Second Sunday of Easter. Since the reforms of the 1960’s, this is the common name in all the liturgical texts such as the Sacramentary, Lectionary, etc.
Octave of Easter. Once the Church had many octaves throughout the year. The Octave of Easter can refer to either the eighth day or all eight days of the Feast of Easter which ends today.
In the Eastern Churches, this is known as Thomas Sunday as the gospel is always taken from John 20 and the story of doubting Thomas which occurred one week after the day of the Resurrection. Read the rest of this entry »
“I do not deny that there are differences between the Churches, but I say that we must change our way of approaching them.And the question of method is in the first place a psychological, or rather a spiritual problem.For centuries there have been conversations between theologians, and they have done nothing except to harden their positions.I have a whole library about it.And why?Because they spoke in fear and distrust of one another, with the desire to defend themselves and to defeat the others.Theology was no longer a pure celebration of the mystery of God.It became a weapon. God himself became a weapon!
I repeat: I do not ignore these difficulties. But I am trying to change the spiritual atmosphere.The restoration of mutual love will enable us to see the questions in a totally different light.We must express the truth which is dear to us – because it protects and celebrates the immensity of the life which is in Christ – we must express it, not so as to repulse the other, so as to force him to admit that he is beaten, but so as to share it with him; and also for its own sake, for its beauty, as a celebration of truth to which we invite our brothers.At the same time we must be ready to listen.For Christians, truth is not opposed to life or love;it expresses their fullness.First of all, we must free these words, these words which tend to collide, from the evil past, from all political, national and cultural hatreds which have nothing to do with Christ.Then we must root them in the deep life of the Church, in the experience of the Resurrection which it istheir mission to serve.We must always weigh our words in the balance of life and death and Resurrection.
Those who accuse me of sacrificing Orthodoxy to a blind obsession with love, have a very poor conception of the truth.They make it into a system which they possess, which reassures them, when what it really is, is the living glorification of the living God, with all the risks involved in creative life.And we don’t possess God; it is He who holds us and fills us with His presence in proportion to our humility and love.Only by love can we glorify the God of love, only by giving and sharing and sacrificing oneself can one glorify the God who, to save us, sacrificed himself and went to death, the death of the cross.
A group of six anti-war protesters interrupted an Easter Sunday Mass in Chicago yesterday morning. Stunning parishioners during Cardinal Francis George’s homily they went up and down the aisle of the auditorium at Holy Name Cathedral (undergoing repairs) shouting and squirting stage blood on the congregation. The six were arrested following an angry confrontation with parishioners in the entryway.
Magdi Christian Allam stands in a long line of Christians whose witness to Christ was a matter of life and death. This testament was written by Dom Christian de Cherge, OCSO in Algiers, December 1, 1993 to be opened in the event of his death at the hands of Islamic extremists. The letter is a kind of apologia for the seven French Trappists of Tibhirine–Brothers Christian-Marie, Bruno, Célestin, Christophe, Luc, Michel, and Paul who chose to remain in Algeria despite increasing threats on their lives, the assassinations of several of their friends, and the urging of various government and Church authorities to abandon their home and their mission.
Taken hostage just before Palm Sunday, the seven, who have become known as the “martyrs of hope,” gave their final witness on May 24, 1996. The testament was read in public two days later on Pentecost Sunday, 1996.
Barak Obama’s positions on everything from parental notification to sex shops near schools to sex ed in kindergarten to being the exact opposite of everything I stand for is discussed in this little known video from 8 months ago.
Some disclaimers. First, I am not pleased with the title of this video, but fortunately this vid. doesnt speak about it. Second, this vid. makes references to the “Magical Negro.” This made me a bit uncomfortable until I learned what that expression meant. Then it removed a scale or two from my eyes. The LA Times has an excellent editorial on it here.
The Magical Negro theory may explain the Obama as Messiah phenom which is also reaching new heights. In Obama’s words:
“…that a light will shine through that window,
a beam of light will come down upon you,
you will experience an epiphany
…and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls
and vote for Obama.”
Today is Dyngus Day. Polish Easter Monday’s traditions reach back over a millenium to pre-Christian times. A rite of Spring in the old country, it was a festival which included pranks, singing, dancing, feasting, revelers throwing water on each other, and boys chasing girls with fresh spring willow switches to flirt with them by swatting them on their legs. Ah, those Poles are so romantic!
Today Dyngus continues in Poland and is a major celebration in Chicago, South Bend and Elkhart, Ind. and Buffalo. N.Y. Buffalo’s tradition is a parade with the hanging of the switches on the door. South Bend’s tradition has redefined the event in the MidWest, making it a day for politicians to mingle with the drunken who are also stuffed beyond comprehension with Polish sausage.
40 years ago Bobby Kennedy came to South Bend for the Dyngus and today Bill and Chelsea renewed South Bend’s central place in presidential politics at the old West Side Democratic Club, returning the city to its rightful place of national prominence.
“…I took the simplest and most explicit Christian name: “Cristiano.” Since yesterday evening therefore my name is Magdi Crisitano Allam.
“For me it is the most beautiful day of [my] life. To acquire the gift of the Christian faith during the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection by the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable and inestimable privilege. At almost 56 […], it is a historical, exceptional and unforgettable event, which marks a radical and definitive turn with respect to the past. The miracle of Christ’s resurrection reverberated through my soul, liberating it from the darkness in which the preaching of hatred and intolerance in the face of the “different,” uncritically condemned as “enemy,” were privileged over love and respect of “neighbor,” who is always, an in every case, “person”; thus, as my mind was freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimates lies and deception, violent death that leads to murder and suicide, the blind submission to tyranny, I was able to adhere to the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom…
I know what I am headed for but I face my destiny with my head held high, standing upright and with the interior solidity of one who has the certainty of his faith. And I will be more so after the courageous and historical gesture of the Pope, who, as soon has he knew of my desire, immediately agreed to personally impart the Christian sacraments of initiation to me. His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.
For my part, I say that it is time to put an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious choice. In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who live their new faith in peace. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are forced to hide their faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who lurk among us. By one of those “fortuitous events” that evoke the discreet hand of the Lord, the first article that I wrote for the Corriere on Sept. 3, 2003 was entitled “The new Catacombs of Islamic Converts.” It was an investigation of recent Muslim converts to Christianity in Italy who decry their profound spiritual and human solitude in the face of absconding state institutions that do not protect them and the silence of the Church itself. Well, I hope that the Pope’s historical gesture and my testimony will lead to the conviction that the moment has come to leave the darkness of the catacombs and to publicly declare their desire to be fully themselves.”
Some voices in Europe and other places are presently criticizing the pope for his high profile baptism of Magdi Allam at the Easter Vigil. They assert that the pope is somehow taunting Islam and unnecessarily putting Mr. Allam’s life in danger, and perhaps the pope’s as well. I cannot know the pope’s mind. But I would like to suggest why he might do something so dramatic and frankly foolish in the eyes of the world:
I think the pope is making all kinds of points.
He wants to uphold the example of this man who has stood up to Islam already for many years.
He also wants to make an issue of the Muslim practice of assassination of those who convert out of it. Imagine the shame heaped on Islam if Allam is killed.
He wants to show Muslims that reasonable and rational people, the very best of Islam are ashamed of what Islam has become.
He wants to make a point to sleepy Europeans that Christianity is a faith worth dying for.
He wants to give all the world an example of Christ-like willingness to die for the good, rather than to kill.
He wants the world to know that it is superior to suffer violence than to commit it.
He wants to show the world the moral and spiritual superiority of Christ and Christianity.
He wants to show the world that the willingness to innocently suffer violence for one’s faith is not reserved to the earliest ages, but is a very present reality.
He wants to highlight that Christians throughout the world willingly suffer violence for their faith every day.
He wants to bring about religious freedom, a true liberation of personal conscience in the lands of Islam.
He wants to give the Muslim world an example of Christian virtue that they will notice.
Should Mr. Allam or Benedict lose their lives, he would want to offer martyrs for the sake of the Muslim world.
Finally, Magdi Allam, now on the world stage, may be safer than if he had not been in the spotlight. Who knows?
Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, St. Louis, MO
I was born on Holy Saturday, April 16, 1927, in Marktl am Inn. the fact that my day of birth was the last day of Holy Week and the eve of Easter has always been noted in our family history. This was connected with the fact that I was baptized immediately on the morning of the day I was born with the water that had just been blessed. (At that time the solemn Easter Vigil was celebrated on the morning of Holy Saturday.) To be the first person baptized with the new water was seen as a significant act of Providence. I have always been filled with thanksgiving for having had my life immersed in this way in the Easter mystery, since this could only be a sign of blessing. To be sure, it was not Easter Sunday but Holy Saturday, but, the more I reflect on it, the more this seems to be fitting for the nature of our human life: we are still awaiting Easter; we are not yet standing in th full light but walking toward it full of trust.
The courage of this pope throughout his life is a reflection of his baptism. And last night’s baptism was an act of religious courage and fortitude virtually unknown in the Western World in the modern age. But, such acts of religious conviction as a matter of life and death are almost a commonplace for Christians throughout much of the world.
May the boldness of Magdi Christian Allam and countless Christians in Africa, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Vietnam, Iraq and China now embolden the rest of the Church is announcing the Good News of Jesus Christ, crucified for us and Risen!
The story of the pope’s baptism was completely new to me when I just read it over at Ad Te Levavi Animam Meam.
Make a wish.
Please accept my apologies, I wonder what would have been.
Would you have been a little angel or an angel of sin?
Tom-boy running around, hanging with all the guys.
Or a little tough boy with beautiful brown eyes.
I paid for the murder before they determined the sex,
choosing our life over your life meant your death.
And you never got a chance to even open your eyes,
sometimes I wonder as a fetus if you fought for your life.
Would you have been a little genius? In love with math?
Would you have played in your school clothes and made me mad?
Would you have been a little rapper like your poppa The Piper?
Would you have made me quit smoking by finding one of my lighters?
I wonder about your skin tone and shape of your nose,
and the way you would’ve laughed and talked fast or slow.
I think about it every year, so I picked up a pen.
Happy birthday, I love you whoever you would’ve been.
I just ran across a wonderful reflection from an Evangelical woman, Michelle, whom I am getting to know here on WordPress. At Consider Jesus, she writes:
Yes, it was a gutsy speech. But, it was the speech he has been avoiding all along. He was forced into it. And, I don’t find it convincing.
Obama used an emotional device to get the listener to stop thinking. “I will not disown” This language gets us to feel the emotional bond between Obama and Wright and sympathize with it. But, emotional bonds to people with wicked thoughts and who teach lies and falsehoods in the public arena are dangerous.
Comparing Wright’s fire-breathing racist rants to the privately expressed fears of his grandmother is completely imbalanced and out of whack. Though in a public forum he has now thrown her forever under the bus, his grandmother was not a public person. Wright is. She is not accountable to the American public. Wright, like Farrakhan is.
The Sunday of so many, many names:
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Catholic, General, Easter, Holidays, Liturgy and Worship | Tagged: Anglican and Episcopal, Catechumenate, Catholic, General, christian, conversion, Converts, Divine Mercy, Easter, Liturgy, Octave, Orthodox, RCIA | 
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