Category: +Religion

The Weekly Benedict: 24 December, 2012

This version of The Weekly Benedict covers material released in the last week from 13 December 2012 – 21 December 2012  (subscribe here; get 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

Homilies

Messages

Speeches

Tweets

Everyone’s life of faith has times of light, but also times of darkness. If you want to walk in the light, let the word of God be your guide
@pontifex, 19 December 2012
We do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us. Christ, who is the truth, takes us by the hand.
@pontifex, 19 December 2012
When you deny God, you deny human dignity. Whoever defends God is defending the human person.
@pontifex, 21 December 2012
We do not possess the truth, the truth possesses us. Christ, who is the truth, takes us by the hand.
@pontifex, 21 December 2012
At the end of the year, we pray that the Church, despite her shortcomings, may be increasingly recognizable as Christ’s dwelling place
@pontifex, 21 December 2012

Note 1: The link to this page on the Vatican’s site is missing.

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 here; get 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

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 here; get 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 here; get as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Angelus

General Audiences

Messages

Motu Proprio

Speeches

10 Things You Need to Know About Advent

Advent is about to begin. What do the Church's official documents say about this season?

Advent begins this Sunday.

Most of us have an intuitive understanding of Advent, based on experience, but what do the Church’s official documents actually say about Advent?

Here are some of the basic questions and (official!) answers about Advent.

Some of the answers are surprising!

Here we go . . .

 

1. What Is the Purpose of Advent?

Advent is a season on the Church’s liturgical calendar–specifically, it is as season on the calendar of the Latin Church, which is the largest Church in communion with the pope.

Other Catholic Churches–as well as many non-Catholic churches–have their own celebration of Advent.

According to the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar:

Advent has a twofold character:

    • as a season to prepare for Christmas when Christ’s first coming to us is remembered;
    • as a season when that remembrance directs the mind and heart to await Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time.

Advent is thus a period for devout and joyful expectation [Norms 39].

We tend to think of Advent only as the season in which we prepare for Christmas, or the First Coming of Christ, but as the General Norms point out, it is important that we also remember it as a celebration in which we look forward to the Second Coming of Christ.

Properly speaking, Advent is a season that brings to mind the Two Comings of Christ.

KEEP READING.

What to Make of “Two and a Half Men” Star’s Outburst?

Angus T. Jones denounced his TV program as "filth" and urged people not to watch it. What are we to make of this?

A few days ago a video went viral in which Angus Jones of the sitcom Two and a Half Men called the show “filth” and urged people not to watch it.

Then there was a day where neither he nor the show’s producers could really be reached for comment.

I said to myself, “Desperate, back-stage damage control discussions.”

Now Angus Jones has come out with a kinda, sorta apology.

That didn’t take long.

Here’s the story . . .

KEEP READING.

The Weekly Benedict: 25 November, 2012

This version of The Weekly Benedict covers material released in the last week from 12 November 2012 – 22 November 2012  (subscribe here; get as an eBook version for your Kindle, iPod, iPad, Nook, or other eBook reader):

Angelus

General Audiences

Homilies

Messages

Speeches

Are the Seven Churches a Map of Church History?

Does this map of the seven churches of Asia contain a hidden map of Church history?
Tuesday’s liturgy contains a reading from the message to the Church at Sardis, from the book of Revelation.

Revelation contains seven messages written to “the seven churches, which are in Asia.”

Some Christians, particularly in the Protestant world, think that these seven messages contain a map of Church history, from the first century until the end times.

Are they right?

 

About the Seven Churches

The names of some of the seven churches to which John writes are familiar to us. The very first of the seven–Ephesus–is already familiar as the place to which St. Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians, for example.

Others are less familiar, but they were all located in a particular part of what is now Turkey, in the Roman province of Asia Minor.

We know that there were more than seven churches in Asia Minor at the time. Another one was the church at Colossae, to which St. Paul addressed the letter to the Colossians.

Which raises a question . . .

KEEP READING.