This dear Cardinal needs our prayers too, as we pray with the Fatima network tomorrow, (6 AM (CST)).
Like us, his poor head must also be spinning to be so marginalized, treated as an outsider in a Church gone mad at the top, at least in the halls of influence.
It is nearly impossible to recognize the Catholic Church from the denominations, on Sunday morning, but many of the seat warmers seem pleased with the minimization of the Mass, the prayers, the artless, the architectureless, stadium lights and etc., etc., etc.
It would seem the whole world has gone mad. Thankfully. it must be part of his design, that the chaff may fall away. Pray for God’s will to be done.
I’ve recently started attending a local parish after going to a Baptist church for many years. The pastor at my old church had ambitions at one time of turning it into a megachurch with lots of contemporary worship bells and whistles.
I’m dismayed that the services seem so similar.
I just started the RCIA process and I’m already afraid I might have to go back to square one at a traditional parish.
I must respectfully disagree with some of my FReeper Catholic colleagues here and here’s why.
The Samaritan Woman At The Well
An Interpretation that Supports Communion For Divorced Catholics
The event that took place between Jesus and the woman at the well is one of the most beautiful of one-on-one Divine encounters. Christ makes no mention here of reproach for her fornication and yet allows her to commune with Him and indeed invites her lover to share the Living Water.
“But the water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.”
The woman says to Jesus “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst nor come here to draw.”
John’s narrative speaks of the woman going to the well at mid-day. This is crucial since temps at this time are well over the 100 degree mark. Why did she go at mid-day? Because most folks would draw their water during the early morning or late evening hours when it’s reasonably cool to make the trek to the well. Since her reputation about town was well known she wanted to avoid the townsfolk who would shy away from her had she gone to draw water the same time as others did, and have to put up with their whispering gossip. Apparently she goes to the well at mid-day because in the past she has encountered no one.
This is why she was surprised to see a man (Christ); a Jew; and one would be willing to ask her for a sip of water; and use her water cup. But after the encounter with Christ, John adds the evangelizing issue, of how she no longer felt disgraced and humiliated by her past even while she was still living unmarried with a man. The Divine encounter at the well changed her, completely.
Isn’t this what communion is all about? The Divine reception that changes everything. It’s not what we have done or what we do, but rather what we become is what attests to the fruits of the Divine encounter.
So why divorced Catholics should be excluded from the Divine encounter (Communion) is puzzling? You can now see why German Archbishop Heiner Koch would offer his rebuke to the exegetical musings of the hardliners.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/10/09/3711337/german-archbishop-reconsider-divorce/
It won’t be unusual if Pope Francis accepts a minority report recommending communion to divorced Catholics following a period of contrition. Didn’t Paul VI accept a minority report on the prohibition of birth control?
Dr. Ambrosia explains below on how the Divine encounter with the much married woman at the well not only changed her but perhaps a whole town.