PRAYER IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION (RADIO VATICANA IMAGE)Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - Benedict XVI today resumed his general audiences in the Vatican, having held them at Castelgandolfo during the month of August. Meeting with faithful in the Paul VI Hall he turned his attention to prayer in the Book of Revelation which, he explained, "presents us with the living breathing prayer of the Christian assembly, gathered together 'on the Lord's day'".
Revelation, Pope Benedict went on, "is a difficult book, but one of great richness. ... In it a reader presents the assembly with a message entrusted by God to John the Evangelist. ... From the dialogue between them a symphony of prayer arises which is then developed in many different forms up until the conclusion".
The first part of Revelation presents us with the assembly in prayer in three successive phases. The first of these highlights how "prayer is, above all, a listening to God Who speaks. Engulfed as we are by so many words we are little used to listening, and especially to adopting an interior and exterior attitude of silence so as to attend to what the Lord wishes to say to us. These verses also teach us that our prayers, often merely prayers of request, must in fact be first and foremost prayers of praise to God for His love, for the gift of Jesus Christ which brought us strength, hope and salvation. ... God, Who reveals Himself as the beginning and the end of the story, welcomes and takes to heart the assembly's request".
This first phase also includes another important element. "Constant prayer revives in us a sense of the Lord's presence in our life and history. His presence supports us, guides us and gives us great hope. ... Prayer, even that pronounced in the most extreme solitude, is never a form of isolation and it is never sterile, it is a vital lymph which nourishes an increasingly committed and coherent Christian existence".
In the second phase of the prayer of the assembly "the relationship with Jesus Christ is developed further. The Lord makes Himself visible, He speaks and acts, and the community, increasingly close to Him, listens, reacts and accepts".
In the third phase "the Church in prayer, accepting the word of the Lord, is transformed. ... The assembly listens to the message, and receives a stimulus for repentance, conversion, perseverance, growth in love and guidance for the journey".
"The Revelation", Benedict XVI concluded, "presents us with a community gathered in prayer, because it is in prayer that we gain an increasing awareness of Jesus' presence with us and within us. The more and the better we prayer with constancy and intensity, the more we are assimilated to Him, and the more He enters into our lives to guide them and give them joy and peace. And the more we know, love and follow Jesus, the more we feel the need to dwell in prayer with Him, receiving serenity, hope and strength for our lives".
MAN, THE CUSTODIAN OF CREATION
Vatican City, 6 September 2012 (VIS) - "Man, the Custodian of Creation" is the theme of the twentieth International Ecumenical Congress of Orthodox Spirituality, which began yesterday in the Italian monastery of Bose. The event is due to conclude on 8 September.
"In the Christian tradition of both East and West, dwelling on the earth is a task entrusted to mankind as custodians but also as guests of creation", reads a communique on the event. This topic will be developed on the first day of the congress in talks by Fr. Enzo Bianchi, prior of the monastic community of Bose, and by His Eminence Metropolitan Ioannis (Zizioulas) of Pergamo, representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. The Holy Father, through Cardinal Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone S.D.B., has sent a telegram to participants, expressing the hope that "the fraternal encounter and discussions of these days may favour mutual knowledge and the sharing of faith, arousing and renewing a joint commitment to protect God's gift of the creation".
The congress is being attended by representatives from the Orthodox Churches and from the Catholic Church. Catholic representatives include Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, vice dean of the College of Cardinals; Archbishop Antonio Mennini, apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, and Bishop Mansueto Bianchi of Pistoia, Italy, president of the Commission for Ecumenism and Inter-religious Dialogue of the Italian Episcopal Conference. Also present will be representatives from the Church of England and from the Reform Churches, the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, as well as theologians and academics from all over the world.
The communique continues: "During the four days of meetings and debates, which are open to the public, speakers will examine the theological and spiritual dimensions of man's relationship with his environment, seeking values capable of inspiring responsible choices in the face of the ecological crisis, which has been provoked by man himself and is causing irreversible damage to life on our planet".
Orthodox Church teaching on ecological matters will be presented by Bishop Amvrosij, rector of the Theological Academy of Saint Petersburg, while the scholars John Behr of New York, Nestor Kavvadas of Tubingen and Assaad Elias Kattan of Munster will speak on such subjects as: the goodness of creation according to biblical narrative, the relationship between wounded and healed nature and the history of salvation, and the understanding of the relationship between human beings and the creation in the Fathers of the Church from Irenaeus of Lyons to Maximus the Confessor.
IRREPLACEABLE ROLE OF THE LAY FAITHFUL IN MAKING AFRICA THE CONTINENT OF HOPE
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - Africa is called to be the "continent of hope" says Benedict XVI in a letter written to Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, for the occasion of the Pan African Congress for Catholic Laity. The congress is taking place in Yaounde, Cameroon, from 4 to 9 September on the theme: "Being witnesses of Jesus Christ in Africa today. 'Salt of the earth ... light of the World".
Hope, the Holy Father writes, "indicates the bright horizon which opens up before the eyes of faith" despite the many spiritual and material problems facing the African continent and the African Church. "Even the best traditional values of African culture are today threatened by secularisation, which gives rise to disorientation, rends the fibre of personal and social life, exacerbates tribalism, violence and corruption in public life, leads to the humiliation and exploitation of women and children, and increases poverty and hunger. To this must be added the threat of fundamentalist terrorism which has recently targeted Christian communities in a number of African countries".
In spite of all this, the people of Africa possess "a great wealth of spiritual resources, which are very valuable in our time: love for life and the family, a sense of joy and of sharing, enthusiasm in living their faith in the Lord. ... Never let the dark mentality of relativism and nihilism, which affects various parts of your world, open a breach in your lives", the Pope says. "With renewed energy accept and spread the message of joy and of hope which Christ brings, a message capable of purifying and strengthening the great values of your culture. ... Making Africa the 'continent of hope' must be the goal that guides the mission of African lay faithful today, just as it must guide the congress you are celebrating".
This mission "arises from the faith, a gift of God which must be welcomed, nourished and developed, because 'we cannot accept that salt should become tasteless or the light be kept hidden'. ... In this transformation of all society, which is so urgent for Africa today, the lay faithful have an irreplaceable role to play. ... Women and men, young and old, children, families and all of society: today all of Africa awaits the 'ambassadors' of the Good News". These ambassadors are "the lay faithful in parishes, ... ecclesial movements and new communities, enamoured of Christ and the Church, full of joy and gratitude for the Baptism they have received, courageous workers for peace and announcers of authentic hope".
STATISTICS FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LEBANON
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - For the occasion of Benedict XVI's forthcoming apostolic trip to Lebanon, due to take place from 14 to 16 September and during which he will sign and issue the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, statistics concerning the Catholic Church in that country have been published.
The information, updated to 31 December 2011, comes from the Central Statistical Office of the Church.
Lebanon has a surface area of 10,400 square kilometres and a population of 4,039,000 of whom 2,148,000 (53.18 per cent) are Catholic. There are 24 ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 1,126 parishes and 39 pastoral centres of other kinds. Currently, there are 53 bishops, 1,543 priests, 2,797 religious, 2 members of secular institutes, 2,301 lay missionaries and 483 catechists. Minor seminarians number 62 and major seminarians 390.
A total of 427,180 children and young people attend 907 centres of Catholic education, from kindergartens to universities, as well as 28 centres for special education. Other institutions belonging to the Church or run by priests or religious in Lebanon include 30 hospitals, 168 clinics, 39 homes for the elderly or disabled, 63 orphanages and nurseries, 22 family counselling centres and other pro-life centres, and 28 institutions of other kinds.
AUDIENCES
Vatican City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - This afternoon in the Apostolic Palace at Castelgandolfo the Holy Father is scheduled to receive in audience Cardinal Marc Ouellet P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.
AUDIENCES
Vatican City, 6 September 2012 (VIS) - The Holy Father today received in audience:
- Irena Vaisvilaite, the new ambassador of Lithuania to the Holy See, for the presentation of her Letters of Credence.
- Cardinal Godfried Danneels, archbishop emeritus of Mechelen-Brussels, Belgium.
- Twelve prelates from the Episcopal Conference of Colombia on their "ad limina" visit:
- Archbishop Jorge Enrique Jimenez Carvajal C.I.M. of Cartagena.
- Bishop Luis Jose Rueda Aparicio of Montelibano.
- Bishop Nel H. Beltran Santamaria of Sincelejo.
- Fr. Orlando Lopez Vergara, apostolic administrator of Monteria.
- Archbishop Gonzalo Restrepo Restrepo of Manizales.
- Bishop Fabio Duque Jaramillo O.F.M. of Garzon, apostolic administrator of Armenia.
- Bishop Oscar Anibal Salazar Gomez of La Dorada - Guanduas.
- Bishop Rigoberto Corredor Bermudez of Pereira.
- Archbishop Ricardo Antonio Tobon Restrepo of Medellin, accompanied by Auxiliary Bishops Edgar Aristizabal Quintero, Hugo Alberto Torres Marin and Elkin Fernando Alvarez Botero.
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