| Jim Morrissey shares his experiences in Medjugorje and their impact on his life and marriage. His "littleness" expresses a deep wisdom on what is important in life. More Sun Miracle / Jesus Tears
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Mother Mary said at Fatima: "My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the sure way which will lead you to God." St. Thomas Aquinas said: "The things we love tell us who we are!" With that in mind, I will try to post each day something about Our Blessed Lady, items about the Holy Roman Catholic Church, and public domain Catholic books too! I pray you enjoy my ministry! Below are two albums of pictures that I created: 1. Our grand daughter Adrianna. 2. Tears of Mary!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
[2 Videos] Medjugorje Testimony - Sun Miracle
[MaryVitamin] Our Lady, St. Michael and St. Francis
Mary Vitamin for September 28th
Topic
: Our Lady, St. Michael and St. Francis Quote:
St. Louis de Montfort
Image via Wikipedia
True Devotion to Mary, (Tan Books: 1941), 5.
Meditation:
St. Francis of Assisi was a servant of Our Lady and completely dedicated to her honor. St. Francis was also very devoted to St. Michael the Archangel. Two years before the death of the Seraphic Father, during his customary 40 day fast and time of retreat dedicated to St. Michael, St. Francis received the crowning event of his life: The Stigmata.
St. Bonaventure relates in his biography of St. Francis,
"Early in the morning of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, as [St. Francis] was praying in a secret and solitary place on the mountain, he beheld a seraph, having six wings, all on fire, descending to him from the height of heaven ...
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The vision, disappearing, left behind it a marvellous fire in his heart, and a no less wonderful sign impressed on his flesh. For there began immediately to appear in his hands and in his feet the appearance of nails ... When the lover of Christ had been transformed by his true love into his own image, having fulfilled the forty days which he had thus spent in solitude before the feast of the Archangel Michael, this angelical man, Francis, descended from the mount, bearing with him the image of the Crucified, engraven, not on tables of wood nor stone by the hand of the artificer, but written on his members of flesh by the finger of the living God."
Resolution:
It is very Marian and Franciscan to be devoted to the Archangel St. Michael. Today, I will pray the chaplet of St. Michael in honor of the Feast day of the Archangels and remember that St. Michael greatly desires the honor of Mary, the Mother of God. (If time is short today, I will only read the nine invocations.)
For the chaplet of St. Michael see below orhttp://www.miraclerosarymission.org/csm.htm
Marian Vow:
“[A] particular devotion to St. Michael the Archangel and all the Guardian Angels, our celestial and powerful protectors should be cultivated.”
Marian Seraphic Pathways, Constitutions #32
I give this resolution to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Thanks be to God for graces received.
Related sites: Castle of the Immaculate & AirMaria
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A Marian Chaplet of St. Michael
One Our Father and three Hail Marys with each salutation
1. By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Seraphim, may the Lord make us worthy to burn with the fire of perfect charity of the Immaculate.
2. By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Cherubim, may the Lord vouchsafe to grant us grace to leave the ways of wickedness to run in the paths of Christian perfection of the Immaculate
3. By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Thrones, may the Lord infuse into our hearts a true and sincere spirit of profound humility of the Immaculate
4. By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Dominions, may the Lord give us grace to govern our senses and subdue our unruly passions in imitation of the Immaculate.
5. By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Powers, may the Lord vouchsafe to protect our souls against the snares and temptations of the devil.
6. By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Virtues, may the Lord preserve us from evil and suffer us not to fall into temptation.
7. By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Principalities, may God fill our souls with a true spirit of blind obedience of the Immaculate
8. By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Archangels, may the Lord give us perseverance in faith and in all good works, in imitation of the Immaculate in order that we may gain the glory of Paradise.
9. By the intercession of St. Michael and the celestial Choir of Angels, may the Lord grant us to be protected by them in this mortal life and conducted hereafter to eternal glory with the Immaculate
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Mary TV Daily Reflection 9/28/2011
 Ivanka witnesses to what she has seen and heard and touched! (c)Mary Matasso 2011
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September 28, 2011 St. Wenceslaus; St. Lawrence Ruiz and his companions
Dear Family of Mary!
"Dear children! I call you, that this time be for all of you, a time of witnessing. You, who live in the love of God and have experienced His gifts, witness them with your words and life that they may be for the joy and encouragement to others in faith. I am with you and incessantly intercede before God for all of you that your faith may always be alive and joyful, and in the love of God. Thank you for having responded to my call." (September 25, 2011)
Our Lady is announcing a time of witnessing, and she wouldn't say this if the Lord hadn't told her to say it. The Father has inspired Our Lady to announce this good news. There must be many graces available right now, graces that bring conversion and the building up of faith. When the Lord inspires something he always supplies the graces to make it  Image via Wikipedia work. So now must be a time when witnessing will bear much fruit. This makes me excited! It is so wonderful when people wake up to the love of God, when they see things in a new way and discover God as never before!
Of course, our witnessing must be genuine. It must come from our deep experience of God. As Our Lady says, "You, who live in the love of God and have experienced his gifts, witness them...." We can't expect any fruit to come from fabricated, baseless words. Witnessing by definition is the sharing of what we have seen and heard, felt and tasted, and smelled and touched. Witnessing is relaying what we have experienced. Have we experienced the love of God? Have we received gifts from Him? Are we filled with gratitude for the freedom and forgiveness we have received through Jesus? Has our life changed radically for the better because of our encounter with Jesus, or with Our Lady? These are the things we must share. This is true witnessing.
St. John said this very thing in his First Letter:
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life - the life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us - that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you may have  Image via Wikipedia fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing this that our joy may be complete." (The First Letter of John 1:1-4)
Do you see how experiential this witness is! St. John didn't just think up the good news of Jesus, he laid his head on Jesus' breast. He heard Jesus' heart beat! He listened to Jesus talk, laugh, teach, cry, and pray. He saw Jesus heal the sick, deliver the afflicted, raise the dead, give sight to the blind. He followed Jesus on the road to Calvary and smelled his blood flowing down the cross, heard his groans and pleas to the Father, and witnessed his last breath. And he also saw, heard, touched, and embraced the risen Lord on the third day! John experienced it all. And so his witness was exceedingly fruitful.
Our witness will also be fruitful because we have been saved by Jesus in Baptism, we have seen, tasted and touched Him in the Blessed Sacrament, listened to His words in the Scriptures, and experienced His healing touch in Confession and the Sacrament of the Sick. We have heard His voice in our hearts in prayer, and we have been saved by His intervention over and over again from sin and sorrow. He has healed us many times from sickness and from sin. We know Him. We can share about Him with others from what we know. It will bear fruit!
You might like to see a beautiful witness video that Mary TV has just posted on our home page in the very first video box ( www.marytv.tv ). It is entitled, Mark Lenaghan, IRA Terrorist. Mark shares the incredible healing he received in Medjugorje, a healing from hatred and vengeance to love and reconciliation. This is indeed an experiential witness!
God bless you all,
Cathy Nolan
PS. Denis and I will have a chance to witness in October at a conference in the Chicago area. We will speak about Mary TV and Our Lady of Medjugorje at the Totally Yours Conference on October 22 and 23, 2011 at the Holiday Inn in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. Please pray for us and join us there if you can! Information at www.medj1.com . Phone: 630-279-8424. |
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Tuesday, September 27, 2011
IT IS URGENT TO PRAY FOR 'TRANSFORMATION' AS EVIL TRIES TO RULE
via spiritdaily.com
Instead of awaiting chastisement we are called to pray for transformation -- that the societies of men and the world we inhabit be profoundly changed to gain accordance with God's Plan (morally and naturally).
As stated by the Blessed Mother, we should pray to heal our world (not watch it fall to ruin).
Hoping for purification is understandable for those who are appalled by rising evils yet we are first to pray for fundamental change that will render disasters unnecessary.
It is perhaps time to reflect on the many cases of vandalism against the Catholic Church and in particular statues of Christ and the Blessed Mother.
While such things always occur -- through the decades, there have been countless cases -- the frequency seems to have quickened.
Most recently, there were cases of statue destruction in Western New York, New Jersey-Philadelphia, Florida, Utah, and Nebraska. In the New Jersey cases, forty statues were vandalized -- the images toppled and beheaded (in Cherry, Hill, Mount Laurel, and Evesham).
Stretching back to the 1990s, cases have ranged across the entire breadth of America, from northern California to Texas.
In most cases, they are the work of a local deranged person, sometimes a group of teens (immersed in drugs or the occult), or -- as in New Jersey -- a misguided "born-again" Christian who believes Catholic statues are idolatry (apparently unfamiliar with Scripture and correct use of the term "idol").
Are they just isolated cases, or is there a spirit moving?
On a larger scale, obscene or desecrated images of Jesus or the Blessed Mother have found their way into museums or the mass media -- the public square.
Read more here: http://www.spiritdaily.com/Kibehotimes.htm
Medjugorje Visionary Marija coming to Miami in October:
Medjugorje Visionary Marija Visiting 3 Countries
October 18 – 24, 2011 A.D.
Medjugorje visionary Marija in ecstasy during her visit to Caritas, Alabama in March 2011. As of September 26, 2011, Marija still continues to see Our Lady everyday and is the visionary that receives Our Lady's message on the 25th of the month. For more information on Marija, click to visit this page.
Medjugorje visionary Marija, her husband Paolo, along with A Friend of Medjugorje and his wife will be visiting 3 countries from October 18 – 24, 2011 A.D.
One of the 3 countries is still yet to be announced, but of the other 2 public visits will include: Guayaquil, Ecuador and Miami, Florida, USA.Ecuador
The public prayer event in Guayaquil, Ecuador will take place on Saturday, October 22, 2011, beginning in the morning and lasting through early afternoon. Our Lady’s apparition time will be announced. Location and the rest of the schedule times will be announced soon.
In 1873, Ecuador was the first country to be Consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and is considered by scientists to be the “Center of the World.” So it is with joy that A Friend of Medjugorje extends an invitation to anyone able to be a part of this special event for the Country of Ecuador. Again, this event in Guayaquil, Ecuador will be taking place Saturday October 22, 2011 A.D.
Miami, Florida, USA
The second public prayer event will be on Monday October 24, 2011, in Miami, Florida, USA, Key Biscayne. The prayer event will begin 3:00 PM and end approximately at 9:00 PM with Our Lady’s apparition to Marija during the evening at 6:40 PM.
The complete schedules of these events will be announced soon, as well as the third visit and country with schedule. Many have family and friends that can spread the news of Our Lady’s apparitions. We encourage you to do so. Please stay close to Medjugorje.com for more information.
Copyright SJP Lic. Caritas of Birmingham. Used with permission. All information contained on this site including all text, images, sound tracks, logos, including all matter which may not be viewable to the user, and all matter which, may not be, or is downloadable and/or printable, are protected under international copyright and cannot be used without permission from Caritas of Birmingham, other than non-commercial personal use and/or for positive personal promotional purposes of said material.
Mary TV Daily Reflection 9/27/2011
 (c)Sue Kathman 2007 Vicka, a great witness, full of joy and life!
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September 27, 2011 St. Vincent de Paul
Dear Family of Mary! "Dear children! I call you, that this time be for all of you, a time of witnessing. You, who live in the love of God and have experienced His gifts, witness them with your words and life that they may be for the joy and encouragement to others in faith. I am with you and incessantly intercede before God for all of you that your faith may always be alive and joyful, and in the love of God. Thank you for having responded to my call." (September 25, 2011)
Witnessing can happen in the most unusual places and at the least likely times. For instance, I received an email from my friend, Barb, today. She has spent the past week at the hospital with her son, who is quite ill. But she told me that during their stay at the hospital, they have found themselves witnessing about Our Lady and Jesus to the many people who pass through their room. She said, "While we have been here at the hospital I have certainly felt God calling us to witness to all we come in contact with. Then this message came. It was so nice to hear the words that Mary is praying for us to be able to stay strong in faith and witness." Our Lady's message is a confirmation for Barb and her son that they are discerning God's call! They have been called to witness during this difficult time, a time you would least expect to be used for evangelization! But, God's ways are not our ways! And I can only imagine how powerful their witness is, in the midst of their suffering.
Also today, another friend, Daniel, sent us a link to a video he made for his doctoral work at the Catholic University of America. Daniel is a serious student, very methodical and professional in his work. But even in the environment of academia, Daniel has found a way to witness to Our Lady of Medjugorje. In this teaching video, Daniel examines the phenomenon of mystical experiences in terms of scientific evidence. His presents contradicting views from intellectuals, and comes up with a wonderful conclusion. Here is the link to his video. You will learn so much from it! And, yes, he is witnessing to the faith and to Our Lady in a wonderful way.
Our Lady is asking us all to find ways to witness to our faith, to Jesus and His love, and to the love of our Mother as well. We have only to listen in our hearts like Barb and use our heads like Daniel and we will all find a way to witness to the love of God!
May our faith always be alive and joyful!!
In Jesus and Mary! Cathy Nolan |
Monday, September 26, 2011
BBC turns its back on year of Our Lord
via dailymail.co.uk
September 25, 2011
LONDON DAILY MAIL — The BBC has been accused of 'absurd political correctness' after dropping the terms BC and AD in case they offend non-Christians. The Corporation has replaced the familiar Anno Domini (the year of Our Lord) and Before Christ with the obscure terms Common Era and Before Common Era... (more)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2041265/BBC-turns-year-Our-Lord-2-000...
The Crusades
GOD Bless you and your loved ones, Michael Voris
~senior executive producer at RealCatholicTV.com
~senior executive producer at RealCatholicTV.com
It is time once again for the Church resolutely to set aside her worldliness
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Only in this way can the real scandal of Christianity, that of the cross, shine among men, without being overshadowed "by other painful scandals on the part of the preachers of the faith." The pope's speech to German Catholics active in the Church and in society
by Benedict XVI
Dear Brother Bishops and Priests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am glad to be here today with all of you who work in so many ways for the Church and for society. This gives me a welcome opportunity personally to thank you most sincerely for your commitment and your witness as "powerful heralds of the faith in things to be hoped for" (Lumen Gentium, 35 – validi praecones fidei sperandarum rerum). In your fields of activity you readily stand up for your faith and for the Church, something that is not always easy at the present time.
For some decades now we have been experiencing a decline in religious practice and we have been seeing substantial numbers of the baptized drifting away from church life. This prompts the question: should the Church not change? Must she not adapt her offices and structures to the present day, in order to reach the searching and doubting people of today?
Blessed Mother Teresa was once asked what in her opinion was the first thing that would have to change in the Church. Her answer was: you and I.
Two things are clear from this brief story. On the one hand Mother Teresa wants to tell her interviewer: the Church is not just other people, not just the hierarchy, the Pope and the bishops: we are all the Church, we the baptized. And on the other hand her starting-point is this: yes, there are grounds for change. There is a need for change. Every Christian and the community of the faithful are constantly called to change.
What should this change look like in practice? Are we talking about the kind of renewal that a householder might carry out when reordering or repainting his home? Or are we talking about a corrective, designed to bring us back on course and help us to make our way more swiftly and more directly? Certainly these and other elements play a part. As far as the Church in concerned, though, the basic motive for change is the apostolic mission of the disciples and the Church herself.
The Church, in other words, must constantly rededicate herself to her mission. The three Synoptic Gospels highlight various aspects of the missionary task. The mission is built upon personal experience: "You are witnesses" (Lk 24:48); it finds expression in relationships: "Make disciples of all nations" (Mt 28:19); and it spreads a universal message: "Preach the Gospel to the whole creation" (Mk 16:15). Through the demands and constraints of the world, however, the witness is constantly obscured, the relationships are alienated and the message is relativized. If the Church, in Pope Paul VI’s words, is now struggling "to model itself on Christ's ideal", this "can only result in its acting and thinking quite differently from the world around it, which it is nevertheless striving to influence" (Ecclesiam Suam, 58). In order to accomplish her mission, she will constantly set herself apart from her surroundings, she needs in a certain sense to become unworldly or "desecularized".
The Church’s mission has its origins in the mystery of the triune God, in the mystery of his creative love. Love is not just somehow within God, he himself is love by nature. And divine love does not want to exist in isolation, it wants to pour itself out. It has come down to men in a particular way through the incarnation and self-offering of God’s Son. He stepped outside the framework of his divinity, he took flesh and became man; and indeed his purpose was not merely to confirm the world in its worldliness and to be its companion, leaving it completely unchanged.
The Christ event includes the inconceivable fact of what the Church Fathers call a commercium, an exchange between God and man, in which the two parties – albeit in quite different ways – both give and take, bestow and receive. The Christian faith recognizes that God has given man a freedom in which he can truly be a partner to God, and can enter into exchange with him. At the same time it is clear to man that this exchange is only possible thanks to God’s magnanimity in accepting the beggar’s poverty as wealth, so as to make the divine gift acceptable, given that man has nothing of comparable worth to offer in return.
The Church likewise owes her whole being to this unequal exchange. She has nothing of her own to offer to him who founded her. She finds her meaning exclusively in being a tool of salvation, in filling the world with God’s word and in transforming the world by bringing it into loving unity with God. The Church is fully immersed in the Redeemer’s outreach to men. She herself is always on the move, she constantly has to place herself at the service of the mission that she has received from the Lord. The Church must always open up afresh to the cares of the world and give herself over to them, in order to make present and continue the holy exchange that began with the Incarnation.
In the concrete history of the Church, however, a contrary tendency is also manifested, namely that the Church becomes settled in this world, she becomes self-sufficient and adapts herself to the standards of the world. She gives greater weight to organization and institutionalization than to her vocation to openness.
In order to accomplish her true task adequately, the Church must constantly renew the effort to detach herself from the "worldliness" of the world. In this she follows the words of Jesus: "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (Jn 17:16). One could almost say that history comes to the aid of the Church here through the various periods of secularization, which have contributed significantly to her purification and inner reform.
Secularizing trends – whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like – have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she has set aside her worldly wealth and has once again completely embraced her worldly poverty.
In this the Church has shared the destiny of the tribe of Levi, which according to the Old Testament account was the only tribe in Israel with no ancestral land of its own, taking as its portion only God himself, his word and his signs. At those moments in history, the Church shared with that tribe the demands of a poverty that was open to the world, in order to be released from her material ties: and in this way her missionary activity regained credibility.
History has shown that, when the Church becomes less worldly, her missionary witness shines more brightly. Once liberated from her material and political burdens, the Church can reach out more effectively and in a truly Christian way to the whole world, she can be truly open to the world. She can live more freely her vocation to the ministry of divine worship and service of neighbour. The missionary task, which is linked to Christian worship and should determine its structure, becomes more clearly visible.
The Church opens herself to the world not in order to win men for an institution with its own claims to power, but in order to lead them to themselves by leading them to him of whom each person can say with Saint Augustine: he is closer to me than I am to myself (cf. Confessions, III, 6, 11). He who is infinitely above me is yet so deeply within me that he is my true interiority. This form of openness to the world on the Church’s part also serves to indicate how the individual Christian can be open to the world in effective and appropriate ways.
It is not a question here of finding a new strategy to relaunch the Church. Rather, it is a question of setting aside mere strategy and seeking total transparency, not bracketing or ignoring anything from the truth of our present situation, but living the faith fully here and now in the utterly sober light of day, appropriating it completely, and stripping away from it anything that only seems to belong to faith, but in truth is mere convention or habit.
To put it another way: for people of every era, not just our own, the Christian faith is a scandal. That the eternal God should know us and care about us, that the intangible should at a particular moment have become tangible, that he who is immortal should have suffered and died on the Cross, that we who are mortal should be given the promise of resurrection and eternal life – to believe all this is to posit something truly remarkable.
This scandal, which cannot be eliminated unless one were to eliminate Christianity itself, has unfortunately been overshadowed in recent times by other painful scandals on the part of the preachers of the faith. A dangerous situation arises when these scandals take the place of the primary skandalon of the Cross and in so doing they put it beyond reach, concealing the true demands of the Christian Gospel behind the unworthiness of those who proclaim it.
All the more, then, it is time once again for the Church resolutely to set aside her worldliness. That does not mean withdrawing from the world. A Church relieved of the burden of worldliness is in a position, not least through her charitable activities, to mediate the life-giving strength of the Christian faith to those in need, to sufferers and to their carers. "For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being" (Deus Caritas Est, 25). At the same time, though, the Church’s charitable activity also needs to be constantly exposed to the demands of due detachment from worldliness, if it is not to wither away at the roots in the face of increasing erosion of its ecclesial character. Only a profound relationship with God makes it possible to reach out fully towards others, just as a lack of outreach towards neighbour impoverishes one’s relationship with God.
Openness to the concerns of the world means, then, for the Church that is detached from worldliness, bearing witness to the primacy of God’s love according to the Gospel through word and deed, here and now, a task which at the same time points beyond the present world because this present life is also bound up with eternal life. As individuals and as the community of the Church, let us live the simplicity of a great love, which is both the simplest and hardest thing on earth, because it demands no more and no less than the gift of oneself.
Dear friends, it remains for me to invoke God’s blessing and the strength of the Holy Spirit upon us all, that we may continually recognize anew and bear fresh witness to God’s love and mercy in our respective fields of activity. Thank you for your attention.
Freiburg im Breisgau, September 25, 2011
From New Oxford Review: The Two Worlds of Newman
Image via Wikipedia
FROM THE CURRENT ISSUE
The Two Worlds of Newman
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The Two Worlds of Newman
There are two worlds, 'the visible and the invisible,' as the Creed speaks, and the world we do not see exists as really as the world which we see.
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?did=0911-odonnell
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SINEAD O'CONNOR—"KILL THE POPE"
Cover of Sinéad O'Connor
This person should be arrested for threatening the Pope!
SINEAD O'CONNOR—"KILL THE POPE"
Irish singer Sinead O'Connor is warning Pope Benedict XVI not to come to Ireland, and if he does, she wants him shot. She warned on Twitter there will be a "f***in bloodbath" if the pope visits Ireland.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on her outburst:
Sinead O'Connor has a long history of Catholic bashing, so in one sense her latest foray is not unusual. What's new, however, is her advocacy of violence. Given her precarious condition, it is not likely she could shoot straight, but her violent appeal may trigger others to act. That is the danger.
O'Connor is not doing well. The cops were recently summoned to her home after she Tweeted about suicide. She needs long-term help. In the meantime, whatever family or friends she has would do well to get her to ramp down her rhetoric and at least pretend to be normal.
Contact our director of communications about Donohue’s remarks:
Jeff Field
Phone: 212-371-3191
E-mail: cl@catholicleague.org
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Sunday, September 25, 2011
Medjugorje, Message of September 25, 2011
www.childrenofmedjugorje.com" target="_blank">
Medjugorje, Message of September 25, 2011
“Dear children! I call you, for this time to be for all of you, a time of witnessing. You
Image by prince de tubal via Flickr
, who live in the love of God and have experienced His gifts, witness them with your words and life that they may be for the joy and encouragement to others in faith. I am with you and incessantly intercede before God for all of you that your faith may always be alive and joyful, and in the love of God. Thank you for having responded to my call.”
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Chocolate campaign to make Christmas trees more meaningful
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The Meaningful Chocolate Tree Decorations with Paul Chandler from Traidcraft and David Marshall from the Meaningful Chocolate Company
The company behind the first Easter Egg to mention Jesus on the packaging is turning its attention to Christmas with a new chocolate campaign.
The Meaningful Chocolate Company, whose Real Easter Egg was a runaway success, is launching a new campaign to make the UK's 20 million Christmas trees more meaningful this December.
It follows a recent ComRes survey which found that only 12% of adults in the UK know the Christmas story, and just 7% of 18-24 year olds.
The Meaningful Chocolate Company has produced the UK's first ever interactive set of Christmas tree decorations using the characters of the Nativity story.
Each box of Meaningful Chocolate Tree Decorations includes a limited edition Christmas card, sticker set and six hand wrapped Fairtrade chocolate decorations.
The Christmas story is written inside the card, which can then be used by parents to tell the story to children as they decorate their Christmas tree together.
The company hopes the decorations will be a reminder to adults and children alike of the true meaning of Christmas.
David Marshall, from The Meaningful Chocolate Company, said “We estimate that most of the UK’s 20 million Christmas trees don’t have anything religious hung on them.
"The Meaningful Chocolate Tree Decorations are an opportunity to buy a gift that allows the telling of the Christmas story at home. The card also includes and invitation for people to go to church to hear the Christmas story.
"So, not only is it educational, it’s also a piece of evangelism.”
The Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Rev Dr Alan Smith, said: “I am delighted that, following the success of The Real Easter Egg, The Meaningful Chocolate Company has developed this great product which enables the telling of the Christmas story as well as supporting Fairtrade and charitable causes. This is a fun way for people to share that story.”
The Meaningful Christmas Tree Decorations cost £3.95. Orders can be made through www.MeaningfulChristmas.co.uk or exclusively from Traidcraft. Orders should be made by mid November 2011 as supplies are limited.
Pope Ends Trip to Germany with Concert [Videos]
Before leaving his native Germany, the Pope met with members of Catholic associations in a concert hall in Freiburg. As a gift, the associations gave him this brief concert, so he could rest before flying back to Rome. During his speech, the Pope reflected on what the Church can do to attract more people. Benedict XVI
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Pope: "Agnostics are closer to the Kingdom of God than believers whose life of faith is 'routine'" [Video]
| This is the last Mass of the Popes's trip to his homeland. Around 100,000 joined him during a ceremony in Freiburg's airport. More
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Pope’s address to Orthodox Churches representives
via sconews.co.uk
Holy Father speaks at the Seminary Hörsaal, Freiburg, on day three of his visit to Germany. Full text and video link below
Dear Cardinals, Brother Bishops,
Distinguished Representatives of Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches!
It is a great joy for me that we have come together here today. From my heart I thank all of you for coming and for the possibility of this friendly exchange. I offer a particular word of thanks to you, dear Metropolitan Augoustinos for your profound words. I was especially moved by what you said about the Mother of God and about the saints who encompass and unite all the centuries. And I willingly repeat in this setting what I have said elsewhere: among Christian Churches and communities, it is undoubtedly the Orthodox who are theologically closest to us; Catholics and Orthodox have maintained the same basic structure inherited from the ancient Church; in this sense we are all the early Church that is still present and new. And so we dare to hope, even if humanly speaking constantly new difficulties arise, that the day may still be not too far away when we may once again celebrate the Eucharist together (cf. Light of the World. A Conversation with Peter Seewald, p. 86).
With interest and sympathy the Catholic Church – and I personally – follow the development of Orthodox communities in Western Europe, which in recent decades have grown remarkably. In Germany today, as I have learned, there are approximately 1.6 million Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians. They have become a constitutive part of society that helps bring alive the treasury of the Christian cultures and the Christian faith of Europe. I welcome the increase of pan-Orthodox cooperation, which has made significant progress in recent years. The founding of Orthodox Episcopal Conferences in places where the Orthodox Churches exist in the Diaspora – of which you spoke to us – is an expression of the consolidation of intra-Orthodox relations. I am pleased that this step has been taken in Germany in the past year. May the work of these Episcopal Conferences strengthen the bond between the Orthodox Churches and hasten the progress of efforts to establish a pan-Orthodox council.
Since the time when I was a professor in Bonn and especially while I was Archbishop of Munich and Freising, I have come to know and love Orthodoxy more and more through my personal friendships with representatives of the Orthodox Churches. At that time the Joint Commission of the German Bishops’ Conference and the Orthodox Church also began its work. Since then, through its texts on pastoral and practical questions, it has furthered mutual understanding and contributed to the consolidation and further development of Catholic-Orthodox relations in Germany.
Equally important is the ongoing work to clarify theological differences, because the resolution of these questions is indispensable for restoration of the full unity that we hope and pray for. We know that above all it is the question of primacy that we must continue patiently and humbly struggling to understand aright. In this regard, I think that the ideas put forward by Pope John Paul II in the Encyclical Ut Unum Sint (no. 95) on the distinction between the nature and form of the exercise of primacy can yield further fruitful discussion points.
I also express my appreciation of the work of the Mixed International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. I am glad, distinguished Eminences and Delegates of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, that you are here representing the Churches that are taking part in this dialogue. The results so far obtained allow us to grow in mutual understanding and to draw closer to one another.
In the present climate, in which many would like, as it were, to “liberate” public life from God, the Christian Churches in Germany – including Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians – are walking side by side along the path of peaceful witness for understanding and solidarity among peoples, on the basis of their faith in the one God and Father of all. At the same time they continue to place the miracle of God’s incarnation at the centre of their proclamation. Realizing that on this mystery all human dignity depends, they speak up jointly for the protection of human life from conception to natural death. Faith in God, the Creator of life, and unconditional adherence to the dignity of every human being strengthen faithful Christians to oppose vigorously every manipulative and selective intervention in the area of human life. Knowing too the value of marriage and the family, we as Christians attach great importance to defending the integrity and the uniqueness of marriage between one man and one woman from any kind of misinterpretation. Here the common engagement of Christians, including Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Christians, makes a valuable contribution to building up a society equipped for the future, in which the human person is given the respect which is his due.
Finally, I would like to direct our gaze towards Mary – you presented her to us as the Panagia – and she is also the Hodegetria, the “Guide along the Way”, who is also venerated in the West under the title “Our Lady of the Way”. The Most Holy Trinity has given the Virgin Mother Mary to mankind, that she might guide us through history with her intercession and point out to us the way towards fulfilment. To her we entrust ourselves and our prayer that we may become a community ever more intimately united in Christ, to the praise and glory of his name. May God bless you all! Thank you.
Video: http://player.rv.va/vaticanplayer.asp?language=it&tic=VA_HB78ER9F
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