Is Switzerland defending its Christian roots?

From NationMaster.com, Church attendance (most recent) by country:

Showing latest available data.

Rank Countries Amount # 1 Nigeria: 89% # 2 Ireland: 84% # 3 Philippines: 68% # 4 South Africa: 56% # 5 Poland: 55% # 6 Puerto Rico: 52% = 7 Portugal: 47% = 7 Slovakia: 47% # 9 Mexico: 46% # 10 Italy: 45% = 11 United States: 44% = 11 Belgium: 44% = 13 Peru: 43% = 13 Turkey: 43% # 15 India: 42% # 16 Canada: 38% # 17 Brazil: 36% # 18 Netherlands: 35% = 19 Uruguay: 31% = 19 Venezuela: 31% # 21 Austria: 30% # 22 United Kingdom: 27% = 23 Spain: 25% = 23 Argentina: 25% = 23 Chile: 25% # 26 Croatia: 22% = 27 Hungary: 21% = 27 France: 21% # 29 Romania: 20% = 30 Switzerland: 16% = 30 Australia: 16% = 30 Lithuania: 16% = 33 Czech Republic: 14% = 33 Korea, South: 14% # 35 Taiwan: 11% = 36 Ukraine: 10% = 36 Bulgaria: 10% = 36 Moldova: 10% = 36 Georgia: 10% # 40 China: 9% # 41 Armenia: 8% # 42 Serbia and Montenegro: 7% = 43 Azerbaijan: 6% = 43 Belarus: 6% = 45 Denmark: 5% = 45 Latvia: 5% = 45 Norway: 5% = 48 Sweden: 4% = 48 Finland: 4% = 48 Estonia: 4% = 48 Iceland: 4% # 52 Japan: 3% # 53 Russia: 2% Weighted average: 26.2%

Just a bit of further proof that the banning of new minarets in Switzerland is not motivated by a desire to defend its Christian roots, not is it something Christians should cheer.

Christmas Novena + Immaculate Conception Novena

Fr. Joseph speaks about the Christmas Novena that starts today, on the feast of St. Andrew, and ends on Christmas and a miracle associated with an extended member of his family connected with this prayer.

Go check it out here.

Below is the prayer that Fr Joseph talks about. It's from Two Hearts Design.

I really like it. We used to pray it as a family (every night, for 9 days before Christmas). It conjures in my mind the Bethlehem scene, the cold, the Blessed Mother and her Infant Child. I didn't know it was called the Novena of St Andrew.

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.

(It is piously believed that whoever recites the above prayer fifteen times a day from the feast of St. Andrew (30th November) until Christmas will obtain what is asked.)

Imprimatur
+MICHAEL AUGUSTINE, Archbishop of New York
New York, February 6, 1897

Text Only Version for Printing
(will open in new window)

View and print prayer in this image format

Today is also the first day of the Novena in honour of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception.

"A smile is meant to be shared"

I hope Teresa doesn't mind me posting this. :)

Happen to have a pocket of free time at work and thought I'd share with you a really pleasant experience I had this morning. (:

Took 2 buses to work this morning, and the second one was service 166 from Little India MRT station to Opposite SLF Complex bus stop. When I boarded the bus driver (haha, I prefer 'uncle'- more affectionate!) smiled and said 'good morning' to me when I thanked him for stopping. He cheered me up so easily! I immediately thought of your post on Ferninda's bus experience. (It was her, right?) Throughout the journey, he cheerfully greeted everyone else. So sweet you know? It's so affirming of the human spirit, and that of generosity! I mean, a smile is meant to be shared. Ppl seem to have forgotten that.

Remembering your post on your friend's experience, I looked in the driver's direction as I stood at the door getting ready to alight. As only in a courtesy campaign advertisement, he looked in his rear view mirror at that instance, smiled and nodded good bye! Seriously. (: I love friendly and courteous people as much as I detest the rude ones!

My day started off well.

Hope your day's going well too Dommy! Have a blessed one.

Thanks for sharing Tere!! We should highlight and appreciate these little acts of kindness.

I met a very polite uncle on 151 yesterday. He was so nice that I said three Hail Marys for him when I sat down. :D
And when we reached Kent Ridge Terminal, I and the other passenger remaining both alighted through the front door, just to thank him.

A ban on minarets in Switzerland: Bad News!

I was very surprised to learn that the Swiss had voted to ban the construction of minarets in their country. I was just as surprised, and dismayed, to see the bloggers at Rorate Caeli rejoicing at the news.

Isn't it very probable that the very impetus behind banning minarets drives initiatives in Italy to ban crucifixes from classrooms? Maybe the next target will be church spires, or church bells, or Eucharistic processions.

When the freedom of one religion to worship and express their rites and beliefs in a legitimate manner is curtailed, it is (especially in today's rabidly secular climate) an attack on all religion. Haven't they learnt this from America's own history of sometimes official anti-Catholicism? Do they have such short memories? Or have they so lost the ability to step into the other's shoes?

And please, let's not point to Saudi Arabia and say "Oh they're not giving Christians the right to worship freely in their lands. So why should we tolerate Muslims in Europe?"
You can do that the next time a Saudi, or a fundamentalist Muslim, complains about Islam's position in Europe. They have no right to say anything, given their own horrific approach to religious freedom. But please let's not use Saudi Arabia as our benchmark and standard of freedom, civility and democracy.

This is an attack on religious freedom. Whatever your views on Islam are, it's naive, and un-Christian to rejoice at this latest development in the dismal history of secularism in Europe.

The Count of Monte Cristo

I just watched The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Jim Cavaziel. I was kind of dreading the ending because I had the impression that it was unjust and sad (perhaps from an abridged version I remember reading). But it's a very good movie, and not strictly adhering to the plot of Alexandre Dumas' book. Apparently, however, the book too (according to Wikipedia) doesn't seem to have that tragic ending I imagined. Haha.

Do catch it if you can!

Memorable Quotes:

Edmond: Monseuir, I know you must hear this a great deal; I assure you I am innocent. Everyone must say that, I know, but I truly am.
Dorleac: Innocent?
Edmond: Yes.
Dorleac: I know. I really do know.
Edmond: You mock me?
Dorleac: No, my dear Dantes. I know perfectly well that you are innocent. Why else would you be here? If you were truly guilty, there are a hundred prisons in France where they would lock you away. But Chateau d'If is where is they put the ones they're ashamed of.

Abbe Faria: Here is your final lesson - do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. God said, "Vengeance is mine".
Edmond Dantes: I don't believe in God.
Abbe Faria: It doesn't matter. He believes in you.

Mercedes: I don't know what dark plan lies within you. Nor do I know by what design we were asked to live without each other these 16 years. But God has offered us a new beginning...
Edmond: God?
Mercedes: Don't slap His hand away.
Edmond: Can I never escape Him?
Mercedes: No, He is in everything. Even in a kiss.

Photo date: 23 January 2002 Photo by Albert Watson - © Spyglass Entertainment Group, L.P. All rights reserved

Edmond: You were right Priest, you were right. This I promise you, and God: All that was used for vengeance will now be used for good. So rest in peace, my friend.

Pope Benedict on Beauty

Dear friends, let us allow these frescoes to speak to us today, drawing us towards the ultimate goal of human history. The Last Judgement, which you see behind me, reminds us that human history is movement and ascent, a continuing tension towards fullness, towards human happiness, towards a horizon that always transcends the present moment even as the two coincide. Yet the dramatic scene portrayed in this fresco also places before our eyes the risk of man’s definitive fall, a risk that threatens to engulf him whenever he allows himself to be led astray by the forces of evil. So the fresco issues a strong prophetic cry against evil, against every form of injustice. For believers, though, the Risen Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. For his faithful followers, he is the Door through which we are brought to that "face-to-face" vision of God from which limitless, full and definitive happiness flows. Thus Michelangelo presents to our gaze the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End of history, and he invites us to walk the path of life with joy, courage and hope. The dramatic beauty of Michelangelo’s painting, its colours and forms, becomes a proclamation of hope, an invitation to raise our gaze to the ultimate horizon. The profound bond between beauty and hope was the essential content of the evocative Message that Paul VI addressed to artists at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council on 8 December 1965: "To all of you," he proclaimed solemnly, "the Church of the Council declares through our lips: if you are friends of true art, you are our friends!" And he added: "This world in which we live needs beauty in order not to sink into despair. Beauty, like truth, brings joy to the human heart, and is that precious fruit which resists the erosion of time, which unites generations and enables them to be one in admiration. And all this through the work of your hands... Remember that you are the custodians of beauty in the world."

...

In this regard, one may speak of a "via pulchritudinis," a path of beauty which is at the same time an artistic and aesthetic journey, a journey of faith, of theological enquiry. The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar begins his great work entitled "The Glory of the Lord – a Theological Aesthetics" with these telling observations: "Beauty is the word with which we shall begin. Beauty is the last word that the thinking intellect dares to speak, because it simply forms a halo, an untouchable crown around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another." He then adds: "Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. It is no longer loved or fostered even by religion." And he concludes: "We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love." The way of beauty leads us, then, to grasp the Whole in the fragment, the Infinite in the finite, God in the history of humanity. Simone Weil wrote in this regard: "In all that awakens within us the pure and authentic sentiment of beauty, there, truly, is the presence of God. There is a kind of incarnation of God in the world, of which beauty is the sign. Beauty is the experimental proof that incarnation is possible. For this reason all art of the first order is, by its nature, religious." Hermann Hesse makes the point even more graphically: "Art means: revealing God in everything that exists." Echoing the words of Pope Paul VI, the Servant of God Pope John Paul II restated the Church’s desire to renew dialogue and cooperation with artists: "In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art" (no. 12); but he immediately went on to ask: "Does art need the Church?" – thereby inviting artists to rediscover a source of fresh and well-founded inspiration in religious experience, in Christian revelation and in the "great codex" that is the Bible.

Dear artists, as I draw to a conclusion, I too would like to make a cordial, friendly and impassioned appeal to you, as did my Predecessor. You are the custodians of beauty: thanks to your talent, you have the opportunity to speak to the heart of humanity, to touch individual and collective sensibilities, to call forth dreams and hopes, to broaden the horizons of knowledge and of human engagement. Be grateful, then, for the gifts you have received and be fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty! Through your art, you yourselves are to be heralds and witnesses of hope for humanity! And do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and in history towards infinite Beauty! Faith takes nothing away from your genius or your art: on the contrary, it exalts them and nourishes them, it encourages them to cross the threshold and to contemplate with fascination and emotion the ultimate and definitive goal, the sun that does not set, the sun that illumines this present moment and makes it beautiful.

Saint Augustine, who fell in love with beauty and sang its praises, wrote these words as he reflected on man’s ultimate destiny, commenting almost "ante litteram" on the Judgement scene before your eyes today: "Therefore we are to see a certain vision, my brethren, that no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived: a vision surpassing all earthly beauty, whether it be that of gold and silver, woods and fields, sea and sky, sun and moon, or stars and angels. The reason is this: it is the source of all other beauty" (In 1 Ioannis, 4:5). My wish for all of you, dear artists, is that you may carry this vision in your eyes, in your hands, and in your heart, that it may bring you joy and continue to inspire your fine works. From my heart I bless you and, like Paul VI, I greet you with a single word: arrivederci!

Read the entire speech here

Pope Benedict also made art, architecture and beuaty the theme of his Wednesday catechesis on Nov 18:

Dear brothers and sisters, in the catecheses of recent weeks I have presented some of the aspects of medieval theology. But the Christian faith, profoundly rooted in the men and women of those centuries, did not give rise only to masterpieces of theological literature, of thought and of faith. It also inspired one of the loftiest artistic creations of all civilization: the cathedrals, the true glory of the Christian Middle Ages.

In fact, for about three centuries, beginning from the start of the 11th century, one witnessed in Europe an extraordinary artistic fervor. An ancient commentator describes the enthusiasm and industry of those times: "It happened that all over the world, but especially in Italy and in Gaul, they began to rebuild the churches, although many of these, since they were still in good condition, did not need this kind of restoration. It was like a competition between one people and another; one might have believed that the world, throwing off its old rags, had wanted to drape itself all over in the white garments of new churches. In short, almost all of the cathedral churches, a great number of monastic churches, and even village oratories were renovated by the faithful" (Rodulfus Glaber, Historiarum 3, 4).

Various factors contributed to this renaissance of religious architecture. First of all, there were more favorable historical conditions, like greater political stability, accompanied by a constant rise in the population and by the progressive development of the cities, of trade, and of wealth. Moreover, the architects discovered increasingly elaborate technical solutions for increasing the dimensions of buildings, simultaneously ensuring both their solidity and their grandeur.

But it was mainly due to the ardor and spiritual zeal of a monasticism in full flower that the abbey churches were erected, where the liturgy could be celebrated with dignity and solemnity, and the faithful could pause in prayer, attracted by the veneration of the relics of the saints, the destination of incessant pilgrimages.

This led to the building of the Romanesque churches and cathedrals, characterized by the longitudinal expansion, in length, of their naves in order to accommodate large crowds of the faithful; very solid churches, with thick walls, vaults of bare rock, and simple, essential lines.
...
In general, it is the doorways of the Romanesque churches that offer this representation, to emphasize that Christ is the Door that opens into Heaven. The faithful, by crossing the threshold of the sacred building, enter into a time and a space that are different from those of ordinary life. In the intention of the artist, once they were past the doorway of the church the believers in Christ – sovereign, just, and merciful – could enjoy a foretaste of eternal beatitude in the celebration of the liturgy and in the acts of devotion performed inside the sacred building.

In the 12th and 13th centuries, beginning in northern France, there spread another type of architecture for constructing sacred buildings, Gothic architecture, with two new characteristics compared to the Romanesque: vertical thrust, and luminosity.

The Gothic cathedrals displayed a synthesis of faith and art that was harmoniously expressed through the universal and fascinating language of beauty, which still causes amazement today. Through the introduction of vaults with pointed arches, resting on robust pillars, it was possible to increase height considerably. The upward thrust was intended to foster prayer, and was itself a prayer. The Gothic cathedral thus intended to translate, in its architectural contours, the yearning of souls for God.

Moreover, with the new technical solutions that were adopted, the outer walls could be decorated with stained glass windows. In other words, the windows became great luminous images, highly suitable for instructing the people in the faith. In them – scene by scene – were narrated the life of a saint, a parable, or other biblical events. Through the stained glass, a cascade of light poured out over the faithful to tell them the story of salvation, and involve them in this story.

Another virtue of the Gothic cathedrals consists in the fact that the entire Christian and civil community participated in their construction and decoration, in different but complementary ways: the lowly and the powerful, the illiterate and the educated all participated, because in this shared house all believers were instructed in the faith. Gothic sculpture made the cathedrals a "Bible in stone," representing the episodes of the Gospel and illustrating the contents of the liturgical year, from the Nativity to the Glorification of the Lord.

During those centuries, moreover, there was a growing perception of the humanity of the Lord, and the sufferings of his Passion were represented in a realistic way: the suffering Christ, the "Christus patiens," became an image loved by all, and capable of inspiring devotion and repentance for sin. Nor were the figures of the Old Testament overlooked, whose stories in that way became familiar to the faithful who went to the cathedrals, as part of the one, common story of salvation.

With its faces full of beauty, sweetness, intelligence, the Gothic sculpture of the 13th century reveals a happy, serene piety, which loves to pour out heartfelt and filial devotion to the Mother of God, who is sometimes seen as a young woman, smiling and maternal, and is mainly represented as the queen of heaven and earth, powerful and merciful. The faithful who crowded the Gothic cathedrals also loved to find artistic expressions there that commemorated the saints, models of Christian life and intercessors with God.

And the "secular" dimensions of life were not left out; here and there appear representations of work in the fields, of the sciences and the arts. All of it was oriented and offered to God in the place where the liturgy was celebrated.
...
Dear brothers and sisters, may the Lord help us to rediscover the way of beauty as one of the ways, perhaps the most attractive and fascinating, to come to encounter and love God.

John Paul II’s letter to artists, April 4, 1999:

> "To all who are passionately dedicated..."

Annapurna Star Trails

2009 November 28 from APOD

Credit & Copyright: Wang Jinglei, Jia Hao

Explanation: In myth, Atlas holds up the heavens. But in this moonlit mountainscape, peaks of the Himalayan Annapurna Range appear to prop up the sky as seen from Ghandruk, Nepal. From left to right the three main peaks are Annapurna South (7,219 meters), Hiunchuli (6,441 metes), and Machapuchare (6,995 meters). Of course the mountains are moving not the stars, the Earth's rotation about its axis causing the concentric star trails recorded in the time exposure. Positioned above Annapurna South, the North Celestial Pole is easily identified as the point at the center of all the star trail arcs. The star Polaris, also known as the North Star, made the very short and bright arc closest to the North Celestial Pole.

New papal staff

From NLM :

Tomorrow Pope Benedict will celebrate Pontifical Vespers as the first Vespers of the first Sunday of Advent, which also marks the beginning of the new liturgical year.

On this occasion, the Holy Father will begin to use a new pastoral staff. As Msgr. Guido Marini, the Papal Master of Ceremonies, tells tomorrow’s edition of the Osservatore Romano:

Similar in shape to the ferula of Pius IX so far in use this can be considered to all intents and purposes the pastoral staff of Benedict XVI.

Like the ferula of Bl. Pius IX in 1877, the new staff is donated to the Pontiff by the Circolo San Pietro, a Roman association founded in 1869 in support of the papacy. It is slightly smaller and lighter than the ferula of Bl. Pius IX.
On the front side of the new ferula is depicted in the centre the Lamb of God, and on the four points of the cross, the symbols of the four Evangelists. The arms of the cross are decorated in a net-like pattern which evokes the fisherman whose successor Pope Benedict is. On the backside there is in the centre the Chi-Rho, the monogram of Christ, and on the four points of the cross, four Fathers of Occident and Orient, Augustine and Ambrose, Athanasius and John Chrysostom, the same who also carry Bernini’s cathedra. On the top of the shaft is the coat of arms of Pope Benedict XVI.

Opus Dei in Rome

From J.P. Sonnen:




Basilica of San Salvatore.

Conversion

Bernard Nathanson



Founding member of NARAL Pro-Choice America
Responsible for more that 75,000 abortions during pro-abortion career.

Now a pro-life activist and a Catholic.

Why, you may well ask,  do some American doctors  who are privy  to the findings  of foetology,
discredit  themselves by carrying out abortions?
Simple arithmetic at $300 a time, 1.55 million abortions means an
industry  generating  $500,000,000 annually,  of which  most  goes into the pocket of the
physician  doing  the  abortion.  It is clear  that  permissive  abortion  is  purposeful
destruction  of  what  is  undeniably  human life.  It is  an impermissible act of deadly
violence.  One  must concede that unplanned pregnancy is a wrenchingly difficult dilemma,
but  to look  for its solution  in a deliberate act  of destruction  is to trash the vast
resourcefulness  of human  ingenuity,  and to  surrender  the public weal  to the classic
utilitarian answer to social problems.                                             

AS A SCIENTIST I KNOW, NOT BELIEVE, KNOW THAT HUMAN LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION

- Confession of an Ex-abortionist

More

Norma McCorvey ("Jane Roe")



The plaintiff in the Roe vs. Wade decision of the US Supreme Court, which legalized abortion in all 50 states.

Now a pro-life activist and a Catholic.

Excerpts from McCorvey's testimony before the Senate:

I am the woman once known as the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade. But I dislike the name Jane Roe and all that it stands for. I am a real person named Norma McCorvey and I want you to know the horrible and evil things that Roe v. Wade did to me and others. I never got the opportunity to speak for myself in my own court case. I am not a trained spokesperson, nor a judge, but I am a real person - a living human being who was supposed to be helped by my lawyers and the courts in Roe v. Wade. But instead, I believe that I was used and abused by the court system in America. Instead of helping women in Roe v. Wade, I brought destruction to me and millions of women throughout the nation. In 1970, I was pregnant for the third time. I was not married and I truly did not know what to do with this pregnancy. I had already put one child up for adoption and it was difficult to place a child for adoption because of the natural bond that occurs between a woman and her child. And after all, a woman becomes a mother as soon as she is pregnant, not when the child is born. And women are now speaking out about their harmful experiences from legal abortion.

...In 1973, when I learned about the Roe v. Wade decision from the newspapers, not my lawyers, I didn't feel real elated. After all, the decision didn't help me at all. I never had an abortion. I gave my baby up for adoption since the baby was born before the legal case was over. I am glad today that that child is alive and that I did not elect to abort. I was actually silent about my role in abortion for many years and did not speak out at all. Then, in the 1980's, in order to justify my own conduct, with many conflicting emotions, I did come forward publicly to support Roe v. Wade. Keep in mind that I had not had an abortion and did not know much about it at the time.

...The Supreme Court has hurt me and millions of women and children. I urge you to do everything in your power to reverse Roe v. Wade. Since the Supreme Court did not reject our arguments, we are continuing to bring those arguments before the court in case after case after case, including Sandra Cano's case which is in the courts now. Please do not ask a judicial nominee to pledge to maintain Roe v. Wade. If new evidence comes before the court, then the court should be willing change its old precedent, as it has many times. Roe v. Wade is not in the Constitution. It is just a bad Supreme Court decision with bad effects and needs to be reversed. I also support a constitutional amendment to protect all human life. I am also attaching a copy of my 13-page affidavit which was filed in our lawsuit to reverse Roe v. Wade. Some things should never be allowed, even if we want to do them. Murder is one, child abuse is another and allowing abortionists to harm women is another. Thank you, Senators.

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Abby Johnson



Director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas.

Experienced a "change of heart" while participating in an abortion procedure and is now a pro-life activist:

Johnson has now joined a group called Coalition for Life, which prays outside the clinic where she worked.

"I had never seen an abortion happen on an ultrasound," she said. "My job during the procedure was to hold the probe on the woman's abdomen. I could see the whole profile of the baby 13 weeks head to foot. I could see the whole side profile. I could see the probe. I could see the baby try to move away from the probe."

"I just thought, 'What am I doing?'" she said. "And then I thought, 'Never again.'"

Two weeks later, Johnson quit.

"I looked out the window and saw a couple of women praying and I thought, 'That's where I need to go,'" Johnson said.

She walked down the street and into the welcoming arms of the Coalition for Life.

Although she had originally been happy at her job, Johnson slowly grew to question "the motives of the organization," she said, particularly because her superiors were "pushing clinics that did have an abortion program to bring in more money."

ABC News

Judge prevents Planned Parenthood from keeping Abby Johnson quiet


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And finally, I don't know if he has changed his stance on the evil of contraception itself, but:
Carl Djerassi



Inventor of the first oral contraceptive

Now:

Eighty five year old Carl Djerassi the Austrian chemist who helped invent the contraceptive pill now says that his co-creation has led to a "demographic catastrophe."

Djerassi outlined the "horror scenario" that occurred because of the population imbalance, for which his invention was partly to blame. He said that in most of Europe there was now "no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction." He said: "This divide in Catholic Austria, a country which has on average 1.4 children per family, is now complete."

He described families who had decided against reproduction as "wanting to enjoy their schnitzels while leaving the rest of the world to get on with it."

The fall in the birth rate, he said, was an "epidemic" far worse, but given less attention, than obesity. Young Austrians, he said, were committing national suicide if they failed to procreate. And if it were not possible to reverse the population decline they would have to understand the necessity of an "intelligent immigration policy."

Pill Inventor Slams...Pill

Some demographic facts about Austria, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain via Crunch Con illustrate what Djerassi is worried about.



Thank God for these conversion, and pray for the changing of hearts and the defeat of the culture of death - one conscience at a time.

Prayer to the Spirit of Truth

Holy Spirit, You are the promised Spirit of Truth, constantly revealing the splendor of truth to Your people, and leading us deeper into the Mysteries of our Faith.

Come to us today, and deepen in our minds and hearts the truth about life: its greatness, its dignity, its reflection of the eternal God. Make us appreciate ever more the truth that life is always a good, and that every life is of equal dignity, despite all the different characteristics people have, or the different circumstances under which they come to be.

Come, Spirit of Truth. Free all Your people from the falsehoods that lead to the evil of abortion. Free them from the false and harmful ideas which make a god out of their own choices, or which fail to recognize the right to life of children in the womb.

Come, O Holy Spirit, and as You immerse us in Your truth, so make us effective witnesses of that truth within our families, among our friends, and to all the world. Amen.

Prayer by Priests for Life

It is fitting...

Yesterday I was praying at the oratory at the Opus Dei centre when Fr Marin came in. He had been to hospital to visit someone and so was carrying the Eucharist with him. The reverence with which he transferred the hosts from the pyx to the ciborium in the tabernacle was so edifying. He did everything slowly, carefully. He genuflected, he rinsed his fingers after touching the hosts. The entire oratory echoes this reverence - all the vessels are sparking, the tabernacle veil is beautiful - all the dignity and elegance direct our attention to Christ in the tabernacle.

I wish everyone gets to witness such reverence when priests handle the Body of Christ. How often I've seen the hosts "poured" from one ciborium into another in preparation for Holy Communion with haste bordering on irreverence. I've seen hosts spill on the altar, and even once watched in dismay as the priest scrambled after a host that rolled off the altar onto the floor.

What kind of message does this send to members of the congregation who are not struck by the reality of Christ's presence in the Eucharist, or who doubt the fact?

Just as importantly, what an wonderful opportunity is missed to teach, by example, love and respect for the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ.

Thank you Fr Marin for witnessing to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

It is fitting that He Whose abode has been established in peace should be worshipped in peace and with due reverence. Churches, then, should be entered humbly and devoutly; behaviour inside should be calm, pleasing to God, bringing peace to the beholders, a source not only of instruction but of mental refreshment. Those who assemble in church should extol with an act of special reverence that Name which is above every Name, than which no other under Heaven has been given to people, in which believers must be saved, the Name, that is, of Jesus Christ, Who will save His people from their sins. Each should fulfil in himself that which is written for all, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow; whenever that glorious Name is recalled, especially during the sacred Mysteries of the Mass, everyone should bow the knees of his heart, which he can do even by a bow of his head. In churches the sacred solemnities should possess the whole heart and mind; the whole attention should be given to prayer.

~ Second Council of Lyons, A.D. 1274