Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) Vatican Weekend for January 9, 2016 features Leo XIII’s 'Rerum Novarum, the Catholic Church’s first social encyclical, a reflection by the title of 'What do you think is worth writing to God about?'. In the second part of the programme we delve into scripture by bringing you a potted history of King Solomon and for the series ‘Terribly English: that’s why they came to Rome' we shine the spotlight on the figure of George Eliot.

A programme presented and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick: 

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(Vatican Radio) Vatican Weekend for January 10, 2016 features our reflection on the Sunday Gospel for the Baptism of the Lord presented by Jill Bevilacqua and a bird's eye view of the past week in the Vatican presented by Joan Lewis, EWTN bureau chief here in Rome.

A programme presented and produced by Veronica Scarisbrick:

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis said on Friday that the embrace of God’s love has the power to silence all our sins, no matter how many. He stressed that not all love comes from God but He is the true love. The Pope’s words came during his homily at the morning Mass celebrated in the Santa Marta residence.

Taking his cue from the gospel reading from the letter of John the Apostle, Pope Francis’s homily was a reflection on the different meanings of the word 'love' and the two most important commandments for a Christian: to love God and to love our neighbour.

“This word ‘love’ is a word that is used so many times and when we use it we don’t know exactly what it means. What is love? Sometimes we can think of the love in the soap operas but that doesn’t appear to be love. Or else love can seem like having a crush on a person but then it fades away. Where does true love come from? Whoever loves has been created by God because God is love. Don’t say: ‘Every love is God,’ No, God is love.”

The Pope said the Apostle John underlines how God loves us first and there are many examples of this in the gospel such as during the multiplication of the loaves of bread by Jesus or in the parable of the prodigal son.

“When we have something on our mind and we want to ask God to forgive us, it’s He who is waiting for us – to forgive us.  This Jubilee Year of Mercy, to some extent, is also this: that we may know that our Lord is waiting for us, each one of us.  Why? To embrace us.  Nothing more.  To say to us: son, daughter, I love you. I let my Son be crucified for you: this is the price of my love, this is the gift of my love.”

Pope Francis went on to stress how “the Lord is waiting for me, the Lord wants me to open the door of my heart” and we must have this certainty that He will wait for us just as we are and not as we are told to be.

“We must go to the Lord and say: ‘You know Lord how much I love you.’ Or, if you don’t feel able to say it in that way: ‘You know Lord that I would like to love you but I am such a bad sinner.’ And He will do the same as he did with the prodigal son who squandered all his money on vices: he won’t let you finish your speech and with an embrace will silence you. The embrace of God’s love.” 

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Juarez, Mexico, Jan 8, 2016 / 02:42 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With Pope Francis set to visit the Mexican city of Juarez Feb. 17, some crime victims are telling their stories of loss – and talking about the healing power of faith.

“That the Pope would give his attention to a city so struck by violence is hopeful,” said Juarez resident Erika Graciela Acosta Campos.

Erika spoke in a video released by the Diocese of Juarez. She said the Pope’s upcoming visit makes her feel that “I’m not alone, somebody is suffering along with me…somebody realizes I’m hurting or that it’s hard.”

Because of the Pope’s visit, she knows that “someone so important is taking notice or is taking into consideration these feelings I have.”

Erika’s father was killed by armed men during the robbery of the family’s grocery store. The store was located in their family home.

The young woman, now a married mother of a two-month-old baby, said the murder of her father dealt a terrible blow to the family.

“For example, my mom stopped going outside. She was afraid to step out onto the street,” Erika recounted. “She would go out for something at my younger sister’s school, to run an errand or something, and there was a lot of anxiety. She was shaking, she froze up, she didn’t want to go outside the house.”

Erika and her two sisters were also fearful in their own home. 

“My dad died in our house,” she explained.

In January 2011, Juarez was ranked the most violent city on the planet for the third consecutive year. Violence perpetrated mainly by the Juarez Cartel resulted in 3,000 deaths, according to the Mexican NGO Citizens Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice.

With 300,000 inhabitants, Juarez is located in northern Mexico on the U.S. border. It sits on the other side of the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. Originally called Paso del Norte, its current name honors former Mexican President Benito Juarez.

In 2010, the violence in Juarez was only comparable to what Medellin, Colombia endured in its fight against the Medellin Cartel from 1989 to 1993 – or comparable to violence in Baghdad, Iraq in 2006.

During the worst of the violence in Juarez, an average of eight people died every day.

However, violence in Juarez has decreased in recent years. In 2014, the Citizens Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice reported 538 murders, a considerable drop from the more than 3,000 in previous years.  Even so, as of January 2015 Juarez ranks 27th on the list of the 50 most violent cities in the world.

“Juarez is recovering right now,” said Erika. She warned that “there’s still a lot of violence around.”

There are many small children who are orphaned and single mothers widowed by the violence.

Erika said Pope Francis’ visit to Juarez brings a message that “it’s worth the effort to go forward.” She said residents are hoping for “those words you need to hear, at best to give you some consolation, those words of encouragement.” 

The young Mexican woman spoke about her faith. Her family, facing the painful loss of their father, was “clinging to our faith in God, who knew why this had happened.”

She also found other forms of help: “the community, the affection, the support.”

Citing her own experience, Erika said that “clinging to God is the only thing that can heal you. I don’t know, you feel rage, helpless, furious, angry, and suddenly you get to the point when you want to turn back the clock, but you can’t, you don’t see the way out, and the only way out is to hang on to God, to cling to your faith and try to move on.”

“When you get to the point where you say ‘now what?’ the only way out is God,” she said.
 

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Madison, Wis., Jan 8, 2016 / 03:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When Bishop Robert Morlino arrived as the new bishop for the Diocese of Madison, Wis. in 1993, he began quietly encouraging priests to promote more reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament – through more adoration, more reverent Masses, and moving tabernacles back to the center of churches.

Now, he's made it official. Bishop Morlino has asked his priests to make sure every tabernacle is moved to the center of each church behind the altar by 2018.

“Obviously the reason is because he wants to reiterate that this is the living God residing in the tabernacle,” Patrick Gorman, director of the Office of Worship for the Madison diocese, told CNA.

“This isn't just another piece of furniture which can go anywhere, this is the house of the living God and we want to have that in a prominent place where people can pray before it whenever they want.”

In the wake of Vatican II, many churches in Madison and throughout the United States relocated their tabernacles either to the side of sanctuaries or to their own side chapels. The idea at the time, Gorman said, was that this created a separate, quiet space which would encourage more people to spend time in adoration.

“After Vatican II, (the tabernacle) could be in a sanctuary or separate chapel… it still had to be prominently located, which is where we were finding some of the confusion. Tabernacles were being placed in chapels that weren’t even adjacent to the nave of the church let alone the sanctuary, so that when you walked into the Church proper, there would be none visible,” he said.

“I think that was the first step of the confusion, to say that the Church has these two options, and this is what they're supposed to be. The chapel kind of got divorced from the worship space of the church and kind of got put aside for a separate thing almost.”

There were also some who argued at the time that Christ had two presences in the Eucharist – His presence in the tabernacle and His presence on the altar, and that the separate locations helped emphasize this.

Gorman said it's an argument that few in the Church will make, and that it just ended up contributing to the confusion.

“There's no conflict,” when it comes to Jesus' presence in the Blessed Sacrament, whether on the altar or in the tabernacle, Gorman added.

There are several major Cathedrals and Basilicas – like St. Peter’s in Rome, for example – that maintain separate chapels for tabernacles and Eucharistic adoration, but this is primarily because they are churches that see a lot of visitors and tourists, Gorman said.

For the most part, in Madison, Wisc., that's not the case.

“The average church in a diocese doesn't have visitors coming and going all the time, and certainly in our diocese, even when the new Cathedral is built I suspect there won't be, so there's no need for a side chapel,” he said.

“People can come in and it'll be quiet. Occasionally there might be a run-in with a wedding rehearsal or something, but that’s manageable.”

Even before Bishop Morlino told his priests of the three year plan to move the tabernacles, he had asked several years ago that every new church built in the diocese place the tabernacle in the center behind the altar.

Many priests were also preferring to move tabernacles to the center of their parishes on their own initiative, so it was a direction in which the diocese was already heading, Gorman said.

The bishop has allowed three years for the project because the nature of tabernacles can make them difficult to move – they are supposed to be made of a solid, unbreakable material and securely attached to the church.

Gorman said in most cases, the move should be simple. Most churches have tabernacles already in the sanctuary that may be a little off-center. A few will require a bit more cost and effort.

Overall, Gorman said, the project has been well-received within the diocese among priests and parishioners alike, with many people sending the bishop their thanks on social media.

“I don't know that too many people are crushed by it, and even most of the priests had already done this to be honest…it's somewhat of a non-issue. We were moving that way, the bishop acknowledged that, but he said let’s finish this one up.”

“The idea is we’re going to put Christ in the most central place in the Church because that’s the position he has in the Church, in the body of Christ,” he added. “Of course Jesus Christ himself is in it, therefore standing at the head of our church.”

“That the tabernacle then has its own prominent space at the center of the church is just one more way to show we believe in this presence of Christ and we’re going to follow him wherever he goes.” 

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Vatican City, Jan 8, 2016 / 05:22 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Love was the center of Pope Francis’ second daily homily after taking a break for Christmas, and is a word he said has become so casual that we no longer know exactly what we mean when we say it.

“This word ‘love’ is a word that is used so many times and when we use it we don’t know exactly what it means. What is love?” the Pope said during his Jan. 8 daily Mass in the Vatican’s Saint Martha guesthouse.

It was his second daily Mass after taking a break during the Christmas holiday season. In his first Mass after restarting, which took place yesterday, Jan. 7, the Pope dedicated his homily to the topic of mercy.

He focused today’s reflections on the passage in the First Letter of St. John when the apostle tells his readers that “God is love.”

At times, the Pope said, we can think real love is the kind we see in soap operas, “but that doesn’t appear to be love.”

For others, love can seem like having a crush on someone, but that feeling eventually fades away, he noted, and asked where the source of true love can be found.

“Whoever loves has been created by God because God is love,” he said, and cautioned against a mistaken notion that “Every love is God. No, God is love.”

Francis went on to describe how God is the one who loved us first. The Apostle John provides numerous examples of this in the Gospel, he said, pointing specifically to Jesus’ multiplication of the loaves and fish and to the parable of the Prodigal Son as examples.

“When we have something on our mind and we want to ask God to forgive us, it’s he who is waiting for us – to forgive us,” the Pope said, explaining that the current Jubilee of Mercy is a means of being assured that “our Lord is waiting for us, each one of us.”

The reason, he said, is “to embrace us. Nothing more. To say to us: son, daughter, I love you. I let my Son be crucified for you: this is the price of my love, this is the gift of my love.”

Pope Francis then noted how God is waiting for us to open the doors of our hearts to him, and said that we must have the certainty that God waits for us as we are, not as we are told we ought to be.

He encouraged attendees to go to the Lord and tell him how much they love him. If a person feels that they are unable to say that, Francis told them instead to say something to the effect of “you know Lord that I would like to love you but I am such a bad sinner.”

When God hears this, the Pope said, “he will do the same as he did with the prodigal son who squandered all his money on vices: he won’t let you finish your speech and with an embrace will silence you. The embrace of God’s love.”

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