Posts Tagged ‘Blessed John Henry Newman’

Celebrate the Papal Visit anniversary – and win the Photobook too!

Papal

Next Friday is the 1st anniversary of Pope Benedict’s state visit to the UK.

On the official website, you can find plenty of information about the various events and initiatives which celebrate this important date. Most importantly the Bishop Conference of England and Wales have taken this opportunity to encourage Catholics to re-discover Friday penance.

The Pope and Newman

Here at CTS, we wanted to celebrate by having a competition with a free copy of the Official Record of the Papal Visit as the prize. We want to hear what your favourite moment of the Papal Visit was and then we would like you to describe the visit in three words. Our editors will decide which are the best entries.

Once before when this blog began, we gave away the photo book as a prize and the response was excellent, so between now and next Friday, give us your entry either in the comments box here or on Facebook and you can enjoy this souvenir book for free!

Of related interest:

DV47 Heart Speaks Unto Heart – Celebrating Pope Benedict XVI’s historic first State Visit to the UK, this DVD tells the story of the extraordinary four days in September 2010, offering not just event highlights, but all of the Holy Father’s profound words from his 13 public speeches. Archbishop Vincent Nichols provides a narrative to introduce the different sections of the DVD.
6856 Blessed John Henry Newman -The official authorised biography, prepared for Newman’s beatification. Beautiful colour-illustrated hardback.
D738 Finding Life’s Purpose – This little pocket book sets out the several challenges he makes to any young person today who is considering courses at college or secondary school, or preparing for working life. Further practical advice on studying and on engaging the help of the saints is included. Based upon Pope Benedict’s addresses to young people during his 2010 visit to Britain.
Friday, 09 September 2011 14:06

Some unusual symbols of the Holy Spirit

D744

This coming Sunday, we celebrate Pentecost, the feast of the descent of the Holy Spirit, also called the “Birthday of the Church”.

But this third, and in a certain sense omnipresent member of the Holy Trinity can sometimes be almost incomprehensible – as Giuseppe D’Amore, permanent deacon and active member of the Charismatic Renewal movement explains in the new CTS booklet, Symbols of the Holy Spirit:

“The Holy Spirit is perhaps the most mysterious and hidden of the three persons of the Holy Trinity. We can have some idea about the Father from the descriptions given by Jesus. The Father’s characteristics can be compared to those we recognise in human paternity. The Son became flesh sharing in our complete human nature, being perfectly present to us in his incarnation; he is like us in everything but sin. For the Holy Spirit, however, we have no complete representation.”

How to enter into a relationship with a Person of the Trinity we do not know? We can see only something of His mystery through signs and images given to us in Sacred Scripture and in the tradition of the Church. Some of these, like the image of the dove, are well known, while others are less obvious; but D’Amore is quick to remind us at the outset of his exploration that even these symbols are just that, symbols, and they serve a higher purpose.

“Our aim will be to move from the symbol to the reality, or as blessed John Henry Newman put it, ‘From shadows or images, to the truth.’ “

Often, elemental images have been used to better understand the Holy Spirit – such as water, which is vital for life and purification, and fire, which burns and transforms:

“The fire of the Spirit renders us malleable. Iron placed in the fire, freed of its impurities, becomes incandescent; it can be shaped at will by the blacksmith who can transform it into a work of art. Such a Spirit, as molten lava, can shape and make life the masterpiece foretold in eternity by the creative mind of the Word.”

This more thought-out understanding of the symbols that one finds in Scripture can help us to see how much we need this Spirit and how it has always been there. Pentecost in Judaism was the feast of the giving of the Torah, and through the words of that Torah, we can see how God prepared his people to receive His greatest Word, from those formerly frightened men who burst from their upper room.

Symbols of the Holy Spirit is available from CTS priced 1.95

Of related interest:

D744 Novena for Pentecost Leaflet - The Novena, prayed for the unity of Christianity, starts the day after Ascension Thursday and finishes on the eve of Pentecost, and invites us to pray, daily, for the coming of the Holy Spirit. The specific daily themes can be prayed in any way that suits, and may include spontaneous prayers, praying in the Spirit, prayers of repentance, thanksgiving and blessing.
SP27 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit – Every Christian who has been confirmed has received the fullness of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. This booklet explains what these gifts are, the effect they can have on the life of the person who accepts them and what a life truly led by the Spirit should look like.
DO693 Dominum et Vivificantem – Already setting the Church’s sights on the great Jubilee of the year 2000, marking ‘the passage from the second to the third Christian Millennium’, Pope John Paul reflects on the Holy Spirit, as the one who is at the centre of the Christian faith and is the source and dynamic power of the Church’s renewal.
Thursday, 09 June 2011 15:30

Who was sent into exile most often for proclaiming Christ?

B742

This week we are looking at some of the 33 “Doctors of the Church” with the help of Fr Jerome Bertram, author of the CTS booklet Doctors of the Church. This morning we wanted to highlight how space and time are no limit for the spreading of eternal Truth.

As we said yesterday, there were eight original doctors, four known as the Greek doctors, and four as the Latin doctors. Anyone who has the pleasure of doing the prayer of the Church and the Office of Readings will be familiar with them:

St Athanasius, St Basil the Great, St Gregory of Nazianzen, St John Chrysostom, St Ambrose, St Jerome, St Augustine, St Gregory the Great.

These giants helped define and explain the faith as it grew from an off-shoot of Judaism into a universal call to salvation. As Fr Jerome tells us, their lives were far from easy – St Athanasius, for example,

“Holds the record for the number of times he was sent into exile for his teaching: he died in obscurity, but his teaching triumphed. The question at issue can be simplified into whether Jesus is God or not. It was much more complicated than that, of course, and there were innumerable variations of teaching, some of which was clearly non-Christian, some were seen to be inadequate only with time. The whole controversy is usually known as the ‘Arian Crisis’.

“It became a proverb to talk of him as Athanasius alone against the world, contra mundum. ‘This extraordinary man’, wrote Blessed John Henry Newman, ‘a principal instrument after the Apostles by which the sacred truths of Christianity have been conveyed and secured to the world.’”

Other Doctors belie the title “Dark ages” given by some to the time after the collapse of the Roman Empire. St Isidore had to face the Arian problem again in the sixth century, while John of Damascus, – interestingly writing in a land under Muslim rule – argued against the Emperors of Constantinople, who had prohibited representational art.  And at the opposite ends of the Christian world, working at the same time, was the only English doctor of the Church, St Bede of Jarrow – more on him later this week.

The value of the each human being – through the Incarnation – and the importance of art, are just two things that have been explained to us and defended for us, by these great teachers of the faith, and there are many more.

Doctors of the Church is available from CTS priced £2.50

Of related interest:

B703 Augustine of Hippo - St Augustine was a bishop, is a father of the Church and a Doctor of the Church, but above all is a man with an extraordinary story to tell. This booklet uses the famous Confessions of St Augustine to recount the wonderful journey from a life of sin and error to a life lived for Christ.
DO798 Spiritual Masters: Medieval Fathers and Writers – In this richly illustrated, beautifully bound hardback volume, Pope Benedict examines the great saints of the Middle Ages from St Odo, Abbot of Cluny, to St Peter Lombard the twelfth-century theologian.
DO780 The Fathers of the Church – Following his series of Catecheses on the Apostles and major figures of the primitive Church, Benedict XVI turns all his knowledge and insight to the preachers, writers, homilists and theologians of the next five centuries.
Wednesday, 08 June 2011 09:00

Papal visit must not be forgotten

Nuncio book

When this site was launched about a month ago we offered you a book, the official record of the Holy Father’s visit to the UK in September and those of you who were kind enough to comment hopefully received our gift and enjoyed it.

And we hope you will not be the only ones to do so, for the author was happy to present the book as a gift to the new Papal Ambassador to this country, his Excellency Archbishop Antonio Mennini.

The Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols also made the presentation at a special mass held to welcome the new Nuncio earlier this month.

We hope he will enjoy it and it will give him a flavour of the religious and civil life of the country he is now serving, since his predecessor Archbishop Foustino Sainz Munoz retired due to ill health.

For the full story, click here.

Sharing memories

We wanted to take this opportunity to ask you for some of your favourite memories of Pope Benedict’s visit, which was just over six months ago.

Personally, I found the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Hyde Park extremely moving. Not only because seeing so many people kneeling and in silence is impressive but because it was in the centre of a city which, for so many centuries, had been averse to such practices; and because the place where so many martyrs died to defend that Roman faith was only a stone’s throw away.

Also, having travelled to many meetings and World Youth Days, I have always been aware of being in another country, surrounded by another culture. I do not for a moment mean that in a negative way, but what happened in September happened in my city and in this country.

It only made me think what a grace it would be to have World Youth Day in England – who knows, maybe one day?

Tell us about your memories of the Papal visit in the comments box.

Of related interest:

Part 2 Jesus of Nazareth Vol. II – Who is Jesus? Many modern scholars have tried to reinterpret him as a myth, a political revolutionary, a prophet whose teaching was distorted by his followers. In short, anything other than the traditional Christian understanding of him as the Messiah, the Son of God.
Britain Pilgrim in Britain – Pope Benedict XVI’s long-awaited visit to Great Britain has produced a significant body of reflections on matters of great importance not only to Christians who live in these isles, but also to those of other faiths and of none.
Via Dolorosa Via Dolorosa with Pope Benedict XVI - Well-known Gospel passages, prayers and beautiful illustrations are powerfully drawn together in these probing meditations on suffering, the cross, the place of evil and sin in our world.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011 09:01

Tell Us What You Think And Get A Free Papal Visit Photobook Worth £14.95

The Pope and Newman

CTS Catholic Compass is a service and we need to know who we are serving and whether they like what they see.

Leave us a comment and recommend the site to friends, or put it on your Facebook wall and we will send you the official record of the Pope’s Visit to Britain (UK residents only) and we don’t mean a duet with Susan Boyle.

Visit this blog’s competition page for more details.

Wednesday, 02 February 2011 15:00
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