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20 February 2013 Props for the re-tooled Catholic Digest magazine

Props for the re-tooled Catholic Digest magazine

February 20, 2013 By 2 Comments

One of my favorite writing assignments during this Year of Faith, besides my columns online, has been the opportunity to write a 12-month series on the Catechism of the Catholic Church for Catholic Digest magazine. These are short 500-word digestible pieces designed to introduce readers to the benefits of becoming more familiar with Catechism, as well as imparting its timeless wisdom.

But more than the shameless promotion of my own writing, I’ve really enjoyed my subscription. Yes, I’m subscribed even though I’m a sometime-contributer — so that says a lot! I was a longtime fan of Faith and Family magazine while it was under the leadership of Danielle Bean, and when I heard she was on her way to become the Editor-in-Chief at CD after Faith and Family left the marketplace

photoI just knew that the Catholic Digest was going to get a deserving make-over both in content and aesthetics. I haven’t been disappointed. Each issue looks better and better.

The latest issue for Feb/Mar 2013 has several good articles on the liturgical season of Lent, plus content on infertility, 20 ways to teach children to pray, how to deal with difficult people, book and movie suggestions, tips for meatless Lenten meals, and ideas for a memorable Easter with your family. There’s even a dedicated section for the men in the family. This month issue’s cover story describes a new made-for-TV Bible series created by Roma Downey and her TV-exec husband.

Let this be one of your family investments for the Year of Faith. Get subscription details here. You can sample some articles that are online under the tabs on the landing page. This might also be a neat gift idea for Easter, birthdays, or Mother’s Day.

Finally, a special stand-alone tribute edition for Pope Benedict is also planned, so you might want to place your order for that as we pass through this history-making abdication of our pope.

 

Filed Under: My writing elsewhere Tagged With: , , ,
12 November 2012 This makes me think… about finding hope in the desert of pessimism…

This makes me think… about finding hope in the desert of pessimism…

November 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual “desertification”. In the [Second Vatican] Council’s time it was already possible from a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked like, but now we see it every day around us. This void has spread. But it is in starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life. And in the desert people of faith are needed who, with their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope alive. Living faith opens the heart to the grace of God which frees us from pessimism. Today, more than ever, evangelizing means witnessing to the new life, transformed by God, and thus showing the path. The first reading spoke to us of the wisdom of the wayfarer (cf. Sir 34:9-13): the journey is a metaphor for life, and the wise wayfarer is one who has learned the art of living, and can share it with his brethren – as happens to pilgrims along the Way of Saint James or similar routes which, not by chance, have again become popular in recent years. How come so many people today feel the need to make these journeys? Is it not because they find there, or at least intuit, the meaning of our existence in the world? This, then, is how we can picture the Year of Faith, a pilgrimage in the deserts of today’s world, taking with us only what is necessary: neither staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money, nor two tunics – as the Lord said to those he was sending out on mission (cf. Lk 9:3), but the Gospel and the faith of the Church, of which the Council documents are a luminous expression, as is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published twenty years ago.

~Benedict XVI, Homily to open the Year of Faith.

 

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8 November 2012 Got Prayer? Here’s some advice on squeezing more prayer breaks into your day…

Got Prayer? Here’s some advice on squeezing more prayer breaks into your day…

November 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Year of Faith is calling us to be more faithful. The three-fold call to know our faith, live our faith, and share our faith is what this year is all about. Here’s one of six suggestions on living our daily call to prayer, from my column at Patheos.

Got prayer? You don’t need a spiritual director to tell you that prayer is important. Prayer is conversation with God. We all need more of that! But, we don’t always make time for it as we should. All I can tell you is that real change and real growth in the spiritual life comes with practice, buoyed by our heart’s desire to come closer to God.

Good habits start with one small step in the right direction. Prayer is no different from the other important disciplines of life. Let me suggest several simple and well-tried practices to increase our prayer time. Don’t attempt them all. Do the one or two that appeal to you. Or maybe, do the one that is the most doable logistically. Then stick with it. Sometimes we’ve got to have small successes first, and be faithful in little things before moving on to bigger ones. Don’t overreach. Just try something.

Start the day differently.

From dieting to exercise to getting things done before children awake, we all know that starting the morning right sets the tone for the day.

  • Go “old school”: As you rise, just kneel down alongside your bed as ask God to enter your day, and to keep you mindful of his presence as you go through your day.
  • Put a bible next to your bed and read a few verses of the psalms, or from the Sermon on the Mount before you rise.
  • Pray Morning Prayer with your coffee using a phone app or a copy of the Magnificat.
  • Tape a “morning offering” prayer to your bathroom mirror and pray it as you dress for the day.

There’s more over at Patheos. 

To subscribe to my column at Patheos via email or RSS, go here. To subscribe to this blog via email, enter your email address in the sidebar. To get the blog’s RSS feed, look to the top of the page.

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29 October 2012 This makes me think… about the role of Christian friendships and community in the Year of Faith

This makes me think… about the role of Christian friendships and community in the Year of Faith

October 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[T]he Year of Faith is a path, an opportunity, that the Christian community offers to the many people who possess a longing for God and a profound desire to meet him again in their lives. It is essential, therefore, that believers recognize the responsibility to provide an authentic companionship of faith, to become a neighbor to those who seek the reasons for and explanations of our Catholic beliefs. These opportunities, provided by the Year of Faith to form authentic friendships in faith, bring to the fore the very question of community. The new evangelization tends to make our sense of personal identity grow in relation to our sense of belonging to the community. A sociological tendency of our time presses us to distinguish between ‘identity’ and; ‘belonging’, as if it were a question of two contradictory realities. There is nothing more dangerous, in my opinion, than this contra-position. A belonging which was without identity could not be defined as belonging; it would remain always bound to a form of living together in society which modified its own coordinates according to the changing of the seasons, without any possibility of impressing upon them a real sense of common feeling and of active participation. From the reciprocal relationship which exists between identity and belonging there arises the possibility of verifying how the new evangelization can be effective and fruitful. Without a strong Catholic identity, by means of which our awareness of our own responsibilities in the world may grow, it will not be possible to understand even the requirement of belonging to the Christian community; on the other hand, without a deep sense of belonging to the Church, it will not be possible to have an identity which is aware of the mission it discharges. Identity and belonging determine our understanding of the permanent formation which applies to Christians in view of an ever more adequate knowledge of the faith, one which corresponds to each one’s own state of life. A knowledge of the contents of the faith which remains linked to the adolescent stage could never allow someone to grow in their identity as a believer, no matter what roles they might occupy in civil society. In the same way, the lack of these contents often impedes people’s own social, political and cultural action in harmony with their belonging to the Church. A fissure between identity and belonging is likely one of the causes which have contributed to the current crisis.

The Year of Faith will attempt to fuse this very rupture between identity and belonging, thus, increasing the faith of believers, who in the face of the daily pressures and challenges of life do not cease to entrust courageously and with conviction their lives to the Lord Jesus.

~Archbishop Fisicheslla of Sydney, Austrailia, “Jesus at the Heart of the New Evangelization”

 

Related: You might be interested in listening to Among Women 146: “The Power of a Praying Friend”

 

Filed Under: New evangelization Tagged With: , , ,
22 October 2012 This makes me think… it’s time to re-read the Documents of Vatican II…

This makes me think… it’s time to re-read the Documents of Vatican II…

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[D]uring the [Second Vatican] Council there was an emotional tension as we faced the common task of making the truth and beauty of the faith shine out in our time, without sacrificing it to the demands of the present or leaving it tied to the past: the eternal presence of God resounds in the faith, transcending time, yet it can only be welcomed by us in our own unrepeatable today. Therefore I believe that the most important thing, especially on such a significant occasion as this, is to revive in the whole Church that positive tension, that yearning to announce Christ again to contemporary man. But, so that this interior thrust towards the new evangelization neither remain just an idea nor be lost in confusion, it needs to be built on a concrete and precise basis, and this basis is the documents of the Second Vatican Council, the place where it found expression. This is why I have often insisted on the need to return, as it were, to the “letter” of the Council – that is to its texts – also to draw from them its authentic spirit, and why I have repeated that the true legacy of Vatican II is to be found in them. Reference to the documents saves us from extremes of anachronistic nostalgia and running too far ahead, and allows what is new to be welcomed in a context of continuity. The Council did not formulate anything new in matters of faith, nor did it wish to replace what was ancient. Rather, it concerned itself with seeing that the same faith might continue to be lived in the present day, that it might remain a living faith in a world of change.

If we place ourselves in harmony with the authentic approach which Blessed John XXIIIwished to give to Vatican II, we will be able to realize it during this Year of Faith, following the same path of the Church as she continuously endeavours to deepen the deposit of faith entrusted to her by Christ. The Council Fathers wished to present the faith in a meaningful way; and if they opened themselves trustingly to dialogue with the modern world it is because they were certain of their faith, of the solid rock on which they stood. In the years following, however, many embraced uncritically the dominant mentality, placing in doubt the very foundations of the deposit of faith, which they sadly no longer felt able to accept as truths.

If today the Church proposes a new Year of Faith and a new evangelization, it is not to honour an anniversary, but because there is more need of it, even more than there was fifty years ago! And the reply to be given to this need is the one desired by the Popes, by the Council Fathers and contained in its documents. Even the initiative to create a Pontifical Council for the promotion of the new evangelization, which I thank for its special effort for the Year of Faith, is to be understood in this context. Recent decades have seen the advance of a spiritual “desertification”. In the Council’s time it was already possible from a few tragic pages of history to know what a life or a world without God looked like, but now we see it every day around us. This void has spread. But it is in starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us, men and women. In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life. And in the desert people of faith are needed who, with their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope alive. Living faith opens the heart to the grace of God which frees us from pessimism. Today, more than ever, evangelizing means witnessing to the new life, transformed by God, and thus showing the path. 

~Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, Opening the Year of Faith

 

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New Women Saints for the USA in the Year of Faith

October 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Exciting developments in Rome Sunday as we continue to observe the Year of Faith! Two new women saints from the USA are named among seven new saints.

First, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first woman saint who was a native American. Here’s a brief excerpt from Pope Benedict’s homily announcing her name:

Last year, I profiled Kateri’s life and thoughts in my column at Patheos, and back on Among Women #16, I also shared about her.

The next American woman was St. Marianne Cope,a German-born woman who emigrated to the US as a small child. I also recently profiled her life on Among Women #115. Here’s more from the Pope about her:

Filed Under: Feminine Genius/ Gift of Womanhood Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
15 October 2012 This makes me think… about the new evangelization…

This makes me think… about the new evangelization…

October 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A few days before being elected as Pope, Benedict XVI had delivered a lecture at Subiaco on the condition of Europe. In his lucid analysis of the present time, he expressed himself, amongst other things, in these far-sighted words, which constitute a program for the new evangelizers: “What we need at this time of history are people, who, through a faith which is enlightened and lived out in practice, make God credible in this world … We need people who keep their gaze fixed upon God, learning from there what true humanity is. We need people whose intellect is enlightened by the light of God and whose hearts God may open up in such a way that their intellect may speak to the intellect of others and that their hearts may open the hearts of others. Only through people who are touched by God can God return to humanity.” Hence, the new evangelization starts from here: from the credibility of our living as believers and from the conviction that grace acts and transforms to the point of converting the heart. It is a journey which still finds Christians committed to it after two thousand years of history.

Within this context, it is worth recalling a story from the Middle Ages. A poet passed by some work being conducted and saw three workers busy at their work; they were stone cutters. He turned to the first and said: ‘What are you doing, my friend?’ This man, quite indifferently, replied: ‘I am cutting a stone’. He went a little further, saw the second and posed to him the same question, and this man replied, surprised: ‘I am involved in the building of a column’. A bit further ahead, the pilgrim saw the third and to this man also he put the same question; the response, full of enthusiasm, was: ‘I am building a cathedral’. The old meaning is not changed by the new work we are called to construct. There are various workers called into the vineyard of the Lord to bring about the new evangelization; all of them will have some reason to offer to explain their commitment. What I wish for and what I would like to hear is that, in response to the question: ‘What are you doing, my friend?’, each one would be able to reply: ‘I am building a cathedral’. Every believer who, faithful to his baptism, commits himself or herself with effort and with enthusiasm every day to give witness to their own faith offers their original and unique contribution to the construction of their great cathedral in the world of today. It is the Church of our Lord, Jesus, his body and his spouse, the people constantly on the way without ever becoming weary, which proclaims to all that Jesus is risen, has come back to life, and that all who believe in him will share in his own mystery of love, the dawn of a day which is always new and which will never fade.

~Archbishop Fisichella, of Sydney, Australia, “Jesus at the Heart of the New Evangelization”

Filed Under: New evangelization, This Makes Me Think... Tagged With: ,

Among Women Podcast 147: Special Edition – Welcome to the Year of Faith

October 12, 2012 By 1 Comment

Welcome to the Year of Faith!

This episode of the Among Women podcast is a Special Edition in which I suggest resources for the Year of Faith, and direct you to the many links that are available for our enrichment during this year.

Read my blog post, “Welcome to the Year of Faith!” that is a veritable link-o-rama for good things to explore for the Year of Faith. I’m also going to keep it in the side bar for the coming year.

Filed Under: Among Women, Catechism / Church Teaching / Catechesis, New evangelization Tagged With: , ,
10 October 2012 Welcome to the Year of Faith! (Great links to get you started and to bookmark.)

Welcome to the Year of Faith! (Great links to get you started and to bookmark.)

October 10, 2012 By 7 Comments

Welcome to the Year of Faith!

The Year of Faith is actually slightly longer than a full year: October 11, 2012 through November 23, 2013.  It has a three-fold focus: knowing our Catholic faith, living it out both sacramentally within the church and in the world, and sharing the faith through evangelization and catechesis. This is a wonderful opportunity to make a plan for yourself as to what you might do to grow in those three areas.

Here are some links to help us get the most out of this year.

An Overview of the Year of Faith

  • The Calendar for the Year of Faith highlights special Vatican-sponsored events for the coming year including special days to celebrate the canonizations of new saints, lay and religious vocations, confirmations, World Youth Day, devotion to Jesus in the Eucharist, Mary and Marian devotion, and more.
  • The Pope and the bishops of the world are meeting in a Synod through the month of October. The theme of those meeting is the new evangelization. The document that contains the agenda for those meetings is found here.

Knowing Your Faith

Get to know the Bible. Most newcomers to bible study get comfortable by first looking at the Gospels and the epistles of the New Testament. Here’s an excellent bible commentary series on the New Testament for personal study or for groups, plus a New Testament study bible to with wonderful study helps built right into its pages.

Get to know the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This landmark reference work is the first update to the universal catechism the Church has had in 400 years, since the Council of Trent. It’s a masterpiece of all the Church believes, worships, lives, and prays. The Year of Faith celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Catechism’s reception. Find one at your local Catholic bookseller, or you may enjoy these resources

  • YOUCAT: the Catechism for youth

Read the Documents of Vatican II. The Year of Faith coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Second Vatican Council. Read the documents online, or buy a copy from your local Catholic bookseller. Need a place to start? Try reading Lumen Gentium (The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church). It is 8 chapters long and it is the key to unlocking the themes of the council found in the rest of the documents. Also, coming soon: a film on the historic Council known as Vatican II.

Discover Catholic programming to strengthen your faith through the national television ministries of Catholic TV and EWTN, and look to your local diocesan programming as well. Don’t forget Catholic radio networks, many of which can be found here. If you enjoy new media, SQPN is a Catholic podcasting network. Or, subscribe to Catholic newspapers, magazines, and your diocesan paper.

Watch a DVD. Try the 10-part Catholicism DVD series from Word on Fire. It is often shown in parishes and dioceses, as well as on Catholic television. It is also available for purchase.

Take a course. Pillars of Catholicism is a free online course that is being offered by the professors of John Paul the Great University. This series is a self-professed crash course in the fundamentals of the Catholic Faith. It consists of 13 episodes, each a half-hour long. A new episode will be unlocked each week and will be permanently accessible. The course and all materials it provides are free.

Interested in subject matter related to women and the feminine genius? Watch for my new book, Blessed, Beautiful, and Bodacious: Celebrating the Gift of Catholic Womanhood, due for release in March 2013. And for your personal and group study I recommend the ministry of Endow, which supports nearly 20,000 women in study groups across the US and Canada.

Living Your Faith

Get more out of the Mass. Try these resources:

  • Magnificat is a print subscription, or use their app for your smart phone to access the daily readings, commentary, and morning and evening prayer.

Pray more and increase your devotional life. Here’s a few suggestions:

  • Discover the Liturgy of the Hours. Longtime the prayer practice of priests and religious, many lay people enjoy praying the liturgy of the hours in whole or in part. You can purchase a breviary from your local Catholic bookseller, or online, by going to Universalis or the Divine Office. Modified versions of morning prayer and evening prayer are found in Magnificat.
  • Receive a plenary indulgence for your religious practice by fulfilling certain requirements during the Year of Faith. Elizabeth Scalia offers understanding on the plenary indulgence.
  • Make a holy hour, or go to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Find a chapel that offers Adoration here.

Sharing Your Faith

A baptized Catholic is baptized into the mission of the Church. Therefore, we, too, are called to spread the faith to others. Get started with these resources:

  • New Evangelizers website has blog posts and free resources that can help you make a faith connection with others.

Official Icon of the Year of Faith
Christ the Pantocrator – Cefalu, Sicily (Photo by Xerones, on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xerones/464417485/in/photostream/

 

The information shared here is also found in numerous links I prepared for my column at Patheos. Read the original article here. You can subscribe to it via RSS or email here. It has also been shared in an audio format on the Among Women Podcast. 

 

 

Filed Under: Catechism / Church Teaching / Catechesis, New evangelization Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
8 October 2012 This makes me think… about keeping Jesus at the center of the Year of Faith

This makes me think… about keeping Jesus at the center of the Year of Faith

October 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Mosaic from Sacre Coeur in France.

[T]he new evangelization requires the capacity to know how to give an explanation of our own faith, showing Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the sole savior of humanity. To the extent that we are capable of this, we will be able to offer our contemporaries the response they are awaiting. The new evangelization begins once more from this point, from the conviction that grace acts upon us and transforms us to the point of bringing about a conversion of heart, and of the credibility of our witness. Looking to the future with the certainty of hope is what enables us to remain rooted neither in a sort of romanticism which only looks to the past nor to give way to a utopia because we are bemused by hypotheses which cannot find any confirmation. Faith calls for commitment today while we live; for this reason not to accept it would be a matter of ignorance or fear. However, for us Christians such a reaction is not permitted. Hiding away in our churches might bring us some consolation, but it would render Pentecost vain. It is time to throw open wide the doors and to return to announcing the resurrection of Christ, whose witnesses we are. As the holy bishop Ignatius wrote, “It is not enough to be called Christians; we must be Christians in fact.” If someone today wants to recognize Christians, he must be able to do so not on the basis of their intentions, but on the basis of their commitment in the faith.


It is precisely this commitment in the faith, about which St. Ignatius of Antioch spoke so eloquently at the end of the first century, that the Year of Faith seeks to inspire in the hearts of those who do not know God and seeks to increase in the hearts of those who already believe. The Holy Father, in his Apostolic Letter Porta Fidei announcing the Year of Faith, beautifully expresses the Year’s aim, its grounding in Christ, and its relationship to the new evangelization. The Year of Faith, which commemorates both the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council and the twentieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, he notes: “Is a summons to an authentic and renewed conversion to the Lord, the one Savior of the world. In the mystery of his death and resurrection, God has revealed in its fullness the Love that saves and calls us to conversion of life through the forgiveness of sins (cf. Acts 5:31). For Saint Paul, this Love ushers us into a new life…. Through faith, this new life shapes the whole of human existence according to the radical new reality of the resurrection…. ‘Faith working through love’ (Gal 5:6) becomes a new criterion of understanding and action that changes the whole of man’s life. [It] is the love of Christ that fills our hearts and impels us to evangelize. Today as in the past, he sends us through the highways of the world to proclaim his Gospel to all the peoples of the earth. Through his love, Jesus Christ attracts to himself the people of every generation: in every age he convokes the Church, entrusting her with the proclamation of the Gospel by a mandate that is ever new. Today too, there is a need for stronger ecclesial commitment to new evangelization in order to rediscover the joy of believing and the enthusiasm for communicating the faith. In rediscovering his love day by day, the missionary commitment of believers attains force and vigour that can never fade away (Porta Fidei, no. 6).”

~Archbishop Fisichella of Sydney, Austrailia, “Jesus at the Heart of the New Evangelization.”

 

Filed Under: New evangelization, This Makes Me Think... Tagged With: , ,
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