Real Catholic Blog

We’ve followed two events this week: The March For Life and the Week of Christian Unity. Here is a report on Pope Benedict’s celebration of Vespers of the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul Apostle, on January 25th in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. According to the Vatican’s news service:

Recalling in his homily the theme for this year’s week of prayer — You are witnesses of these things (Luke 24:48) — the Holy Father said that the communion and unity of Christ’s disciples are elements of singular importance for a credible and effective proclamation of the Gospel. 

Pope Benedict: “May we all be one so that the world may believe.”

Last night I watched some of Father Corapi on EWTN, a good way to wind down the night after a hectic weekend (which included harrasment by pro-abortionists at a prayer vigil in front of an abortion center). At Mass that morning, the celebrant gave an uncompromising homily on life, the unborn and marriage. Refreshing stuff for the soul and Father Corapi was a great bookend to the day.

At one point in his homily, he offered a well known quote by G.K. Chesterton (see The American Chesterton), the great and prolific English writer who converted to Catholicism in the early 20th century. It deserves repeating in this age of rationalization and the dictatorship of relativism. It’s something that would stupify the pro-abortionists who mocked those at the pray vigil. 

The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.

As with most things worthy of a life well lived, of giving more than receiving, of a live above self, it is not easy. That’s why, as a deacon told me recently, we have a narrow gate. Others may have a wide gate. Who wants to find where Jesus taught the path to Heavenly Salvation was one traversed with ease and without care?

As Chesterton wrote in “Why I Am A Catholic:”

In short, I would say chiefly of the Catholic Church that it is catholic. I would rather try to suggest that it is not only larger than me, but larger than anything in the world; that it is indeed larger than the world. But since in this short space I can only take a section, I will consider it in its capacity of a guardian of the truth. …

There is no end to the dissolution of ideas, the destruction of all tests of truth, that has become possible since men abandoned the attempt to keep a central and civilized Truth, to contain all truths and trace out and refute all errors. Since then, each group has taken one truth at a time and spent the time in turning it into a falsehood. We have had nothing but movements; or in other words, monomanias. But the Church is not a movement but a meeting-place; the trysting-place of all the truths in the world.

View this new video from CatholicVoteAction.org, the new sister organization of CatholicVote.org, which is known for its world class videos and television ads on important public policy issues and how they affect Catholic teaching. I’ll have more comment this week on the two organizations.

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From StMaron.org

The Maronite Liturgy

The Maronite Liturgy is called Service of the Holy Mysteries and derives from the Syriac :.ministering at the altar”. Liturgy, Qourbono and other words are used.

The entire liturgy (prayers, gestures, music, art, and architecture) reflects from beginning to end, glory to God for His loving mercy and the call of the worshipper to forgiveness and rebirth.

The attitude of the Maronite worshiper is unworthiness of and readiness for the second coming of the Lord Jesus. “Blessed is he who has come and will come in the name of the Lord” (Maronite Liturgy).

The believer is likened to a ship opening its sails to the Holy Spirit and making its maiden voyage home to the harbor of safety.

The Holy Spirit is the principal minister in the liturgy. He is the beginning, the end and the perfection of all things.

The Service of the Holy Mysteries develops three themes: 1) humanity’s creation in God’s image; 2)deep awareness of God’s mercy toward sinful people; 3) joyful praise of the Trinity.

The tone of the service is simple and direct in the monastic spirit of its founder, St. Maron. A balance is achieved between the hiddenness and presence of God in Jesus.

The worshiper becomes involves in a human-divine drama which unfolds before and within him and makes once a sharer in the Kingdom. The Mysteries/Sacraments become the meeting point for the believer and God.

The communal aspect of worship is emphasized by the fact that the community is absorbed in a continuous dialogue with the celebrant who mediates on behalf of Christ the High Priest, and the deacon who serves an instructing and coordinating role.

reprinted with permission from “Being A Maronite Catholic” by Msgr. Ronald Beshara