Easter is the feast of the new creation. Jesus is risen and dies no more. He has opened the door to a new life, one that no longer knows illness and death. He has taken mankind up into God himself. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”, as Saint Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians (15:50). On the subject of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection, the Church writer Tertullian in the third century was bold enough to write: “Rest assured, flesh and blood, through Christ you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of God” (CCL II, 994). A new dimension has opened up for mankind. Creation has become greater and broader. Easter Day ushers in a new creation, but that is precisely why the Church starts the liturgy on this day with the old creation, so that we can learn to understand the new one aright.

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In the silence of this night, in the silence which envelopes Holy Saturday, touched by the limitless love of God, we live in the hope of the dawn of the third day, the dawn of the victory of God’s love, the luminous daybreak which allows the eyes of our heart to see afresh our life, its difficulties, its suffering. Our failures, our disappointments, our bitterness, which seem to signal that all is lost, are instead illumined by hope. The act of love upon the Cross is confirmed by the Father and the dazzling light of the resurrection enfolds and transforms everything: friendship can be born from betrayal, pardon from denial, love from hate.

—Benedict XVI

Dear friends, I would like briefly to touch on two more key phrases from the renewal of ordination promises, which should cause us to reflect at this time in the Church’s life and in our own lives. Firstly, the reminder that ”“ as Saint Paul put it ”“ we are “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor 4:1) and we are charged with the ministry of teaching, the (munus docendi), which forms a part of this stewardship of God’s mysteries, through which he shows us his face and his heart, in order to give us himself. At the meeting of Cardinals on the occasion of the recent Consistory, several of the pastors of the Church spoke, from experience, of the growing religious illiteracy found in the midst of our sophisticated society. The foundations of faith, which at one time every child knew, are now known less and less. But if we are to live and love our faith, if we are to love God and to hear him aright, we need to know what God has said to us ”“ our minds and hearts must be touched by his word. The Year of Faith, commemorating the opening of the Second Vatican Council fifty years ago, should provide us with an occasion to proclaim the message of faith with new enthusiasm and new joy. We find it of course first and foremost in sacred Scripture, which we can never read and ponder enough. Yet at the same time we all experience the need for help in accurately expounding it in the present day, if it is truly to touch our hearts.

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Pope Benedict XVI said that during his recent journey to Mexico and Cuba, he experienced “unforgettable days of joy and hope.”

While he went as “a witness of Jesus Christ,” it was also an opportune occasion to call for reform, especially in allowing greater religious freedom, he said.

At his weekly general audience April 4 in St. Peter’s Square, the pope told an estimated 11,000 pilgrims and visitors about his March 23-28 visit.

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The blessing was prepared to support parents awaiting the birth of a child, to encourage parish prayers for and recognition of the precious gift of the child in the womb, and to foster respect for human life within society. It can be offered within the context of the Mass as well as outside of Mass.

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Here we find the first great message that today’s feast brings us: the invitation to adopt a proper outlook upon all humanity, on the peoples who make up the world, on its different cultures and civilizations. The look that the believer receives from Christ is a look of blessing: a wise and loving look, capable of grasping the world’s beauty and having compassion on its fragility. Shining through this look is God’s own look upon those he loves and upon Creation, the work of his hands. We read in the Book of Wisdom: “But thou art merciful to all, for thou canst do all things, and thou dost overlook men’s sins, that they may repent. For thou lovest all things that exist and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made … thou sparest all things, for they are thine, O Lord who lovest the living” (11:23-24, 26).

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Beneath looming images of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and the Virgin Mary, Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday stood in Revolution Square here, the heart of the Castro government, and issued a ringing call for “authentic freedom” in what is consistently ranked as one of the most repressive nations on earth.

“The truth is a desire of the human person, the search for which always supposes the exercise of authentic freedom,” Benedict said in his homily at an outdoor Mass here, a line greeted by smiles from some in the crowd. “Many, however, prefer shortcuts, trying to avoid this task.”

The Mass was the culmination of a three-day visit to Cuba meant to shore up support for the Roman Catholic Church here. With President Raúl Castro sitting in the front row ”” and a day after a top Cuban official said that Cuba would not pursue political change any time soon ”” Benedict also decried “those who wrongly interpret this search for the truth, leading them to irrationality and fanaticism; they close themselves up in ”˜their truth,’ and try to impose it on others.”

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In interviews at three churches in the capital, parishioners complained ”” openly, and a lot ”” about the economy and voiced a desire to see change come to the island. But regarding the treatment of Catholics, they were content.

“We’re in a state of respect now. We are a normal part of life. It no longer matters if you are Catholic,” said Susana Sanchez, 46, who recalled that “in the first years of the revolution, my generation, the young moved away from the church, but they have been coming back. It’s a space to grow spiritually, to fill a need.”

Santiago Martinez, one of three priests serving the San Juan Bosco church nearby, said that even members of the all-powerful Communist Party attend Mass, and so do government bureaucrats, who in a previous generation would have been branded counterrevolutionaries for bowing their heads at the altar.

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First of all, let us see what the Incarnation means. In the Gospel of Saint Luke we heard the words of the angel to Mary: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Lk 1:35). In Mary, the Son of God is made man, fulfilling in this way the prophecy of Isaiah: “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which means ”˜God-with-us’” (Is 7:14). Jesus, the Word made flesh, is truly God-with-us, who has come to live among us and to share our human condition. The Apostle Saint John expresses it in the following way: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14). The expression, “became flesh” points to our human reality in most concrete and tangible way. In Christ, God has truly come into the world, he has entered into our history, he has set his dwelling among us, thus fulfilling the deepest desire of human beings that the world may truly become a home worthy of humanity. On the other hand, when God is put aside, the world becomes an inhospitable place for man, and frustrates creation’s true vocation to be a space for the covenant, for the “Yes” to the love between God and humanity who responds to him. Mary did so as the first fruit of believers with her unreserved “Yes” to the Lord.

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Cuba remains an island where the Roman Catholic church has a weak and insubstantial hold. Afro-Cuban religions ”“ Santería, Palo Monte and Abakuá ”“ come top of the popularity contest among the great mass of the people, followed almost certainly by a variety of Protestants sects imported from the United States over a century ago.

The Roman Catholic church, an almost exclusively urban phenomenon run by Spanish priests over most of its existence, comes a poor third, although the pope will certainly be welcomed by large crowds, always happy to witness a great state-spectacle. He will visit the ugly shrine at El Cobre, outside Santiago de Cuba, of the Virgin of Charity, a saintly national heroine variously endorsed over time by Indians, blacks and whites, and celebrated by both Catholics and Afro-Cuban enthusiasts.

The real challenge facing the Roman Catholic church, both in Cuba and in the rest of Latin America, is the tremendous growth in recent decades of evangelical Protestantism.

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I come to Cuba as a pilgrim of charity, to confirm my brothers and sisters in the faith and strengthen them in the hope which is born of the presence of God’s love in our lives. I carry in my heart the just aspirations and legitimate desires of all Cubans, wherever they may be, their sufferings and their joys, their concerns and their noblest desires, those of the young and the elderly, of adolescents and children, of the sick and workers, of prisoners and their families, and of the poor and those in need.

Many parts of the world today are experiencing a time of particular economic difficulty, that not a few people regard as part of a profound spiritual and moral crisis which has left humanity devoid of values and defenceless before the ambition and selfishness of certain powers which take little account of the true good of individuals and families. We can no longer continue in the same cultural and moral direction which has caused the painful situation that many suffer. On the other hand, real progress calls for an ethics which focuses on the human person and takes account of the most profound human needs, especially man’s spiritual and religious dimension. In the hearts and minds of many, the way is thus opening to an ever greater certainty that the rebirth of society demands upright men and women of firm moral convictions, with noble and strong values who will not be manipulated by dubious interests and who are respectful of the unchanging and transcendent nature of the human person.

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The Catholic faith has significantly marked the life, customs and history of this continent, in which many nations are commemorating the bicentennial of their independence. That was an historical moment in which the name of Christ continued to shine brightly. That name was brought here through the labours of outstanding and self-sacrificing missionaries who proclaimed it boldly and wisely. They gave their all for Christ, demonstrating that in him men and women encounter the truth of their being and the strength needed both to live fully and to build a truly humane society in accordance with the will of their Creator. This ideal of putting the Lord first and making God’s word effective in all, through the use of your own native expressions and best traditions, continues to provide outstanding inspiration for the Church’s Pastors today.

The initiatives planned for the Year of Faith must be aimed at guiding men and women to Christ; his grace will enable them to cast off the bonds of sin and slavery, and to progress along the path of authentic and responsible freedom. A great contribution will be made to this goal by the continental mission being launched from Aparecida, which is already reaping a harvest of ecclesial renewal in the particular Churches of Latin America and the Caribbean. This includes the study, dissemination and prayerful reading of sacred Scripture, which proclaims the love of God and our salvation. I encourage you to continue to share freely the treasures of the Gospel, so that they can become a powerful source of hope, freedom and salvation for everyone (cf. Rom 1:16). May you also be faithful witnesses and interpreters of the words of the incarnate Son, whose life was to do the will of the Father and who, as a man among men, gave himself up completely for our sake, even unto death.

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Singing, strumming guitars and trying to shield themselves from a searing sun, tens of thousands of Mexican Catholics came together Saturday nearly 24 hours before an open-air Mass with Pope Benedict XVI.

They walked miles and took up positions in Bicentennial Park, a short distance from a hilltop monument that honors the 1920s Cristero War by Catholic counter-revolutionaries.

But as religious fervor was on display in Silao, in central Mexico’s Guanajuato state, a sexual-abuse scandal involving a notorious Mexican priest threatened to cast a pall over the pope’s first visit to the Spanish-speaking Americas.

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“Pope Benedict XVI comes during a very different time [than his predecessor]. With a country wounded, depressed by the prolonged violence,” [Bernardo ] Barranco says, “a country that doesn’t have a clear vision of its own future.”

Speaking with reporters on his flight from Rome to Mexico, Benedict denounced the drug violence that’s claimed almost 50,000 lives here over the last five years.

This is expected to be one of the leading themes of his visit to Mexico. He’s also expected to call for a return to traditional Catholic values.

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[BOB] ABERNETHY: For the ordinary Cubans, after all these years of official atheism by the state, persecution of religion in Cuba, are the ordinary Cubans wanting to have, be able to worship again? Are they wanting to be religious again?

[PATRICIA] ZAPOR: Well, Cubans want all sorts of freedoms, religious freedom among them. Atheism officially went away in 1992, and since then the Catholic Church has been creating more space for itself, and in ways that are trying to reach out to more Catholics, more of the general population of Cuba, and people want to participate in these things. There’s an energy.

ABERNETHY: But I think it’s, what, just a little over half of people who identify themselves as Catholics, and five percent of them only who go to Mass.

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Together with faith and hope, the believer in Christ ”“ indeed the whole Church ”“ lives and practises charity as an essential element of mission. In its primary meaning, charity “is first of all the simple response to immediate needs and specific situations” (Deus Caritas Est, 31), as we help those who suffer from hunger, lack shelter, or are in need in some way in their life. Nobody is excluded on account of their origin or belief from this mission of the Church, which does not compete with other private or public initiatives. In fact, the Church willingly works with those who pursue the same ends. Nor does she have any aim other than doing good in an unselfish and respectful way to those in need, who often lack signs of authentic love.

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By itself, Benedict’s advanced age [of 85] probably would invite speculation about what comes next, even though there’s no indication of a health crisis. This is, after all, a pontiff who departs next week for a six-day trip to Mexico and Cuba.

Yet it’s not just a birthday that has people thinking about succession. There’s also a mounting perception that for all of Benedict’s brilliance as a teacher, something isn’t working in the internal governance of the Vatican, and it’s not likely to be fixed on his watch. The tawdry “Vatileaks” scandal is the most recent symptom of a series of maladies — an inability to keep personal conflicts under control (the Boffo affair), to anticipate the foreseeable results of policy choices (the Holocaust-denying bishop debacle) and to tell even positive stories effectively (the pope’s role in the sex abuse crisis).

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(Please note that the ITC is an advisory body to the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith–KSH).

The full title is “Theology Today: Perspectives, Principles and Criteria,” and it examines developments in Roman Catholic theology since Vatican Council II and offers criteria for recognizing orthodox theology for Rome.

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The second reading was taken from the Letter to the Colossians. We heard those words ”“ always so moving for their spiritual and pastoral inspiration ”“ that the Apostle addressed to the members of that community in order to form them according to the Gospel, saying to them: “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Col 3:17). “Be perfect”, the Master said to his disciples; and now the Apostle exhorts his listeners to live according to the high measure of Christian life that is holiness. He can do this because the brothers he is addressing are “chosen by God, holy and beloved”. Here too, at the root of everything, is the grace of God, the gift of the call, the mystery of the encounter with the living Jesus. But this grace demands a response from those who have been baptized: it requires the commitment to be reclothed in Christ’s sentiments: tenderness, goodness, humility, meekness, magnanimity, mutual forgiveness, and above all, as a synthesis and a crown, agape, the love that God has given us through Jesus, the love that the Holy Spirit has poured into our hearts. And if we are to be reclothed in Christ, his word must dwell among us and in us, with all its richness and in abundance. In an atmosphere of constant thanksgiving, the Christian community feeds on the word and causes to rise towards God, as a song of praise, the word that he himself has given us. And every action, every gesture, every service, is accomplished within this profound relationship with God, in the interior movement of Trinitarian love that descends towards us and rises back towards God, a movement that finds its highest expression in the eucharistic sacrifice.

This word also sheds light upon the happy circumstances that bring us together today, in the name of Saint Gregory the Great. Through the faithfulness and benevolence of the Lord, the Congregation of Camaldolese monks of the Order of Saint Benedict has completed a thousand years of history, feeding daily on the word of God and the Eucharist, as their founder Saint Romuald taught them, according to the triplex bonum of solitude, community life and evangelization.

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams visited the Benedictine abbey of Montecassino on Monday, the final stage of his 3 day visit to Italy and the Vatican. Over the weekend, the Anglican leader had an audience with Pope Benedict and attended Papal Vespers at the Church of San Gregorio al Celio marking the millennium of the Camaldoli community there.
In his words to the monks of Montecassino, the archbishop continued his reflections on monastic life as a pivotal part of the Church’s mission ”“ from the history of the Church in Britain to the re-evangelisation of Europe today. Philippa Hitchen reports”¦.

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In today’s address, the Holy Father turned specifically to the issue of “the contemporary crisis of marriage and the family, and, more generally, of the Christian vision of human sexuality.”

Benedict called attention to the “powerful political and cultural currents seeking to alter the legal definition of marriage,” and he said that the Church needs to give a “reasoned defense of marriage as a natural institution consisting of a specific communion of persons, essentially rooted in the complementarity of the sexes and oriented to procreation.”

“Sexual differences cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the definition of marriage,” he affirmed. “Defending the institution of marriage as a social reality is ultimately a question of justice, since it entails safeguarding the good of the entire human community and the rights of parents and children alike.”

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The Archbishop of Canterbury signalled a fresh push to dissuade traditionalist Anglicans from defecting to the Roman Catholic Church as he joined the Pope in stressing moves to bring the two churches together.

Rowan Williams used a joint prayer service in Rome to call for a renewed drive to “restore full sacramental communion” between the Anglican and Catholic churches.

Dr Williams and Pope Benedict XVI prayed and lit candles together at the Chapel of St Gregory the Great, in a service highlighting 1,400 years of links between the church in England and Rome.

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Pope Benedict has condemned violence committed in God’s name and personally exonerated Jews of responsibility for Jesus’ death in his latest book, released on Thursday. The book, the second in a planned three-part series on the life of Jesus, is a detailed, highly theological and academic recounting of the last week in Jesus’ life.

Publishers have printed 1.2 million copies of the book in seven languages. A blaze of international publicity included teleconferences with the media in several countries.

In one section, Benedict writes that there can be no justification for violence carried out in God’s name, an assertion as applicable to Islamist militancy today as to violence that the Catholic Church itself committed in the past as it spread the faith.

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Asked about Saturday afternoon’s celebration of Vespers with the Pope in the church of San Greglorio al Celio, Dr Williams says “The fact that 3 successive archbishops have been to San Gregorio is an acknowledgement of historical fact, that the mission to England began here and it’s good to touch the soil on which you are nurtured, to honour the memory of St Gregory and St Augustine of Canterbury…and by going back to our common roots to affirm a communion that is still in us…….”

“A monastic community is a community assembled around the word of God, that identifies together with the prayer of Christ…that says something about the deepest roots of ecumenism …but also about mission and I’ll be speaking on Monday in Montecassino more specifically about the mission dimension of monastic life….”

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And here lies the heart of Gregory’s monastic vision, the vision which the brothers and sisters of Camaldoli””whose millennium we celebrate with sincere joy here today””still seek to live out. To be immersed in the sacramental life of Christ’s Body requires the daily immersion of contemplation; without this, we cannot see one another clearly; without it we shall not truly recognize and love one another, and grow together in his one holy catholic and apostolic Body. The balance in the monastic life of solitude and common work and worship, a balance particularly carefully worked out in the life of Camaldoli, is something that seeks to enable a clear, even ”˜prophetic’ vision of the other ”“ seeing them, as the Eastern Christian tradition represented by Evagrius suggests, in the light of their authentic spiritual essence, not as they relate to our passions or preferences. The inseparable labour of action and contemplation, of solitude and community, is to do with the constant purification of our awareness of each other in the light of the God whom we encounter in silence and self-forgetting.

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Bishop Paul Swain of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is making his first ad limina visit to Rome. On Friday morning, Bishop Swain, with the other Bishops from Regions VII-IX of the U.S. Episcopal Conference, met with Pope Benedict XVI . Bishop Swain spoke to us about the Pope’s message for the visiting prelates.

He said the Pope’s address on marriage and the family focused on two areas: education and the virtue of chastity. “I think two things [the Pope] said is that we [bishops] need to be better teachers, and to form those who haven’t been formed yet”¦ The message is the same: We need to teach better, and to form, particularly the young.”

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The Archbishop of Canterbury will pray together with Pope Benedict XVI in a rare gesture of unity on Saturday despite simmering resentment over the Catholic Church’s move to recruit Anglicans.

Anglican leader Rowan Williams and the pope will celebrate vespers together in the monastery of San Gregorio al Celio near the Colosseum in Rome and a stone Celtic cross brought from Canterbury will be put up in the church.

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Nearly 750 Cuban activists have signed a letter to Pope Benedict XVI warning that his planned visit to Cuba will “send a message to the oppressors that they can continue” to abuse Catholic opponents, dissidents reported Thursday.

“We would be very happy to receive you in our country, if the message of faith, love and hope that you could bring us also would serve to halt the repression against those who want to go to church,” the letter said.

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Another ancient commentary summarizes this beautifully: “Adam was created pure by God to serve Him. All creatures were created for the service of man. He was destined to be lord and king over all creatures. But when he embraced evil he did so by listening to something outside of himself. This penetrated his heart and took over his whole being. Thus ensnared by evil, Creation, which had assisted and served him, was ensnared together with him.”

As we said earlier quoting John Chrysostom, the cursing of the soil had a “medicinal”, or healing, function: meaning that God’s intention is always good and more profound, even than His own curse. The curse does not come from God but from sin. God cannot avoid inflicting the curse because he respects human freedom and its consequences even when they are negative. Thus, within the punishment and within the curse, there is a good intention that comes from God. When He says, “Dust you are and unto dust you shall return”, He intends inflicting a just punishment, but also announcing the way to salvation. This will pass through the Earth, through that same dust, that same flesh which will be assumed by the Word Incarnate.

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Seminarians currently enrolled at St. Mary’s served as hosts during the opening day of the first formation weekend in January.

“I think the seminarians at St. Mary understand how significant this is and they have been incredible,” Msgr. [Jeffrey] Steenson told the Texas Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. “They are so energized about this — they know it is historical.”

He credit[s] the “extraordinary efforts and help” and “time and resources” of the archdiocese and Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo with bringing about “exactly what Pope Benedict hoped for — the close relationship with the local diocese and the new ordinariate.”

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