Catholic News 2
CHICAGO (AP) -- It'll be a white Christmas for the northern Plains and some Western states, but it's likely to cause troublesome travel....
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- President-elect Donald Trump says he will dissolve his charitable foundation before taking office to avoid conflicts of interest. The Democratic Party says that's not enough and is calling for the billionaire businessman to put his assets in a blind trust....
MOSCOW (AP) -- The Latest on the crash of a Russian aircraft with 92 people on board en route to Russia's air base in Syria (all times local):...
MOSCOW (AP) -- A Russian passenger plane with 92 people aboard, including a well-known military band, crashed into the Black Sea on its way to Syria on Sunday minutes after takeoff from the resort city of Sochi, the Defense Ministry said....
MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- A powerful typhoon is on its way to slam into the eastern Philippines on Christmas Day as officials struggled to divert people's attention from family celebrations and travel. A provincial governor offered roasted pigs to entice villagers to move to emergency shelters....
HONOLULU (AP) -- For most people, a Christmas Eve phone call with the first lady of the United States is an unexpected surprise. But Austin was holding out for someone else....
HONOLULU (AP) -- The Latest on President Barack Obama's annual two-week vacation in Hawaii (all times local):...
Christ the Messiah, the giver of “new life” comes in three ways: He came 2016 years ago; He will come at the end of time; and He comes to us in our daily lives in events, people, Sacraments, the Scriptures and at death.Daily events are centred around and in the cultures of the people. Therefore, as the Messiah comes, He comes to evangelise our cultures. A culture of a people is its religion. It defines them and presents these people’s world-view. How do they perceive things and the world? According to John S. Mbiti in the book, Introduction to African Religion, “Religion has been for Africans the normal way of looking at the world and life experience itself. For that reason, it is found whether people are. It is integrated so much into different areas of life that in fact most of the African languages do not have a word for religion as such. They only have words for religious ideas, practices and objects or places.”As a people, we wait for the Messiah...
Christ the Messiah, the giver of “new life” comes in three ways: He came 2016 years ago; He will come at the end of time; and He comes to us in our daily lives in events, people, Sacraments, the Scriptures and at death.
Daily events are centred around and in the cultures of the people. Therefore, as the Messiah comes, He comes to evangelise our cultures. A culture of a people is its religion. It defines them and presents these people’s world-view. How do they perceive things and the world? According to John S. Mbiti in the book, Introduction to African Religion, “Religion has been for Africans the normal way of looking at the world and life experience itself. For that reason, it is found whether people are. It is integrated so much into different areas of life that in fact most of the African languages do not have a word for religion as such. They only have words for religious ideas, practices and objects or places.”
As a people, we wait for the Messiah’s coming silently within the corridors of our cultures. Jesus makes His missionary itinerary to any people and to every culture. His coming is an assurance of an everlasting relationship. He enters the people’s culture to renew it. The events in people’s lives are signs of the one who comes. Jesus comes differently to different people and in different situations. Look at how He came to the woman at the well. She went to draw water, and she met him. Then she put down the Jar of natural water and went for the water of New Life (Jn 4: 1).
The Messiah comes to lead humanity to wholeness. “I have come in order that you might have life – life in all its fullness” (Jn. 10:10). The Messiah comes as a Missionary. Jesus came. The Angels came. The Shepherds came. The disciples came. And we are invited to come. This leads to a deeper evangelization … “Suddenly a great army of heaven’s angels appeared with the angel, singing praises to God: Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth…” (Lk 2: 13-14).
The role of a missionary is to Be; to Beget and to Be gone! A missionary comes. Jesus came as a missionary. He came 2016 years ago; He will come again; He comes in our daily life. He was born among us. Jesus continues to be born in our daily events. To beget is to give forth. It is to bear fruit in local cultures. The local people begin to embrace the Gospel values. When the Samaritan woman understood who the Messiah was, she “left her water jar, and went back to the town, and said to the people there, “Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?” (Jn. 4: 28-29). When the local Community responds and enhances the Faith, the Missionary goes away. To go away is to allow growth and maturity in the local Church or community. It is an assurance of being a self-governing, self-propagating, and self-sustaining Church.
Finally, The Messiah is a pastoral worker. Jesus will eventually say, “I am a good shepherd…” (Jn 10: 11). Being good shepherds is what Jesus expects of each one of us. A good pastoral worker is one who goes beyond daily routine and dreams the future of the Parish. Un-doing long-standing ways of doing things to replace them with structures that are fresh, relevant, and foster a community-Church, rather than preserving the status quo, is not an easy task. It will take the change of heart. That is why Jesus must be born in every heart, family, Small Christian Community, parish outstation, main parish and in the entire diocese.
(Fr. Cletus Mwiila, Mater Dei Parish Kalomo)
Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va
The Catholic Bishop of Nsukka diocese in Nigeria, Godfrey Onah says that Christians and Nigerians must continue to be joyful at Christmas even though things may be difficult in their lives.The Bishop who is also the Episcopal Chairperson of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) on social communications said this in his Christmas message titled “Joy to the world, though the times are tough." In the message, Bishop Onah noted that as “Christmas pervades the air, everybody smells it, everybody feels it. The enthusiasm, the preparations, the expectations, and the projects (are such that) no other feast in the year, anywhere in the world has that level of importance and excitement.”He explains that the birth of Christ, the incarnation is an eruption of God in human history. Underscoring the many challenges that Nigerians are facing amidst the many failed promises of Nigerian governments to alleviate their problems, Bishop Onah said that, &l...
The Catholic Bishop of Nsukka diocese in Nigeria, Godfrey Onah says that Christians and Nigerians must continue to be joyful at Christmas even though things may be difficult in their lives.
The Bishop who is also the Episcopal Chairperson of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) on social communications said this in his Christmas message titled “Joy to the world, though the times are tough." In the message, Bishop Onah noted that as “Christmas pervades the air, everybody smells it, everybody feels it. The enthusiasm, the preparations, the expectations, and the projects (are such that) no other feast in the year, anywhere in the world has that level of importance and excitement.”
He explains that the birth of Christ, the incarnation is an eruption of God in human history. Underscoring the many challenges that Nigerians are facing amidst the many failed promises of Nigerian governments to alleviate their problems, Bishop Onah said that, “Christ is the perfect revelation of God’s love, and God’s love is expressed primarily in his mercy that redeems us from sin and misery. That is why we celebrate, and that is why we are happy, and that is why we are joyful,” the Bishop stated.
The Bishop of Nsukka says God does not force his love on human beings.
“Just a few days ago the President of our country General Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2017 annual budget with the usual high figures in their trillions of Naira. To the ordinary Nigerian on the street, those trillions mean absolutely nothing. Those trillions will not alleviate the problems and the sufferings of Nigerians today. Just before the President presented his budget, (someone prayed) and said, may this budget wipe away the tears of all Nigerians. But (we) forget that there are certain things God cannot do: Jesus could not work miracles in his own village because of their lack of faith. God will not force his love on us if we refuse to accept that love.” Bishop Onah said
“For decades Nigerian Bishops, priests, the religious and lay faithful have been praying to God to deliver this country from chaos, anarchy and doom. Year after year, however, our leaders have been portioning large sums of money belonging to all of us and those sums eventually end up in private pockets and private bank accounts.”
He added, “Nothing so far convinces any of us that the trillions mapped out for 2017 will not end the same way that the trillions before it went. The people are suffering, the people are restive, the people are nervous. Many people are doing what they did not do before. Once in a while it now happens that mothers with children and kids are caught stealing food and the police instead of imprisoning them, console them and give them money to go home. I am sure Nigerians will say this is not the change they voted for. But I am also sure that many more people corrupted at the hands of the government will say that, it is always darkest before dawn. It does seem, however, that this darkness is lasting much longer than we expected,” Bishop Onah observed.
Bishop Onah was, however, optimistic that whether, “Things are hot or not, whether the budget will ever bring down the price of rice or not; whether they will (ever) bring down the cost of cement or not; whether they will bring down the price of fuel or not…what we know, however, is that it was not better when God looked from above and saw the misery of His children and sent His son to comfort us and to deliver us from misery. And that is why we say joy to the world even though things are tough. Joy to the world because the Lord knows how Nigerians live today. If anybody understands us, He is the one, and that is why he is telling us “he who is born among us today and whose birth we are celebrating today is Emmanuel (God is with us),” The Bishops explains.
(CNSNg.org)
Email: engafrica@vatiradio.va
(Vatican Radio) The Holy See on Saturday published the motivations of the sentence that found Spanish Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda guilty of leaking Vatican documents to the press.He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. However Pope Francis this week had his jail sentence commuted and Vallejo Balda was put under “conditional freedom” because he had already served more than half of said sentence.During the trial dubbed "Vatileaks II", Vallejo Balda was found guilty and convicted while accomplice, Francesca Chaouqui, was found guilty of conspiring in the crime, but was not charged with the actual leak of the documents given a lack of evidence. She was sentenced to 10 months in prison for her role; however, the sentence was suspended for five years.Among the motivations of the sentence regarding Vallejo Balda are questions regarding freedom of thought and the fact that the leaked documents do not put any fundamental interests of the Church or of Vatican City...
(Vatican Radio) The Holy See on Saturday published the motivations of the sentence that found Spanish Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda guilty of leaking Vatican documents to the press.
He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. However Pope Francis this week had his jail sentence commuted and Vallejo Balda was put under “conditional freedom” because he had already served more than half of said sentence.
During the trial dubbed "Vatileaks II", Vallejo Balda was found guilty and convicted while accomplice, Francesca Chaouqui, was found guilty of conspiring in the crime, but was not charged with the actual leak of the documents given a lack of evidence. She was sentenced to 10 months in prison for her role; however, the sentence was suspended for five years.
Among the motivations of the sentence regarding Vallejo Balda are questions regarding freedom of thought and the fact that the leaked documents do not put any fundamental interests of the Church or of Vatican City State at risk.
