Well, as promised, the encyclical on faith, which was written partly by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI and partly by Pope Francis, has been released (or published, or promulgated - whatever it is called).
I (obviously) haven't read the entire thing yet, but I did see this great quote:
Talking about how in modern times Faith has been relegated to a lesser status than say science, or rational knowledge, and how people see it as soft or subjective (those are my own words - obviously read what the Pope actually wrote...):
"There is an urgent need, then, to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. The light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God. Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfilment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us. Faith, received from God as a supernatural gift, becomes a light for our way, guiding our journey through time."
Pope Francis today said to the members of the XIII Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops that he would finish the post-synodal exhortation on the new evangelization in time for the end of the year of faith (fall 2013). He also announced that he was finishing work on the Encyclical on Faith, of which he said (probably a translation): "It’s a strong document. I will say in it that I received it and most of the work was done by him and I completed it."
So there is your Catholic news bit of the day. I eagerly await both documents - faith and New Evangelization - they should be awesome. The Encyclical should come out before (I don't know exactly when) the exhortation, which should come out in October.
Still slogging my way through Spanish... I don't know who coined the term summer vacation, because my summer doesn't look too much like vacation... :-)
I hope these recap things aren't getting boring. I'm trying to give you guys a picture of what happens in seminary, and this is the easiest way to do that. The blogs on spiritual-type stuff take longer to put together because they generally require at least a little bit of research. I have some good ideas for this type of article, but haven't finished any yet. Anyway, this weekend has been quite fun!
Yesterday the sophomore service group (the sophomore seminarians, myself, and a guy who will be entering Bruté in the fall) got up for an early Mass (7 AM vs. the normal 9:30), graciously said by Fr. Bob. Then we quickly changed and slammed down a few donuts (which were a nice start to the day!) before heading over to the Indianapolis St. Vincent de Paul Society around 8:00 AM. The first part of the day was a program called beggars for the poor. This entailed packing a truck full of food and clothes and then distributing them to the homeless in downtown Indianapolis. We probably worked for about 30 minutes carrying around crates of soda, sorting/folding clothes, and getting stuff on the truck.
Around 9:00 AM we got to the parking lot where the beggars for the poor program happens. By the time we got there, there were already some people set-up and already a good number of homeless people waiting. Last time we did this (last semester), I was on the food line and handed out buns for the chili dogs. This time I wondered the crowd, talking a little bit with the people and giving away small food things. I first gave away bags of different kinds of nuts (salted/honey-roasted peanuts, and cashews) - those were easy to get rid of. Then I tried my luck at the orange-cracker-peanut-butter-thingies, which fewer people wanted, but I eventually gave away all of them. Then I gave away these bracelets that we had (the rubbery kind) that said "Mother Mary Pray for Us". I thought it would be all but impossible to give them away, but that was not the case. I don't know if the people just liked bracelets, liked the phrase on them, or whatever, but they went like hot-cakes (actually, that's a pretty bad analogy because the cornbread muffin things - basically hot-cakes - were impossible to get rid of). One guys actually took about 10 of the bracelets and said that he would give them out to his friends! Anyway, around 10:30 or so we finished giving out the food/clothes and the crowd was beginning to disperse. We chatted with a few of the people left, heard their stories, and then headed back to the St. Vincent De Paul Center.
For the next hour maybe we helped out in the back of the center sorting, folding, and hanging clothes that they would give out over the week. All the people were really joyful and enthusiastic about what they were doing. They were also very happy to see the 9 of us helping out (they usually have 2, so we sped up the process a lot). After we finished everything they had for us to do, we went over to Hardees and got some lunch. I got the $5 bag lunch, which came with 2 burgers, fries, a cookie, and a drink - I usually wouldn't have ordered that much, but all the other meals were $5+ and only came with one burger, and I couldn't pass up the good deal. (It was pretty good, and I think I burned it off as you will soon see...)
After lunch we headed back to the St. Vincent De Paul. It is located in this pretty cool old building, and we now headed back to where the loading docks were. There were several big rooms attached to this area with different assorted stuff in each - one had fridges, one stoves, one couches, one tables, etc. There was a mix of different stuff we did here; some involved unloading trucks of stuff and organizing it among the different rooms, and the other major work we did was taking stuff from the different areas and loading it up in people's cars (who need it). We had a blast doing it all, like the Beggars for the Poor program, it really felt like we were helping these people. Plus, whenever there weren't trucks to be unloaded, or vans/cars to be loaded, we enjoyed checking out the many different pieces of furniture We found folding rocking chairs (cool), a massive couch (literally, a foot bigger on every side than a normal couch!), a super-comfy recliner (I almost fell asleep in it), and a rocking lazy-boy (yeah, pretty awesome). Let's just say that we had a great time! (we finished around 2:45 PM)
Saturday afternoon, after returning from the sophomore service stuff, I worked on the Shakespeare paper of doom. OK, so it's not that bad, but I spent hours watching plays on YouTube while reading/making notes in the book. I finally took a break and said Evening Prayer, it was so peaceful in the chapel, and while praying about it I finally got an idea for a thesis of my paper (prayer works folks!, I had been wrestling with that for days...). Anyway, I got a few paragraphs assembled and then was pretty tired of Shakespeare, so I went out with a few guys to get some food. We went to a place called Nick's Chili, which had a great selection of different chili-related food (chili, cool hot-dogs, burgers, fries...). I ended up going with the 5-way chili (I guess it's called "5-way" because it has chili, beans, noodles, cheese, and onions). It was fantastic! Totally recommended! I don't remember anything all that awesome happening Saturday evening, I guess I just hanged out with the guys, but I got to bed at a reasonable time (10 PM-ish).
This morning, we didn't run because one of the guys wasn't available, so I got to sleep in until 8:30 (It was wonderful). Mass was great, I was concentrating relatively well, and the songs that Daniel chose were awesome (it included my all time favorite "Jesus Christ is Risen Today!"). After Mass the Frisbee game that was supposed to be played today (at Marian) was rained out, so I just hung out until lunch. Today it was done by the Bruns family (Corey is one of the bloggers I mentioned before); they made shrimp and chicken Alfredo (fantastic), Caesar salad (my favorite), fruit salad (wonderful), and two kinds of desserts: fruit and chocolate trifles (you know the kind where there is pudding/whipped cream/fruit/whatever else all in a bowl - yeah these were spectacular). Better yet, there is a ton of leftovers, so tomorrow's dinner will be just as good.
After lunch about a dozen of us went out behind Bruté and played ultimate Frisbee for about an hour and a half. It was a blast! Not only was it a ton of fun, but I felt great the entire time. All the running that I have been doing has given me a ton more stamina than I had before. I didn't feel incredibly tired at any point. Corey took some pictures which I embedded below. Anyway, after that, I said mid-day prayer, took a shower, and then had dinner. Today was one of the few days where we actually had 2 community dinners (in one day), which was absolutely fantastic. For dinner the Stenges cooked (Anthony is a wonderful cook and apparently it runs in the family because their dinner was phenomenal). They had Caesar salad (twice in one day - yeah!), cheesy-hash-brown-bake-stuff (tasty), and pulled pork (anything with bbq sauce is like my favorite food, so this was awesome). Finally, for dessert they had apple crisp a-la-mode (it was fantabulous).
OK, well I guess I'll wrap this up (I've just about ran out of adjectives). After dinner I took a short nap and then went to the Holy Hour. We said the rosary as a community, I said Evening Prayer by myself, and then read some of Pope Emeritus Benedict's book, Jesus of Nazareth - Part 1. Let's just say that it was superb. I'll end with an excerpt: (page 129, chapter 5) -
The other false form of prayer the Lord warns us against is the chatter, the verbiage, that smothers the spirit. We are all familiar with the danger of reciting habitual formulas while our mind is somewhere else entirely. We are at our most attentive when we are driven by inmost need to ask God for something or are prompted by a joyful heart to thank him for good things that happened to us. Most importantly, though, our relationship to God should not be confined to such momentary situations but should be present as the bedrock of our soul. In order for that to happen, this relation has to be constantly related back to it. The more the depths of our souls are directed toward God, the better we will be able to pray. The more prayer is the foundation that upholds our entire existence, the more we will become men of peace. ... This orientation pervasively shaping our whole consciousness, this silent presence of God at the heart of our thinking, our meditation, and our being, is what we mean by "prayer without ceasing." This is ultimately what we mean by love of God, which is at the same time the condition and the driving force behind love of neighbor.
Fr. John Hollowell has a very good post on how there isn't some sort of feud between the way that Benedict XVI put an emphasis on beautiful, solemn, liturgies and Pope Francis's deciding to have the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord's Supper at a prison.
"What the world needs is BOTH big solemn Papal Masses in St. Peter's Basilica AND Papal Masses in prisons!"
"Our Popes have always been what we've needed. The people who always miss the party are the people who, like the crowds on Palm Sunday, had already decided ahead of time what kind of Messiah they wanted.
Have you decided, ahead of time, what type of Pope we need, or do you listen to the Pope's teaching, read his writings, and pray for him?"
I found the article quite enlightening to me, and maybe some of you will find the same. All popes in recent memory have led the church as best they could. Pope Francis will certainly continue this. I think the media is trying to find some sort of disconnect between these two popes - don't help them. Have a wonderful Holy Week folks - stay positive!
I thought this was just a fantastic picture. It really encapsulates the different emphasis (all of which, of course, are good) of our last few popes. I feel blessed to have lived at the same time as these truly holy men. Pray for the pope guys, he's got 7 billion souls on his hands...
Guess where the root of their virtue is (hint: what are they doing?)
"As you know, there are various reasons why I chose the name of Francis of Assisi, a familiar figure far beyond the borders of Italy and Europe, even among those who do not profess the Catholic faith. One of the first reasons was Francis’ love for the poor. How many poor people there still are in the world! And what great suffering they have to endure! After the example of Francis of Assisi, the Church in every corner of the globe has always tried to care for and look after those who suffer from want, and I think that in many of your countries you can attest to the generous activity of Christians who dedicate themselves to helping the sick, orphans, the homeless and all the marginalized, thus striving to make society more humane and more just. But there is another form of poverty! It is the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the “tyranny of relativism”, which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples. And that brings me to a second reason for my name. Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace. But there is no true peace without truth! There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth." [my emphasis]
I see a lot of people fighting against material poverty, and that is certainly important, but we cannot ignore spiritual poverty. Really, that is the bigger problem, the greater evil, the worse deprivation. As Christians we need to do both the corporal and the spiritual works of mercy. Doing the corporal works of mercy is easier, more rewarding, and a source of prestige. Feeding, clothing, healing; they are all things that people like to see others doing. The spiritual works of mercy, on the other hand, have few benefits (on earth); it's tough to forgive, to admonish, to pray. There aren't many people handing you Nobel prizes for praying or confronting people about their sins...
It's unfortunate, but people don't always search for the truth these days - the "dictatorship of relativism" as said by Pope Benedict Emeritus is a big problem in our world. Is there objective, always-true, truth? Or is the good, the beautiful, the right, the true, just what I want it to be? Pope Francis is saying that the antidote to poverty, and the precursor to peace, is accepting the truth.
We are coming up on Holy Week and this topic reminds me of Pilate's question to Jesus: "What is truth?" (John 18:38). Truth, folks, is the person standing before Pilate, Jesus Christ. His words directly before Pilate's question are "For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." (John 18:37) That is the mission of the Christian, to hear Christ's voice. Our world is full of noise and distraction, and especially during Lent we pray, fast, and give alms, to grow closer to God, to hear His voice, to know His truth, and thus, to proclaim it to the world. Welcome to the Church Militant folks!
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Well, as promised, the encyclical on faith, which was written partly by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI and partly by Pope Francis, has been released (or published, or promulgated - whatever it is called). 
