SUMMARY:
- PRAYER
IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION
-
IRREPLACEABLE ROLE OF THE LAY FAITHFUL IN MAKING AFRICA THE CONTINENT
OF HOPE
-
STATISTICS FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LEBANON
-
AUDIENCES
______________________________________
PRAYER
IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Vatican
City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - Benedict XVI today resumed his general
audiences in the Vatican, having held them at Castelgandolfo during
the month of August. Meeting with faithful in the Paul VI Hall he
turned his attention to prayer in the Book of Revelation which, he
explained, "presents us with the living breathing prayer of the
Christian assembly, gathered together 'on the Lord's day'".
Revelation,
Pope Benedict went on, "is a difficult book, but one of great
richness. ... In it a reader presents the assembly with a message
entrusted by God to John the Evangelist. ... From the dialogue
between them a symphony of prayer arises which is then developed in
many different forms up until the conclusion".
The first
part of Revelation presents us with the assembly in prayer in three
successive phases. The first of these highlights how "prayer is,
above all, a listening to God Who speaks. Engulfed as we are by so
many words we are little used to listening, and especially to
adopting an interior and exterior attitude of silence so as to attend
to what the Lord wishes to say to us. These verses also teach us that
our prayers, often merely prayers of request, must in fact be first
and foremost prayers of praise to God for His love, for the gift of
Jesus Christ which brought us strength, hope and salvation. ... God,
Who reveals Himself as the beginning and the end of the story,
welcomes and takes to heart the assembly's request".
This
first phase also includes another important element. "Constant
prayer revives in us a sense of the Lord's presence in our life and
history. His presence supports us, guides us and gives us great hope.
... Prayer, even that pronounced in the most extreme solitude, is
never a form of isolation and it is never sterile, it is a vital
lymph which nourishes an increasingly committed and coherent
Christian existence".
In the
second phase of the prayer of the assembly "the relationship
with Jesus Christ is developed further. The Lord makes Himself
visible, He speaks and acts, and the community, increasingly close to
Him, listens, reacts and accepts".
In the
third phase "the Church in prayer, accepting the word of the
Lord, is transformed. ... The assembly listens to the message, and
receives a stimulus for repentance, conversion, perseverance, growth
in love and guidance for the journey".
"The
Revelation", Benedict XVI concluded, "presents us with a
community gathered in prayer, because it is in prayer that we gain an
increasing awareness of Jesus' presence with us and within us. The
more and the better we prayer with constancy and intensity, the more
we are assimilated to Him, and the more He enters into our lives to
guide them and give them joy and peace. And the more we know, love
and follow Jesus, the more we feel the need to dwell in prayer with
Him, receiving serenity, hope and strength for our lives".
IRREPLACEABLE
ROLE OF THE LAY FAITHFUL IN MAKING AFRICA THE CONTINENT OF HOPE
Vatican
City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - Africa is called to be the "continent
of hope" says Benedict XVI in a letter written to Cardinal
Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity,
for the occasion of the Pan African Congress for Catholic Laity. The
congress is taking place in Yaounde, Cameroon, from 4 to 9 September
on the theme: "Being witnesses of Jesus Christ in Africa today.
'Salt of the earth ... light of the World".
Hope, the
Holy Father writes, "indicates the bright horizon which opens up
before the eyes of faith" despite the many spiritual and
material problems facing the African continent and the African
Church. "Even the best traditional values of African culture are
today threatened by secularisation, which gives rise to
disorientation, rends the fibre of personal and social life,
exacerbates tribalism, violence and corruption in public life, leads
to the humiliation and exploitation of women and children, and
increases poverty and hunger. To this must be added the threat of
fundamentalist terrorism which has recently targeted Christian
communities in a number of African countries".
In spite
of all this, the people of Africa possess "a great wealth of
spiritual resources, which are very valuable in our time: love for
life and the family, a sense of joy and of sharing, enthusiasm in
living their faith in the Lord. ... Never let the dark mentality of
relativism and nihilism, which affects various parts of your world,
open a breach in your lives", the Pope says. "With renewed
energy accept and spread the message of joy and of hope which Christ
brings, a message capable of purifying and strengthening the great
values of your culture. ... Making Africa the 'continent of hope'
must be the goal that guides the mission of African lay faithful
today, just as it must guide the congress you are celebrating".
This
mission "arises from the faith, a gift of God which must be
welcomed, nourished and developed, because 'we cannot accept that
salt should become tasteless or the light be kept hidden'. ... In
this transformation of all society, which is so urgent for Africa
today, the lay faithful have an irreplaceable role to play. ... Women
and men, young and old, children, families and all of society: today
all of Africa awaits the 'ambassadors' of the Good News". These
ambassadors are "the lay faithful in parishes, ... ecclesial
movements and new communities, enamoured of Christ and the Church,
full of joy and gratitude for the Baptism they have received,
courageous workers for peace and announcers of authentic hope".
STATISTICS
FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN LEBANON
Vatican
City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - For the occasion of Benedict XVI's
forthcoming apostolic trip to Lebanon, due to take place from 14 to
16 September and during which he will sign and issue the Post-Synodal
Apostolic Exhortation of the Special Assembly for the Middle East of
the Synod of Bishops, statistics concerning the Catholic Church in
that country have been published.
The
information, updated to 31 December 2011, comes from the Central
Statistical Office of the Church.
Lebanon
has a surface area of 10,400 square kilometres and a population of
4,039,000 of whom 2,148,000 (53.18 per cent) are Catholic. There are
24 ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 1,126 parishes and 39 pastoral
centres of other kinds. Currently, there are 53 bishops, 1,543
priests, 2,797 religious, 2 members of secular institutes, 2,301 lay
missionaries and 483 catechists. Minor seminarians number 62 and
major seminarians 390.
A total
of 427,180 children and young people attend 907 centres of Catholic
education, from kindergartens to universities, as well as 28 centres
for special education. Other institutions belonging to the Church or
run by priests or religious in Lebanon include 30 hospitals, 168
clinics, 39 homes for the elderly or disabled, 63 orphanages and
nurseries, 22 family counselling centres and other pro-life centres,
and 28 institutions of other kinds.
AUDIENCES
Vatican
City, 5 September 2012 (VIS) - This afternoon in the Apostolic Palace
at Castelgandolfo the Holy Father is scheduled to receive in audience
Cardinal Marc Ouellet P.S.S., prefect of the Congregation for
Bishops.
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