Respect Life Sunday

Litany to Mary (click picture)

 

On "Respect Life" Sunday, we are reminded of the beautiful prayer of John Paul the Great, entrusting the cause of life to Mary, "Mother of the living."

Deeply Gladdening

Can a university be both Catholic and American?  While too many Catholic universities in the United States have failed the test of late, the answer is surprisingly simple:

Is not a big part of our gladness and pride this happy morning of graduation a grateful recognition that this university does indeed exude such “ecclesial communion and solidarity?” That this university is both CatholIic and American, flowing from the most noble ideals of truth and respect for human dignity that are at the heart of our Church and our country? That a university’s genuine greatness comes not from pursuing what is most chic, recent, or faddish, but what is most timeless, true, good, and beautiful in creation and creatures? That the true goal of a university is to prepare a student not only for a career but for fullness of life here and in eternity?

123rd Annual Commencement Address

  Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York

  East Portico, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

  May 12, 2012

In his moving commencement address, Cardinal Timothy Dolan also speaks of marriage in the context of "the law of the gift."

Read the full commencement address here.

Remembrance

We join in solidarity with the faithful who remember the Holocaust, which began with discrimination on account of faith and the denial of religious liberty.

"In this place of solemn remembrance, I fervently pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people suffered in the twentieth century will lead to a new relationship between Christians and Jews. Let us build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Jewish feeling among Christians or anti-Christian feeling among Jews, but rather the mutual respect required of those who adore the one Creator and Lord, and look to Abraham as our common father in faith."

SPEECH OF JOHN PAUL II, VISIT TO THE YAD VASHEM MUSEUM, March 23, 2000

Sacrifice and Sacrament

The Eucharist is a sacrifice inasmuch as it is offered up, and a sacrament inasmuch as it is received.

One of the many gifts to us from Blessed John Paul the Great was his declaration of the Luminous Mysteries, an invitation, through Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary, to contemplate the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. On Holy Thursday, observed today, the culmination of the Luminous Mysteries comes to mind. The last decade, the fifth mystery, is the Institution of the Eucharist: Christ present with us—Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. In the breaking of the Bread, we realize: The kingdom of God is at hand.

No Masters, No Gods

No Masters, No Gods. This pithless expression of humanistic philosophy fit nicely across the bumper sticker; its comprehensive message presumably serving as the Summa on the topic of God and man. Yet on that same topic, we find in Mary’s fiat (from Latin “let it be done”) true freedom: In being open to, accepting of, and trusting in God’s plan, Mary freely conformed her will to God’s will. With her “yes,” Mary achieved the triumph of human free will over the tyranny of the self and to that world to which the self clings with grasping fingers.

On the significance of Mary’s fiat, read, Bl. John Paul the Great.