Posted on 04/08/2012 12:16:24 PM PDT by NYer
Pope Benedict, leading the world's Catholics into Easter, says technological progress, in the absence of awareness of God and moral values, poses a threat to the world.
The basilica, the largest church in Christendom, was in the dark for the start of the service to signify the darkness in Jesus' tomb before what Christians believe was his resurrection from the dead three days after his crucifixion.
The some 10,000 faithful in the basilica lit candles as the pope moved up the central aisle on a wheeled platform he uses to conserve his strength and then the basilica's lights were turned on when he reached the main altar.
Wearing gold and white vestments at the Mass, his last Holy Week service before Easter Sunday, the Pope wove his sermon around the theme of darkness and light.
"The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil.
"The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general," he said.
The Pope repeating one of the central themes of his pontificate, said man was too often in awe of technology instead of being in awe of God.
"If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other "lights", that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Read the full text of his homily here.
Pope Benedict XVI lights a white candle as he enters a hushed and darkened St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican Saturday, April 7, 2012, to begin the Vatican's Easter vigil service.
How blessed are we to have this great theologian as our pope! May our Lord continue to guide him on this journey.
The difference between our technology and virtue is increasing. That is very unwise.
This needed to be said, and I'm glad he said it, but it would have been nicer if he said it on Good Friday, and then had a more positive homily for Easter. After all, Easter is the celebration of life over death, the renewal of the light, and universally acknowledged as joyous.
I'm sure our pastor would like one of those, too ... or a sedan chair. He was on the verge of incoherence by the 12:30 p.m. Mass today, after the Vigil plus three morning services. I don't think he'd yet been into the Scotch the Grand Knight gave him, though.
This Protestant says the Pope is right. This is the problem that is destroying civilization. We haven’t seen the worst yet.
Perhaps you have a handyman in the parish who can do this. A good suggestion for the Parish Council.
The Holy Week services can drain even the most intrepid pastor of his physical resources. My heart went out to Pope Benedict who traveled to Mexico, then Cuba, then back to the Vatican just in time to begin a grueling weeklong series of services and homilies, all of which he personally writes. Just thinking about his schedule makes me feel tired ;-) How old a man is your pastor?
"On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light. Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. “Whoever is close to me is close to the fire,” as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.
Amen!
Einstein once lamented, “We are mental giants and moral midgets.”
The difference between our technology and virtue is increasing. That is very unwise.
It’s very scary and disturbing.
Father Gary is not yet 60. We had a guest-priest for an overflow Mass at the high school, so Father Gary did five in 18 hours.
After the travel, it’s impressive that Pope Benedict was up at all!
"The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not." (Holy Bible)
In 2008, Michael Ledeen, on another subject altogether, wrote of the degree to which Americans have been "dumbed down" on some basic ideas underlying our freedom:
Ledeen said, "Our educational system has long since banished religion from its texts, and an amazing number of Americans are intellectually unprepared for a discussion in which religion is the central organizing principle."
In the Pope's speech in Germany a few years ago, he observed:
"A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures."
Ledeen put his finger on a problem that stifles meaningful dialogue and debate in America. Censors [disguised as "protectors" (the Radical Left's ACLU, NEA, education bureaucracies, etc., etc.)] have imposed their limited understanding of liberty upon generations of school children.
From America's founding to the 1950's, ideas derived from religious literature were included in textbooks, through the poetry and prose used to teach children to read and to identify with their world and their country.
Suddenly, those ideas began to disappear from textbooks, until now, faceless, mindless copy editors sit in cubicles in the nation's textbook publishing companies, instructed by their supervisors to remove mere words that refer to family, to the Divine, and to any of the ancient ideas that have sustained intelligent discourse for centuries.
America now stands on the brink of plunging itself backward into the Old World ideas which preceded its almost-miraculous beginning when, as Jefferson described it, the "People" became "enlightened." In his June 1, 1795, letter to Tench Coxe, he said:
"This ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll round the globe, at least the enlightened part of it, for light & liberty go together. It is our glory that we first put it into motion, & our happiness that being foremost we had no bad examples to follow."
Why, in recent decades, have unenlightened men and women been attacking the principles essential to "light and liberty"?
Their ideas are self-serving, counterfeit and regressive--the same old ideas of darkness and tyranny from which hundreds of millions have fled as they approached America's shores.
Would suggest to any who wish an authentic history of the ideas underlying American's founding a visit to this web site, at which Richard Frothingham's outstanding 1872 "History of the Rise of the Republic of the United States" can be read on line.
This 600+-page history traces the ideas which gave birth to the American founding. Throughout, Richard Frothingham, the historian, develops the idea that it is "the Christian idea of man" which allowed the philosophy underlying the Declaration of Independence and Constitution to become a reality--an idea which recognizes the individual and the Source of his/her "Creator"-endowed life, liberty and law.
America now stands on the brink of plunging itself backward into the Old World ideas which preceded its almost-miraculous beginning when, as Jefferson described it, the "People" became "enlightened." In his June 1, 1795, letter to Tench Coxe, he said:
brought to mind something said by then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger who, in his capacity as Dean of the College of Cardinals, stated in his Pro Eligendo Homily just before the cardinals convened behind closed doors to select the next pope. In fact, I had a good sleep that night but at 3 am, sat bolt upright in bed and turned on EWTN's live broadcast of the mass, just as Cardinal Ratzinger delivered his homily. In it, referring to that day's reading from Ephesians 4, he stated:
Let us move on to the second reading, the letter to the Ephesians. Here we see essentially three aspects: first of all, the ministries and charisms in the Church as gifts of the Lord who rose and ascended into heaven; then, the maturing of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God as the condition and content of unity in the Body of Christ; and lastly, our common participation in the growth of the Body of Christ, that is, the transformation of the world into communion with the Lord.Let us dwell on only two points. The first is the journey towards "the maturity of Christ", as the Italian text says, simplifying it slightly. More precisely, in accordance with the Greek text, we should speak of the "measure of the fullness of Christ" that we are called to attain if we are to be true adults in the faith. We must not remain children in faith, in the condition of minors. And what does it mean to be children in faith? St Paul answers: it means being "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine" (Eph 4: 14). This description is very timely!
How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves - flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true.
You can read the entire homily here
Even then, in 2005, those winds were sweeping across our beloved country. That homily shook me to the core and when it was announced that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had been elected as pontiff, I immediately thanked God. Who better to guide the church than one with his hand on the pulse of the world's tribulations. In these subsequent years, we catholics have witnessed a pope who continues to beat the drum, warning us all of the dangers of secularism and all the other "isms" that plague our world. Today's homily continues that theme, while here in America, we continue to witness the moral and spiritual collapse of one of the greatest society's in contemporary times. I consider myself most blessed to have been educated in the 50's and early 60's when faith was still a part of our American culture. The pain comes from witnessing the slow but steady decline of moralism in our country. History teaches us that when you remove God from the culture of a nation, it collapses.
I like this message.
My parish pastor, would every Friday take it as his day off, but not Good Friday. Because of Good Friday, his “day off” will be tomorrow and also the parish secretary, because she would be with her husband, coming home from VA after seeing relitives, the parish office will be “closed”. Holy Week, although special, is still after it is all said and done, still very tiring.
Isn’t this Castro’s buddy?
If I were Catholic I would be calling for a regime change, but I’m not so I will but out.
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it happened. And it is to believed for that reason. One needn't be a Christian to believe a certain fact about Christ.
and entirely predictable.
it happened. And it is to believed for that reason. One needn’t be a Christian to believe a certain fact about Christ.
Beyond the Christian faith, there are no other religions that believe in the Resurrection. If they did, that would make them Christians.
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