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This is Rome time...at 8:00 p.m. the Chair of St. Peter will be empty...

Auf Wiedersehn Pope Benedict!

We love you and will miss you!!!






...video created by the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist...

Cardinal Bertone spoke for us all

Most Holy Father,

with feelings of great emotion and profound respect, not only the Church, but the whole world, has heard the news of your decision to give up the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, Successor of the Apostle Peter.

We would not be honest, Your Holiness, if we said that this evening there is not a hint of sadness in our hearts. In recent years, your teaching has been a window open onto the Church and the world, which let in the rays of truth and love of God, to enlighten and warm our journey, even and especially at times when clouds gathered in the sky.

All of us have realized that it is precisely the deep love that Your Holiness has for God and the Church that prompted you to make this act, revealing that purity of mind, that strong and demanding faith, that strength of humility and meekness, along with great courage, that have marked every step of your life and your ministry, and that can only come from being withGod, from standing in the light of the word of God, from continuously going up the mountain of encounter with Him to descend again into the City of men.

Holy Father, a few days ago with the seminarians of your Diocese of Rome, you said that as Christians we know that the future is ours, the future belongs to God, and that the tree of the Church grows ever anew. The Church is always renewed, always reborn. Serving the Church in the firm knowledge that it is not ours, but God’s, that it is not we who build it but He; being able to say in truth: “We are useless servants. We have done no more than our duty “(Lk 17:10), trusting completely in the Lord, is a great lesson that you, also with this difficult decision, have given not only to us, the Pastors of the Church, but to the entire People of God.

The Eucharist is a thanksgiving to God. Tonight, we want to thank the Lord for the path that the whole Church has walked under the guidance of Your Holiness and we want to tell you from the depths of our heart, with great affection, emotion and admiration: thank you for giving us the shining example of a simple and humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord, a worker, however, who knew at all times how to do that which is most important: to bring God to men and to bring men to God.

[Translation by Peter Waymel]

source:   http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/cardinal-bertone-s-farewell-address-to-the-holy-father

Let us begin this journey...

 

Upon reading that Pope Benedict's final Mass as Pope would be today, Ash Wednesday, I once again felt a surge of sorrow.  He will always be Papa Benny but soon he will start a more cloistered part of his life.  I think what I'm feeling is how I would feel if someone I loved left for the cloister.  They would still be that person to me but in a different way.  I would't be able to see them as much and that would and does hurt.  We love someone and always want them with us.  

Reflecting on the above photo reminds me that while Pope Benedict is pope, he is only a steward, someone who cares for the king's household in lieu of the king.  Christ is still king.  After many years of doing his duty of God and to man I think Christ has allowed our dear papa to rest with Him alone, to gaze on Him alone---to sit at the feet of the Master and learn from Him alone.  The great professor will be alone with the greatest Teacher, and in doing so will do his greatest work.

There is one greater and that is Jesus who always remains.  Let us sit as His feet too and in doing so we may sit beside our beloved brother and papa.

EWTN will show the Mass at 10 a.m. central time and again at 5 p.m. central standard time.  Check the listings.

A day we will never forget

DS:   Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.  On this day in 1858, our beautiful Mother appeared to a peasant girl in Lourdes, France.  She appeared eight years after the Church proclaimed her "the Immaculate Conception..." a title she herself used at the apparitions.  Just another beautiful sign that heaven and the Church are united...

Our Lady directed St. Bernadette to scratch the ground; when she did so, a tiny stream appeared.  When many of the sick touched the water from this stream, drank it, or washed themselves in it, they were cured instantly.  Ever since that time, Lourdes has been the destination of the sick.  Today, millions travel to the place where the little grotto with its stream still flows...and many miracles still occur at this holy place.

I remember watching "The Song of Bernadette" in my youth and falling in love with the story and the little heroine, St. Bernadette.  I aspired to be like her in every way, pious and obedient, witty and not afraid of her detractors and those who persecuted her.  (I have fallen way short.)  St. Bernadette was extremely influential to me in my formative teen age years.  To this day, if I hear any of the music I used to listen to while reading books on the apparitions or on her life, it takes me totally back to those moments of discovering and getting to know this little saint of Our Lady's.

Today also marks an anniversary of a moment in my life I will never forget...

7 years ago on this day...my mother woke up from her coma.  She had been deathly ill and in a coma for a month and a  half.  Can you imagine your loved one asleep for such a long time?  I stayed by her side the whole time, never leaving, only to Mass or the bathroom.  Well, it was getting to the point where I felt like I was on the precipice of despair.  And one night, Feb. 10th, I whispered a prayer in the rare stillness of my mother's ICU room.  I asked Our Lady of Lourdes to whisper in her Son's ear, to intercede for me to "Please take her if you want her, or please give her back to us, don't leave her in this state of absolute nothingness..."  I begged God and begged Our Lady to intercede.  I fell asleep beside mom's bed while sitting on the chair.  I was used to sleeping this way, as I had been here for as long as she had been in this coma.  

The next morning, I awoke in the grey darkness of the room, the sun still slumbered.  A light from the nursing station just outside my mom's room shone through the glass doors.  I had to remind myself where I was..."oh...I'm in the hospital..." and I felt that disgusting bile in my stomach, that worry and that terrible feeling in the pit of my very being...

I looked over at my mother as I always did every morning after I woke up...I noticed some movement...I got out of my chair and peered closer to her face...her silhouette gave her away...HER EYES WERE OPEN!!! She was looking about the room...!!!

"MOM" I screamed so loud that I'm sure the whole ICU heard me.  I went over to the front of her and looked at her square in her face...her beautiful face looked back at me.  She couldn't speak because she had a tube breathing for her,  but her face said it all.  She had nothing but questions.  I told her where she was and that she was very sick, but she woke up and so things will be better!! I gave her hugs that will last me a lifetime!  Then I rushed to break the  news to the medical staff...

I am still so very grateful to the Almighty God for the miracle He wrought through the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes...

That brings me to today...

This early a.m., the phone interrupted my slumber.  My sister was calling me with the news that our beloved Pope Benedict was resigning... this news terrified me but I've had the whole day to think about it and mourn our loss.  Prayers for the Church and for the election of our next Pope. People will speculate and wonder but I believe the next few days will bring more light to the matter.  If it doesn't, it is just as well.  Canon Law allows this, and that's all I need to know.  Godspeed to our dear Pope.  He cites illness and weakening.  He wants to spend the rest of his days in prayer.  I joked around and said, "He's gone all Carmelite on us!" 

It  hurts, and I cried.  But I feel this is what the Holy Spirit wants for Papa Benny and for the Church... 

February 11th will always be a day to remember...

VEE:  I love Papa Benny.  I was incredibly blessed several years ago to travel to Rome and attend one of his Masses and his Wednesday Angelus.  I will never forget being in the presence of this holy man.  St Peter's square is large  but when the pope comes out you can feel the Holy Spirit and distance doesn't matter.

One does not discern a vocation to the papacy.  One doesn't enter the priesthood saying they intend to make it to bishop then cardinal then pope.  One is elected, and Pope Benedict carried out what was asked of him by God for love of God for many years, even prior to being pope.  I've heard that in 1991, 1996, and 2001 he had asked to retire.  Perhaps now God has granted him his heart's desire after being a good and faithful servant for many years.  He did his duty to his fullest.  Enjoy your more cloistered time papa as you begin your most important work!

Feast of St Paul Miki and Companions

I think we often fail to recognize the help the saints give us in this life and only in the next will we know what they have done for us and how they were with us.  From wikipedia On February 5, 1597, twenty-six Christians – four Spaniards, one Mexican, one Indian, all Franciscan missionaries, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen Japanese laymen including three young boys, who were all members of the Third Order of St. Francis – were executed by crucifixion in Nagasaki on the orders of Hideyoshi Toyotomi. These individuals were raised on crosses and then pierced through with spears.

of note in particular in that group
 Saint Paul Miki or Saint Paulo Miki – Born in Japan in 1562, he joined the Society of Jesus in 1580 and was the first Japanese member of any Catholic religious order. He died one year before his ordination to the Catholic priesthood. Miki's remaining ashes and bones are now located in Macau, China.
 Saint Philip of Jesus - Born in Mexico in 1572 (at the time "New Spain"). Upon his martyrdom he became the first Mexican saint and patron saint of Mexico City.

It may be to my surprise and great honor that I one day find that these great martyrs were with me when I didnt even know it.