The Building of a Civilization of Love

The third area of commitment that comes with love is that of daily life with its multiple relationships. I am particularly referring to family, studies, work and free time. Dear young friends, cultivate your talents, not only to obtain a social position, but also to help others to “grow”. Develop your capacities, not only in order to become more “competitive” and “productive”, but to be “witnesses of charity”. In addition to your professional training, also make an effort to acquire religious knowledge that will help you to carry out your mission in a responsible way. In particular, I invite you to carefully study the social doctrine of the Church so that its principles may inspire and guide your action in the world. May the Holy Spirit make you creative in charity, persevering in your commitments, and brave in your initiatives, so that you will be able to offer your contribution to the building up of the “civilisation of love”. The horizon of love is truly boundless: it is the whole world!

- Pope Benedict XVI, WYD 2007 MESSAGE, Growing in love each day


3:12. Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect: but I follow after, if I may by any means apprehend, wherein I am also apprehended by Christ Jesus.
3:13. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do: Forgetting the things that are behind and stretching forth myself to those that are before,
3:14. I press towards the mark, to the prize of the supernal vocation of God in Christ Jesus.


-St. Paul to Philippians

Sunday, June 24, 2007

HOLY GOD, WE PRAISE THY NAME

I just feel like sharing the beautiful song of the Divine Praises.


HOLY GOD, WE PRAISE THY NAME

Holy God, we praise Thy Name!
Lord of all, we bow before Thee!
All on earth Thy scepter claim,
All in heaven above adore Thee:
Infinite Thy vast domain,
Everlasting is Thy reign.
Infinite Thy vast domain,
Everlasting is Thy reign.

Hark! the loud celestial hymn,
Angel choirs above are raising!
Cherubim and Seraphim,
In unceasing chorus praising:
Fill the heavens with sweet accord,
Holy! Holy! Holy Lord!
Fill the heavens with sweet accord,
Holy! Holy! Holy Lord!


The following short video provide the melodie together with comments about the Eucharistic Adoration and the Holy Hour.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Sunday, June 10, 2007

“The Spirit of truth … will guide you to all truth.”

The Focolare World of Life of June guides us in a meditation about the mystery of Truth. Always inspiring and conforting:

The Gospel attracts people with its words of truth. In it,
the one who said, “I am the Truth” (Jn 13:6), speaks to us. He opens before us
the infinite mystery of God and makes us understand his plan of love for
humanity: his gift is the Truth.But the Truth has the infinite depth of mystery.
How can we understand and live it fully? Jesus himself knows that we are not
able to bear its “weight.” This is why during his last supper with his
disciples, before returning to the Father, he promised to send his own Spirit so
that he would be the one to explain his words to us and help us live them out.

«The Spirit of truth … will guide you to all truth»


The community of
believers knows the truth because they live with Jesus. At the same time, they
are also on a journey toward “the fullness of truth,” under the sure guidance of
the Spirit.The history of the Church can be read as the history of the gradual
and increasingly deeper understanding of the mystery of Jesus and his Word. The
Spirit leads it along this journey in many ways: “through the contemplation and
study of believers,” through the charisms of saints, through the Teaching of the
Church (See Dei Verbum, 8).The Spirit also speaks in the hearts of all
believers, where he dwells, making his voice heard. Time after time, he suggests
that we forgive, serve, give and love. He instructs us on what is good and what
is evil. He reminds us to live the Word of Life that the Gospel sows in us month
after month......


Continue the reading here.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Love and Responsability

An excellent 32 page document on a JP II info web site. Here are some of the highlighted quotes in the document:

  • “Man must reconcile himself to his natural greatness....he must not forget that he is a person” — Pope John Paul II

  • Any one who treats a person as the means to an end does violence to the very essence of the other

  • The paternalistic norm: the person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love

  • The sexual urge...is a natural drive born in all human beings, a vector of aspiration along which their whole existence develops

  • To be able to rely on another person, to think of that person as a friend who will never prove false, is for the person who loves a source of peace and joy

  • If love remains mere sentiment it will equally be unlike love in the complete sense of the word

  • The fundamental ethical characteristic of love: it is an affirmation of the person or else it is not love at all

  • “Don’t be afraid to do what is necessary to make love happen, to be people of affirmation”

  • The unification of the two persons must first be achieved by way of love, and sexual relations between them can only be the expression of a unification already complete

  • From the desire for the‘unlimited’ good of another ‘I’ springs the whole creative drive of true love — the drive to endow beloved persons with the good

  • The essence of chastity consists in quickness to affirm the value of the person in every situation

  • Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of truelove

  • Control of concupiscence has as its objective not only the perfection of the person who attempts to achieve it, but...the realization of love in the world of persons

  • Continence is a condition of love,the only attitude towards a partner in marriage, and particularly towards a wife, compatible with affirmation of the value of the person

  • Genuine human love, love ‘for’ a person,and love ‘between’ persons, must combine two elements: tenderness and a certain firmness

  • A ‘marital’ sexual relationship outside the framework of marriage is always objectively a wrong done to the woman

  • Willing acceptance of parenthood serves to break down...reciprocal egoism

  • Willingness for parenthood is an indispensable condition of love

  • “Love cannot be irresponsible”Responsible parenthood is the necessary condition for human love, and it is also the necessary condition for authentic conjugal love, because love cannot be irresponsible. Its beauty is the fruit of responsibility. When love is truly responsible, it is also truly free.— From “Crossing the Threshold of Hope,” by Pope John Paul II, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1994

  • Continence is a condition of love, the only attitude towards a partner in marriage, and particularly towards a wife, compatible with affirmation of the value of the person

  • That man can give life to a being in his own likeness makes plain his intrinsic value

  • Any attempt to diminish human beings by...denying the central social importance of maternity and paternity is incompatible with the natural development of man

  • Love should help one to understand and to feel for a human being... The man must reckon with the fact that the woman is in a sense in another world, unlike himself not only in the physiological but also in the psychological sense

  • The indispensible requirement of correct behavior and health is training from childhood upwards in truth and in reverence for sex

Monday, June 4, 2007

Faith in the Triune God

On the occasion of the Feast of Most Holy Trinity I would like to propose this reflection given about the Triune God in 2004. It concludes with a point on Lublev Icon:

God is One and Three: he is not an eternal solitude; rather, he is an
eternal love that is based on the reciprocity of the Persons, a love that is the
first cause, the origin, and the foundation of all being and of every form of
life. Unity engendered by love, trinitarian unity, is a unity infinitely more profound
than the unity of a building stone, indivisible as that may be from a material
perspective.This supreme unity is not rigidly static; it is love. The most
beautiful artistic depiction of this mystery was left to us by Andrei Rublev in
the fifteenth century: the world-renowned icon of the Trinity. Of course, it
does not portray the eternal mystery of God in himself, who would dare to do
that? It attempts, rather, to represent this mystery as it is reflected in the
gift of itself in history, as in the visit of the three men to Abraham by the
oaks of Mamre (Gen 18:1-33). Abraham immediately recognized that they were not
just like any other men, but that God himself was coming to him through them.In
Rublev's icon, the mystery of this event is made visible, presented as an event
that can be contemplated in its many dimensions: thus the mystery as such is
respected. The artistic richness of this icon allows me to underscore another
characteristic: the natural surroundings of this event, which express the
mystery of the Persons. We are near the oaks of Mamre, which Rublev depicts in
stylized form as a single tree representing the tree of life; and this tree of
life is none other than the trinitarian love that created the world, sustains
it, saves it, and is the source of all life. We see also the tent, the dwelling
of Abraham, which recalls the Prologue of John's Gospel: "And the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:14).The body of the incarnate Word of God became
itself the tent, the place where God dwells: God becomes our refuge and our
dwelling place. Finally, the gift that Abraham offers, "a calf, tender and
good", is replaced, in the icon, with a cup, a symbol of the Eucharist, a sign
of the gift in which God gives himself: "Love, sacrifice, and self-immolation
preceded the act by which the world was created and are the source of that
creation." [1] The tree, the tent, and the cup: these elements show us the
mystery of God, allow us to immerse ourselves in the contemplation of its
intimate depths, in his trinitarian love. This is the God that we celebrate.
This is the God who gives us joy. He is the true hope of our world. Amen.