21st Century Catholic

Benedict XVI: Angelus of Sunday 15 January 2012

2012-01-16T06:44:00.001-08:00

During today's Angelus address, the Holy Father reflected on the readings for the second Sunday in Ordinary Time, focussing on the theme of vocation. He spoke about the call of the Prophet Samuel in the first reading, and the call of the first disciples of Jesus in the Gospel. "Both of these stories," he said, "emphasize the role of the person who plays the role of the mediator, helping those who are called to recognise the voice of God, and to follow it." With that thought in mind, he emphasized the "the critical role of a spiritual guide in the journey of faith and, in particular, in responding to a religious vocation in the service of God and his people." The Pope recalled that a vocation often comes from the witness and suggestion of a spiritual "older brother" who is often a priest… without forgetting the fundamental role of parents, whose joyful and authentic faith, and whose conjugal love, show their children that building one's life on the love of God is both beautiful, and possible." And he prayed that all educators, but especially priests and parents, should have a deep understanding of the importance of their spiritual role in helping young people not only to grow and thrive, but to respond to the call of God. After the Angelus, Pope Benedict noted that today is the World Day of Migrants and refugees. He recalled the millions of refugees, men, women and children, the young and the old, who are searching for a place where they can live in peace. And he reminded the faithful that the theme of the Day – "Migration and the New Evangelisation" – means that migrants are not only the recipients of the New Evangelisation, but are also witnesses of the Gospel in the contemporary world. The Holy Father then greeted the representatives of the migrant community in Rome, who were present in St. Peter's Square. Finally, the Pope looked ahead to the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which begins this Wednesday, January 18th, and continues through to the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on January 25th. He called on all the faithful to join together to pray to God for the gift of full unity amongst all the disciples of Christ. As he concluded his Angelus, the Holy Father greeted pilgrims from around the world, included English-speaking pilgrims and visitors, and offered them his blessing. Listen: 00:03:17:14

Title	Benedict XVI: Angelus of Sunday 15 January 2012
Author	webteam@vaticanradio.org
Published	January 15, 2012 12:24 PM
Genre	Religion & Spirituality › Christianity
	News & Politics
	Society & Culture
Language	English
Copyright	2005 Vatican Radio. All rights reserved.
Owner	Vatican Radio
Duration	197 min
File	3.01 mb

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Pope Benedict: Eucharist supreme prayer of Christ's Church

2012-01-12T04:43:00.000-08:00

Thousands of pilgrims gathered in Paul VI Hall on Wednesday for Pope Benedict XVI's weekly General Audience, during which the Holy Father continued his catechesis on Christian prayer, with a reflection on the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, when our Lord instituted the Eucharist, the sacrament of his Body and Blood. "Jesus' gift of himself anticipates his sacrifice on the Cross and his glorious Resurrection," said Pope Benedict. The Eucharist is the supreme prayer of Jesus and of his Church. At the Last Supper, with its overtones of the Passover and the commemoration of Israel's liberation, Jesus' prayer echoes the Hebrew berakah, which includes both thanksgiving and the gift of a blessing. His act of breaking the bread and offering the cup on the night before he died becomes the sign of his redemptive self-oblation in obedience to the Father's will: he thus appears as the true paschal lamb who brings the ancient worship to fulfilment. The Holy Father noted that Jesus' prayer also invokes strength for his disciples, especially Peter. May our celebration of the Eucharist, in obedience to Christ's command, unite us more deeply to his prayer at the Last Supper and enable us, in union with him, to offer our lives ever more fully in sacrifice to the Father. After the main catechesis, the Holy Father had greetings for pilgrims in many languages, including English: I greet the many school groups from the United States present at today's Audience, including the deacons from Saint Paul's Seminary in Minnesota. My greeting also goes to the students of Carmel College in New Zealand. I welcome the participants in the Interfaith Journey from Canada. Upon all the English-speaking visitors and their families I cordially invoke God's abundant blessings! Among the Holy Father's special guests at Wednesday's audience were representatives from the zoological garden of the city of Rome, which is celebrating its hundredth anniversary. With the zoo representatives was an exemplar of an extremely rare and critically endangered species of Cuban crocodile: cocodrylus rhombifer, which survives only in a tiny portion of protected wetland on the island. The animal had been in the care of experts at the Roman BioPark, and, having returned to robust health, will return to his native country – in a singular coincidence, as a press release from the BioPark and the Press Office of the Holy See calls it – when the Holy Father travels to Cuba later this year. Listen 00:02:46:49

Title	Pope Benedict: Eucharist supreme prayer of Christ's Church
Author	webteam@vaticanradio.org
Published	January 11, 2012 6:18 AM
Genre	Religion & Spirituality › Christianity
	News & Politics
	Society & Culture
Language	English
Copyright	2005 Vatican Radio. All rights reserved.
Owner	Vatican Radio
Duration	166 min
File	1.46 mb

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CDF issues Year of Faith Note

2012-01-11T15:31:00.000-08:00

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a Note today offering practical suggestions for making the most of the upcoming Year of Faith. The Note contains more than 3 dozen concrete proposals on all levels of the life of the Church, from the Universal, to the Bishops' Conferences, to individual Dioceses, and within these, to Communities, Associations and Movements, involving initiatives aimed at fostering Christian unity, to faith formation and renewal, and especially evangelization. Fr. Hermann Geissler is responsible for the Doctrinal Office at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He says the purpose of the Note is threefold: the first is to help the faithful to rediscover the nucleus of the faith, the foundation of the faith, which is the personal encounter with Christ, the personal encounter with the Lord who loves us, sustains us, forgives us, encourages us and shows us a great future… The second is that of helping the faithful to rediscover the meaning, and the documents of the II Vatican Council. "Many people talk about Vatican II," says Fr. Geissler, "but when we really begin to get into it, we discover that only a very few people are really familiar with the texts of this great and most recent Council." Finally, the note has the purpose of helping the faithful throughout the whole year to rediscover the integrity of the faith in all its beauty. "For this," says Fr. Greissler, "the Catechism of the Catholic Church can be of great help to us." In fact, the 20th anniversary of the completion of the Catechism and the 50th anniversary of the opening of the II Vatican Council are focal points of the Year of Faith, which begins a half-century to the day from the Council's opening. Following the Holy Father's Apostolic Letter Porta fidei with which he proclaimed the Year of Faith, the Note recalls that the Catechism is an authentic fruit of the Council and an integral part of the "renewal in continuity" with the Church's ancient and changeless Tradition of which the Conciliar documents are a most authoritative expression. The Note expresses the hopeful intention of making the Year of Faith a propitious occasion to make the II Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church more widely and more deeply known. Listen to Chris Altieri's report 00:02:48:26

Title	CDF issues Year of Faith Note
Author	webteam@vaticanradio.org
Published	January 7, 2012 8:48 AM
Genre	Religion & Spirituality › Christianity
	News & Politics
	Society & Culture
Language	English
Copyright	2005 Vatican Radio. All rights reserved.
Owner	Vatican Radio
Duration	168 min
File	1.46 mb

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National Vocations Awareness Week begins in U.S.

2012-01-11T15:28:00.000-08:00

On Monday, the Catholic Church in the United States begins its observance of National Vocation Awareness Week. The week is dedicated to promoting vocations to the priesthood, diaconate, and consecrated life through prayer and education; and to renewing prayers and support for those who are considering one of those vocations. "The purpose [of National Vocation Awareness Week] is to highlight the various vocations in the Church, priests, different forms of consecrated life, and the permanent diaconate," said Father Shawn McKnight, executive director of the USCCB's Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations. "So we provide materials that assist parents and parishioners and priests in parishes, as well as religious, the means to engage young people to think about discerning a vocation to religious life, to the priesthood or to the diaconate." Father McKnight said they have seen an increase in vocations. "We've seen an uptick in the number of both consecrated vocations as well as priesthood, and the same is true of the permanent diaconate. It's a growing pool of clergy within our Church, as their ministry is needed more and more, and recognised more and more throughout our country." Sr. Mary Joanna Ruhland is the associate director of the committee. She said vocations in consecrated life are also picking up, "particularly in those forms of consecrated life that are faithful to the teachings of the Church on their particular forms of consecrated life… When you see a particular fidelity, you see a flourishing within those forms." National Vocations Awareness Week begins on January 9, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, and runs through January 14. Listen to the complete interview of Father Shawn McKnight and Sister Mary Joanna Ruhland with Christopher Wells: 00:07:03:86

Title	National Vocations Awareness Week begins in U.S.
Author	webteam@vaticanradio.org
Published	January 7, 2012 8:09 AM
Genre	Religion & Spirituality › Christianity
	News & Politics
	Society & Culture
Language	English
Copyright	2005 Vatican Radio. All rights reserved.
Owner	Vatican Radio
Duration	424 min
File	1.46 mb

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Vatican radio news Jan 11

2012-01-11T14:41:00.000-08:00

English world news at 18,15

Title	news at 18,15
Author	Vatican Radio
Published	January 11, 2012 6:01 AM
Language	English
Copyright	2011- Radio Vaticana
Owner	Radio Vaticana
Duration	14 min
File	6.41 mb

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news at 18,15

2012-01-05T14:08:00.001-08:00

English world news at 18,15

Title	news at 18,15
Author	Vatican Radio
Published	January 5, 2012 6:01 AM
Language	English
Copyright	2011- Radio Vaticana
Owner	Radio Vaticana
File	6.41 mb

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The Vatican announces new Web sites for John Paul 2

2011-03-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

A Facebook page and a YouTube page have been added by the Vatican to honor the memory of Pope John Paul II and to prepare for the May celebration.

New technlogy experiment

2010-08-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

An experiment with AudioBoo

2010-03-26T05:33:00.000-07:00

As reported yesterday in SDR News, the Catholic University of the Low Countries has come up with Mind Speller, which converts brain signals into words and sentences.

The instrument, no bigger than a matchbox, was developed by the microelectronics laboratory Imec and is connected to a type of shower cap containing electrodes. These electrodes register the electrical activity of the brain and the signals captured by the instrument can be transferred to a computer by USB stick and decoded using a specially-developed program.

"The Mind Speller is a generic device that can be easily adjusted to different users. Therefore, it could be a cost-efficient communication solution for people with temporal impairments for whom the existing solutions are too expensive. Moreover, the Mind Speller may help those patients that are not helped with the existing devices driven by motor activity, as the Mind Speller is based on a different principle, using P300 EEG potentials to read people's thoughts," said Professor Van Hulle.

K.U.Leuven is the oldest Catholic University in the world and the oldest university in the Low Countries.

2010-03-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

A new item for the iPod is the now free iBreviary. The app not only includes the Breviary, available in many languages, but also contains Mass readings and many prayers.

The Breviary, sometimes called the Liturgy of the Hours, is a collection of Catholic prayers to be recited daily.

It was $.99, but as the Word is priceless get the app now, at its new price, FREE.

Follow the Vatican on Facebook from your iPhone

2009-05-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

The Vatican continues to remain at the leading edge of all media with the addition of a Facebook application to spread the Word. For the 43rd World Communications Day a new web site has been published. This site is a central location for the new Facebook and iPhone Apps, YouTube channel and Wiki. Pope Benedict XVI has added these tools to assist in the New Evangelization.

So in addition to print and broadcast, the Pope has joined the U.S. Bishops on Twitter in addition to many other Catholic new media outlets. The Holy Spirit is calling from many places. We need only have ears to hear (Mark 4:9) or a browser, to get the message from the Holy spirit.

Discover the hidden Catholic secrets in popular movies

2009-05-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

Today’s hit movies often contain Catholic themes and messages. By developing universal themes, the stories can parallel tales from the Bible and other Christian writings. A good source for uncovering these hidden messages are the “Secrets of…” series at the Star Quest Production Network. The latest movie to have its secrets revealed is ‘Angels & Demons’ based on the Dan Br own book. (Purchase the book series)

Th e Secrets of… series includes Narnia, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Harry Potter many more.

For traditional movie reviews, connect to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting. But do listen to the latest “Secrets of Angels and Demons" recorded on location in Rome, about Angels and Demons or subscribe to the series, for free, from iTunes. Search for SQPN. plus

Prayer when Gmail is down

2009-05-09T07:21:00.000-07:00

By Fr. Roderick • May 8, 2009

Sometimes we are faced with a sudden outage of Gmail and other Google services. A disaster when you ‘live’ in The Cloud. That is why I wrote this short prayer for help:

Dear God,

You created clouds

to liven up the skies

Man created cloud computing

but it sometimes dies

Gmail went off-line again,

I’m sure You heard our cries

Help us to stay calm and pray

that it will soon reprise.

Thanks in advance,

Fr. Roderick

P.S. God, before I forget: if you need to reach me, don’t use Gmail - try Twitter (and save us from the fail whale!)