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‘We are Nazareth,’ Cardinal Schonborn Declares of Europe

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

The Catholic Key Blog – Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph – February 1, 2010

Reflecting on the Gospel of Luke when the adulation of Christ by his hometown, Nazareth, suddenly turns to a desire to throw Him off a cliff, Vienna Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schonborn said, “Sometimes I have the impression that what we are living now in Europe is exactly described in this scene. We are Nazareth.”

Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schonborn Cardinal Schonborn’s remarks came during a Jan. 31 homily St. Benedict’s Abbey Church on the campus of Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. The Cardinal had been invited by Kansas City, Kansas Archbishop Joseph Naumann. While there, Cardinal Schonborn visited with a new foundation of the Little Sisters of the Cardinal Lamb of which he is episcopal patron and gave a major lecture at Benedictine College. The executive editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church also received the Cross of the Order of St. Benedict from Benedictine College President Stephen D. Minnis. (SEE UPDATE BELOW)

While Cardinal Schonborn’s homily began with a dark vision of the state of faith in Europe, it ended citing signs of hope springing up there and in the New World, including Benedictine College where, he said, the Church is “blossoming again.”

We are Nazareth

“We have to listen to Jesus,” the cardinal said. “We have to meditate: every single gesture, every single word, his behavior, his attitude . . . And then ask the Holy Spirit” to help us understand.

“It’s not easy,” Cardinal Schonborn said. “Often I want to ask Jesus ‘Why? Why do you shock people instead of being kind to them?” Cardinal Schonborn said that what Jesus did in the synagogue in the day’s Gospel “is so contrary to all P.R. rules.”

The people of Nazareth “are fascinated by Him. They are amazed how gracious his words were,” he said. Yet Jesus “doesn’t use that enthusiasm. To the contrary, he hurts them and we must ask ourselves, ‘Why Jesus? Why do you hurt your own people . . . with whom you have lived for 30 years, worked with, prayed with?’”

Not only does Jesus perform no miracles in Nazareth, Cardinal Schonborn explained, but “Even more shocking . . . before they even ask for a miracle He says, ‘You will probably ask now for a miracle. Don’t expect a miracle from me.’”

After explaining how the people were hurt by Christ’s words and then rallied to kill Him, Cardinal Schonborn said, “What shocks me and what gives me to think about the abyss of human hearts – my heart, your heart – is how rapidly things can change from enthusiasm to hatred, from acclaim to rejection. It is so close.”

Cardinal Schonborn explained that Jesus performed no miracle in Nazareth, because He was “expecting faith, not adulation.” Christ did not want to be “a show man . . . the star of his village,” rather He “wanted their hearts, their faith.”

Recounting the Gospel, Cardinal Schonborn said that when the people tried to kill Him, “He passed through the midst of them and went away. And He never came back to Nazareth.”

“Sometimes I have the impression that what we are living now in Europe is exactly described in this scene,” the cardinal said. “We are Nazareth. . . We are tired of Him. With all our beautiful Cathedrals and monasteries . . . and the great witnesses of sanctity, we are tired of Him. We are looking for Buddhism, for all kinds of strange ideas, or simply secularism.”

Cardinal Schonborn said he is sometimes frightened by the vision of Christ going away from Europe. “Lord do not abandon us . . . Do not leave the Church in Europe,” Cardinal Schonborn said. “We have been so enthusiastic about you through all the great ages of Christianity in Europe, but then we have become tired about your words, about your requirements . . . We prefer the mainstream, the politically correct. . . We are tired of your Gospel.”

Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schonborn Cardinal Schonborn asked the congregation to pray that Christ would not “go away” from Europe, even while we want “that He reaches all countries of the world, all people of the world.”

The Cardinal then noted that the abbey church where he was celebrating Mass was built by monks from Bavaria and that the Holy Father was also from Bavaria. “So at least two good things come from Bavaria,” he joked, “And beer.” But he wondered whether the “great mission adventure” of Europe to the rest of the world had left Europe, itself, exhausted. Again, he asked the congregation to pray that “Europe will not become like Nazareth in the Gospel today.”

Signs of Hope

Jesus’ promise to “be with us always” is also “valid for Europe,” Cardinal Schonborn said. “There are real signs that the Lord is present . . . Signs of hope.” He cited the foundation of the Little Sisters of the Lamb in Paris and many other new communities founded precisely in places where the Church has seemed to go “down and down and down.” These communities arise as “a sign of life”.

Cardinal Schonborn said he was very pleased that the first home of the Little Sisters of the Lamb in the U.S. is Kansas. “I’ve heard that they say it’s in the middle of nowhere,” he joked. “It’s certainly not true.”

He also pointed to Benedictine College as an example of a place where the life of the Church is “blossoming again”.

“If there is true love for Jesus,” he said, “then there will be life.”

Another great sign of life is the vitality of the pro-life movement in the United States, the cardinal said. “I always hope that this vibrant commitment for life, for the beauty of life . . . will come also to Europe, that together we will commit ourselves to the love of life.”

The Cardinal ended praying that the U.S. and Europe “stay together,” not for political or economic reasons, but for faith. “We need each other,” he said. “Every time I come to this country, I return to Europe encouraged in faith.”

Following Mass and lunch, Cardinal Schonborn gave a lecture to a standing room only crowd at Benedictine College. His lecture focused on Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg lecture, which he said would one day be regarded as one of “the great texts.” Much of his lecture focused on how nominalism has shrunken both faith and reason. We’ll post on that later. Tom Hoopes has some good take-aways from the lecture over at National Catholic Register.

Beyond receiving the Cross of the Order of St. Benedict from Benedictine College, Cardinal Schonborn also received a belated (by one week) birthday cake and was sung Happy Birthday in both German and English.

UPDATE: Benedictine College has posted video, pictures newslinks and iTune downloads of Cardinal Schonborn’s homily and lecture at their website.

Tags: Archbishop Christoph Cardinal Schonborn, Archbishop Joseph Naumann, Benedictine College, Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, hope, Jesus Christ, Little Sisters of the Cardinal Lamb, Vienna
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Jesus Is Hope for World in Crisis, Says Pope

Monday, December 28th, 2009

Zenit.org – December 25, 2009

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 25, 2009 (Zenit.org) – For a world in financial and moral crisis, the Baby Jesus is a light in the darkness, Benedict XVI is affirming.

Pope Benedict blesses the crowd at St. Peter's square on Christmas day The Pope stated this today in his traditional Christmas message, which he delivered today at noon from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

“The light of that first Christmas was like a fire kindled in the night,” he said. “All about there was darkness, while in the cave there shone the true light.”

“God loves to light little lights, so as then to illuminate vast spaces,” the Pontiff affirmed.

This is the history of the Church, he said, which began its journey “in the lowly cave of Bethlehem, and down the centuries it has become a people and a source of light for humanity.”

“Today too,” the Holy Father affirmed, “in those who encounter that Child, God still kindles fires in the night of the world, calling men and women everywhere to acknowledge in Jesus the ’sign’ of his saving and liberating presence and to extend the ‘us’ of those who believe in Christ to the whole of mankind.”

“Wherever there is an ‘us’ that welcomes God’s love, there the light of Christ shines forth, even in the most difficult situations,” he added.

“The Church does not fear,” Benedict XVI said, “for that Child is its strength.”

He continued: “But she does not keep him for herself: She offers him to all those who seek him with a sincere heart, to the earth’s lowly and afflicted, to the victims of violence, and to all who yearn for peace.

“Today too, on behalf of a human family profoundly affected by a grave financial crisis, yet even more by a moral crisis, and by the painful wounds of wars and conflicts, the Church, in faithful solidarity with mankind, repeats with the shepherds: ‘Let us go to Bethlehem,’ for there we shall find our hope.”

Tags: Christmas, economic crisis, hope, morality, Pope Benedict XVI, Zenit
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Father Lombardi: Pope Points to Way Out of Crisis

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Zenit.org – July 12, 2009

VATICAN CITY, JULY 12, 2009 (Zenit.org) – In the encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” Benedict XVI shows the way out of the global economic crisis, says a Vatican spokesman.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican press office, summed up the contribution of Benedict XVI’s third encyclical in three words: “development, gratuity and hope,” in his editorial on the last episode of the weekly Vatican Television program “Octave Dies.”

Father Federico Lombardi According to the Jesuit priest, the papal text, addressed to all men of good will, attempts, among other things, to “rediscover the courage to plan the future of humanity, not with the illusions of worn out ideologies, but with the freedom of gathering together in an ample dynamic synthesis all the elements offered by the negative and positive experience of peoples, from the reflections of the various disciplines, from the toils of reason.”

“All of that would be unrealistic and sterile without the breath of life that the inspiration of faith offers,” he added.

Father Lombardi pointed to a phrase in No. 34 as the document’s central claim: “Charity in truth places man before the astonishing experience of gift. Gratuitousness is present in our lives in many different forms, which often go unrecognized because of a purely consumerist and utilitarian view of life. The human being is made for gift, which expresses and makes present his transcendent dimension.”

According to the Vatican spokesman, “the logic of the gift and gratuity is the key to that ‘fraternity’ in which the Pope sees the emergence of the true solutions of the dramatic problems of the human family in the time of globalization.”

Among these challenges, Father Lombardi singled out “the persisting of inequalities and hunger, but also the cultural and spiritual degradation that harms the dignity of the human person, who is a victim of economic dynamics that are exclusively utilitarian or of an ideology of the unlimited power of technology.”

He concluded: “The crisis that we and the powerful of the earth are rightly trying to deal with, and which the poor suffer the hardest effects of, must be an occasion to look more deeply into who we are and what we must be — brothers called to love and give — and where we must go — beyond the closed and blind materialistic horizon.

“If we do not, globalization will not become an opportunity for life, but a spiral and a tangle of a more and more dramatic slavery.”

Tags: Caritas in Veritate, development, encyclical, Father Federico Lombardi, gratuity, hope, Pope Benedict XVI, Zenit
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Holy Father Visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; “The Empty Tomb Speaks to Us of Hope”

Friday, May 15th, 2009

Vatican Information Service – May 15, 2009

VATICAN CITY, 15 MAY 2009 (VIS) – At 10.15 a.m. today the Holy Father visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where he was received by six representatives from the three institutions (Greek Orthodox Church, Custody of the Holy Land and Armenian Apostolic Church) responsible for the “Status Quo”, the agreement regulating the administration of the site. Coptic, Syrian and Ethiopian Orthodox may also officiate in the basilica.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre According to tradition, the Holy Sepulchre is located on the site where Jesus was crucified, buried and rose again. It was known as Golgotha (which means skull in Aramaic, so-called for the rounded form of the mount). At the entrance of the basilica, in the atrium, is the Stone of the Anointing, a long block of polished red limestone. Surrounded by candelabra and eight lamps, it constitutes the thirteenth station of the “Via Crucis” (Way of the Cross). According to tradition, this marks the spot where Jesus, having been taken from the cross, was anointed. In the centre of the shrine and housed within a rectangular structure, lies the Holy Sepulchre itself, the fourteenth station of the Via Crucis.

The facade of the structure is covered with hanging lamps and silver spheres. Over the door there are three depictions of the Resurrection: Latin, Greek and Armenian. The small wooden door is always open except during the moment that the Armenian or Greek celebrant must remain alone, as prescribed by the liturgy. The structure houses a small vestibule called the Chapel of the Angel (announcement of the Resurrection to the holy women). A further door gives access to the Holy Sepulchre itself where a marble slab covers the original stone upon which Jesus’ body was placed.

Restoration work began in 1971, financed by the three communities that co-own the site. In 1994 the Custody of the Holy Land, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Armenian Apostolic Patriarch of Jerusalem signed a historic agreement for the restoration and decoration of the dome of the Anastasis. Work was completed in 1997.

Benedict XVI prayed at the Stone of the Anointing and at the empty tomb of the Resurrection. Then, having received the greetings of Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custos of the Holy Land, and of His Beatitude Fouad Twal, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, he pronounced a brief address.

“Here Christ died and rose, never to die again”, said the Pope. “Here the history of humanity was decisively changed. The long reign of sin and death was shattered by the triumph of obedience and life; the wood of the cross lay bare the truth about good and evil. … Here Christ, the new Adam, taught us that evil never has the last word, that love is stronger than death, that our future, and the future of all humanity, lies in the hands of a faithful and provident God.

Pope Benedict XVI at the the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem on Friday. (NY Times - Pool photo by Yannis Behrakis) “The empty tomb speaks to us of hope, the hope that does not disappoint because it is the gift of the Spirit of life”, he added. “This is the message that I wish to leave with you today, at the conclusion of my pilgrimage to the Holy Land. May hope rise up ever anew, by God’s grace, in the hearts of all the people dwelling in these lands! May it take root in your hearts, abide in your families and communities”.

“The Church in the Holy Land, which has so often experienced the dark mystery of Golgotha, must never cease to be an intrepid herald of the luminous message of hope which this empty tomb proclaims. The Gospel reassures us that God can make all things new, that history need not be repeated, that memories can be healed, that the bitter fruits of recrimination and hostility can be overcome, and that a future of justice, peace, prosperity and co-operation can arise for every man and woman, for the whole human family, and in a special way for the people who dwell in this land so dear to the heart of the Savior”.

The Holy Father went on: “This ancient Memorial of the Anastasis bears mute witness both to the burden of our past, with its failings, misunderstandings and conflicts, and to the glorious promise which continues to radiate from Christ’s empty tomb. … Even now, the grace of the resurrection is at work within us! May our contemplation of this mystery spur our efforts, both as individuals and as members of the ecclesial community, to grow in the life of the Spirit through conversion, penance and prayer. May it help us to overcome, by the power of that same Spirit, every conflict and tension born of the flesh, and to remove every obstacle, both within and without, standing in the way of our common witness to Christ and the reconciling power of His love.

“With these words of encouragement”, the Holy Father ended his remarks, “I conclude my pilgrimage to the holy places of our redemption and rebirth in Christ. I pray that the Church in the Holy Land will always draw new strength from her contemplation of the empty tomb of the Savior. In that tomb she is called to bury all her anxieties and fears, in order to rise again each day and continue her journey through the streets of Jerusalem, Galilee and beyond, proclaiming the triumph of Christ’s forgiveness and the promise of new life”.

Having concluded his address, Benedict XVI moved on to the Chapel of the Apparition. There he paused in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament before climbing up to Golgotha where he prayed at the site of Calvary. Then, his visit complete, he travelled by car the Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Tags: Church of the Holy Sepulchre, hope, Pope Benedict XVI, Vatican Information Service
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Pope Meets Religious Leaders, Highlights God’s Role in Human History

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Catholic News Service – May 14, 2009 – By John Thavis

NAZARETH, Israel (CNS) — Meeting with Catholic and other religious leaders in Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI returned to a running theme of his Holy Land pilgrimage: that God intervenes in human history, offering people a real reason for hope.

The corollary to that theme is just as important to the pope: that when people try to shut God out of their lives and the life of society bad things happen.

Pope Benedict XVI attends a meeting with religious leaders in the Basilica of the Annunciation in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth May 14. (CNS/Reuters) The pope was in Nazareth May 14 for a day of liturgies and encounters as he neared the end of his eight-day trip to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

After celebrating a morning Mass to mark the Holy Land’s year of the family in the city where Jesus grew up, the pontiff met in the afternoon with about 300 members of various religious communities — including Christians, Muslims, Jews and Druze — in the Galilee region.

The atmosphere was friendly and respectful. At one point the pope, smiling broadly, stood with the other main participants and held hands in prayer with a rabbi and a Druze cleric as a specially composed psalm was sung, using the words of peace in Arabic, Hebrew and English: “Salam, Shalom, Lord grant us peace.”

In a brief speech, the pope noted that Nazareth is revered by Christians as the place where an angel announced to Mary that she would conceive a child by the power of the Holy Spirit — a divine intervention, he said, that changed the world.

“The conviction that the world is a gift of God and that God has entered the twists and turns of human history is the perspective from which Christians view creation as having a reason and a purpose,” he said.

Far from being the result of blind fate, he said, the world has been willed by God and reveals his splendor. That implies a particular responsibility for people, and it is common ground for all faiths, he said.

“At the heart of all religious traditions is the conviction that peace itself is a gift from God, yet it cannot be achieved without human endeavor. Lasting peace flows from the recognition that the world is ultimately not our own,” he said.

“We cannot do whatever we please with the world; rather, we are called to conform our choices to the subtle yet nonetheless perceptible laws inscribed by the Creator upon the universe,” he said.

Pope Benedict XVI waves to the crowd as he leaves at the end of the mass held on Mount Precipice in Nazareth. (Menahem Kahana, AFP/Getty Images / May 14, 2009) In a nutshell, that’s been the core religious message of his pilgrimage. As he has visited the places where the events of the Old and New Testaments were lived out — from Mount Nebo above the Promised Land to the Upper Room in Jerusalem — he has reminded people that these are the places where God acted in history, and that current tensions in the region require a similar openness to divine guidance.

The pope prayed at the Grotto of the Annunciation, a cave enshrined in the lower level of Nazareth’s Basilica of the Annunciation. In the basilica’s upper level he led an evening prayer service, listening as the Magnificat, the canticle of Mary, was sung in Arabic.

What happened in Nazareth, the pope said in a talk, was a “singular act of God” that illustrates the unlimited possibilities of God’s love and power.

The narrative of the Annunciation also illustrates “God’s extraordinary courtesy,” because instead of imposing himself on Mary or predetermining her role in salvation, he first seeks her consent. Her response changed the course of history, he said.

“When we reflect on this joyful mystery, it gives us hope, the sure hope that God will continue to reach into our history, to act with creative power so as to achieve goals which by human reckoning seem impossible,” he said.

The important thing is that people remain open to the “transforming action of the creator Spirit who makes us new,” he said.

Tags: Catholic News Service, Holy Land, hope, Nazareth, peace, Pope Benedict XVI
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Economic Crisis Can Be a Moment to Unite Oneself to the Cross of Christ

Friday, March 13th, 2009

Zenit.org – Mar. 11, 2009 – By Carmen Elena Villa

ROME, MARCH 11, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The present economic crisis can be a moment to unite oneself to the cross of Christ, suggested the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi said this Monday in his address on “The Challenges of the Crisis: Fears and Hopes,” delivered in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, as part of the program called “Dialogues in the Cathedral,” organized by the Diocese of Rome.

The event was presided over by Cardinal Agostino Vallini, vicar general of the diocese of Rome. Sociologist Giuseppe de Rita, president of Le Monnier and former president of the National Council of the Economy of Work, also addressed the gathering.

Archbishop Ravasi pointed out how the economic crisis touches the lives and feelings of people that change like a “chromatic specter” that goes “from icy purple to red hot.” He noted that when man stays in the purple hue, it would seem that “there is no return; there will be no other morning.”

The prelate noted that sometimes in life “it is necessary that our faith know the purple of desperation,” so that the virtue of hope is tested.

3 faces

The archbishop stated that there are three types of hope: “spiritual, interior and psychological hope.” He also spoke about “the hope we must make flourish in the physical world,” which is tested in moments of poverty and sickness, a hope that “must be in communion with these physical sufferings.”

He noted that there must also be “a social hope,” and he gave the example of the Gospel miracle of the healing of the lepers, who were “isolated and marginalized.”

Archbishop Ravasi assured his listeners that Christ “makes hope flourish [...] in the physical world, in poverty and also in sickness.”

Referring to the healing of the 10 lepers, he added, “Christ advances toward us” in the same way, and this miracle “is a call he makes to us: to make hope flourish, also when communication is lacking and marginalization is present.”

The prelate noted that “in the mystery of the incarnation, Christ enters in the dark gallery of suffering” and “tells us that to be a man one must suffer and die,” but this does not defeat faith because “Christ shows us his closeness and breaks the limit of frailty.”

He concluded his address by assuring those present that “hope is the littlest sister of faith and charity,” and that “to allow oneself to be dragged down is the greatest temptation.” He said, “You, Christians, must be ready to respond.”

Tags: Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, hope, Zenit
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(podcast) The Economy, Building Projects, and Capital Campaigns: Hope Amidst Difficult Times

Friday, February 20th, 2009

Patrick O'Meara The Church’s witness to hope is needed now more than ever. In a recent podcast, O’Meara Ferguson president and founder Patrick O’Meara argues that as the stock market struggles to rebound and as trust in material things is fading, “the Church has the opportunity to speak with great conviction and with great efficacy.”

For O’Meara, this is not the time to put the brakes on parochial or diocesan capital projects. To do so would show “pusilanimity” in the face of the Lord’s promise that the Church will endure. Some capital projects might need to be adjusted due to the present economic climate. Pledges might be extended over five years rather than three. The time of preparation for the capital campaign might be lengthened in order to achieve higher rates of participation. But for O’Meara, the economy is not bad enough to stop building projects. People want to be generous, especially in difficult times.” Now is the time for us to speak with hope.”

O’Meara cites facts about the resiliency of the economy that are not being widely reported in the 24-hour news cycle. Click the podcasts below to learn more – You may listen to or download this podcast in full, or in three parts, whichever is more convenient for you.

Please Note: At 19:17 of the full-interview podcast (at 9:30 of Part II), Mr. O’Meara is asked to cite examples of current successful diocesan campaigns. In his first example, Mr. O’Meara refers to a campaign by the Archdiocese of Miami. His intention was to refer to the $105 million campaign by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. We apologize for any confusion this may cause.

Hope Amidst Difficult Times - Full Interview [35:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (186)

Hope Amidst Difficult Times - Part I [10:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (8)

Hope Amidst Difficult Times - Part II [15:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (9)

Hope Amidst Difficult Times - Part III [10:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (6)

Tags: economy, hope, Patrick O'Meara, podcast
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Posts Tagged ‘hope’

‘We are Nazareth,’ Cardinal Schonborn Declares of Europe

Jesus Is Hope for World in Crisis, Says Pope

Father Lombardi: Pope Points to Way Out of Crisis

Holy Father Visits the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; “The Empty Tomb Speaks to Us of Hope”

Pope Meets Religious Leaders, Highlights God’s Role in Human History

Economic Crisis Can Be a Moment to Unite Oneself to the Cross of Christ

(podcast) The Economy, Building Projects, and Capital Campaigns: Hope Amidst Difficult Times

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