World Youth Days Inspired Jesuit Scholastic to Join the Society

FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US

When one reads Helen Prejean's, Dead Man Walking, what is often lost in the sheer power of the story is what she recounts at the very end of the book and intends precisely as the real ending to the story.

The book ends with the story of Lloyd LeBlanc, the father of the boy who was murdered, and his struggle to forgive his son's killer.

After the execution of the man who killed his son, Prejean describes how she would occasionally meet Lloyd LeBlanc at a chapel which holds perpetual adoration. Kneeling with him, in the middle of the night in a silent chapel, they would say the rosary together. Prejean describes how, at a point, he shared with her his struggle to forgive his son's killer.

When he arrived with the sheriff's deputies in the deserted field to identify his son's body, he had knelt down beside the body and prayed the Our Father. When he came to the words: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," he had not stopped praying or made any mental reservations. Instead he added the words: "Whoever did this, I forgive them."

There, beside his dead son's mutilated body, he had forgiven the man who had done that to his son.

FASTING - "Give it up"

It might surprise some Catholics to learn that fasting during Lent is not meant to be undertaken solely for one’s spiritual well-being. While self-abnegation can serve as a vivid reminder that our physical bodies should not rule our lives, the early church fathers thought that fasting needed to be connected to something else: almsgiving. St. John Chrysostom wrote that fasting without almsgiving was hardly praiseworthy; in fact, it hardly counted as fasting at all. Ironically, he compared it to gluttony and drunkenness, since it smacked of selfishness. For St. Augustine, fasting was avaricious unless one gave away what one saved. The practice, then, needs to be informed by charity, not simply a desire to attain spiritual perfection.

Pope Benedict XVI is to step down

Pope Benedict XVI is to step down

Pope Benedict XVI is to step down, the Vatican announces

Pope Benedict XVI has announced he will resign in two weeks. Here is his full statement:

Dear Brothers,

I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.

Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.

From the Vatican, 10 February 2013