Ubi Petrus

I’m a little late on this, but that’s no reason not to post them anyway.  They’re particularly good this month:

Pope Benedict’s general prayer intention for March is: “That the role of women may be more appreciated and used to good advantage in every country in the world”.

His mission intention is: “That, in the light of the Letter addressed to them by Pope Benedict XVI, the bishops, priests, consecrated persons and lay faithful of the Catholic Church in the Popular Republic of China may commit themselves to being the sign and instrument of unity, communion and peace”

There’s an awful lot packed in there.

Congratulations are in order for the Diocese of Biloxi, MI and her newly appointed Bishop.  Bp. Roger Paul Morin, formerly Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans has been appointed to take over this Diocese after her previous Bishop was named Bishop of Mobile, AL.  CNA has the full story.

Archbishop Thomas Rodi, the previous bishop of Biloxi, spoke of the skills and gifts that Bishop Morin will bring to his new flock. “I have known Bishop Morin for years and have consistently been impressed by his dedication and talents. He brings to the Diocese of Biloxi his extensive experience as a priest.” I am confident that, with God’s help, he will powerfully proclaim the Word of God, join the people of Mississippi in praising God, and lead in making the love of God visible to the poor through the charitable efforts of the Church,” Archbishop Rodi said in a statement.

In a statement, the bishop-elect explained that “the trials and tribulations of disastrous storms have not weakened my faith but have instead strengthened it. The experience of personal losses has not deprived me of hope because hope has been deepened by the experience of bounteous blessings brought by so many who have offered assistance in a loving and caring manner. With my own experiences of stormy weather and personal losses, I greet with open arms, the opportunity to meet with God’s help, the challenges remaining ahead of us. May God bless us all.”

Bishop-elect Morin will be installed as the third Bishop of Biloxi on Monday, April 27th, in Biloxi’s Cathedral of The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at 2:00 p.m.  Archbishop Pietro Sambi, Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S., and the Metropolitan Archbishop of Mobile, Thomas J. Rodi, will preside at the ceremony.

If this news doesn’t concern you, you’re not paying attention:

The Obama administration has begun the process of rescinding sweeping new federal protections that were granted in December to health-care workers who refuse to provide care that violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

The Office of Management and Budget announced this morning that it was reviewing a proposal to lift the controversial “conscience” regulation, the first step toward reversing the policy. Once the OMB has reviewed the proposal it will published in Federal Register for a 30-day public comment period.

“We are proposing rescinding the Bush rule,” said an official with the Health and Human Services Department, which drafted the rule change.

The administration took the step because the regulation was so broadly written that it could provide protections to health-care workers who object not only to abortion but also to a wide range of health-care services, said the HHS official, who asked not to be named because the process had just begun.

The suggestion of loose wording is nothing more than a thin veil, an excuse to re-write the rule as abortion advocates would like it.  This is not the beginning, nor will it be the end.  Contact your representatives in Congress, but above all pray.

Hat tip to Carl Olson.

Besides the fact that it’s just something you should do, occasionally you come across some real spiritual gems.  This one I found timely as a Lenten reflection:

My Lord and my God, take from me everything that distances me from you.

My Lord and my God, give me everything that brings me closer to you.

My Lord and my God, detach me from myself to give my all to you.

— St. Nicholas of Flüe

I’m a couple of days late in posting this, but even with the lag I think it’s too important to just skip.  From AsiaNews:

Following the example of St. Paul, Lent should be marked by a more frequent listening to the word of God, “by more intense prayer, by an austere and penitential style of life, it should be an encouragement to conversion and sincere love for our brothers, especially those who are most poor and in need.” In the Pauline Year, the life of the Apostle of the Gentiles was offered by Benedict XVI as a model of how the Christian should live Lent, in today’s celebration of Ash Wednesday at the ancient Roman basilica of Santa Sabina.

…

“St. Paul,” he continued, “recognizes that everything in him is the work of divine grace, but he does not forget that one must cooperate freely with the gift of new life received in Baptism. In the text of chapter 6 of the Letter to the Romans, which will be proclaimed during the Easter vigil, he writes, ‘Therefore, sin must not reign over your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires. And do not present the parts of your bodies to sin as weapons for wickedness, but present yourselves to God as raised from the dead to life and the parts of your bodies to God as weapons for righteousness’ (6:12-13). We find contained in these words the program for Lent according to its intrinsic baptismal perspective. On the one hand, it affirms Christ’s victory over sin, which took place once and for all with his death and resurrection; on the other, we are urged not to give our members up to sin, meaning not to concede, so to speak, room for sin to make a comeback.

Great things can happen during Lent.  It’s up to us whether we’re willing to cooperate with the Grace God is offering us.

Quite a while ago I was trying to digest von Balthasar’s mega work as part of our reading group and I came upon this quote and started a draft post on it which I never finished.  Looking for something to post, I remembered how this quote struck me all that time ago. A couple of notes to the reader: 1) the quote embedded is from Diadochus; 2) the first joy is that of the believer at the very beginning of his spiritual life (the beginning convert or revert, for example).

With this, the whole difference between the first and the perfect experience of joy is already expressed: the first joy is an initial experience of the Ground of Being, but still not by far its full realisation, comparable to the winter sun, which warms those exposed to it only on one side. This is why that first joy can easily be imitated by the evil enemy, especially if the soul reflects upon it and glories ‘in the experience […] of its own sense of perception […]’: the transition from spiritual to sensual pleasure here is imperceptible.

At this point I’d originally written a long digression on this quote.  This time, being older if not wiser, I just want to ask if anyone else sees the connection I made upon reading this to overly charismatic worship forms (wherein he states, “the transition from spiritual to sensual pleasure here is imperceptible“).  Mind you, I’m not suggesting there is an ontological problem with charismatic worship, but only opening up my first impression of his above statement.  Do you have an alternative reading of it?  Do you think von Balthasar is as dense of reading as do I?  In a way, I’m not surprised the reading group bogged down – it’s very hard work to trudge through his writing, particularly for the uninitiated.  Thoughts, anyone?

Tomorrow starts the great season of Lent, a season I think I sometimes enjoy a little too much.  But this post isn’t yet about Lent.

Should you happen to live in New Hampshire, the Diocese of Manchester has created an email alert service to help keep us abreast of public policy issues.  This is an extension of their Faithful Citizenship News section.  You can sign up for emails here.  It’s the least we can do, and understanding what’s going on around us is a mandate for any Catholic.

In a capitalist, consumer-driven society like ours, you would think people would understand the basic rules of market economics, such as the law of supply-and-demand.  This law states, simply, that the price of a good increases with increase in demand and decreases with increase in supply.  So if you have a highly-demanded item that is in short supply (e.g. the iPhone or Wii when they were first released) the price (i.e. the value placed on it by others) can be quite high; in contrast something with high supply and low demand (say, a box of lead-laced toys) practically can’t even be given away.

This law extends outside of the market as well.  I’ve been reading Josef Pieper: An Anthology in an attempt to get to know this philosopher of whom I’ve read so much.  It’s a collection of short snips of his writing which he selected and collated himself.  The below extended quote really seems to sum up the reality of the situation of the on-demand sex culture we find ourselves mired in the middle of. [click to continue…]

I offer my hearty congratulations both to Archbishop Timothy Dolan and the Archdiocese of New York, and profound thanks for what certainly looks to be a very good decision by Pope Benedict.  In case you missed it, Abp. Dolan was appointed the next Archibishop of the Archdiocese of New York – to be, as Pope John Paul II said, “Bishop of Capital of the World” (he was making a slightly tongue-in-cheek comparison between “the Bishop of Rome” and the bishop of, as some would say, the “modern” Rome).  He has a tremendous amount of work ahead of him but I think, with the help of the Holy Spirit, he will be more than up to the task.

Rocco also has some good coverage, starting here and going back.