BISHOP OLMSTED

We come now to the sixth and final column of this series addressing the recent scandals that have so hurt the Church.

Can prayer change the direction of history? Are prayer and acts of penance capable of preventing nuclear annihilation? Can prayers and penance increase our freedom? “Yes, yes and yes.”

Today I wish to consider the shepherding work of priests, who, in spiritual guidance and in confession, seek to help others to encounter the Amoris Laetitia, the “Joy of Love.” Earlier this year, Pope Francis, who has made Confession a constant theme of his pontificate, wrote in his recent book, “The Name of God is Mercy,” “It is important that I go to Confession, that I sit in front of a priest who embodies Jesus, that I kneel before Mother Church, called to dispense the mercy of Christ. There is objectivity in this gesture of genuflection before the priest; it becomes the vehicle through which grace reaches and heals me.”

Anselm was chosen to lead the Church in England, at a time when King William Rufus wanted a weak archbishop in Canterbury, a man he could control and use for his own gain. Anselm, for his part, did not want to be a bishop; he begged not to be chosen, desiring to remain in his monastery in Bec, France where he was happily serving as abbot. But once chosen, Anselm threw himself mightily into the task and fought resolutely for religious freedom. He did this without failing to love the king but with love of God first: setting an example that would be imitated and carried forward by other English saints such as the martyrs Thomas Becket (a later successor in Canterbury), John Fisher and Thomas More.

¿Se puede cambiar la dirección de la historia por medio de la oración? ¿Se puede prevenir la aniquilación nuclear por medio de la oración y los actos de penitencia? ¿Puede aumentar nuestra libertad por medio de la oración y penitencia? “Sí, sí y sí”.

Es por providencia de Dios, que ahora tenemos, por primera vez en la historia, un Papa Jesuita. No ha de sorprender, entonces, que el Papa Francisco se sienta cerca a San Ignacio y que haya sido grandemente impactado por su vida y su enseñanza.

In the previous editions of The Catholic Sun, we spoke about the “scandal” of the Cross of Christ, which is no scandal at all but rather “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (Cf. 1 Cor 1:7ff) and, then, about true scandals that lead others to sin, that impede them from doing what is right and that place a stumbling block along the path to their eternal destiny in heaven. Now, let us turn our attention to the roots of scandal, and then to key ways to counteract scandal’s destructive impact.

El matrimonio de 73 años de mi padre y mi madre volvió al punto de partida hace varias semanas cuando mi mamá y el resto de nuestra familia guiamos con amor a mi padre al objetivo de su matrimonio desde el principio: un encuentro misericordioso con nuestro Padre celestial cuando se termina esta vida terrena. La pequeña iglesia donde celebramos la Santa Misa del funeral estaba llena a rebosar con las personas que habían sido tocadas por la verdad, la bondad y la belleza de la unión profundamente amorosa y fructífera, aunque no perfecta, de mis padres.

“I am the way, the truth and the life.” The day after Jesus pronounced these words to His disciples in the upper room, Pilate asked Him, “What is truth?”

En 30 de diciembre de 2016, en la fiesta de la Sagrada Familia, un Rito Revisado para el Matrimonio comenzó a ser utilizado en toda la Iglesia anglosajona. Se llama la Orden para Celebrar el Matrimonio. Aunque gran parte del Rito sigue siendo el mismo, los cambios sirven para profundizar en la belleza de la expresión simbólica del matrimonio, así como para irradiar la verdad inmutable del matrimonio en nuestra cultura.