The Pope received his ( I guess they don't do foreheads in Rome; I spent two Lents there and for some reason don't recall that. Maybe 'cause we had a Mexican chaplain.) The image above is what you'll see at the Vatican page for Lent. Head there for all the good stuff this season. The Vatican's English summary of today's Audience is here and Zenit will have the full translation here eventually. Sunday's Angelus was about what it means to love your enemies.
it does not consist in surrendering to evil -- as claims a false interpretation of "turn the other cheek" (Luke 6:29) -- but in responding to evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21), and thus breaking the chain of injustice.
In Rome they have the wonderful Lenten tradition of the station churches, which you can read about here. And the NAC has an interactive section on the different churches (curtsy to open book for this last link).
But the best B16 item today is this amateur translation of the Pope's Q&A with seminarians last week. Spontaneous and great, as always (scroll down to post 6252). Cool pix, too. I liked his response to a seminarian who asked about facing the priesthood while knowing one is weak and inconsistent:
It is good to acknowledge our own weakness, because then we know that we need God’s grace. The Lord comforts us. In the college of the Apostles, there wasn’t only Judas, there were good Apostles. Nevertheless, Peter tripped and fell. And many times, the Lord reproached His apostles for their slowness, their closed hearts, the little faith that they had. That shows us that none of us is really up to the magnitude of this great Yes, to the level of celebrating ‘in persona christi’ , of consistently living in this context, of being united to Christ in His mission as priest.
And the Lord has given us, for our consolation, the parables about the net with the good fish and the bad, of the field where grain grows but also weeds. But He makes us know that He came precisely to help us in our weakness. He did not come, as He said, to call on the just, or those who assume that they are already completely just, that they no longer need grace, or those who pray in praise of themselves. But that He has come to call on those who know thesmelves to be wanting, to rouse those who know that they need the forgiveness of the Lord everyday, that they need His grace in order to move ahead. And so, that seems to me very important: to acknowledge that we need a permanently ongoing conversion, that we should never think we have 'arrived.'
St. Augustine, at the moment of his conversion, thought that he had arrived at the peak of living with God, to the beauty of the sun which is God’s word. Then he had to understand that even the way after conversion remains a path of conversion – a way which does not lack for great views, joy, the light of the Lord, but which equally, does not lack for dark valleys where we should walk ahead with confidence, relying only on the goodness of the Lord.
That is why the Sacrament of Reconciliation is important. It is not right to think that we must live so that we will never have to need forgiveness. To accept our weakness, but to stay the course, not to yield but to move ahead, and through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, ever converting ourselves towards a new beginning, and therefore, grow and mature, for the Lord, in communion with Him.
And that's only the first half of the response.
Elsewhere, Catholics are giving up more than chocolate for Lent:
- Anglo-Catholic reunion? This would be cool if it happened. I've delayed comment on it only because so far it seems less than earnest --more like a threat and a bargaining position. But still. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
- Cairo: Cardinal Poupard met with a top Sunni Imam, who promises to visit Vatican.
- Iraq: very interesting interview with a Chaldean auxiliary bishop.
- Vietnam: after months of happy talk about the government's recognizing the Vatican and allowing religious freedom...a top priest has been arrested.
- India: A Marian shrine that had just been restored after tsunami damage was ruined by vandals.
And finally, how can you not love Card. Pell, who calls global warming
“an induced dose of mild hysteria,” which he said has grown “dangerously close to superstition.”
