The Church Year: Apr. 20, 2012

Today is Friday of the 2nd week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On April 20, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

There is no special fixed liturgical day in the Extraordinary Form.

For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.

 

Readings:

To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.

Or you can click play to listen to them:

 

Devotional Information:

According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

Popular Piety and Private Revelation

90. Popular piety has always been interested in extraordinary happenings and events that are not infrequently connected with private revelations. While not confined to Marian piety alone, this phenomenon is particularly involved with “apparitions” and “messages.” In this regard, it is useful to recall what the Catechism of the Catholic Church says about private revelation: “Throughout the ages, there have been so-called private revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith. It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the Magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church” (n. 67).

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Holy See Mandates Reform of U.S. Women Religious’ Conference

In a dramatic move, the Holy See has mandated the reform of the largest leadership body for women religious in the United States.

The mandate was issued with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI at the conclusion of a doctrinal investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which was conducted under the auspices of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

The LCWR is an association of more than 1,500 leaders of U.S. congregations of women religious. Together they represent more than 80% of the 57,000 women religious in America.

In 2008, the Holy See initiated two simultaneous investigations of the state of women’s religious life in the U.S.

The first was a general survey of nearly 400 institutes conducted by the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL). Its results have not been announced.

The second was a more focused doctrinal assessment of the LCWR. Details of the doctrinal assessment as well as the mandate for the reform of the organization were made public in an eight-page document issued by the CDF on April 18 and published on the U.S. bishops’ website.

 

Reasons for the Assessment

According to the document, during an April 2008 meeting in Rome, the CDF prefect, Cardinal William Levada, notified the LCWR presidency of an impending doctrinal assessment. He cited three principal reasons for the investigation.

KEEP READING.

The Church Year: Apr. 19, 2012

Today is Thursday of the 2nd week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On April 19, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

There is no special fixed liturgical day in the Extraordinary Form.

For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.

 

Readings:

To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.

Or you can click play to listen to them:

 

Devotional Information:

According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

89. In this respect, the models used in liturgical celebrations can be most useful, since they always contain a text taken from Sacred Scripture, variously chosen for different types of celebration. However, since the different expressions of popular piety already exhibit a legitimate structural and expressional diversity, the disposition of the various biblical pericopes need not necessarily be followed in the same ritual structure with which the Word of God is proclaimed in the Sacred Liturgy.

In any event, the liturgical model can serve as a touch stone for popular piety, against which a correct scale of values can be developed, whose first concern is hearing God when He speaks. It encourages popular piety to discover the harmony between the Old and New Testaments and to interpret one in the light of the other. From its centuries long experience, the liturgical model also provides praise-worthy solutions for the correct application of the biblical message and provides a valid criterion to judge the authenticity of prayer.

In choosing biblical texts, it is always desirable to take short texts, that are easily memorized, incisive, and easily understood, even if difficult to actualize. Certain forms of popular piety, such as the Via Crucis and the Rosary, encourage the use of Sacred Scripture, which can easily be related to particular prayers or gestures that have been learned by heart, especially those biblical passages recounting the life of Christ which are easily remembered.

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The Church Year: Apr. 18, 2012

Today is Wednesday of the 2nd week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On April 18, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

There is no special fixed liturgical day in the Extraordinary Form.

For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.

 

Readings:

To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.

Or you can click play to listen to them:

 

Devotional Information:

According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

88. Prayer should “accompany the reading of Sacred Scripture, so that a dialogue takes place between God and man.” Thus, it is highly recommended that the various forms of popular piety normally include biblical texts, opportunely chosen and duly provided with a commentary.

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The Church Year: Apr. 17, 2012

Today is Tuesday of the 2nd week of Easter. The liturgical color is white.

 

Saints & Celebrations:

On April 17, there is no special fixed liturgical day in the Ordinary Form.

In the Extraordinary Form, we celebrate St. Anicetus, pope and martyr, who died in A.D. 166. It is a commemoration.

If you’d like to learn more about St. Anicetus, you can click here.

For information about other saints, blesseds, and feasts celebrated today, you can click here.

 

Readings:

To see today’s readings in the Ordinary Form, you can click here.

Or you can click play to listen to them:

 

Devotional Information:

According to the Holy See’s Directory on Popular Piety:

Word of God and Popular Piety

87. The Word of God, as transmitted by Sacred Scripture, as conserved and proposed by the Magisterium of the Church, and as celebrated in the Sacred Liturgy, is the privileged and indispensable instrument of the Holy Spirit in the faithfuls’ worship.

Since the Church is built on, and grows through, listening to the Word of God, the Christian faithful should acquire a familiarity with Sacred Scripture and be imbued with its spirit, so as to be able to translate the meaning of popular piety into terms worthy of, and consonant with, the data of the faith, and render a sense of that devotion that comes from God, who saves, regenerates and sanctifies.

The Bible offers an inexhaustible source of inspiration to popular piety, as well as unrivalled forms of prayer and thematic subjects. Constant reference to Sacred Scripture is also a means and a criterion for curbing exuberant forms of piety frequently influenced by popular religion which give rise to ambiguous or even erroneous expressions of piety.

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The 335 Years War?

Did You Know? Peace was declared on Apr. 17, 1986 between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly (off the Southwest coast of England), ending a “war” that had been going on since Mar. 30, 1651. It is said to have been extended by the lack of a peace treaty for 335 years without a single shot being fired and no casualties on either side. Sounds like a pretty Scilly affair to me. LEARN MORE.

Christianity = Communism ?

Last Sunday one of the readings was from Acts 4:32-35 . . .

The community of believers was of one heart and mind,
and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own,
but they had everything in common.
With great power the apostles bore witness
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
and great favor was accorded them all.
There was no needy person among them,
for those who owned property or houses would sell them,
bring the proceeds of the sale,
and put them at the feet of the apostles,
and they were distributed to each according to need.

This passages recalls one a couple of chapters earlier in Acts (2:44-47), which reads as follows:

All who believed were together and had all things in common;
they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.
Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area and to breaking bread in their homes. They ate their meals with exultation and sincerity of heart,
praising God and enjoying favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

We’ve got a lot of communal property going on here, and not just between husbands and wives.

These passages raise a number of questions like . . . to what degree is Luke holding this situation up as a model for the Church in general? . . . what should we learn from this? . . . and does this mean that we should abolish private property?

How are we to sort through these questions?

I know!

Let’s ask the pope!