Thursday of the Second Week of Lent – Gospel

Gospel Lk 16:19-31

Jesus said to the Pharisees: “There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores. When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’ Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’ He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’ He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’“
The Roman Lectionary
February 27, 2013 – 6:23 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Thursday of the Second Week of Lent – Gospel

Harvard debate stresses meaning, purpose of marriage

At the heart of the national debate on same-sex unions is a fundamental disagreement on the nature of marriage, said a participant in a recent discussion at Harvard Law School.

Arguments in favor of redefining marriage are simply “wrong about what marriage is,” explained debater Sherif Girgis.

He added that enshrining same-sex “marriage” in law “would be harmful for the common good, and in particular for the common goods that get government involved in marriage in the first place.”

Girgis is a law student at Yale Law School as well as a PhD. candidate at Princeton University. He recently co-authored the book “What is Marriage” alongside Professor Robert George of Princeton University and Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation.

Challenging him in the debate was Professor Andrew Koppelman, who teaches law and politics at Northwestern University.

The discussion, sponsored by the Harvard Federalist Society, was held at Harvard Law School on Jan. 31 and aired on C-SPAN on Feb. 19.

Koppelman presented arguments in favor same-sex “marriage” and criticized Girgis’ book for being “so novel and esoteric,” joking that the audience of Harvard Law students was “still trying to get it.”

He added that “marriage is not essentially anything,” saying that social norms by nature “evolve,” and that marriage is no different.

Girgis, however, observed that nearly every government and society throughout history have been involved in regulating marriage.

Governments typically do not regulate intimate relationships such as friendships, he noted. Marriage is an exception, he said, because it is an institution that offers key services to society, namely the provision, care and education of a new generation of citizens.

It is because of “the social need to promote those stabilizing norms” that governments oversee marriage, he explained.

Girgis also warned of the social harm that would follow a redefinition of marriage, saying that in debates on this topic, people should be aware of the “implications for the future, and for future marriages in particular.”

While no-fault divorce was hailed as an acceptable and harmless way of ending high-conflict marriages, the author said, “it changed people’s understanding of what they were getting into” and resulted in an end to many medium-conflict unions.

The causalities of this arrangement were children who experience split homes or were raised with an absent parent, he said.

The normalization of same-sex unions “teaches that mothers and fathers are replaceable in terms of parenting” and will likely lead to an increase in children who do not know at least one of their biological parents, he observed.

Girgis critiqued “the main vision of marriage” espoused within society that defines marriage as primarily an emotional union.

He explained that while it is consistent for that view to accept same-sex partnerships as marriage, that view is unable to explain “less controversial features that we all agree set marriage from other bonds,” such as monogamy and exclusivity.

Furthermore, he said, in making emotion the determining characteristic of marriage, there is no reason for it to require a “pledge of permanence,” and there is no logical reason to prevent marriage from being extended to multiple partners or non-sexual partners who share an emotional bond.

Instead, Girgis suggested a definition of marriage based upon “complementarity,” or the ability of spouses to bear and raise children, saying that this definition of marriage with the family at its core explains other attributes associated with the institution, such as permanence, monogamy and the sexual relationship of the spouses.

He said that the common contemporary understanding of marriage “suggests that the norm of sexual complementarity is arbitrary,” but if one accepts that a man and woman’s ability to bear children is unnecessary for the institution, “then so is permanence, so is monogamy.”

In addition, Girgis commented on the appeal of redefining marriage as a way to combat anti-gay bias and unjust discrimination against those who have same-sex attractions.

While he agreed that injustice must be countered, he warned against using marriage to do so, cautioning that such a move would have devastating harmful consequences.

Rather than changing the definition of a timeless and foundational social institution, he said, “I think the answer to bullying is to fight bullying, the answer to prejudice is to affirm the equal dignity of every human being.”

Read more: http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/US.php?id=7119#ixzz2M6zFUuyr

From EWTN News

February 27, 2013 – 2:34 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Harvard debate stresses meaning, purpose of marriage

Pope Benedict XVI’s final General Audience

Vatican City, 27 February 2013 (VIS) – Today, Benedict XVI celebrated his last general audience. In St. Peter’s Square, crowded with tens of thousands of people wishing to bid him farewell, the Pontiff said: “Thank you for coming in such large numbers to this, my last general audience. Thank you, I am truly moved! And I see the Church is alive! I think we also have to thank the Creator for the beautiful weather that He is giving us now, even in winter.”
Following is the entire text of the Holy Father’s words.
“Like the Apostle Paul in the Biblical text that we have heard, I feel in my heart that I have to especially thank God who guides and builds up the Church, who plants His Word and thus nourishes the faith in His People. At this moment my heart expands and embraces the whole Church throughout the world and I thank God for the ‘news’ that, in these years of my Petrine ministry, I have received about the faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and for the love that truly circulates in the Body of the Church, making it to live in the love and the hope that opens us to and guides us towards the fullness of life, towards our heavenly homeland.”
“I feel that I am carrying everyone with me in prayer in this God-given moment when I am collecting every meeting, every trip, every pastoral visit. I am gathering everyone and everything in prayer to entrust it to the Lord: so that we may be filled with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding in order to live in a manner worthy of the Lord and His love, bearing fruit in every good work (cf. Col 1:9-10).”
“At this moment I have great confidence because I know, we all know, that the Gospel’s Word of truth is the strength of the Church; it is her life. The Gospel purifies and renews, bearing fruit, wherever the community of believers hears it and welcomes God’s grace in truth and in love. This is my confidence, this is my joy.”
“When, on 19 April almost eight years ago I accepted to take on the Petrine ministry, I had the firm certainty that has always accompanied me: this certainty for the life of the Church from the Word of God. At that moment, as I have already expressed many times, the words that resounded in my heart were: Lord, what do You ask of me? It is a great weight that You are placing on my shoulders but, if You ask it of me, I will cast my nets at your command, confident that You will guide me, even with all my weaknesses. And eight years later I can say that the Lord has guided me. He has been close to me. I have felt His presence every day. It has been a stretch of the Church’s path that has had moments of joy and light, but also difficult moments. I felt like St. Peter and the Apostles in the boat on the See of Galilee. The Lord has given us many days of sunshine and light breezes, days when the fishing was plentiful, but also times when the water was rough and the winds against us, just as throughout the whole history of the Church, when the Lord seemed to be sleeping. But I always knew that the Lord is in that boat and I always knew that the boat of the Church is not mine, not ours, but is His. And the Lord will not let it sink. He is the one who steers her, of course also through those He has chosen because that is how He wanted it. This was and is a certainty that nothing can tarnish. And that is why my heart today is filled with gratitude to God, because He never left—the whole Church or me—without His consolation, His light, or His love.”
“We are in the Year of Faith, which I desired precisely in order to strengthen our faith in God in a context that seems to relegate it more and more to the background. I would like to invite everyone to renew their firm trust in the Lord, to entrust ourselves like children to God’s arms, certain that those arms always hold us up and are what allow us to walk forward each day, even when it is a struggle. I would like everyone to feel beloved of that God who gave His Son for us and who has shown us His boundless love. I would like everyone to feel the joy of being Christian. In a beautiful prayer, which can be recited every morning, say: ‘I adore you, my God and I love you with all my heart. Thank you for having created me, for having made me Christian…’ Yes, we are happy for the gift of faith. It is the most precious thing, which no one can take from us! Let us thank the Lord for this every day, with prayer and with a coherent Christian life. God loves us, but awaits us to also love Him!”
“It is not only God who I wish to thank at this time. A pope is not alone in guiding Peter’s barque, even if it is his primary responsibility. I have never felt alone in bearing the joy and the weight of the Petrine ministry. The Lord has placed at my side so many people who, with generosity and love for God and the Church, have helped me and been close to me. First of all, you, dear Brother Cardinals: your wisdom, your advice, and your friendship have been precious to me. My collaborators, starting with my secretary of state who has accompanied me faithfully over the years; the Secretariat of State and the whole of the Roman Curia, as well as all those who, in their various areas, serve the Holy See. There are many faces that are never seen, remaining in obscurity, but precisely in their silence, in their daily dedication in a spirit of faith and humility, they were a sure and reliable support to me. A special thought goes to the Church of Rome, my diocese! I cannot forget my Brothers in the episcopate and in the priesthood, consecrated persons, and the entire People of God. In my pastoral visits, meetings, audiences, and trips I always felt great care and deep affection, but I have also loved each and every one of you, without exception, with that pastoral love that is the heart of every pastor, especially the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of the Apostle Peter. Every day I held each of you in prayer, with a father’s heart.”
“I wish to send my greetings and my thanks to all: a pope’s heart extends to the whole world. And I would like to express my gratitude to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See, which makes the great family of Nations present here. Here I am also thinking of all those who work for good communication and I thank them for their important service.”
“At this point I would also like to wholeheartedly thank all of the many people around the world who, in recent weeks, have sent me touching tokens of concern, friendship, and prayer. Yes, the Pope is never alone. I feel this again now in such a great way that it touches my heart. The Pope belongs to everyone and many people feel very close to him. It’s true that I receive letters from the world’s notables—from heads of states, from religious leaders, from representatives of the world of culture, etc. But I also receive many letters from ordinary people who write to me simply from their hearts and make me feel their affection, which is born of our being together with Christ Jesus, in the Church. These people do not write to me the way one would write, for example, to a prince or a dignitary that they don’t know. They write to me as brothers and sisters or as sons and daughters, with the sense of a very affectionate family tie. In this you can touch what the Church is—not an organization, not an association for religious or humanitarian ends, but a living body, a communion of brothers and sisters in the Body of Jesus Christ who unites us all. Experiencing the Church in this way and being able to almost touch with our hands the strength of His truth and His love is a reason for joy at a time when many are speaking of its decline. See how the Church is alive today!”
“In these last months I have felt that my strength had diminished and I asked God earnestly in prayer to enlighten me with His light to make me make the right decision, not for my own good, but for the good of the Church. I have taken this step in full awareness of its seriousness and also its newness, but with a profound peace of mind. Loving the Church also means having the courage to make difficult, agonized choices, always keeping in mind the good of the Church, not of oneself.”
“Allow me here to return once again to 19 April, 2005. The gravity of the decision lay precisely in the fact that, from that moment on, I was always and for always engaged by the Lord. Always—whoever assumes the Petrine ministry no longer has any privacy. He belongs always and entirely to everyone, to the whole Church. His life, so to speak, is totally deprived of its private dimension. I experienced, and I am experiencing it precisely now, that one receives life precisely when they give it. Before I said that many people who love the Lord also love St. Peter’s Successor and are fond of him; that the Pope truly has brothers and sisters, sons and daughters all over the world and that he feels safe in the embrace of their communion; because he no longer belongs to himself but he belongs to all and all belong to him.”
“’Always’ is also ‘forever’–there is no return to private life. My decision to renounce the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this. I am not returning to private life, to a life of trips, meetings, receptions, conferences, etc. I am not abandoning the cross, but am remaining beside the Crucified Lord in a new way. I no longer bear the power of the office for the governance of the Church, but I remain in the service of prayer, within St. Peter’s paddock, so to speak. St. Benedict, whose name I bear as Pope, will be a great example to me in this. He has shown us the way for a life that, active or passive, belongs wholly to God’s work.”
“I also thank each and every one of you for the respect and understanding with which you have received this important decision. I will continue to accompany the Church’s journey through prayer and reflection, with the dedication to the Lord and His Bride that I have tried to live every day up to now and that I want to always live. I ask you to remember me to God, and above all to pray for the Cardinals who are called to such an important task, and for the new Successor of the Apostle Peter. Many the Lord accompany him with the light and strength of His Spirit.”
“We call upon the maternal intercession of Mary, the Mother of God and of the Church, that she might accompany each of us and the entire ecclesial community. We entrust ourselves to her with deep confidence.”
“Dear friends! God guides His Church, always sustaining her even and especially in difficult times. Let us never lose this vision of faith, which is the only true vision of the path of the Church and of the world. In our hearts, in the heart of each one of you, may there always be the joyous certainty that the Lord is beside us, that He does not abandon us, that He is near and embraces us with His love. Thank you.”
Vatican Information Service
February 27, 2013 – 7:59 am Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Pope Benedict XVI’s final General Audience

Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent – Gospel

Gospel Mt 20:17-28

As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the Twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them on the way, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”
Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, “What do you wish?” She answered him, “Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus said in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He replied, “My chalice you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” When the ten heard this, they became indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
The Roman Lectionary
February 26, 2013 – 7:50 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent – Gospel

Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent

Keep your family, O Lord,
schooled always in good works,
and so comfort them with your protection here
as to lead them graciously to gifts on high.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.

The Roman Missal

February 26, 2013 – 7:45 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent

The latest about after the Pope’s resignation

The Vatican has released some more details about what happens after Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation is effective at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday evening Rome Time.

His title will be “Pontiff Emeritus” and he will be addressed as “His Holiness, Benedict XVI.”

He will wear a white cassock without mozetta (the arm length white cape), and will no longer wear the red papal shoes.

His “fisherman’s ring” and the lead seal of his papacy will be destroyed.

When the hour arrives for the “Sede Vacante” to begin, the Pope will be at Castel Gandolfo. At that time, the Swiss Guard will take their leave and return to the Vatican, since they are charged to protect only the Roman Pontiff. The Vatican Gendarmes will from that moment on be responsible for the safety and security of the Pontiff Emeritus.

The last public appearance as Pope Benedict will take place on Wednesday morning for a General Audience in St. Peter’s Square. Huge crowds are expected, and more than 50,000 tickets have already been issued. At the conclusion of the audience the Holy Father will circle around the crowd in the Popemobile in order to greet them more closely.

Thursday, the last day of his pontificate, he will meet with the Cardinals who are present in Rome, in order to greet each one personally. There will be no speeches at this event. He is scheduled to travel by helicopter to the Papal Residence at Castel Gandolfo at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, arriving at approximately 5:15 pm. He will greet the civil dignitaries upon his arrival, and then will bless the people of Castel Gandolfo from the balcony of the Apostolic Palace there.

On Friday, March 1, the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano, will send a letter to all  Cardinals summoning them to Rome. Since most will already be in Rome, it is possible that the first of the General Congregations of Cardinals may happen on Monday, March 4, but almost certainly sometime next week. At one of those meetings, the date for the Conclave will be set. Also, at one of those meetings, the Cardinals will receive their room assignments in Casa Santa Marta (St. Martha’s House), which will be drawn by lot.

Stayed tuned. There’s probably more coming!

The Concho Padre

February 26, 2013 – 3:38 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on The latest about after the Pope’s resignation

Cathedral Lenten Mission continues

SECOND DAY OF THE CATHEDRAL LENTEN PARISH MISSION TONIGHT AT 7:00 P.M. BE THERE AND BRING A FRIEND IF AT ALL POSSIBLE!

February 26, 2013 – 2:43 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Cathedral Lenten Mission continues

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

 

Guard your Church,

we pray, O Lord,

in your unceasing mercy, and,

since without you mortal humanity is sure to fall,

may we be kept by your constant helps

from all harm and directed to all that brings salvation.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

– Amen.

 

 

February 25, 2013 – 11:08 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

Gospel

MT 23:1-12

Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying,

“The scribes and the Pharisees

have taken their seat on the chair of Moses.

Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you,

but do not follow their example.

For they preach but they do not practice.

They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry

and lay them on people’s shoulders,

but they will not lift a finger to move them.

All their works are performed to be seen.

They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels.

They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues,

greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’

As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’

You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers.

Call no one on earth your father;

you have but one Father in heaven.

Do not be called ‘Master’;

you have but one master, the Christ.

The greatest among you must be your servant.

Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;

but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

February 25, 2013 – 11:03 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

Our Parish Lenten Mission has begun!

Great first night for our Parish Mission. If you missed it there is still time. Come out tomorrow night at 7 for Day 2. Bring a friend with you!

 

The Concho Padre

 

 

February 25, 2013 – 10:28 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Our Parish Lenten Mission has begun!