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Pope's Homily at Vigil in Preparation for Assisi "It Is Not the Sword of the Conqueror That Builds Peace, But the Sword of the Sufferer" VATICAN CITY, OCT. 26, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of the homily Benedict XVI gave today at a liturgy in preparation for Thursday's day of reflection, dialogue and prayer for peace in Assisi. The liturgy replaced the customary general audience held on Wednesdays. * * * Dear brothers and sisters, Today our customary meeting for the General Audience takes on a special character, for it is the vigil of the Day of Reflection, Dialogue...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Some 1,800 Franciscan friars from all over the world were expected to converge on the Umbrian hill town of Assisi, Italy, to celebrate the 800th anniversary of papal approval of the Franciscan rule. For the first time, representatives from the four main Franciscan branches were to meet in Assisi -- the birthplace of their founder, St. Francis -- to take part in an International Chapter of Mats April 15-18. A Chapter of Mats gets its name from the time in 1221 St. Francis called more than 3,000 friars to the Portiuncula chapel in Assisi for a...

SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) -- A rock-for-rock, stone-for-stone, fresco-for-fresco replica of St. Francis of Assisi's tiny Porziuncola church near Assisi, Italy, now graces a building adjoining the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in San Francisco. A Sept. 27 dedication of the structure will cap a nearly 15-month construction effort that has pulled together the efforts of a team of international artists, stone masons, metalsmiths, muralists, tile experts and others -- including students earning their master's degree of fine arts at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for...

Salvatore and Rosemary Mulia describe buying and renovating their Umbrian vacation home as a lark, as the most impulsive project they ever undertook, and as a labor of love.The Westport, Conn., couple transformed an idiosyncratic ruin of a church into a highly personalized, luxurious vacation home — remarkably without a hitch, at modest expense and without speaking the language. They encountered no bureaucratic or legal entanglements, no logistical issues, and no aesthetic compromises. The work began in November 1999 and was completed within a year, with the Mulias making only a handful of visits. “I have to say we didn’t...

October 4, 2006 Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi, religious Psalm: Wednesday 41 Reading 1Jb 9:1-12, 14-16 Job answered his friends and said: I know well that it is so;but how can a man be justified before God?Should one wish to contend with him,he could not answer him once in a thousand times.God is wise in heart and mighty in strength;who has withstood him and remained unscathed? He removes the mountains before they know it;he overturns them in his anger.He shakes the earth out of its place,and the pillars beneath it tremble.He commands the sun, and it rises not;he seals...

(Taken from the old Breviary) While the Mohammedans were besieging Assisi and trying to seize the monastery of St Clare, she desired, though sick, to be carried to the gate of the city, together with a vessel in which the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist was contained, and there she prayed: "Do not hand over to the beasts, O Lord, the souls confessing you, and guard your maid-servants, whom thou hast redeemed by thy Precious Blood!" At whose prayer, a great voice was heard: "I will always protect you!" Indeed part of the Musselmen betook themselves to flight while...

August 11, 2006 Memorial of Saint Clare of Assisi, virgin Psalm: Friday 33 Reading 1Na 2:1, 3; 3:1-3, 6-7 See, upon the mountains there advancesthe bearer of good news, announcing peace!Celebrate your feasts, O Judah,fulfill your vows!For nevermore shall you be invadedby the scoundrel; he is completely destroyed.The LORD will restore the vine of Jacob,the pride of Israel,Though ravagers have ravaged them and ruined the tendrils. Woe to the bloody city, all lies,full of plunder, whose looting never stops!The crack of the whip, the rumbling sounds of wheels;horses a-gallop, chariots bounding, Cavalry charging, the flame of the sword, the flash...

Assisi, Aug. 04, 2006 (CNA) - This Sunday Catholics can obtain the Portiuncula Indulgence by visiting any Franciscan parish or chapel around the world. In the summer of 1216 while praying in the Portiuncula chapel outside of Assisi, St. Francis was inspired to travel to Rome and ask the Pope for an unheard-of privilege: the granting of a plenary indulgence. Pope Honorius III granted the indulgence as a sign of the greatness of God’s love for humanity.  August 2nd was established as the date to receive the “Great Pardon of Assisi.”  Eventually, the Church modified the conditions and said the...

...In ''all initiatives with pastoral aspects," the Franciscans ''will have to request and obtain the consent" of Assisi's bishop, who will in turn ''hear the opinion" of the Umbria regional bishops conference and the Italian conference, Benedict's decree declared. The future papal delegate will ''perpetuate, with his moral authority, the close bonds of communion" between the Vatican and the sacred places in memory of Saint Francis.... Benedict's decree is a benchmark in the evolution of his seven-month-old papacy, many church observers say. So far, his reign has been an exercise in the tightening of practice to match church doctrine as...

Cimabue’s Assisi fresco reconstructed The painting was believed irreparable after the 1997 Umbrian earthquake. A remarkable new computer programme has helped conservators piece it back together Posted 23 November 2005 By Edek Osser and Emma Beatty The restored St Francis Basilica ASSISI. A fresco by Cimabue, believed destroyed in the 1997 earthquake, has been partially reconstructed from thousands of fragments. It is to be reinstalled in the Basilica of St Francis next March. The restoration is the last in an extraordinary eight-year conservation project co-ordinated by the regional government of Umbria and the State-run Istituto Centrale del Restauro in Rome,...

August 11, 2005Memorial of Saint Clare, virgin Psalm: Thursday 35 Reading IJos 3:7-10a, 11, 13-17 The LORD said to Joshua,"Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel,that they may know I am with you, as I was with Moses.Now command the priests carrying the ark of the covenantto come to a halt in the Jordanwhen you reach the edge of the waters." So Joshua said to the children of Israel,"Come here and listen to the words of the LORD, your God.This is how you will know that there is a living God in your midst,who...

Museums may not be the first places to spring to mind when it comes to the uptake of cutting-edge technology. But David Reid finds hi-tech is playing an important role in bringing history to life in Italy. The problem with Italy's antiquities and culture is that there is simply too much. How do you conserve ancient and priceless artefacts at the same time as letting people come and see them? Technology can help solve both problems. One of the most pivotal images of the Renaissance, Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper, is now so fragile that only a few people can...

To read this encyclical [Mortalium Animos] is to read a point-by-point condemnation of Assisi, and one gets the eerie feeling that Pope Pius XI was prophesying and simultaneously condemning with remarkable accuracy... One supreme pontiff engaged in an act that was explicitly and in all points condemned by a previous supreme pontiff...Pope Pius XI condemned Assisi before it even happened - and why did he condemn it? Because Assisi is one of those events that is "founded... on that false opinion," namely, the false opinion that all religions are "more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different...

October 4, 2004 Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi, religious Psalm: Monday 43 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading IGal 1:6-12 Brothers and sisters: I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel (not that there is another). But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed! As we...

August 11, 2004 Memorial of Saint Clare, virgin Psalm: Wednesday 35 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading IEz 9:1-7; 10:18-22 The LORD cried loud for me to hear: Come, you scourges of the city! With that I saw six men coming from the direction of the upper gate which faces the north, each with a destroying weapon in his hand. In their midst was a man dressed in linen, with a writer's case at his waist. They entered and stood beside the bronze altar. Then he called to the man dressed in linen with the writer's case at his...

HOT TOPICS: Consequences of Vatican II A Tango of Contradictory Statements around the Banjo Shrine Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D. Fatima authorities are dancing around many questions about the Fatima interfaith congress and shrine. Almost all of us know about the strange banjo-shaped Fatima Interfaith Shrine through a much publicized article by the Portugal News (1). Before that, an earlier article (2) in the same Portuguese weekly had already announced in detail the pan-religious conference that would be held in Fatima. At it the various confessions and sects were asked to "share" their traditions of "sanctuary," the congress theme. (3)...

+JMJ+ November 11, 2003 Dear Michael [Matt], Many thanks to you and to Chris Ferrara for the report ¡°Fatima Message and Shrine to be Desecrated¡± on The Remnant website. In your article you quote from a Fatima News article that cited ¡°an 800 page Italian study of the One World Religion movement, entitled La Faccia Occulta della Storia.¡± However, the information cited from this Faccia Occulta document contains a glaring piece of disinformation that should be corrected before it spreads further. Fatima News reported that the ¡°Assisi¡±-type meeting at Fatima in October was held ¡°under the auspices of the World...

The "Spirit of Assisi" vs. Saint Francis of Assisi John Vennari Published in Catholic Family News, April 2002 It is becoming increasingly obvious that within the Church since the Council we are now in the age of slogans: empty, meaningless slogans that really do not have much substance and that do not convey the true picture of what is actually being promoted. We are all familiar with the slogans: the promise of a “new springtime,” a “civilization of love,” a “new Pentecost,” and now, a novel orientation named “the spirit of Assisi” (1). (1) This short article is an excerpt...

October 4, 2003Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi, religious Psalm: Saturday 42 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading IBar 4:5-12, 27-29 Fear not, my people!Remember, Israel,You were sold to the nationsnot for your destruction;It was because you angered Godthat you were handed over to your foes.For you provoked your Makerwith sacrifices to demons, to no-gods;You forsook the Eternal God who nourished you,and you grieved Jerusalem who fostered you.She indeed saw coming upon youthe anger of God; and she said: "Hear, you neighbors of Zion!God has brought great mourning upon me,For I have seen the captivitythat the Eternal God has broughtupon...

Saint Francis of Assisi became known in the 13th Century for preaching the values of brotherly love and peace. When Christians throughout the world hear of Assisi, they think of this gentle saint. But his native village is currently the staging ground for something far more pernicious this year than urging to be faithful to a Christian God and his teachings. The Anti-Imperialist Camp is meeting in Assisi to spread the word among leftist revolutionaries and other extremists about how to bring about armed insurrection and terrorism. Guess what country and its allies that the attendees of this summer camp...