At Charlotte Was Both, Amy Welborn suggested that during Advent, we should remember that we are not just individuals, but part of the Church. “When Jesus promised the presence of the Spirit, he did not take individuals aside and say, “I’m sending you the Paraclete. And you – over there, let me talk to you. I’m sending you the Paraclete as well,” Welborn wrote.
So if we want to be open to the Holy Spirit during Advent, we should remember that “The Spirit dwells in the Word of God and in the prayer of the Church.” The trick during Advent is “to keep it simple”: start with the liturgy, at least with the daily Mass readings.
Welborn said she had never taken time to meditate on the daily readings and thought “Well, that was a waste of time.” Our yearnings are met by the liturgy of the Church, because as St Paul says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.”
A clever silence, or the work of providence?
In the New York Times, Ross Douthat summarised the controversy over the four cardinals who have written to the Pope asking for clarification of Amoris Laetitia. “It is not that there is any real doubt about where the pontiff stands,” Douthat wrote. The Pope has “pushed persistently to open communion to at least some remarried Catholics without the grant of annulment. But conservative resistance ran strong enough that the Pope seemed to feel constrained.” So Amoris talked around the subject.
This might seem to be a clever tactic, Douthat observed: “Liberals got a permission slip to experiment, conservatives got to keep the letter of the law.” But conservatives may also believe that “his refusal to give definitive answers might itself be the work of providence.” Conservatives may think that “really it’s the Holy Spirit constraining him from teaching error.”
Worrying shouldn’t be our first priority
At Catholic Culture, Dr Jeff Mirus said it might be necessary for Catholics to spend a bit less time thinking about the Pope. Yes, the current pontificate has sometimes been frustrating for Catholics: for instance, “Contrary to what Pope Francis often implies, Catholic teaching on faith and morals is not a matter of ‘laws’ or ‘rules’ but of the conformity of the mind with reality, which is the definition of truth.” But worrying about the Pope can stop us “from working on our first priority – which is living our Catholic life in Christ as fully as we possibly can.”
At some point, these concerns can “become a preoccupation – an unhealthy preoccupation. We can become so tied in knots that we feel as if we cannot get on with our lives, and especially with what God calls us personally to do, until the ‘Francis problem’ is settled.”
Instead, we should focus on our own Christian vocation. “I admit that there is no way to hide from these problems, and we should want to keep informed. The point here is that we should be able to take them in stride without losing our serenity.”
✣Meanwhile…
✣ The Central African Republic “doesn’t even have a word for cardinal”, according to the first native prelate to receive the red hat.
Cardinal Dieudonné Nzapalainga, 49, the youngest addition to the College of Cardinals, told Rome Reports: “We do not even have a word for ‘cardinal’ in our language.
“People in my country are wondering what it means to be a cardinal. ‘Kotobua’ … It means someone who is close to the Pope and who collaborates with him.”
The cardinal added that he wants to work closely with Muslims and Protestants to demonstrate that religion is a source of unity and not division.
✣ Gladiator star Joaquin Phoenix will play the role of Jesus Christ in an upcoming film entitled Mary Magdalene.
Phoenix received international acclaim after he played Commodus, a corrupt Roman emperor, in the 2000 film Gladiator.
According to the Daily Mail, Phoenix, 42, has grown a bushy beard and long hair in an attempt to better represent the character of Christ.
The film’s narrative will focus on the person of Mary Magdalene and her bond with him. The saint, who Jesus saved from stoning, will be played by Rooney Mara, a 31-year-old American.
✣The week in quotations
Not promoting vocations is an ecclesial tubal ligation Pope Francis La Civiltà Cattolica
We will all be judged. Today it is his turn Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami Press statement on the death of Fidel Castro
Dear brothers, may the Lord enlighten you to recognise your sin Bishop Papamanolis, Greek bishops’ conference president Open letter to the four cardinals
[The drug trade brings] physical, psychic and social death Pope Francis Address at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
✣Statistic of the week
3,615 Number of firing squad executions under Fidel Castro Source: Cuba Archive
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