B16 General Audience, Swiss & Kuwait Leaders and Social Media

Pope Benedict XVI (R) poses with Swiss Conferderation President Doris Leuthard during a private on May 6, 2010 at The Vatican. (Daylife-Getty)


Pope Benedict XVI, right, leafs through an ancient book, given to him by Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, left, during their meeting at the Vatican, on Thursday, May 6, 2010. (Daylife)

Pictures courtesy of Daylife


















VATICAN CITY-CNS:

Pope Benedict XVI's four-day visit to Portugal will focus on spiritual, political and economic questions seen as crucial for the country and the rest of modern Europe.

The May 11-14 trip is first of all a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Fatima, where three young shepherd children had visions of Mary in 1917. In the pope's view, Mary's appearances in human history are an important sign for the church and the world, a much-needed invitation to conversion.

On a political level, the German pontiff will visit Portugal at a time when cultural change is challenging the country's Catholic identity. Most specifically, the country appears poised to legalize same-sex marriage, but on a broader level, church leaders are concerned about erosion of traditional moral values, especially among the young.

Finally, the pope's visit coincides with an economic downturn in Portugal that has threatened to make it the next crisis zone in the European Union. The pope will have an opportunity to revisit one of his favorite themes: European unity built solely on financial interests is bound to fail.

The schedule in Portugal is a demanding one for the 83-year-old pope, with 17 major events and at least 11 speeches. His busiest day, May 12, will include separate meetings in Lisbon with cultural leaders and Prime Minister Jose Socrates, followed by a helicopter trip to Fatima for events that will last well into the night.

On May 13, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the pope will celebrate Mass outside the shrine and afterward go inside to visit the tombs of the three shepherd visionaries. His visit marks the 10th anniversary of the beatification of two of the seers, Blesseds Francisco and Jacinta Marto.

There has been speculation that during the visit that the pope may announce the future beatification of Carmelite Sister Lucia dos Santos, the only one of the Fatima visionaries to survive to adulthood. She died in 2005 and two years ago the pope lifted the normal five-year waiting period to begin her canonization process.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican's top doctrinal official, the pope was often a voice of caution when it came to apparitions and supernatural messages. In 2000, however, he played a central role when the Vatican published the so-called third secret of Fatima; Cardinal Ratzinger said the secret, written down by Sister Lucia after Mary's appearances, made sense as a symbolic prophecy of the church's 20th-century struggles against evil political systems.

The future pope at that time described such apparitions as "interior visions" that were not mere fantasy and that reflected Mary's continuing role in the church: that of intervening in support of the saving mission of her son. These are typically fleeting appearances to humble people, he said, and they rely on powerful symbolic images and language rather than "lengthy speeches."

In Fatima, the pope is expected to talk about the relevance of such visions in modern society. He will also pray for his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who believed that Mary had saved his life after he was shot May 13, 1981 -- the feast of Our Lady of Fatima.

Pope Benedict will begin his visit in Lisbon, the capital, where he will be welcomed by President Anibal Cavaco Silva, who will later host the pope for private talks. Silva, a Catholic, is in a tough political spot. He must decide by May 19 whether to veto a same-sex marriage bill approved by lawmakers in February.

The pope has made it clear that he sees such legislation as part of Europe's moral unraveling and as an attack on the natural order of creation. Speaking to diplomats in January, he denounced "laws or proposals which, in the name of fighting discrimination, strike at the biological basis of the difference between the sexes."

Portuguese Social Democrats, led by Prime Minister Socrates, say they have enough votes to override a presidential veto on the same-sex marriage law.

About 90 percent of Portugal's population professes Catholicism, but the church's declining influence in public policy was seen in 2007, when abortion was legalized. The country's dropping birth rate, one of the lowest in the world, also worries church leaders.

Portuguese bishops are looking to the pope to help the church reclaim its rightful voice in the public arena and to fire up the troops -- the church's pastoral workers. In one important and somewhat unusual encounter, the pope will address Catholics who work in the church's social programs, offering him a chance to preach his message that Christianity is essentially love of God and love of neighbor, expressed in concrete actions.

Portugal's economic problems have already triggered austerity measures and a series of strikes, as well as resentment over the expected dip in the standard of living. The larger questions being raised in Greece, Portugal and Spain concern the future of the European Union itself.

Pope Benedict has long maintained that Europe's newfound unity will not survive on economics alone. He has also criticized the trend toward denying the Judeo-Christian roots of European culture.

As the pope said in 2007: "One cannot think about building a 'common European home' ignoring the identity of the people of our continent. In fact, it is a matter of a historical, cultural and moral identity, even more than a geographical, economic and political one."

If, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, the recent economic woes have placed the future of the European Union at stake, one can expect the pope to weigh in at this critical juncture.

Related Links:

Foreign Office replaces papal visit officials

"This morning the Holy Father Benedict XVI received in audience Doris Leuthard, president of the Swiss Confederation. The president subsequently went on to meet with Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone S.D.B. who was accompanied by Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States

Sts. Marian and James

Archbishop Georges Casmoussa, the Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) on Wednesday that the Christian community is “angry”

This morning the Holy Father received in audience His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, emir of Kuwait

Fatima debate: Some say 'third secret' is still secret

Benedict XVI received in audience today the president of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, during which the two spoke of a commitment to intercultural exchanges

Papal address to new Swiss Guards

More Regarding Turin & Papal Cardinal Mass-UPDATED Pell Going To Rome

Pope Benedict XVI blesses the coffin during the funerals of Bavarian Cardinal Augustin Mayer on May 3, 2010 at St Peter's basilica at The Vatican. Mayer, who was the oldest living cardinal died on April 30 at the age of 98. (Daylife-Getty)



All pictures courtesy of Daylife









Feast of the Beatified Martyrs of England and Wales:

Today in England is the feast of the Forty Holy Martyrs of England and Wales (in Wales this is a memorial), a group of forty men, women, religious, priests, and lay people who were canonized by Pope Paul VI on October 25, 1970. These people were executed for their Faith during a period of anti-Catholicism from 1535 to 1679. The Martyrs who were canonized were among more than two hundred martyrs who had been beatified by various earlier popes.

Some of the common "crimes" of these people were being priests, harboring priests, or refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy. This group of saints includes some well-known saints, such as St. Alban Roe, and St. Edmund Campion. Many of these saints are recognized on the days of their martyrdom, but as a group, they are recognized on the day they were canonized. — Al Bushra

According to the 1962 Missal of Bl. John XXIII the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, this was the feast of St. Monica, widow, Third Class. Her feast in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite is celebrated on August 27.

These forty were canonised by Pope Paul VI on October 25th, 1970. They are representative of the English and Welsh martyrs of the Reformation who died at various dates between 1535 and 1679. Some 200 of these martyrs had already been declared ‘Blessed’ (i.e. ‘beatified’) by previous Popes. They include:

* SS. John Houghton, Robert Lawrence and Augustine Webster, the first martyrs (1535), all priors of different Charterhouses (houses of the Carthusian Order, including the one in London) who, by virtue of the Carthusian vow of silence, refused to speak in their own defense;

* St. Cuthbert Mayne, a Devonian, who was the first martyr not to be a member of a religious order. He was ordained priest at the then newly established English College at Douai in Northern France and was put to death at Launceston in 1577;

* St. Edmund Campion, the famous Jesuit missionary and theologian who published secretly from Stonor Park, the ancient Catholic country house near Henley-on-Thames, who died in 1581 on the same day as St. Ralph Sherwin, the first martyr to have been trained at the English College in Rome;

* St. Richard Gwyn, the first of the Welsh martyrs, a schoolteacher from Llanidloes in Mid-Wales who died at Wrexham in 1584;

* St. Margaret Clitherow, the wife of a butcher with a shop in the famous Shambles in York, who allowed her house to be used as a Mass centre, who was sentenced to be crushed to death under a large stone at the Ouse Bridge Tollbooth in the city;

* St. Swithun Wells, a teacher from Brambridge in the county of Hampshire who owned a London house at Grays Inn Fields which was also a secret Mass centre (1591);

* St. Philip Howard, eldest son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk (himself executed for treason in 1572) who led a dissolute existence and left behind an unhappy wife in Arundel Castle until he was converted by the preaching of St. Edmund Campion, and died in the Tower in 1595;

* St. Nicholas Owen, Jesuit lay brother and master carpenter, who constructed many priests’ hiding-holes in houses throughout the country, some of them so cunningly concealed they were not discovered until centuries later (1606).

Under James I and Charles I the purge died down, but did not entirely cease. St. John Southworth, missionary in London, was put to death under Cromwell and is venerated in Westminster Cathedral, and the final martyrs died in the aftermath of the Titus Oates plot in 1679. [SS. John Fisher & Thomas More are not included in this list for they had been canonized in 1935].

Related Links:

In the San Damaso Courtyard of the Vatican Apostolic Palace at 5 p.m. on Thursday 6 May, thirty new recruits will be sworn in as members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard in the presence of members of the Roman Curia, diplomatic representatives, and civil and religious authorities from Switzerland

Benedict XVI has sent a message of congratulation to Elio Toaff, former rabbi of Rome, for his ninety-fifth birthday, which fell yesterday 3 May

Father Bob Carney, the longtime pastor of St. Luke’s Catholic Church in the southeastern Arizona border town of Douglas, where Krentz and his family were parishioners, said Krentz was always ready to assist any migrants who got into trouble on their trip north. When the migrants were hungry, he provided them with food and when they were thirsty, he gave them water

The Association of Spanish Soldiers called on military officials this week to respect and preserve religious traditions in the country. The statements came in response to a recent directive by the military to exclude Mass from official military ceremonies

For, according to authoritative sources in Rome, the Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney (a Benedict loyalist), is to succeed Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (not a Benedict loyalist) as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops

Catherine of Siena prayer

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B16's Turin Visit

"The Shroud is an icon written in blood; the blood of a man who has been scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified and wounded in his right side. Every trace of blood speaks of love and of life. Especially that large mark near the side, made by blood and water that poured copiously from a great wound caused by a Roman spear, that blood and that water speak of life..." Pope Benedict XVI-Turin, Italy, May 3, 2010








Pope Benedict XVI (R) prays in the Cathedral during the Holy Shroud exhibition in Turin May 2, 2010 (Daylife pictures)



Turin, Italy, May 2, 2010 / 10:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Holy Father celebrated Mass Sunday morning in St. Charles Square in Turin. During his homily, he taught about the new commandment of Christ and told how Christ's passion, witnessed in the Shroud of Turin, gives us hope.

Pope Benedict arrived at Turin on Sunday morning for a Pastoral visit to the city. The first event in a day filled with commitments was Mass with 25,000 people in St. Charles Square.

Teaching from the day's Gospel reading, the Holy Father said that Jesus, in proposing the new commandment to love one another as he loved them, gives the disciples a means "to continue his presence in a new way among them."

The Pope pointed out that this remains true: "If we love each other, Jesus continues to be present among us."

What differentiates the call to love from a similar command in the Old Testament, explained the Holy Father, is that Jesus adds, "Just as I have loved you, so also must you love one another."

This new commandment differs from that of the Old Testament because loving "as Jesus has loved" means "a love without limits, universal, able to also transform all of the negative circumstances and all of the obstacles ... to progress in love."

In giving us this new commandment, the Pope added later, "Jesus asks us to live his same love, which is the truly credible, eloquent and effective sign for announcing to the world the coming of the Kingdom of God."

In his extensive homily, the Holy Father called particularly for priests and deacons to know, in the face of the great deal of work, how to draw strength to carry the good news to the people from their "relationship of love with God in prayer."

He also told them to focus their existence on the Gospel, to "cultivate a real dimension of communion and fraternity" with those around them and to provide a witness in their ministry to the "power of love that comes from on high."

To all Christians, Benedict XVI said that in the face of the great variety of difficulties life presents, we can be fortified to live through them by the "certainty that comes from the faith, the certainty that we are not alone, that God loves each of us without distinction and (that) he is close to everyone with his love."

The Christian community, he added, "must be a concrete instrument of this love."

He continued exhorting everyone, especially young people, never to lose the hope that comes “from the Risen Christ, from the victory of God over sin and death."

This, he said, is the message of the Shroud of Turin, in which we see our sufferings “mirrored” in the suffering of Christ.

It's for this reason, he went on, that it is a sign of hope.

Christ took on the cross to put evil in check, said the Holy Father, and in his Easter is “the anticipation of that moment in which, also for us, every tear will be dried and there will no longer be death, mourning, lamenting, or worry.”



Related Links:

Translation of the remarks Benedict XVI gave today after venerating the Shroud of Turin

The pontiff said the relic had "wrapped the remains of a crucified man in full correspondence with what the Gospel tells us of Jesus"

Near the Shroud of Turin, Benedict XVI met today with youth of the city and region, encouraging them to live life to the fullest and be witnesses of Christ. "Be witnesses of Christ in our times," the Pope told the young people, who filled a rainy St. Charles Plaza, spotting it with their multicolored umbrellas

Members of the royal Savoy family -- prince Victor Emmanuel, his wife Marina Doria and son Emmanuele Filiberto -- were among the guests at the mass.The shroud came into the possession of the Savoys in 15th century, and they moved it to Turin in 1578

Today is the feast of two apostles, Philip and James

As in the case of the other apostles, we see in James and Philip human men who became foundation stones of the Church, and we are reminded again that holiness and its consequent apostolate are entirely the gift of God, not a matter of human achieving

Old Calendar: Finding of the Holy Cross; Saints Alexander I, pope; Eventius and Theodulus, martyrs and Juvenal, bishop and confessor

Catholics cannot let a proper sympathy for people in hard circumstances lead to lying and worse. Illegals are not “undocumented.” They’ve broken the law, which is what illegal means. The rule of law is one of the central things that make the United States a desirable destination

"Today it is not easy to talk about eternal life and things everlasting because the mentality of our time tells us that nothing definitive exists; everything changes, and changes quickly. In many cases, 'change' has become a watchword, ... and in this way you young people are also led to think that it is impossible to make definitive choices that commit you for life." B16 to youth arrayed

Saint Joseph The Worker

Via Catholic Fire:

Prayer to St. Joseph, as Patron of Workers:

Blessed St. Joseph, patron of all working people, obtain for me the grace to labor in a spirit of penance for the atonement of my many sins. Help me to be conscientious in my work so that I may give as full a measure as I have received.

May I labor in a spirit of thankfulness and joy, ever mindful of all the gifts I have received from God that enable me to perform these tasks. Permit me to work in peace, patience, and moderation, keeping in mind the account I must one day give of time lost, talents unused, good omitted, and vanity of success, so fatal to the work of God. Glorious St. Joseph, may my labors be all for Jesus, all through Mary, and all after your holy example in life and in death. Amen.

Prayer to St. Joseph for Employment:

Dear Saint Joseph, you were yourself once faced with the responsibility of providing the necessities of life for Jesus and Mary. Look down with fatherly compassion upon me in my anxiety over my present inability to support my family. Please help me to find gainful employment very soon, so that this heavy burden of concern will be lifted from my heart and that I am soon able to provide for those whom God has entrusted to my care. Help us to guard against bitterness and discouragement, so that we may emerge from this trial spiritually enriched and with even greater blessings from God. Amen.

Catholic Culture:

The feast of St. Joseph the Worker was established by Pope Pius XII in 1955 in order to Christianize the concept of labor and give to all workmen a model and a protector. By the daily labor in his shop, offered to God with patience and joy, St. Joseph provided for the necessities of his holy spouse and of the Incarnate Son of God, and thus became an example to all laborers.

"Workmen and all those laboring in conditions of poverty will have reasons to rejoice rather than grieve, since they have in common with the Holy Family daily preoccupations and cares"(Leo XIII).

"May Day" has long been dedicated to labor and the working man. It falls on the first day of the month that is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pope Pius XII expressed the hope that this feast would accentuate the dignity of labor and would bring a spiritual dimension to labor unions. It is eminently fitting that St. Joseph, a working man who became the foster-father of Christ and patron of the universal Church, should be honored on this day.

The texts of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours provide a catechetical synthesis of the significance of human labor seen in the light of faith. The Opening Prayer states that God, the creator and ruler of the universe, has called men and women in every age to develop and use their talents for the good of others. The Office of Readings, taken from the document of the Second Vatican Council on the Church in the modern world, develops this idea.

In every type of labor we are obeying the command of God given in Genesis 2:15 and repeated in the responsory for the Office of Readings. The responsory for the Canticle of Zechariah says that "St. Joseph faithfully practiced the carpenter's trade. He is a shining example for all workers." Then, in the second part of the Opening Prayer, we ask that we may do the work that God has asked of us and come to the rewards he has promised. In the Prayer after Communion we ask: "May our lives manifest your love; may we rejoice for ever in your peace."

The liturgy for this feast vindicates the right to work, and this is a message that needs to be heard and heeded in our modern society. In many of the documents issued by Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, the Second Vatican Council and Pope John Paul II, reference is made to the Christian spirit that should permeate one's work, after the example of St. Joseph. In addition to this, there is a special dignity and value to the work done in caring for the family.

The Office of Readings contains an excerpt from the Vatican II document on the modern world: "Where men and women, in the course of gaining a livelihood for themselves and their families, offer appropriate service to society, they can be confident that their personal efforts promote the work of the Creator, confer benefits on their fellowmen, and help to realize God's plan in history" (no. 34).

— Excerpted from Saints of the Roman Calendar by Enzo Lodi

St. Joseph the Worker-American Catholic:

Apparently in response to the “May Day” celebrations for workers sponsored by Communists, Pius XII instituted the feast of St. Joseph the Worker in 1955. But the relationship between Joseph and the cause of workers has a much longer history.

In a constantly necessary effort to keep Jesus from being removed from ordinary human life, the Church has from the beginning proudly emphasized that Jesus was a carpenter, obviously trained by Joseph in both the satisfactions and the drudgery of that vocation. Humanity is like God not only in thinking and loving, but also in creating. Whether we make a table or a cathedral, we are called to bear fruit with our hands and mind, ultimately for the building up of the Body of Christ.

Comment:

“The Lord God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it” (Genesis 2:15). The Father created all and asked humanity to continue the work of creation. We find our dignity in our work, in raising a family, in participating in the life of the Father’s creation. Joseph the Worker was able to help participate in the deepest mystery of creation.

Pius XII emphasized this when he said, “The spirit flows to you and to all men from the heart of the God-man, Savior of the world, but certainly, no worker was ever more completely and profoundly penetrated by it than the foster father of Jesus, who lived with Him in closest intimacy and community of family life and work. Thus, if you wish to be close to Christ, we again today repeat, ‘Go to Joseph’” (see Genesis 41:44).

Quote:

In Brothers of Men, René Voillaume of the Little Brothers of Jesus speaks about ordinary work and holiness: “Now this holiness (of Jesus) became a reality in the most ordinary circumstances of life, those of word, of the family and the social life of a village, and this is an emphatic affirmation of the fact that the most obscure and humdrum human activities are entirely compatible with the perfection of the Son of God...in relation to this mystery, involves the conviction that the evangelical holiness proper to a child of God is possible in the ordinary circumstances of someone who is poor and obliged to work for his living.”

Related Links:

St. Joseph the Worker-SQPN entry

St. Joseph prayers and related scriptures

St. Joseph and the Dignity of Labor

Catholic encyclopedia entry

St. Joseph the Carpenter