Catholic News 2
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- The Latest on the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro (all times local):...
LOWER LAKE, Calif. (AP) -- Flames raced through dry brush and forced more than 1,000 people to flee their homes in a Northern California lake community that was evacuated in a devastating wildfire last year....
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- Darya Klishina, the only Russian athlete at the Rio Olympics for track and field, attended a hearing Sunday to determine whether she can compete, as her country's sports minister said the allegations against her were part of a campaign to tarnish Russia's reputation....
BERLIN (AP) -- The man who attacked passengers on a crowded Swiss train with a knife and burning liquid died of his wounds Sunday, as did one of his victims, a 34-year-old woman, Swiss police said. Three others remain hospitalized with serious wounds....
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) -- Some of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls have been killed in Nigerian military air strikes, according to a new video appearing to come from Boko Haram Islamic extremists, which shows one of the alleged victims pleading for authorities to release detained militants in exchange for the girls' freedom....
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Volunteers swept and picked up debris Sunday in a north Milwaukee neighborhood that was rocked by hours of late night violent unrest sparked by a police officer's shooting of a man fleeing a traffic stop....
TICKFAW, La. (AP) -- Emergency crews worked through the night to rescue scores of south Louisiana residents from homes and stranded cars as deadly flooding continued to inundate large swaths of the region Sunday, three days after rain-swollen water levels began rapidly rising....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Donald Trump's campaign on Sunday went on a new tear against the media, blaming the "disgusting" press for a week of distractions at a time when Republicans have urged him - again - to focus on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton....
(Vatican Radio) On August 15th each year, the Catholic Church remembers the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven. Different traditions hold that the Virgin Mary left this earthly life between three and fifteen years after Christ’s death and Resurrection. She was assumed into heaven, accounts say, as she reposed in eternal sleep – either in Jerusalem or in Ephesus, in modern day Turkey.Early accounts from the Holy Land reported that a Christian cult venerating Christ’s mother had grown up around a place on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion, just south of the Old City walls. The spot, known from early times as Hagia Maria, continues to this day to be the site of prayers to Our Lady. Today, Benedictine monks care for the Catholic Church of the Dormition built there, over the ruins of a series of early Christian shrines.Tracey McClure sat down with the noted scholar and author Fr. Peter Stravinskus, who has led us on reflections on the holy sit...
(Vatican Radio) On August 15th each year, the Catholic Church remembers the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven. Different traditions hold that the Virgin Mary left this earthly life between three and fifteen years after Christ’s death and Resurrection. She was assumed into heaven, accounts say, as she reposed in eternal sleep – either in Jerusalem or in Ephesus, in modern day Turkey.
Early accounts from the Holy Land reported that a Christian cult venerating Christ’s mother had grown up around a place on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion, just south of the Old City walls. The spot, known from early times as Hagia Maria, continues to this day to be the site of prayers to Our Lady. Today, Benedictine monks care for the Catholic Church of the Dormition built there, over the ruins of a series of early Christian shrines.
Tracey McClure sat down with the noted scholar and author Fr. Peter Stravinskus, who has led us on reflections on the holy sites in the land of Christ’s birth – to ask him his thoughts on this Jerusalem shrine, celebrating the Virgin’s death and Assumption into heaven…
Listen to the program presented and produced by Tracey McClure:
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday spoke about the fire of the Holy Spirit, saying the Church doesn’t need bureaucrats but impassioned missionaries with this fire inside their hearts. He warned that without this fire, the Church risked becoming a cold or merely lukewarm Church, made up of cold and lukewarm Christians, and urged his listeners to reflect on their own attitudes. The Pope’s words came during his Angelus address to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.Quoting from Jesus’ words where he says “I have come to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing already!” Pope Francis said Christ wants the Holy Spirit “to set alight our hearts and make us capable of loving.” This fire, he explained, “has a creative strength that purifies and renews… it burns up every human misery, every egoism, every sin, it transforms us from within, it regenerates us.” He explained that “if we o...
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Sunday spoke about the fire of the Holy Spirit, saying the Church doesn’t need bureaucrats but impassioned missionaries with this fire inside their hearts. He warned that without this fire, the Church risked becoming a cold or merely lukewarm Church, made up of cold and lukewarm Christians, and urged his listeners to reflect on their own attitudes. The Pope’s words came during his Angelus address to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square.
Quoting from Jesus’ words where he says “I have come to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were blazing already!” Pope Francis said Christ wants the Holy Spirit “to set alight our hearts and make us capable of loving.” This fire, he explained, “has a creative strength that purifies and renews… it burns up every human misery, every egoism, every sin, it transforms us from within, it regenerates us.”
He explained that “if we open ourselves completely to the action of the Holy Spirit, He will give us the courage and the fervour to announce Jesus and his consoling message of mercy and salvation to everybody, navigating in the open seas without fear.” "But the fire begins in our hearts."
In carrying out its mission in the world, the Pope stressed that the Church “needs the help of the Holy Spirit to not be held back through fear and calculation, to not get used to walking within safe boundaries.” Departing from his prepared text, he warned that these two attitudes lead the Church “to becoming an administrative or bureaucratic Church that never takes risks.”
Instead, he said, the “Apostolic courage that the Holy Spirt ignites in us like a fire helps us to surmount walls and barriers, it makes us creative and it spurs us to set forth, journeying along unexplored or uncomfortable roads, offering help to whoever we encounter.”
Now more than ever, the Pope continued, there’s a need for priests, consecrated people and lay Christians to feel compassion and reach out like good neighbours to others, “those who are suffering, the needy, the many human miseries and problems, the refugees.”
Pointing to the example of those priests, men and women religious and lay people who throughout the world announce the gospel with great love and faithfulness, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, Pope Francis said “their exemplary witness reminds us that the Church doesn’t need bureaucrats and diligent office workers but impassioned missionaries consumed by the ardour of bringing to all people the consoling words of Christ.”
This, he declared, “is the fire of the Holy Spirit. If the Church doesn’t receive this fire and doesn’t allow it to enter inside, it becomes a cold or merely lukewarm Church, incapable of giving life, because it is made up of cold and lukewarm Christians.” He urged his listeners to reflect on whether their hearts are capable of receiving this fire.
The Pope concluded his Angelus address by turning to the Blessed Virgin Mary and asking for her prayers to help warm our hearts with this divine fire. Noting that Sunday was the feast day of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the martyr of charity, he said the saint’s example teaches us to embrace “the fire of love for God and neighbour.”
In his brief address after the recitation of the Angelus, Pope Francis sent greetings to the many different groups of pilgrims present and urged his listeners “to make an effort to always forgive (others) and have a compassionate heart.”
