal rest, and let Your perpetual light shine also upon him, as it does upon us."

0 my soul, never forget the dead. 0 God of all the living, do not forget me, the dead one, but come one day to be my life, as You are theirs.

Karl Rahner, S.J.
Encounters with Silence

Thánh Têrêsa Hài Đồng

Trích sách TỰ THUẬT - MỘT TÂM HỒN:

Con trở lại câu truyện những bài học Chúa dạy con. Buổi tối kia lúc đọc kinh xong, con tìm cái đèn con vẫn để trên bệ mà chẳng thấy; là giờ im lặng, không thể hỏi han ai được. Con nghĩ thầm hẳn có chị nào lấy lẫn đèn của con về dùng. Vì thế con phải chịu tối cả giờ, hơn nữa lại là tối con định làm nhiều việc! Phải mà khi ấy, Chúa chẳng ban ơn soi sáng bề trong, có lẽ con đã phàn nàn lắm; nhưng vì có ơn Chúa, chẳng những con đã không buồn bực, lại coi mình là có phúc ở chỗ đó. Con suy rằng sự nghèo khó đích thật chẳng những là vui lòng chịu thiếu thốn những gì mình thích, nhưng cả những gì mình coi là cần thiết nữa. Tối ấy, bề ngoài tối tăm u ám thật, nhưng linh hồn được ơn Chúa chiếu soi rạng rỡ lắm.

...

I'll return to the lessons Our Lord gave me. One evening, after Compline, I looked in vain for my lamp on the shelves where they are kept. As it was the Lent Silence, I couldn't ask for it. I thought rightly that a sister had taken it in mistake for hers. So, because of this mistake, I had to spend a whole hour in darkness and it was an evening when I'd planned to do a lot of work. But for the interior light of grace I should certainly have been very sorry for myself. As it was, instead of feeling upset, I rejoiced and thought that true poverty meant being without essentials, not only of pleasant things. And in the darkness of my cell my soul was flooded with divine light. (Autobiography - The Story of a Soul)

Karl Rahner - God of the living (Part 3)

If it's true that those who have departed in Your love have not really lost their life, but have had it transformed into eternal, limitless, superabundant life, why then do I perceive no sign? Why are they for me as if they were no more? Is the eternal light into which they have entered which is Your light, my God so feeble that its rays can't reach down to me? Must not only their bodies, but also their love depart from me, in order to be with You?

My question thus turns away from them to You, my God, for You want Yourself to be called the God of the living and not of the dead.

But why am I asking this of You? You are as silent to me as my dead. I love You too, as I love my dead, the quiet and distant ones who have entered into night. And yet not even You give me answer, when my loving heart calls upon You for a sign that You and Your Love are present to me. So how can I complain about my dead, when their silence is only the echo of Yours? Or can it be that Your silence is Your answer to my complaint about theirs ?

That must be the way it is, since You are the last answer, even though incomprehensible, to all the questions of my heart. I know why You are silent: Your silence is the framework of my faith, the boundless space where my love finds the strength to believe in Your Love.

If it were all perfectly evident to me here on earth, if Your Love of me were so manifest that I could ask no more anxious questions about it, if You had made absolutely crystal clear the most important thing about me, namely, that I am someone loved by You, how then could I prove the daring courage and fidelity of my love? How could I even have such love? How could I lift myself up in the ecstasy of faith and charity, and transport myself out of this world into Your world, into Your Heart?

Your Love has hidden itself in silence, so that my love can reveal itself in faith. You have left me, so that I can discover You. If You were with me, then in my search for You I should always discover only myself. But I must go out of myself, if I am to find You and find You there, where You can be Yourself.

Since Your Love is infinite, it can abide only in Your Infinity; and since You will to manifest Your infinite Love to me, You have hidden it in my finiteness, where You issue Your call to me. My faith in You is nothing but the dark path in the night between the abandoned shack of my poor, dim earthly life and the brilliance of Your Eternity. And Your silence in this time of my pilgrimage is nothing but the earthly manifestation of the eternal word of Your Love.

That is how my dead imitate Your silence: they remain hidden from me because they have entered into Your Life. The words of their love no longer reach my ears, because they are conjoined with the jubilant song of Your endless Love. My dead live the unhampered and limitless Life that You live; they love with Your Love; and thus their life and their love no longer fit into the frail and narrow frame of my present existence. I live a dying life - prolixitas mortis - is the Church's name for this life so how can I expect to experience their eternal life, which knows no death?

And that is also the way they live for me. Their silence is their loudest call to me, because it is the echo of Your silence. Their voice speaks in unison with Yours, trying to make itself heard above the noisy tumult of our incessant activity, competing with the anxious protestations of mutual love with which we poor humans try to reassure each other. Against all this, their voice and Yours strive to enwrap us and all our words in Your eternal silence.

Thus Your word summons us to enter into Your Life. Thus You command us to abandon ourselves by the daring act of love which is faith, so that we may find our eternal home in Your Life. And thus I am called and commanded by the silence of my dead, who live Your Life and therefore speak Your word to me, the word of the God of Life, so far removed from my dying. They are silent because they live, just as we chatter so loudly to try to make ourselves forget that we are dying. Their silence is really their call to me, the assurance of their immortal love for me.

Đêm Canh Thức với ĐTC Bênêđictô tại Hyde Park - London

Thưa cả Nhà qúy mến,

Hôm nay ThTrang chia sẻ một chút với Cả Nhà sau một tuần hồi tâm, lấy lại sức sau 1 thời gian dài giúp cho Gíao Xứ đi tham dự các Thánh Lễ & nghi thức mà ĐTCha Bênêđictô chủ tọa vào dịp Ngài thăm Anh Quốc cuối tuần 16-19 tháng 9 vừa qua.

Chuyến tông du của DTCha đã thành công (như phát ngôn viên của Vatican) chắc chắn là nhờ nhiều lời cầu nguyện của mọi người, và chắc chắn có nhiều chuyện để chia sẻ lắm, nhưng có lẽ mọi nguời có thể xem và nghe từ đài Viet Catholic hoặc DMHCG v.v. ThTrang chỉ muốn chia sẻ về “đêm Canh Thức” vào tối Thứ Bảy 18-Tháng 9. có 80,000 người đã tụ họp lại để tham dự, giống như các cuộc hành hương lớn tại Lộ Đức, Fatima hay La Vang, chỉ cần mình thấy số đông đảo giáo dân tham dự và ai ai cũng sốt sáng mà làm cho Đức Tin của mình được hun đốt, nóng lại. Đặc biệt lúc “Chầu Mình Thánh Chúa”, lớn bé, già trẻ, ai ai cũng nghiêm trang, có ngưòi qùy, có ngưòi đứng cầm nến, có nguời còn giang tay cầu nguyện. Vì là ban đêm và ở ngoài công viên rộng lớn và nhiệt độ hạ xuống thấp, mặc dù đã chuyẩn bị mặc áo thật dầy, nhưng ThTrang vẫn cảm thấy lạnh run. Đêm Canh Thức đã kết thúc với nghi thức chầu Mình Thánh Chúa và Phép Lành Thánh Thể.

Hình ảnh sốt sáng đầy xúc động đã đánh động ThTrang mạnh và sâu đậm nhất là lúc nhìn DTCha qùy truớc Mình Thánh Chúa giữa 80,000 con chiên trong không khí thật nghiêm trang, thinh lặng từ bốn bề trong công viên Hyde tại London. ThTrang nhận thấy lúc đó kính, thương, mến DTCha vô cùng, với dáng dấp của nguời cha già, lưng hơi khòm, những nếp nhăn hiện trên khuôn mặt cuơng quyết nhưng đầy nhân từ của Ngài, âu đó cũng là nguời mà Chúa đã chọn để đưa con tàu của Giáo hôi CG lướt qua mọi sóng gió, mọi thử thách tứ bề, và trong những ngày thật bận rộn trong chuyến tông du này của Ngaì với nhiều lễ nghi, cuộc họp mặt với nhiều nguời trong Giáo Hội CG, với nhiều giới chức trong GH Anh Giáo, với các nhà cầm quyền, Hoàng tộc của Anh Quốc. Thế mà, giờ đây Ngài bình thản khiêm nhu bỏ quên hết tất cả mọi sự, mọi lễ nghi, mọi lo lắng, mọi nghi kỵ chống đối của những kể vô thần lẫn những cuộc công nghinh vinh danh Ngài. Vâng, DTCha bỏ hết để cùng với con cái của Ngàị hiện diện truớc Mình Thánh Chúa và dâng lên cho Chúa hết tất cả!

Trong nghi thức chầu Thánh Thể của đêm Canh Thức này, có những lời cầu nguyên sốt sáng đuợc đọc lớn và tiếp theo là bài hát “Be Still and Know, that I am God” đuợc ca đoàn trỗi lên thật sốt sáng êm dịu trong giây phút nghiêm trang và tinh lặng đã đưa mọi người càng dễ hiệp nhất thân mật với Chúa nhiều hơn, cùng với vị cha chung và với mọi nguời hiện diện, tiếng hát và lời của bài hát qúa hay, rất ý nghĩa mặc dù chỉ có 3 câu, hát dài chừng 5 phút thôi nhưng đã nói lên tất cả, và đã làm cho ThTrang không thể nào cầm đuợc nước mắt, nước mắt cứ tuôn trào trong tâm tình hết sức cảm động tri ân truớc sự hiện diện của Chúa và DTCha và khỏang 80,000 nguờị. Vâng, tâm tình linh thiêng cảm động của 1 nguời con “lâu ngày xa nhà” và giờ đuợc xum họp với “gia đình” và với nguời Cha già, tâm tình của 1 nguời con mang nhiều tâm tư, những lo âu, lẫn những sự vui nỗi buồn của mình, của những nguời thân, của bạn bè và tất cả mọi nguời trong Nhà ta, lúc đó, ThTrang nhớ nhất đến những anh chị em trong Nhà ta đang trong hoàn cảnh bất an, và nhớ đến sự ra đi của cha Robert & nỗi mất mát của nhóm DH Canada phải chịu, nhớ đến những a/c/em hằng cuối tuần hy sinh bỏ việc nhà để lo tổ chức các khóa Linh Thao, khóa cho Gia Đình.v..v. và như lời trong bài hát này ThTrang đã tín thác, đặt niềm tin nơi Chúa, dâng lên cho Ngài tất cả, dâng tất cả mọi người và mọi sự để Ngài là "Đấng chữa lành ban ơn" cho từng đứa con những ơn cần thiết, giúp sức để con cái của Ngài can đảm vuợt qua mọi gian nan sóng gió, đuợc bình an để phụng thờ, và tín thác nơi Chúa, theo guơng của DTCha đã dạỵ

ThTrang xin chia sẻ với cả nhà bài thơ “ Hãy thinh lặng, đến với ta, vì ta là Thiên Chúa” với những tâm tình đã nhận đuợc trong khoảng khắc qùy chầu Thánh Thể trong đêm Canh Thức với DTCha .

Nguyện xin Thiên Chúa ban ơn bình an của Ngài đến cho từng người.

Thuơng mến và hiệp nhất trong Chúa,
ThTrang

* * *

Đây là lời của bài hát “Be still and know that I am God” và xin tạm dịch như sau:

Be still and know that I am God (3 lần)
(Hãy thinh lặng và nhìn nhận rằng Ta là Thiên Chúa)

I am the Lord that healeth thee (3 lần)
(Ta là Thiên Chúa, là đấng chữa lành, ban ơn)

In thee, O Lord, I put my trust (3 lần)
(Lạy Chúa, con tín thác, đặt niềm tin nơi Chúa)

* * *

Đây là website của Địa Phận, nếu ai muốn có thể xem lại nghi lễ đêm Canh Thức, trong mục này, nếu ai chỉ muốn xem phần Chầu Thánh Thể với lời cầu nguyện của DTC và nghe bài hát “ Be still and know…” v.v.v thì cho chạy đến phần giữa, vào lúc khoảng 50’:00
http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/Replay-the-Visit/Watch-Again/Hyde-Park-Evening-Vigil

* * *

Hãy thinh lặng, đến với ta, vì ta là Thiên Chúa

Đến với ta, con ơi, trong thinh lặng

Vì ta là Thiên Chúa của ủi an

Vòng tay ta, thế giới của thanh nhàn

Giọt lệ khổ đau thay bằng hoan lạc

Đến với ta, vì ta là suối mát

Trái tim ta, đây chăn ấm nệm êm

Tiếng tim ta, nhạc khúc mãi êm đềm

Ru con ngủ, giấc nồng tràn sữa mật

Đến với ta, tình ta, tình ngây ngất

Bao giận hờn, khổ nhọc con đa mang

Đường con đi trải thảm con lang thang

Có bướm hoa, con chần chờ chi nữa

Nhìn mắt Cha, tin yêu, Cha đã hứa

Sẽ chữa lành, xóa bỏ hết khổ đau

Gôn gô tha, Thập giá, cha gục đầu

Đã mang theo tủi hờn con vương vấn

Đừng ngại chi, nhé con, lòng thờ thẫn

Bụi hồng trần như mây xám trôi qua

Hãy thinh lặng, cất bước đến với ta

Con hỡi con, ta là Cha Nhân Ái...

Cha ơi Cha, lòng con thật thư thái

Con âm thầm đón lấy suối yêu thương

Con tin chắc bên Cha, nơi thiên đường

Cha đứng đón đứa con thơ vụng dại

TT

18.09.2010

Kỷ niệm đêm Canh Thức cùng với DTC Bênêđictô tại Hyde park-London

Mid-life crisis explained!

For most men, midlife is usually the last chance to make any real change. If a man has not taken any great risks by the time he’s fifty, chances are he’s too entrenched in his day-to-day life to make any radical changes.

This may be the reason why many men have a mid-life crisis – it’s God shaking the tree one last time and challenging us. Will you give up the illusion? Will you stop being just who you think you’re supposed to be and finally be who you really are?

Richard Rohr
— from On the Threshold of Transformation
Read more:
http://menonthejourney.loyolapress.com/2010/08/10/a-simple-prayer/

Official Theme Song for World Youth Day 2011 Released!

Please visit:
http://www.xt3.com/library/view.php?id=3896&categoryId=14

Pope Benedict in UK

The Pope has routed his enemies and brought joy to the faithful

... what we have witnessed has come from God, whose presence has been very close throughout not only to the Pope himself but also to all who were praying for his success – protecting, inspiring, allaying our fears and in the end fulfilling all our hopes.
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2010/09/20/routed-his-enemies-and-brought-joy-to-the-faithful/

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The Pope in Parliament and Westminster Abbey: a day that shook the foundations of Britain's Protestant myth :
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100054166/the-pope-in-parliament-and-westminster-abbey-a-day-that-shook-the-foundations-of-britains-protestant-myth/

Karl Rahner - God of the living (Part 2)

A strange thing happens to the man who really loves, for even before his own death his life becomes a life with the dead. Could a true lover ever forget his dead? When one has really loved, his forgetting is only apparent: he only seems to get over his grief. The quiet and composure he gradually regains are not a sign that things are as they were before, but a proof that his grief is ultimate and definitive. It shows that a piece of his own heart has really died and is now with the living dead. This is the real reason he can weep no more.

Thus I am living now with the dead, with those who have gone before me into the dark night of death, where no man can work. But how can I really live with the dead? How can I continue to find life in the one bond left between us, the bond of our mutual love? Deign to answer me, 0 God, for You have called Yourself the God of the living and not of the dead. How can I live with them?

Of what use is it to say, as do the philosophers, that the dead still exist, that they live on? Are they with me? Since I loved them and still love them, I must be with them. But are they also with me?

They have gone away; they are silent. Not a word comes through from them; not a single sign of their gentle love and kindness comes to warm my heart. How awfully still the dead are, how dead! Do they want me to forget them, as one forgets a fleeting acquaintance he made on a train, a stranger with whom he once exchanged a few friendly but meaningless words?

Karl Rahner, S.J.
Encounters with Silence

Người Công Giáo VN

Một chi tiết rất nhỏ, chỉ 1 câu thôi, nhưng nói lên rất nhiều về người Công Giáo VN:
http://www.siena.org/September-2010/seattle-becoming-catholic-en-masse-not-so-fast.html

Karl Rahner - God of the living (Part 1/4)

I should like to remember my dead to You, 0 Lord, all those who once belonged to me and have now left me. There are many of them, far too many to be taken in with one glance. If I am to pay my sad greeting to them all, I must rather travel back in memory over the entire route of my life's long journey.

When I look back in this way, I see my life as a long highway filled by a column of marching men. Every moment someone breaks out of the line and goes off silently, without a word or wave of farewell, to be swiftly enwrapped in the darkness of the night stretching out on both sides of the road. The number of marchers gets steadily smaller and smaller, for the new men coming up to fill the ranks are really not marching in my column at all.

True, there are many others who travel the same road, but only a few are traveling with me. For the only ones making this pilgrimage with me are those with whom I set out together, the ones who were with me at the very start of my journey to You, my God, the dear ones who were, and still are, close to my heart.

The others are mere companions of the road, who happen to be going the same way as I. Indeed there are many of them, and we all exchange greetings and help each other along. But the true procession of my life consists only of those bound together by real love, and this column grows ever shorter and more quiet, until one day I myself will have to break off from the line of march and leave without a word or wave of farewell, never more to return.

That's why my heart is now with them, with my loved ones who have taken their leave of me. There is no substitute for them; there are no others who can fill the vacancy when one of those whom I have really loved suddenly and unexpectedly departs and is with me no more. In true love no one can replace another, for true love loves the other person in that depth where he is uniquely and irreplaceably himself. And thus, as death has trodden roughly through my fife, every one of the departed has taken a piece of my heart with him, and often enough my whole heart.

Karl Rahner, S.J.
Encounters with Silence

Chuyến Tông du của Đức Thánh Cha tại Anh Quốc

Kính Thưa Qúy Cha, các anh chị em DH và cả nhà,

Xin cả nhà cùng cầu nguyện cho chuyến Tông du của Đức Thánh Cha tại Anh Quốc được thành công trong sự Hiệp nhất & Hy vọng. Chuyến Tông du của Đức Thánh Cha Benedict XVI là sự mong đợi, niềm hy vọng hòa giải, không những của riêng cộng đồng Công giáo tại Anh quốc, những người theo Anh giáo, các quốc gia trong Liên hiệp Anh, mà là của cả Giáo hội Công giáo hoàn vũ.

Sept. 9 - Memorial of St Peter Claver, SJ

St. Peter Claver: Apostle to the slaves arriving in South America

Peter Claver (1580-1654) devoted great care to slaves just arriving in South America despite the social convention that did not consider them human. For 35 years the Jesuit showed boundless compassion for abandoned people, living out the dictum of the St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, "Look for God in all men and serve them as images of him."

Kairos and Chronos

To a soul, the only real time is right NOW. Not the future or the past. It lives in connecting deeply with the rich experience of each moment. Through awareness we can be in touch with our authentic self and how it perceives all of the energies and guidance around and within us.

"Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners, schedules, beepers. Chronos is time at her worst. Chronos keeps track. ...Chronos is the world's time.

Kairos is transcendence, infinity, reverence, joy, passion, love, the Sacred. Kairos is intimacy with the Real. Kairos is time at her best. ...Kairos is Spirit's time. We exist in Chronos. We long for Kairos. That's our duality.

Chronos requires speed so that it won't be wasted. Kairos requires space so that it might be savored. We do in Chronos. In Kairos we're allowed to be ... It takes only a moment to cross over from Chronos into Kairos, but it does take a moment. All that Kairos asks is our willingness to stop running long enough to hear the music of the spheres."

-- Sarah Ban Breathnach
(a reflection by a student who attended KAIROS)

When a priest saved my life

Arlington Catholic Herald
5/26/2010

The U.S. bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations asked renowned women of faith to write reflections on their appreciation of the priesthood during the Year for Priests. This final piece, by Lois H. Coyne, was selected not because she is well-known, but because it reveals the extraordinary faith and witness that so many Christians live in the ordinariness of daily life.

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LOIS COYNE

The day began as very ordinary, but would end in a way that could never be forgotten: I remember coming home, late as usual from my friend’s house, hungry and ready for dinner. As I ran into the kitchen, banging the door behind me, I found my mother dying before my eyes. The white-lace handkerchief she held to her mouth was quickly turning red. In her other hand she clutched a relic of St. Therese of Lisieux. Little did I know, at the time, that her lungs were giving out. Like St. Therese, she was suffering from Tuberculosis (TB). As she managed to catch her breath, she asked me to pray for her. It was the most terrifying moment of my entire 9 years of life. I begged over and over, “Please, dear Jesus, don’t let Mother die.”

Suddenly, my father came home from work, and the doctor and the priest were immediately called. When the priest arrived at our door, his presence was like no other. He carried close to his heart the Blessed Sacrament in a little gold case (which we had learned at St. Francis Xavier school was called a Pyx). An altar boy preceded him, ringing the golden bells. As we knelt down, the young priest walked toward my mother’s room. Suddenly I sensed, even though I was only 9, that there was something special about this priest. He was young with dark hair and had a spiritual quality about him that seemed to completely connect with the Person of Christ: the One he was bringing to my dying mother.
. . .

Read more: Arlington Catholic Herald

Becoming Catholic—Reflections Of A Former United Methodist Clergywoman

PATTY RYLE CLAY

On Pentecost Sunday last year, I officially became a Catholic. My former parishioners, Protestant friends and colleagues, even family who know me so well, would ask, “Why?” Interested and curious, they listened in earnest attention as I repeated the simple version: My becoming Catholic is a natural result of my spiritual and intellectual journey.

How could I ever put into words—even to those who know me so well—my lifelong movement in this direction? When I reflect on my past—the rosary I found at my feet in the woods when I was praying at age 15, the slow realization that I have been a contemplative all of my life, the attraction to and affinity with medieval women mystics, a deep longing to live in Christian community—I am aware all these factors and more brought me to the point of no return. The decision was almost made for me. All I had to do was stand at the altar and embrace it.

continue reading >

Bishop Vincent Nguyen - Aux. Bishop of Toronto, Canada

Espicopan Ordinations - Archdiocese of Toronto
http://www.archtoronto.org/ordinations/index.htm

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“I am humbled to have been asked by the Holy Father to serve the people of the Archdiocese of Toronto as Auxiliary Bishop. To the faithful of the Archdiocese, please pray for me as I embark upon this new ministry as I will pray for you. I will do all I can to assist Archbishop Collins as we strive to strengthen and nurture the diverse faith community of the Archdiocese.” - Bishop Vincent Nguyen


Salt and Light:
Meet Bishop Vincent Nguyen
http://saltandlighttv.org/blog/?p=9384

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CBC News - The Hour:
http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.html?id=1391443256

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Western Catholic Reporter:
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/2009/1130/nguyen113009.shtml