The Weekly Benedict: 16 December, 2012

This version of The Weekly Benedict covers material released in the last week from 3 December 2012 – 12 December 2012  (subscribe hereget as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Index of Source Links

List of direct document links on Vatican.va used.

Angelus

General Audiences

Letters

Messages

Speeches

Tweets – Yes Papal Tweets!

Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012

How can we celebrate the Year of Faith better in our daily lives?

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012

By speaking with Jesus in prayer, listening to what he tells you in the Gospel and looking for him in those in need

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012

How can faith in Jesus be lived in a world without hope?

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012

We can be certain that a believer is never alone. God is the solid rock upon which we build our lives and his love is always faithful

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012

Any suggestions on how to be more prayerful when we are so busy with the demands of work, families and the world?

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012

Offer everything you do to the Lord, ask his help in all the circumstances of daily life and remember that he is always beside you

— Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) December 12, 2012

Why Did Joseph Plan to Divorce Mary?

God sent an angel to convince St. Joseph not to divorce Mary. But why was he planning to divorce her in the first place?

Matthew tells us that when “Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.”

Why did Joseph intend to divorce Mary?

The view that suggests itself to most people is that Joseph thought Mary had been unfaithful to him.

But there is another theory: that Joseph knew the Child had been conceived “of the Holy Spirit” and so Joseph was afraid to take Mary as his wife.

What are we to make of this issue?

And what does Pope Benedict have to say in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives?

 

What Did Joseph Know & When Did He Know It?

The idea that Joseph did not think Mary had been unfaithful to him may be suggested by the fact that Matthew mentions the miraculous conception of Jesus before he introduces Joseph’s idea of divorce.

He says: “before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.”

Found by whom? Who knew that the Holy Spirit was responsible for the pregnancy?

Presumably, Joseph would have been one of the first to be told.

If he believed this then one could understand why he would be afraid to take Mary as his wife.

Who wouldn’t hesitate to take to wife someone who, in later centuries, would be called “the spouse of the Holy Spirit”?

Thus, as a “just man” he might seek to quietly sever the legal bond between them and would need the assurance of the angel telling him “do not fear to take Mary your wife.”

 

On the Other Hand . . .

KEEP READING.

The Weekly Benedict: 9 December, 2012

This version of The Weekly Benedict covers material released in the last week from 23 November 2012 – 3 December 2012  (subscribe hereget as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Angelus

General Audiences

Homilies

Messages

Speeches

8 Things You Need to Know About the Immaculate Conception

Dec. 8th is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. What is the Immaculate Conception and how do we celebrate it?

This Saturday, December 8th, is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. It celebrates an important point of Catholic teaching, and it is a holy day of obligation.

Here are 8 things you need to know about the teaching and the way we celebrate it.

 

1. Who does the Immaculate Conception refer to?

There’s a popular idea that it refers to Jesus’ conception by the Virgin Mary.

It doesn’t.

Instead, it refers to the special way in which the Virgin Mary herself was conceived.

This conception was not virginal. (That is, she had a human father as well as a human mother.) But it was special and unique in another way. . . .

 

2. What is the Immaculate Conception?

KEEP READING.

Pope’s Twitter Handle: What Does “Pontifex” Mean, Anyway?

The Emperor Augustus was a "pontifex maximus." So how did that become a term for the pope?

Recently it was announced that Pope Benedict’s new Twitter handle is @pontifex.

Why did he pick this name, and what does it mean, anyway?

The word’s origin is more surprising than you might think!

 

Other Possible Names

Pope Benedict might have picked other names. Some plausible ones include:

  • @pope
  • @popebenedict
  • @popebenedictxvi
  • @benedictxvi
  • @popebenedict16

Why didn’t he pick any of these?

I would suggest two reasons.

 

Some May Already Be Taken

People have already been using some of the plausible papal Twitter handles, and Twitter does not easily reassign such names.

That’s why my own Twitter handle is @JimmyAkin3000 (Click here to follow me). Someone was already using my preferred handle, and they don’t easily reassign them.

Still, for the pope they might make an exception.

In fact, for all I know, they may have made an exception. Somebody may have already been using @pontifex.

But I think there’s another, even more practical reason.

 

Pope Benedict Is Thinking Ahead

While I hope that Pope Benedict reigns for many more years, he is not planning on being pope forever.

In thus think the main reason that he chose the handle he did is because he’s thinking ahead and didn’t want to make everyone have to sign up to get the next pope’s tweets–at whatever time there is a new pope.

In other words, he’s leaving future popes a ready-built Twitter platform that they can use to get their message out.

He thus didn’t include anything specific to him–no variation of “Benedict” or “XVI” in the handle.

That leaves us with generic words for pope–like “pope” and “pontifex.”

 

Why Not “Pope”?

KEEP READING.

The Weekly Benedict: 2 December, 2012

This version of The Weekly Benedict covers material released in the last week from 11 November 2012 – 26 November 2012  (subscribe hereget as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Angelus

General Audiences

Messages

Motu Proprio

Speeches

VIDEO: Unborn babies struggle in womb!

Jacob and Esau struggled in the womb. Now new video shows what this looked like.

According to Genesis, Jacob and Esau struggled with each other while they were still in the womb.

Apparently, it was quite a struggle!

Many women pregnant with twins have experienced the same thing, but now we have motion video of unborn children doing just this.

Here’s the story . . . and the video.

 

Jacob and Esau

First, here’s the biblical story of Jacob and Esau:

Genesis 25

21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.

22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.

23 The Lord said to her,

“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger.”

24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb (NIV).

Other translations render Rebekah’s question a bit differently, and in ways that bring out the intensity of the struggle:

But the children jostled each other in the womb so much that she exclaimed, “If it is like this, why go on living!” (NAB:RE).

The children struggled together within her; and she said, “If it is thus, why do I live?” (RSV).

 

Why Do They Do This?

The particularly intense struggle between Jacob and Esau may have had prophetic overtones, as Rebekah learned upon consulting the Lord, but this is not a phenomenon unique to them.

Lots of twins appear to struggle in the womb.

Why?