Monthly Archives: December 2006

Fr. Z is pretty tired today.  I am just checking in.

His Eminence Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos read the text of the Holy Father’s Urbi et Orbi address aloud in Latin.  One might think that the Dean of the College of Cardinals would have read the message, if the Pope himself … Read More →

Many years ago I had "hotwired" the phone of the office I working in in Rome so that I could dial out past the Vatican operator and get on Compuserve (Oh… how we thought that was cutting edge at the … Read More →

Sometimes you have to wonder how the translations of major texts are coordinated between the different offices that cover language groups. Here are the headers for the langauge texts of the Holy Father’s Christmas sermon. ITALIAN:"Salvator noster natus est in … Read More →

I want to make a brief visit back to 23 December for a moment and give you what I think is a fascinating entry in the Roman Martyrology for the day.  I was pretty busy and didn’t get it posted.   … Read More →

Here is an excerpt from the Holy Father’s message for the blessing Urbi et Orbi.  He is speaking directly to us, I think.  My emphasis: [D]oes a "Saviour" still have any value and meaning for the men and women of … Read More →

I have been back in my home town of St. Paul and Minneapolis.  Christmas Eve has been busy.  There were no confessions here last tonight, but last night there were hoards.  This morning I drove over to a nearby parish … Read More →

EXCERPT:
The first prayer of the Mass set the stage for our active participation in Communion. Though expressed in exalted language, it conveyed an attitude of humility before the creation of man in God’s image, the Eternal Word’s self-emptying in the Incarnation, and the possibility of our transformation both in the Eucharist to be received in the course of the sacred mysteries this day and in the happiness of heaven to come. In the second prayer, before the Eucharistic Prayer and consecration, we recognized how we sinners have need to appease God and how the God made Man, Jesus Christ was the source both of reconciliation and also of the very Mass we are participating in, the perfect form of worship renewing our completed reconciliation. In this final prayer we put book ends around our grasp of today’s meaning. We were able to partake of Communion and actively participate in Mass first and foremost because of our divine regeneration in baptism, deepened in a good reception of the Blessed Sacrament in Mass. At the same time, we see how our rebirth in the life of the Trinity in baptism aims ultimately at eternal life and our ongoing transformation in heaven. The “just as… so too” structure of the prayer shows us how the “Savior of the world born today” is the fulcrum both of all the ages of the world, born as He was in the “fullness of time”, but also of our own lives as individuals. All of the prayers today are connected by the theme of the transformation of man’s human nature from his sinful state to a state of glory in the transforming assumption of our human nature by Second Person of the Trinity who, once born, is Jesus Christ – our brother in our humanity while remaining our God in His divinity. Read More →