Smoky Mountains Sunrise

Monday, April 10, 2017

The Easter Message of Patriarchs and Head of Churches in Jerusalem


We, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem, join together in proclaiming the triumphant victory of our risen Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from the dead. The message of Easter, which was first announced in Jerusalem, and has echoed down the centuries, now resounds again in Jerusalem, the city of the Resurrection.

This year we have witnessed the restoration of the Holy Aedicule in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, two centuries after the last renovation, and almost one hundred years after steel girders were installed to support it. The completion of this challenging work is testament to the support from around the globe involved in the project, and to thank them for their prayers and support.

The service to celebrate the unveiling of the restored Holy Aedicule was a testimony to our spirit of Ecumenism and a celebration of our unity in Christ. We stood together, as one body, one voice, around the empty tomb. We stood as Christians united in offering hope, perseverance and determination to transform this world under the banner of Christ who conquered all evil through his Resurrection. The sacred history of Jerusalem, and particularly of the Holy Sepulchre, is a constant reminder for the whole world that in this place and at a certain time, the Resurrection was proclaimed for all people and for all time. The Resurrection inspires a resolute steadfastness in the living stones (local Christians) as living witnesses in the Holy Land.

It is our prayer that the hope established through our risen Lord will enlighten the leaders and nations of the whole world to see this light, and to perceive new opportunities to work and strive for the common good and recognize all as created equal before God. This light of Christ draws the whole human family towards justice, reconciliation and peace, and to pursue it diligently. It draws us all to be unified and to be at harmony with one another. The power and resonance of the Resurrection permeates all suffering, injustice and alienation, bringing forth hope, light and life to all.

Through the Resurrection and the empty tomb, we need to remember that pain, suffering, and death do not have the final word, it is God – who has the first word, and the last. This was the message of the Easter angel, who challenged the first disciples – both women and men – “Why do you look for the living among the dead? [Jesus] is not here, but has risen” (Luke 24.5).
 
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
+Patriarch Theophilos III, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate
+Patriarch Nourhan Manougian, Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarchate
+Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Apostolic Administrator, Latin Patriarchate
+Fr. Francesco Patton, ofm, Custos of the Holy Land
+Archbishop Anba Antonious, Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, Jerusalem
+Archbishop Swerios Malki Murad, Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate
+Archbishop Aba Embakob, Ethiopian Orthodox Patriarchate
+Archbishop Joseph-Jules Zerey, Greek-Melkite-Catholic Patriarchate
+Archbishop Mosa El-Hage, Maronite Patriarchal Exarchate
+Archbishop Suheil Dawani, Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East
+Bishop Munib Younan, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land
+Bishop Pierre Malki, Syrian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate
+Msgr. Georges Dankaye’, Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate
Easter 2017

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Father Rutler: Let Us Open the Gates of Our Hearts

The first Psalm engraved in my memory was the 24th, which as a child I found especially cheerful. Our grammar school principal, Miss Booth, would ring a large handbell to summon us in from the playground for the opening exercises of Scripture-reading, prayers and the Pledge to the Flag. This was a public school in a time untouched by the neurotic political separation of the Creator and his creatures. Miss Booth’s favorite Psalm obviously was the 24th, because it was the only one in the whole Psalter she seemed to know by heart. She may have thought it the best for starting the day, especially on occasions when the Superintendent of Schools arrived: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift them up ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in” (Psalm 24:9).

The whole meaning of that song of David became clear when the real King of Glory entered Jerusalem, with children joining adults in waving palm branches. But on the same day, that King wept over Jerusalem for the indifference of most of its people.

A few days ago I spent some good hours in the company of David Alton, with whom I have often corresponded, while he was visiting our city. Now Lord Alton of Liverpool, he has been a major champion of pro-life causes in the House of Lords and has promoted awareness of the genocide of Christians in the Middle East and the modern slave trade.

Just as the persecution of Christians is nervously ignored in our social climate, so are most people unaware that there are more slaves now than in all previous centuries combined: by varying estimates between 21 million and 46 million laboring in domestic servitude, forced labor, sex trafficking, child labor, indentured servitude and forced marriage. Certainly the angels of the millions of victims of legalized infanticide always behold the Father’s face (Matthew 18:10), and the modern martyrs join them. Those enslaved know that Christ can set them free morally, even as societies enchain them physically. While such enslavement is most common in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, North Korea, Uzbekistan, Cambodia and Qatar, this bondage exists nearly everywhere in clandestine and subtle forms.

On Palm Sunday, Christ enters New York and every city, and in each one there are those who joyfully greet him, and others whose sullen indifference or contempt move his human nature to tears. That is the drama of free will, which is why each of us is a kind of city unto ourselves, and the gates of our hearts may either open or close to him. He is never alone, for the Father is always with him, but he wants us to be with him too. I am indebted to my old principal Miss Booth for ringing that school bell and leading that Psalm. 
 
 

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Father Rutler: The Objectivity of Truth

In an age of moral confusion, there are those who would suggest that the word “not” has been interpolated in several of the Commandments. It is easy to make words mean what one wants them to mean: in fiction, Humpty Dumpty did that in Wonderland and in fact, the Anti-Christ did that in the Wilderness. Satan is clever at quoting words out of context to make them mean what they do not mean. After forty days, Christ mocked that deceit. “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 6:16; Matthew 4:7).

Jesus is the Living Word because he explains the true meaning of words. He abhors hypocrisy because it twists words, and will actually crucify the Word himself: “But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth” (John 8:40).

Recently, a befuddled theologian tried to justify his misrepresentation of doctrine by saying: “Theology is not Mathematics. 2 + 2 in Theology can make 5. Because it has to do with God and the real life of people.” Only in Wonderland does reality contradict the real life of people, and only in the Wilderness does the Tempter try to make God contradict himself. The Church is clear on that: "Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 159).

Denial of reality is the vice of superstition, which comes in various forms, abusing the virtue of religion. A religious enthusiast who says God can twist reality is as superstitious as the atheist who says there is no God at all, or the positivist who says that man is God, or the pantheist whose god is the world.

Professor Einstein wrote, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” Those words have been twisted vainly by some to suggest that the theoretical physicist was a religious man. Later in life he spoke of a “cosmic religious feeling,” and that made it difficult to pigeonhole him as either an atheist or a secret believer. Challenging what seemed to be random disorder in quantum theory, he remarked in 1926 that God “does not play dice.” Other than that, he revered the objectivity of truth, and would not allow the relativity of matter to justify philosophical relativism. 2 + 2 can never equal 5. That would be a mistake in physical science, and it would be a superstition in religion.

One Christmas in Princeton, carolers sang “Silent Night” outside Einstein’s house on Mercer Street. He did not sing their words, but he accompanied them on his violin. That was more honest than any aberrant theologian who crucifies the Living Word by wrongly conjugating him.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

President Trump's Address at Andrew Jackson's Hermitage

Thank you, Lord, for the great restoration underway in our country.  Thank you for President Donald Trump.
 



Saturday, March 11, 2017

The Best of Britain's Got Talent 2016 - Including Auditions, Semi-Final & The Final



Russian Orthodox Church Adds St Patrick To Its Calendar

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill (Photo: Getty)

From The Catholic Herald (UK)
 
The patron saint of Ireland was one of 15 names added to the Russian Orthodox menology

The Russian Orthodox Church has added St Patrick to its calendar of saints.

The fifth-century saint, known as the apostle of Ireland, was one of 15 names added to the Russian Orthodox menology.

The saints all lived in western and central Europe prior to the Great Schism of 1054.

Dr Vladimir Legoida, the head of communications for the Russian Orthodox synod, told Pravmir there was evidence the new saints had been venerated by Russian Orthodox faithful in the west and by other national Orthodox churches.

Another factor they took into account, he said, was whether or not the saints had been used in polemics between Catholics and Orthodox.

“We took account the immaculateness of devotion of each saint, the circumstances in which their worship took shape, and the absence of the saints’ names in the polemic works on struggle against the Eastern Christian Church or its rite,” Dr Legoida said.


Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Pat Buchanan: The Beltway Conspiracy to Break Trump


At
Mar-a-Lago this weekend
President Donald Trump was filled "with fury" says The Washington Post, "mad — steaming, raging, mad."

Early Saturday the fuming president exploded with this tweet: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"

The president has reason to be enraged. For what is afoot is a loose but broad conspiracy to break and bring him down, abort his populist agenda, and overturn the results of the 2016 election.