Neither silver nor gold, but the gift of Jesus Christ. Pope Francis in Brazil.

Neither Silver Nor Gold, I Bring The Most Precious Thing Given to Me, Jesus Christ: People's Pope in Brazil
 

• By Catholic Online

• 7/23/2013
• Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

I am here to meet young people coming from all over the world, drawn to the open arms of Christ the Redeemer. They want to find a refuge in his embrace, close to his heart, to listen again to his clear and powerful appeal:
 

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I have learned that, to gain access to the Brazilian people, it is necessary to pass through its great heart; so let me knock gently at this door. I ask permission to come in and spend this week with you. I have neither silver nor gold, but I bring with me the most precious thing given to me: Jesus Christ! I have come in his name, to feed the flame of fraternal love that burns in every heart; and I wish my greeting to reach one and all: The peace of Christ be with you!

Pope Francis greeting the thousands who gathered upon his arrival in Brazil
 

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RIO De JANEIRO, Brazil (Catholic Online) - We offer below the full text of the opening remarks of Pope Francis upon his arrival in Brazil for the 2013 World Youth Day:
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Opening Words of Greeting From Pope Francis
Madam President, Distinguished Authorities,Brethren and Friends!

In his loving providence, God wished that the first international trip of my pontificate should take me back to my beloved Latin America, specifically to Brazil, a country proud of its links to the Apostolic See and of its deep sentiments of faith and friendship that have always kept it united in a special way to the Successor of Peter. I am grateful for this divine benevolence.
I have learned that, to gain access to the Brazilian people, it is necessary to pass through its great heart; so let me knock gently at this door. I ask permission to come in and spend this week with you. I have neither silver nor gold, but I bring with me the most precious thing given to me: Jesus Christ! I have come in his name, to feed the flame of fraternal love that burns in every heart; and I wish my greeting to reach one and all: The peace of Christ be with you!
I cordially greet the President and the distinguished members of her government. I thank her for her warm welcome and for the words by which she expressed the joy of all Brazilians at my presence in their country. I also greet the state governor who is hosting us in the government palace, and the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, as well as the members of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the government of Brazil, the other authorities present and all those who worked hard to make my visit here a reality.
I would like to greet affectionately my brother bishops - to whom falls the serious task of guiding God's flock in this vast country, as well as their beloved local churches. With this visit, I wish to pursue the pastoral mission proper to the Bishop of Rome of confirming my brothers in their faith in Christ, of encouraging them to give an account of the reasons for the hope which comes from him, and of inspiring them to offer everyone the inexhaustible riches of his love.
As you know, the principal reason for my visit to Brazil goes beyond its borders. I have actually come for World Youth Day. I am here to meet young people coming from all over the world, drawn to the open arms of Christ the Redeemer. They want to find a refuge in his embrace, close to his heart, to listen again to his clear and powerful appeal: "Go and make disciples of all nations".
These young people are from every continent, they speak many languages, they bring with them different cultures, and yet they also find in Christ the answer to their highest aspirations, held in common, and they can satisfy the hunger for a pure truth and an authentic love which binds them together in spite of differences.
Christ offers them space, knowing that there is no force more powerful than the one released from the hearts of young people when they have been conquered by the experience of friendship with him. Christ has confidence in young people and entrusts them with the very future of his mission, "Go and make disciples".
Go beyond the confines of what is humanly possible and create a world of brothers and sisters! And young people have confidence in Christ: they are not afraid to risk for him the only life they have, because they know they will not be disappointed.
As I begin my visit to Brazil, I am well aware that, in addressing young people, I am also speaking to their families, their local and national church communities, the societies they come from, and the men and women upon whom this new generation largely depends.
Here it is common for parents to say, "Our children are the apple of our eyes". How beautiful is this expression of Brazilian wisdom, which applies to young people an image, drawn from our eyes, which are the window through which light enters into us, granting us the miracle of sight! What would become of us if we didn't look after our eyes? How could we move forward? I hope that, during this week, each one of us will ask ourselves this thought-provoking question.
Young people are the window through which the future enters the world, thus presenting us with great challenges. Our generation will show that it can realize the promise found in each young person when we know how to give them space; how to create the material and spiritual conditions for their full development; how to give them a solid basis on which to build their lives; how to guarantee their safety and their education to be everything they can be; how to pass on to them lasting values that make life worth living; how to give them a transcendent horizon for their thirst for authentic happiness and their creativity for the good; how to give them the legacy of a world worthy of human life; and how to awaken in them their greatest potential as builders of their own destiny, sharing responsibility for the future of everyone.
As I conclude, I ask everyone to show consideration towards each other and, if possible, the sympathy needed to establish friendly dialogue. The arms of the Pope now spread to embrace all of Brazil in its human, cultural and religious complexity and richness.
From the Amazon Basin to the pampas, from the dry regions to the Pantanal, from the villages to the great cities, no one is excluded from the Pope's affection. In two days' time, God willing, I will remember all of you before Our Lady of Aparecida, invoking her maternal protection on your homes and families. But for now I give all of you my blessing.

Thank you for your welcome!

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Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.

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Taken from: http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=51813&wf=rsscol

AMAIC Philosophy – Areas of Special Interest





 

There are perhaps three areas of particular fascination for the AMAIC regarding philosophy – that is, over and above everything else that is right and good in that most important discipline.

Central to it all is:   

 

1.      The Philosophy of Jesus Christ - restoring Christian philosophy to its biblical roots, with Jesus Christ, Wisdom Incarnate, as the focal point. The Fathers of the Church rightly recognised the profound influence of Hebrew wisdom, the Bible, upon the Greco-Roman world. As ‘Salvation is of the Jews’, so is Wisdom. “Jesus”, as we read above, “appealed to God’s previous revelation in the Hebrew Scriptures (Matt. 5:17–19; John 10:31) and issued authoritative revelations of His own as God Incarnate. … Jesus reasoned carefully about the things that matter most — a handy definition of philosophy. His teachings, in fact, cover the basic topics of philosophy. …. As an apologist for God’s truth, He defended the truth of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as His own teachings and actions”.

2.      A Re-orientation of the History of Ancient Philosophy. This actually pre-supposes 1. and needs to be viewed in parallel fashion to the way that the ancient Scriptures pre-figure Jesus the Word, but are also brought to perfection in Him.

Whilst textbooks on the history of philosophy universally commence with the supposed Ionian Greeks, the AMAIC would urge for a complete re-orientation of influence by arguing that certain (if not all) of the key figures labelled ‘Greek’ (or Ionian) philosophers, ostensibly influenced by the Hebrews (as say the Fathers), were in actual fact Hebrew (Jewish) biblical characters who later became distorted and re-cast in Greco-Roman folklore. The Greco-Romans confused the ethnicity, geography and chronology of these original sages, who were essentially prophets and mystics, and down-graded them by turning them purely into natural philosophers.

It seems imperative that the common mystical element has to be re-considered, contrary to Mark Glouberman’s mistaken (we believe) view of “Western rationality’s trademark mastery over the natural world”, over the “earlier [religious] mode of thought” of the Hebrews. (“Jacob’s Ladder. Personality and Autonomy in the Hebrew Scriptures”, Mentalities/ Mentalités,13, 1-2, 1998, p. 9).

 

 

 

For studies more astute than Glouberman’s, whose opinion, sadly, the majority might share, would indicate that some of these ancient philosophers – now so cramped to merely natural philosophy and the elements (earth, fire, water, etc.) – were actually men of great wisdom and enlightenment, religious and mystical. Nicolas Elias Leon Ruiz (Heraclitus and the Work of Awakening) has perceived this mystical quality in the case of the enigmatic but highly significant Heraclitus, supposedly a Greek of Ionian Ephesus. In his Abstract, Ruiz well explains why commentators have invariably found Heraclitus to be an ‘obscure’ thinker (https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache):

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Heraclitus is universally regarded as one of the fathers of western philosophy.

However, the characterization of the nature of his contribution varies widely. To some he is an early example of rational, empirical, scientific inquiry into the physical world. To others he was primarily a brilliantly innovative metaphysician.

Still others prefer to see him as the distant ancestor of the great German dialecticians of the 19^thcentury. In the 20th century, certain existential phenomenologists all but claimed him as one of their own.

Behind all of this stands a fundamental set of assumptions that is never questioned. Whatever else may be the case, we know that Heraclitus was, essentially, a rational human being like ourselves. He was a philosopher, concerned with explanation and exposition. He was a thinker, and his fragments encapsulate his thought.

It is because of this that Heraclitus has been completely misunderstood. We have no idea of who and what he was. We do not understand what he was saying. Perhaps the greatest irony is that Heraclitus himself, at the very outset of what he wrote, explicitly predicted that this would happen.

Everyone who writes about Heraclitus will make at least passing reference to his legendary obscurity. Some will talk about the oracular character of his writing. A few go so far as to say that his thought bears the traces of revelation, his expression, of prophecy. This is as far as it goes. The problem is that this rather metaphorical way of talking about Heraclitus misses the point entirely. His writing was not just “obscure,” it was esoteric.

Heraclitus did not merely employ an oracular mode of expression: he was an oracle. What he said was a revelation and he was its prophet. Heraclitus was far from the early rationalist or primitive scientist he has been made out to be. He was what we today would call a mystic. ….

[End of quote]

 

 

 Now it seems that Saint “Clement of Alexandria even believed that Sirach had influenced the Greek philosopher Heraclitus (Strom. 2.5; Bright 1999:1064)”. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ABbef Here occurs that same sort of chronological ‘difficulty’ (in a textbook context) with a Father of the Church as also in the case of Saint Ambrose's conjecture (in De philosophia) that Plato had met Jeremiah in Egypt. Whilst, chronologically, this is an extraordinary statement by Saint Clement, considering that Sirach would be located centuries after Heraclitus, the presumed chronological problem may actually be due to the ignorance of the real identity of the supposedly ‘Greek’ philosopher. What if Heraclitus, whose special element was fire, were in fact the same person as the Hebrew Sirach (also known as “Siracides”, hence Heraclitus?), who wrote of fire (Sirach 51:3, 4): “You liberated me … from the stifling heat which hemmed me in, from the heart of a fire which I had not kindled …”. The ancient concept of Divine Wisdom, as written of by Sirach, was supposedly absorbed by Heraclitus, who, we think, may have been but a pale Greek version of the biblical scribe.

 

3.         The Philosophy of Modern Science. Whilst the real world (physis) was still generally the object of philosophical study for the ancients, modern scientists and philosophers have largely shifted the emphasis on to law and convention (nomos). Our inspiration in this area is Dr. Gavin Ardley, who wrote (“The Physics of Local Motion”, I): “… the system of physics inaugurated by Galileo and Newton is only prima facie physics in the proper sense of that science, namely, an inquiry into the physics or nature of things. According to this contention … physics since Galileo has been progressively detached from the family of the real sciences and no longer has any community with the head of the family, namely, metaphysics”.

Encyclical of Pope Francis: "Lumen Fidei"

Vatican analyst: encyclical is bridge between two Popes

Jul 12, 2013 - 01:07 pm .-The director of L’Osservatore Romano, Giovanni Maria Vian, said Pope Francis’ encyclical “Lumen Fidei” could be considered a “bridge” between two successors of St. Peter.

New columnist examines papal encyclical in light of Vatican II

Jul 11, 2013 - 05:24 pm .-In a debut column for Catholic News Agency, professor and priest Fr. Gilfredo Marengo explores the faith behind the Second Vatican Council through the lens of Pope Francis’ first encyclical, Lumen Fidei.

Bishop says Pope Francis' influence seen throughout encyclical

Jul 10, 2013 - 11:59 am .-Bishop Juan A. Reig Pla of the Spanish diocese Alcala de Henares said that the thought of Pope Francis is evident throughout his recent encyclical.

Light of faith will illuminate the world, encyclical teaches

Jul 6, 2013 - 08:28 am .-The theme of light is pivotal in the first Church encyclical written by “four hands.”

In encyclical, Pope says 'light of faith' must transform lives

Jul 5, 2013 - 05:04 pm .-In his first encyclical, “Lumen Fidei,” or “The Light of Faith,” Pope Francis highlighted the need to let Christ’s love transform and renew our lives, so that we may transmit our faith to the world.

Vatican archbishop: encyclical offers insight into Francis' style

Jul 5, 2013 - 01:28 pm .- A Vatican archbishop believes that the first encyclical issued by Pope Francis provides an “introduction” to the Pontiff’s teaching and pastoral style.

New encyclical is a spiritual 'light,' says Vatican publisher

Jul 5, 2013 - 10:42 am .- At its title suggests, “Lumen Fidei,” – the first encyclical by Pope Francis, released July 5 – is truly a “light,” said Fr. Giuseppe Costa, director of the Vatican Publishing House.

Release of Pope Francis' first encyclical stresses beauty of faith

Jul 5, 2013 - 07:04 am .- The first encyclical of Pope Francis – which had been started by the former Pope, Benedict XVI – has been released today to help strengthen the faith of Catholics worldwide.

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Taken from: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/tags/lumen-fidei/