O Boże bądź moja siła w każdej sprawie, w każdem utrapieniu, w każdej pokusie, w każdej niemocy, w każdem niebezpieczeństwie, jakoś wspomagał św. Anzelma. Umocnij mię w wierze, nadziei i miłości, i doprowadź łaską swoją do wiecznej radości. Amen.
Listen to the Polish Hymn “Wesoły nam dzień dziś nastał…”
[audio:https://www.konicki.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/cd2_06_wesoly_nam_dzien_dzis_nastal.mp3]For they did not yet understand the Scripture
that he had to rise from the dead.
Nor had their faith been strengthened and activated by the Holy Spirit.
In fifty short days the Holy Spirit will come, and we will hear Peter confronting a Jerusalem full of pilgrims with the message from today’s first reading. We will hear Peter take the people through an exposition of the scriptures and their fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
The people will hear Peter speak in every known language. Thousands will come to conversion.
A few years later Paul will venture out. The people of Colossae in the Lycus Valley in Asia Minor, not far from Ephesus, will read:
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ your life appears,
then you too will appear with him in glory.
The congregation at Colossae died with Christ in baptism. They were immersed in the waters of baptism, and thus buried with Jesus. They are told to remember this fact, and await the coming of the Lord.
It sounds like an ideal time, a time of great hope and new revelation.
Of course we forget that Stephen and then James will die in Jerusalem, that bandits prey upon travelers, that the congregation at Colossae will get so caught up in minutia that they will place Christ on the back burner, that society is ruled by the iron fist of Rome, and that Rome is immersed in a culture of violence, war, self-serving pleasure, and a faith in stone idols that offer no hope beyond the do-it-if-it-feels-good present.
It comes down to faith.
Faith!
The people who heard Peter were not eyewitnesses. Paul himself only saw and heard Jesus in a spectacularly blinding light on the road to Damascus.
Yet, the work and the Word is being passed on. Generation by generation, the Word is handed on. In a hundred years from the Resurrection there were no eyewitnesses left. But the message continues to this very day.
Jesus Christ came to earth, the Son of God, true God and true man. He came to save sinners and to redeem humanity. He came with the sole intention of doing the Father’s will. He came knowing that he would voluntarily place himself in the hands of the Chief priests and the Sanhedrin, and into the hands of Pilate. He knew that He would have to allow the soldiers to mock Him, whip and beat Him, and place a crown of thorns on His head. He knew that He would have to allow them to drive Him up the road to Calvary, nail Him to the cross, mock Him again, and that He would cry out in abandonment. He knew that He would have to allow himself to die for sinners, for you and me. No one did it to Him, not the Jews and not the Romans.
Jesus allowed it and accepted it. He did it all for us, for generation upon generation of people who know only the testimony of those original eyewitnesses, the testimony of Mary, Simon Peter, John, the Apostles, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, the five-hundred.
All you and I know, we know by faith.
I have been blessed to be called Christian. I have been especially blessed to live long enough to have tasted the flesh of Christ and to have drunk His blood, and to do so in true faith and allegiance to Jesus Christ and His Holy Church.
We come here by faith.
Faith!
When we greet each other today we will say to you, ‘Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, alleluia.’ And you will respond, ‘He has risen indeed, alleluia.’
If this is said as a pleasantry or as a tradition, it is better left unsaid.
I tell you, in the proclamation of the Holy Gospel, that it is true: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, alleluia! He is risen indeed alleluia!
The cross and death have lead to this. A dead man on a cross, later buried in a tomb is just a sad and horrific death. The God-man Jesus Christ, dead on the cross, buried in the tomb, and risen forevermore is our hope.
Proclaim it with faith. He is risen indeed alleluia!
It follows that individuals, whether they be priests or lay faithful, are not free to add or subtract any details in the approved rites of the celebration of the Holy Eucharist (cf Sacrosanctum Concilium, 22). A do-it-yourself mentality, an attitude of nobody-will-tell-me-what-to-do, or a defiant sting of if-you-do-not-like-my-Mass-you-can-go-to-another-parish, is not only against sound theology and ecclesiology, but also offends against common sense. Unfortunately, sometimes common sense is not very common, when we see a priest ignoring liturgical rules and installing creativity – in his case personal idiosyncrasy – as the guide to the celebration of Holy Mass. Our faith guides us and our love of Jesus and of his Church safeguards us from taking such unwholesome liberties. Aware that we are only ministers, not masters of the mysteries of Christ (cf I Cor 4:1), we follow the approved liturgical books so that the people of God are respected and their faith nourished, and so that God is honoured and the Church is gradually being built up.
An excerpt from Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, in a keynote talk at Westminster Cathedral, London, England on Saturday, April 3, 2006, as part of a special afternoon event ‘Hearts and Minds’, devoted to thinking about and celebrating the Liturgy of the Church.
See the full text at: Independent Catholic News.
O Boże, który wyznawcę Twego Benedykta Labre zachęciłeś do ubóstwa, pokory i modlitwy, za jego wstawieniem naucz nas chrześcijańskiej roztropności, abyśmy doczesne dobra mało sobie ważyli, a starali się o dobra wieczne. Przez Chrystusa Pana naszego. Amen.
Panie, który żeglarzom w niebezpieczeństwie wzywającym opicki błg. Piotra, spieszysz na pomoc, za jego wstawiennictwem wśród burz tego życia wspomagaj nas łaską swoją, abyśmy przy jej pomocy szczęśliwie do portu zbawienia dopłynąć mogli. Przez Chrystusa Pana naszego. Amen.
Św. Ludwino, patronko wszystkich chorych i cierpiących! uproś nam u Boga tę łaskę, abyśmy cierpliwość twą naśladowali w chorobie, i nigdy nie zapominali, że droga krzyża jest drogą do nieba. Przez Chrystusa Pana naszego. Amen.
O Panie, który św. króla męczennika Hermenegilda nauczyłeś tej prawdy, że królestwo ziemskie powinien ofiarować w zamian za królestwo niebieskie, wlej i w nas to przekonanie, abyśmy idąc za jego przykładem mało sobie cenili ziemskie dobra i zaszczyty, a starali się o dobra wieczne. Przez Chrystusa Pana naszego. Amen.
From LifeSite News:
Catholic Notre Dame to Allow Vulgar —Vagina Monologues—: Local bishop —deeply saddened— by decision by priest university president. By Gudrun Schultz
NOTRE DAME, Indiana, April 6, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) —“ The University of Notre Dame will continue to allow the controversial play —The Vagina Monologues— to be performed on campus, despite the plays’ explicit sexuality, obscenity and anti-Catholic content. The script contains graphic accounts of female sexual encounters, one involving the seduction of a young teenage girl by an older woman.
Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins, university president, spoke against the play in January, saying it was antithetical to the Catholic identity of Notre Dame, and that repeat performances on campus would suggest that the university endorsed the content and message of the play.
But in a statement yesterday Fr. Jenkins granted permission for the play to continue on the grounds of academic freedom, saying, —the creative contextualization of a play like ‘The Vagina Monologues’ can bring certain perspectives on important issues into a constructive and fruitful dialogue with the Catholic tradition.—
Bishop John M. D’Arcy, whose diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend includes Notre Dame, had asked that the performances be ended. He said he was —deeply saddened by the decision.— In his statement Bishop D’Arcy referred to his February comments on the play, when he said it —reduces sexuality to a particular organ of a woman’s body separate from the person of the woman, from her soul and her spirit.—
I just do not see how a play that objectifies can be a starting point for a “…constructive and fruitful dialogue with the Catholic tradition” unless the Catholic tradition is something other than it purports to be. There is objective good and objective evil. The dignity of the whole person is the only “starting point”.
A line from Bishop D’Arcy’s statement:
I am deeply saddened by the decision of Father John Jenkins, CSC, to allow the continuing sponsorship of the Vagina Monologues by Notre Dame, the School of Our Lady.
Yes, I would imagine that our Lady is saddened as well.
Please feel free to E-mail the Congregation of the Holy Cross, of which Fr. Jenkins is a member, and the University of Notre Dame is a part, to express your feelings.
Bishop Joseph Adamec of the Altoona-Johnstown, PA Roman Catholic Diocese is at it again, just in time for Easter. This time he’s forced a conservative priest out of the priesthood while protecting the Lavender Mafia.
Citing anti-gay stance, outspoken priest quits by Susan Evans of The Tribune-Democrat
LILLY —” Even after a priest sexually abused him when he was in high school, John Nesbella of Lilly came back to the church.
And when Nesbella became a priest, and his strong stance against homosexuality in the priesthood drew venomous mail from his colleagues, he kept the faith.
But now, at age 43 and after being banned for the past year from publicly performing any priestly duties, the outspoken and controversial Cambria County priest is taking off his collar.
John Nesbella has resigned from the priesthood.—This is the end of a sad tale of how wicked so-called Catholic priests and bishops drove me and a few other priests out because we dared to speak up about the corrupt brotherhood of homosexuals in the priesthood,— he said.
Officials at the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese declined to comment on Nesbella’s resignation.
—It’s a personal decision,— diocese spokesman Rob Egan would only say.
Nesbella has been a conservative standard-bearer and a favorite of conservative lay leaders in the diocese.
In 2005, Nesbella was the second Altoona-Johnstown priest in three years to be placed on a leave of absence for protesting diocese policies.
Before him, James Foster, an outspoken Ebensburg priest who often locked horns with Bishop Joseph Adamec on the issue of homosexual priests, was placed on leave in 2003.
Nesbella was placed on leave after suing the diocese, claiming abuse by a priest who is now deceased. That lawsuit is still pending.
His resignation from the priesthood follows more than four years of turbulence in the diocese over allegations of sexual abuse of minors by gay priests.
Since the sex scandal erupted nationally in January 2002, the Altoona-Johnstown diocese has settled 13 lawsuits for $3.7 million. More than a dozen sex-abuse suits are pending.
Before that, the diocese’s single major sex-abuse scandal was the 1994 trial of since-defrocked priest Francis Luddy, who was accused of sexually abusing young boys.
But Nesbella sees homosexuality in the priesthood as more than a financial liability.
He calls it —the immoral mess we have in our church— and says he warned Bishop Adamec.
—Last year I met with him and said, ‘You’re wrecking the church,’ — Nesbella said in an interview Tuesday with The Tribune-Democrat.
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Biretta tip to the Young Fogey who is correct. The Rev. Nesbella has a lot of discerning to do.
Bishop Adamec is also the Bishop who imposed a gag order on his priests.
Priests say bishop issues gag order by Gill Donovan
Under penalty of excommunication or suspension, a Pennsylvania bishop imposed a gag order for all his priests, forbidding them from voicing public disagreement with diocesan policy.
Speaking on condition their names not be revealed, some priests told The Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown that the gag order had been issued by their bishop, James Adamec of Altoona-Johnstown, Pa., several months ago. The diocese is located some 80 miles from Pittsburgh.
The priests said that Adamec imposed the order after priests were publicly critical about possible church closings and about the way the diocese handled a 1994 sexual abuse lawsuit.
In that suit, Adamec was criticized for paying more in attorney fees than to the victim of abuse by now-defrocked priest Francis Luddy. The diocese refused the paper’s request for comment on the gag order.
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…and is the same Bishop who oversaw the closing of various parishes including the parish of St. John the Baptist in Northern Cambria, PA. St. John the Baptist is the parish where the Holy Altar was torn out and disposed of in a dumpster. Check out the pictures of this tragedy and the full story.
NORTHERN CAMBRIA – PENNSYLVANIA, USA Parishioners of St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church feel betrayed by what some term a desecration after the church’s nearly century-old altar was ripped out, broken apart and tossed into a Dumpster.
Diocese officials are embroiled in the consolidation of six churches into a new Prince of Peace parish with two churches, the current St. John and four other churches will be closed.
“It is desecration, not only of a holy object, but also a desecration of our feelings because this focus of the practice of our faith has been so cavalierly destroyed despite our objections,” said parishioner Monica Wadium. The Philadelphia Avenue resident traces her family membership in the church to her grandparents.
But the Rev. Gerard Connolly, who serves as parish priest at St. John, 811 Chestnut Ave., and Our Lady of Mount Carmel, defended the destruction of the altar that, one expert says, would cost $15,000 to $50,000 to replace.
Connolly said the altar stone, a sacred object was removed and put in storage before the altar, a mixture of horsehair reinforced with steel, was discarded.
The altar was to be taken to a landfill and buried. The Two devotional altars also were dismantled and discarded, Connolly said.
“What is the reason for renovating St. John?” Wadium asked. “There is no church law, or even directive, that states our altar had to be destroyed. It was an integral part of our cburch architecture and the pride and joy of our community.”
Michael Rose, author of “The Renovation Manipulation,” a book written to help congregations stop cosmetic changes, said they often are done at the whim of Catholic heirarchy and not always necessary.
“It was priceless to the community,” he said about the altar during a telephone interview from his office in Cincinnati.
“I have seen pictures of it and can tell you it was a major work of art.”
Wadium said the altar was put in when the church was built in 1903. She said the immigrant families were poverty-stricken but filled with faith and struggled to make the altar the central focal point of St. John.
Rose said he was outraged the bishop in Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese allowed the removal. He said the bishop is charged with protecting the sacred patrimony of the church, its physical heritage.
But Connolly said the altar had not been updated since Vatican II, a meeting of bishops in Rome during the mid-1960s. He said it was a necessary change.
As word started spreading in the tightly knit Catholic community about the altar’s fate, more members came forward.
More than a dozen St. John parishioners feel betrayed by Connolly and the diocesan bishop, the Most Rev. Joseph Adamec.
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