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Month: July 2021

Vatican confirms Pope Francis will visit Slovakia in September

Posted by | Jul 4, 2021 | , |

Pope Francis gives his Sunday Angelus address overlooking St. Peter’s Square June 27, 2021. / Vatican Media/CNA.

Vatican City, Jul 4, 2021 / 06:05 am (CNA).

The Vatican confirmed Sunday that Pope Francis will travel to Hungary and Slovakia in September.

The pope will visit Budapest on Sept. 12 for the concluding Mass of the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress. He will then travel to the Slovakian cities of Bratislava, Prešov, Košice and Šaštin from Sept. 12 to 15.

The trip was confirmed July 4 by the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, who said details about the pope’s program in Slovakia will be published at a later date.

Pope Francis himself announced his trip to Slovakia after his noon Angelus address: “I am pleased to announce that from 12 to 15 September next, God willing, I will go to Slovakia to make a pastoral visit,” he said from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

Pilgrims from Slovakia present in the square responded to the announcement with cheers, and the pope noted their presence. “The Slovaks are happy there!” he said.

“I sincerely thank all those who are preparing this journey and I pray for them,” Francis said. “Let’s all pray for this trip and for the people who are working to organize it.”

In his Angelus address July 4, Pope Francis reflected on “the comfort of habit and the dictatorship of prejudice,” which prevents us from really knowing Jesus and the people around us.

His exegesis centered on the day’s Gospel reading from St. Mark. In the passage, Jesus preaches in the synagogue in Nazareth, but his fellow villagers react by asking themselves: “What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?”

“We could say that they know Jesus, but they do not recognize him,” the pope said. They “have known him for 30 years and think they know everything.”

“In reality, they never realized who Jesus really is,” he said.

Francis noted that the same thing can happen in our own lives with the people around us: we see someone in our neighborhood, meet them occasionally, but “it is an ordinary, superficial knowledge that does not recognize the uniqueness of that person.”

“It is a risk that we all run: we think we know a lot about a person, and the worst is that we label them and shut them up in our prejudices,” he said.

“And here we get to the very heart of the problem,” Pope Francis continued, “when we make the comfort of habit and the dictatorship of prejudice prevail, it is difficult to open up to novelty and be surprised.”

He encouraged Catholics to foster amazement in their faith life.

“Without amazement, faith becomes a tired litany that slowly dies out and becomes a habit,” he said. “What is it, amazement? Amazement is precisely when the encounter with God happens.”

God became incarnate and he draws near to us in the normal activities of our lives, Francis said.

“And then, it happens to us as to the fellow villagers of Jesus, we risk that, when he passes by, we do not recognize him.”

“Now, in prayer, let us ask the Madonna, who welcomed the mystery of God in her daily life in Nazareth, for eyes and hearts free of prejudices and to have eyes open to be amazed: ‘Lord, that we might meet you.’”

“We meet him in the normal: eyes open to God’s surprises, at his humble and hidden presence in daily life,” he concluded.

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Waking up on the 4th of July to This!

Posted by | Jul 4, 2021 | , , , |

It’s not every morning you wake up on the Fourth of July and look out your bedroom window and see a bold eagle sitting in the tree smiling at you. Well I don’t know if you’re smiling with that big yellow beak of his, but we took it as a smile. We will be praying […]

The post Waking up on the 4th of July to This! appeared first on Defenders of the Catholic Faith.

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Park honours caregivers from past pandemic

Posted by | Jul 4, 2021 | , |

A virtual ceremony will be held July 16 to open Grasett Park in downtown Toronto to commemorate the physicians, nurses, clergy and other caregivers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in caring for the influx of Irish migrants struck down by typhus in 1847…

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Everything Hinges on How We Respond to Christ’s Word

Posted by | Jul 4, 2021 | , , |

And Jesus could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And Jesus was amazed at their unbelief (Mk. 6:6). The Scripture lessons of today’s Mass speak of the difficulties encountered in the work of the Gospel, the work of salvation. The Prophet[…]

The post Everything Hinges on How We Respond to Christ’s Word appeared first on Catholic Insight.

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Canada’s Dominion Day

Posted by | Jul 4, 2021 | , |

A blessed Canada, or more properly, Dominion Day to all our readers, on which we celebrate the official founding of ‘Canada’ as a (mostly) independent part of the British Commonwealth since the signing into effect of such in 1867, with the ‘province of Lower and Upper Canada’ (later Ontario and Quebec), Nova Scotia and New[…]

The post Canada’s Dominion Day appeared first on Catholic Insight.

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Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Posted by | Jul 4, 2021 | |

Reading I Ez 2:2-5

As the LORD spoke to me, the spirit entered into me
    and set me on my feet,
    and I heard the one who was speaking say to me:
    Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites,
    rebels who have rebelled aga…

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Fourteenth Sunday: The Inadequacy of Relativism and Random Chance

Posted by | Jul 4, 2021 | , , |

A theme common to Ezekiel and Saint Mark—the readings for the fourteenth Sunday, year B—is the necessity of faith . . .  and, be it said, the difficulty of achieving it. The history of the Jews is a catalogue of the sin of idolatry, i.e., of surrendering their allegiance to the one true God for[…]

The post Fourteenth Sunday: The Inadequacy of Relativism and Random Chance appeared first on Catholic Insight.

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Historic Vatican indictments raise as many questions as they answer

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How the responses are fleshed out in the days and months to come will determine whether Saturday is indeed remembered as a truly historic turning point, or merely the latest chapter in everything in the Vatican changing so that everything can stay the same.

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From My Mother’s Womb, You Are My Strength

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Randall Smith: If we turn a blind eye on abortion, can we really face the God who made both them and us? More is at stake than politics.

The post From My Mother’s Womb, You Are My Strength appeared first on The Catholic Thing.

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Jul. 4 Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Sunday

Posted by | Jul 4, 2021 | |

And on the sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue; and many who heard him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty works are wrought by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of …

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