Catholic News 2

Full Article

Full Article

(Vatican Radio) In a sunny St Peter’s Square on Sunday Pope Francis recalled the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ or Corpus Christi.

Listen to our report: 

Following the Angelus prayer and taking his cue from the Gospel of St John, the Holy Father reminded the pilgrims and tourists present that Jesus states that he is “the living bread which has descended from heaven.

The Pope explained that the Father has sent him into the world as the food of eternal life, and for this reason he will sacrifice himself on the Cross, donating his body and shedding his blood.

Pope Francis went on to say that “in the Eucharist, Jesus, as he did with the disciples of Emmaus, accompanies us, pilgrims in order to nourish faith, hope and charity in us; To comfort us in trials; To support us in our commitment to justice and peace. This solidarity, the Pope said, is everywhere.

Feeding on Jesus in the  Eucharist, the Holy Father continued  “also means abandoning ourselves with confidence and letting ourselves be led by Him.”

The Pope also reminded the faithful that he would celebrate Mass in the Roman Basilica of St John Lateran on Sunday evening followed by a procession with the Blessed Sacrament to the Basilica of Saint Mary Major.

Full Article

(Vatican Radio) After the recitation of the Marian prayer on Sunday in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis expressed his closeness to the people of Portugal following devastating forest fires in the Pedrógão Grande area, south-east of Coimbra, which have killed and injured numerous people.

The Holy Father also recalled that on Tuesday World Refugee Day promoted by the United Nations will be observed and has as its theme "With Refugees”.

The Pope said that “today more than ever we have to support refugees. " We remember those, women, men, and children Pope Francis added, fleeing conflicts, violence and persecution and those who have lost their lives in the sea or in extravagant land trips.

Their stories of pain and hope, underlined the Holy Father, “can become opportunities for fraternal encounter and true mutual knowledge. Indeed, he said, personal encounter with refugees dissipates distorted fears and ideologies, and becomes a growth factor in humanity, capable of giving space to feelings of openness and building bridges.”

During his address Pope Francis also had a special greeting for a group of representatives from the Central African Republic and the United Nations, who are in Rome for a meeting promoted by the Community of Sant' Egidio. “I have in my heart, the Pope recalled, “the visit I made in November 2015 to that country and I hope that with the help of God and the good will of all, the peace process, which is a necessary condition for development, will be fully reinvigorated and strengthened.”

Full Article

Manchester, N.H., Jun 18, 2017 / 04:58 am (National Catholic Register).- In the name of raising up lifelong disciples of Jesus Christ, another U.S. Latin-rite diocese has decided to restore confirmation to its traditional place before first Holy Communion.

Bishop Peter Libasci of Manchester, New Hampshire, has begun the process of restoring the reception of the sacraments of initiation in the diocese to their theological sequential order of baptism, then confirmation and first Eucharist.

Most U.S. dioceses, for more than 100 years, have followed a sequence of baptism, first Communion and then confirmation, ever since Pope St. Pius X made the age of reason (typically around age 7) the threshold for receiving Communion.

Bishop Libasci has already begun the conversation with parishes and intends to release a pastoral letter explaining the reasons for the move, which will place confirmation reception, along with first Communion, in the third grade.

A “Frequently Asked Questions” compilation for parishes said restoring confirmation to its place after baptism will highlight for youth the Church’s teaching that the Eucharist is truly the culmination of the sacraments of initiation.

Mary Ellen Mahon, secretary for Catholic formation at the Diocese of Manchester, told the Register that Bishop Libasci wants Catholics to understand that formation in the Catholic faith is “lifelong.”

Restoring the order of sacraments is part of a broader effort to strengthen Catholic faith formation at all stages of life and throughout the diocese. The bishop, Mahon said, wants Catholic youth to have the grace of the sacrament available to them at a younger age, in order to assist them in their journey of drawing closer to Jesus Christ.

“He really wanted to emphasize that our relationship with God is something that develops from the time that we are in the womb until we reach the tomb and are united with God through the resurrection,” Mahon said. “That is the primary focus: How can we connect and accompany people throughout their whole lifelong faith journey?”

No changes will occur this year. Instead, the diocese will spend the coming months preparing the faithful and the parishes for the new approach, followed by a three-year implementation phase.

Sister Mary Rose Reddy, director of family faith formation at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary and St. Leo parishes, in Rochester, New Hampshire, told the National Catholic Register she is happy the bishop made this decision.

She said children and families should realize that following Jesus is an ongoing commitment, not something a person “graduates” from.

“This is something we’re trying to address,” she said.

Confirmation’s Theological Wanderings

Under the current norms in the U.S., Latin-rite bishops may confirm between the age of discretion in canon law (approximately age 7) and 16 years old.

The Manchester Diocese is on its way to become the 11th Latin-rite diocese to order the sacraments of initiation in theological sequence: baptism, confirmation and first Eucharist.

Timothy Gabrielli, a theology professor at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and author of Confirmation: How a Sacrament of God’s Grace Became All About Us, told the National Catholic Register that Eastern Catholic Churches provide all three sacraments at once in this order, even to infants. Whereas in the Western (or Latin) Church, priests baptize, but bishops continue to confirm.

Gabrielli explained that when St. Pius X – in Quam Singulari (1910), his decree on first Communion – lowered the threshold age of first Communion to approximately 7 years old, he said nothing regarding confirmation, which had been received before the Eucharist. So in the U.S., the Latin-rite bishops left confirmation in place, confirming around 12 or 14 years old.

But the U.S. Church’s theology has shifted as a result, to try to explain this particular order of having confirmation at 14, but first Eucharist at 7.

In the early 20th century, Gabrielli said, confirmation took on militant imagery, where the sacrament turned a youth into a solider of Christ, ready to suffer for the faith – typified by the “slap” from the bishop – at a time when the Catholic immigrant population of the U.S. was in tension with the broader Protestant American culture.

Later in the 1970s, a time when Catholics had assimilated into broader American life, he said, Catholics began searching for a different theological explanation, and confirmation became influenced by the Charismatic Renewal movement.

Gabrielli said by the 1980s, confirmation turned into the sacrament of a Catholic’s “individual choice” for God – almost the Catholic equivalent of a “believer’s baptism.”

However, Gabrielli said this theology of confirmation has also fallen short in practical terms: For most pre-teens and teenagers, confirmation involves not their “individual choice,” but “strong-arming” from parents or grandparents.

The “graduation mentality,” he said, dismisses the need for ongoing faith formation and makes it difficult for young people to understand how they can experience moments of doubt if they made that decision for faith at confirmation.

Gabrielli said no one has thus far conducted a study with metrics about the effectiveness of restored order of the sacraments compared with the status quo in other dioceses. Two dioceses – Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and Marquette, Michigan – had originally restored the order of sacraments, but later reverted to the baptism-first Eucharist-confirmation sequence.

Restoring the order requires a diocese facilitate “quite a cultural shift for it to sink in,” according to Gabrielli. But he said that at whatever age dioceses confirm, they need to get away from the idea that this is a sacrament of maturity and back to the understanding that confirmation is a free, unmerited gift of God’s grace.

Denver’s Experiment

The Archdiocese of Denver moved to restore the order of the sacraments of initiation in 2015. It was the second time for Archbishop Samuel Aquila, who had restored the original order when he was bishop of Fargo, North Dakota, in 2002.

In a March 2015 interview with the National Catholic Register, the archbishop said Benedict XVI had strongly encouraged his efforts during his 2012 ad limina visit, where bishops are required by the Church to report to the pope on the status of their dioceses.

Scott Elmer, director of evangelization and family life ministries at the Denver Archdiocese, told the National Catholic Register that parishes are on track to make third grade the normative age for confirmation by 2020. Constant and consistent communication, he said, has been key to educating the faithful about the reasons for the change.

“After a couple of weeks, most people were receptive to it,” he said.

The challenge for the archdiocese in making the transition was lack of catechetical resources on confirmation, followed by first Eucharist, for third graders.

At first, staff set out to make their own supplemental resources. However, they ended up developing a four-semester, two-year curriculum, covering reconciliation, confirmation and Eucharist, which parishes can adapt to their needs.

The second edition reflects suggested improvements based on field-testing and is set to come out this fall.

“We’ve been getting a lot of great feedback,” Elmer said.

The archdiocese has also seen the need to make confirmation and first Communion an opportunity to evangelize the parents – if the parents see the faith as important, they will encourage their children to see it as important.

The archbishop, Elmer said, has mandated that parishes make some kind of ongoing adult faith formation program, such as Christ Life or Alpha, available to parents while their children are getting ready to receive the sacraments – preferably in an environment that looks less like a classroom and more like a small group study in a living room.

At the end of the day, the goal is to cultivate a religious culture in families that will sustain their life in Jesus Christ.

Beyond Restored Order

The Diocese of Portland, Maine, has had restored order of the sacraments for 20 years, but Maryanne Harrington, the diocesan director of the Office of Lifelong Formation, said they recognize families are in a different place than they were 20 years ago.

Back then, they focused on retooling youth ministry; today, she said, “our concern is helping parents and children grow in faith together.”

Many families coming for the sacraments today have little in the way of a lived, everyday experience of faith in their lives, Harrington said. But the Church knows from its own reports that a regular sacramental and prayer life as a family correlates strongly with improved home life.

So Portland created a two-year sacramental preparation program for children receiving confirmation and first Eucharist for first and second grade, or second and third grade. And parents are required to go to six adult-formation sessions each year that teach them how to discuss with their children who Jesus is, how to have him in the home, and understand the Mass, as well as the importance of sacramentals in the home (a crucifix, holy water or other religious items) and having family rituals and praying together with their children.

“Each of the lessons really focuses on the parishes having a relationship with Christ, meeting them where they are, and moving them forward in their faith,” she said.

Harrington said this approach forms friendships among the parents whose children are receiving the sacraments.

She is also suggesting to parish leaders that they identify the natural parent leaders in these sacramental groups and invite them to build that parent community and determine the next step they would like to take together in the life of the parish.

“Building that kind of community among them is really a good piece,” she said, “because one of the things that is really important is that it’s not just simply about just going to church today – it’s about being in a community and that sense of belonging that young parents want.”

 

Full Article

Vatican City, Jun 18, 2017 / 05:24 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Sunday, following the Angelus, Pope Francis asked pilgrims in St. Peter's Square to pause for a silent moment of prayer for all those affected by forest fires still raging in central Portugal.

“I express my closeness to the dear Portuguese people for the devastating fires that are destroying the woods around Pedrógão Grande and causing numerous victims and wounded. We pray in silence,” Francis said June 18.

At least 57 people have been killed in huge forest fires in the central part of Portugal Saturday and Sunday, many dying in their cars as they tried to escape the flames, the Portuguese government said Sunday.

Dozens more have been injured in the blazes, with 1,700 firefighters battling the 60-some fires.

The blazes began on Saturday afternoon in the municipality of Pedrógão Grande, before quickly spreading and by evening had taken hold across Portugal.

The Iberian Peninsula has been suffering under a severe heatwave recently, with temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit in several regions. According to the prime minister of the country, dry thunderstorms may have been the cause of the flames.

According to Jorge Gomes, the secretary of state for internal administration, 22 people burned to death in their cars after becoming trapped by flames on the road as they tried to flee. Three others died from smoke inhalation.

In his address before the Angelus, Pope Francis reflected on the Church's celebration of the Feast of Corpus Christi, also called Corpus Domini.

"To nourish ourselves on the Eucharistic Jesus also means abandoning ourselves in him with confidence and allowing ourselves to be led by him,” he said.

"It is about welcoming Jesus in place of our 'I.' In this way, the free love received by Christ in the Eucharistic Communion, with the work of the Holy Spirit, nourishes our love for God and the brothers and sisters we meet on the path every day."

It is in “feeding on the Body of Christ,” he continued, that “we become more and more intimately and concretely the mystical Body of Christ.”

Just like the apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Cor. 10:16-17: “The chalice of the blessing that we bless, is it not communion with the blood of Christ? And the bread that we break, is it not communion with the body of Christ? Since there is only one bread, we are, though many, one body, for we all share in the one bread.”

Francis spoke to some 20,000 people in St. Peter’s Square Sunday from a window of the Casa Santa Marta, reminding them that Jesus in the Eucharist is the "bread of life."

As the Easter lamb, the Lord sacrificed himself for us upon the cross, giving his body and shedding his blood so that through “the sacrament of his flesh” the world might have eternal life.

In the Eucharist, the Pope said, Jesus accompanies us just as he did the disciples when he lived on earth. He is there to nourish in us faith, hope and charity, to comfort us in trials, and to support us in our work towards justice and peace.

And the spiritual food found in the Eucharist is for everyone, he said.

“This solidarity of the Son of God is everywhere: in cities and in the countryside, in the North and in the South of the world, in countries of Christian tradition and in those of first evangelization.”

Concluding, he prayed to the Virgin Mary, who “has always been associated with Jesus the Bread of Life,” he said.

Help us to “rediscover the beauty of the Eucharist, nurture us with faith, to live in communion with God and with our brothers.”

Following the Angelus, Pope Francis spoke about the upcoming World Day of Refugees, which will be on June 20, and is promoted by the United Nations. The theme is “With refugees. Today more than ever we should be on the side of refugees,” the Pope said.

“Concrete attention goes to the women, men, children fleeing from conflicts, violence and persecution. We remember also in prayer how many of them have lost their lives in the sea or in exhausting land voyages.”

“Their stories of pain and hope can become opportunities for fraternal encounter and true mutual knowledge,” he said. “Indeed, the personal encounter with refugees dissipates distorted fears and ideologies, and becomes a cause of growth in humanity, capable of making room for feelings of openness and for the construction of bridges.”

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article

Full Article