timeimmortal

From the text of a speech Pope Benedict XVI delivered at Nationals Park Stadium:

In today’s Gospel, the Risen Lord bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and grants them the authority to forgive sins. Through the surpassing power of Christ’s grace, entrusted to frail human ministers, the Church is constantly reborn and each of us is given the hope of a new beginning.

Let us trust in the Spirit’s power to inspire conversion, to heal every wound, to overcome every division, and to inspire new life and freedom.

How much we need these gifts! And how close at hand they are, particularly in the Sacrament of Penance!

The liberating power of this Sacrament, in which our honest Confession of sin is met by God’s merciful word of pardon and peace, needs to be rediscovered and reappropriated by every Catholic. To a great extent, the renewal of the Church in America and throughout the world depends on the renewal of the practice of Penance and the growth in holiness which that Sacrament both inspires and accomplishes.

“In hope we were saved!” (Rom 8: 24). As the Church in the United States gives thanks for the blessings of the past 200 years, I invite you, your families, and every parish and religious community, to trust in the power of grace to create a future of promise for God’s people in this Country.

I ask you, in the Lord Jesus, to set aside all division and to work with joy to prepare a way for him, in fidelity to his word and in constant conversion to his will.

Above all, I urge you to continue to be a leaven of evangelical hope in American society, striving to bring the light and truth of the Gospel to the task of building an ever more just and free world for generations yet to come.

Those who have hope must live different lives! (cf. Spe Salvi, n. 2). By your prayers, by the witness of your faith, by the fruitfulness of your charity, may you point the way towards that vast horizon of hope which God is even now opening up to his Church, and indeed, to all humanity: the vision of a world reconciled and renewed in Christ Jesus, our Savior. To him be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen!

Just so. One consistent theme in Benedict’s papacy has been the ideal of hope — not the vacuous, vain “hope” that Barrack Hussein Obama seems to be promising in his campaigning in the presidential primary, but real hope that not only desires an end which is good, but also looks to an end that will be fulfilled and realized.

How consistently impressive this Pope is, and how often he says exactly what needs to be said at exactly the right time! What a magnificent blessing upon the Church.

Grace (yes, my wife) writes in to try and stimulate a bit of creative thought on my part.

Ken, do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic and in what sense? Just curious.

Grace
Love You

I love you too, sweetheart.

As to whether I consider myself an orthodox Catholic, the short answer is: yes, I do. Now, I will be the first person (though hardly the only one) to tell the Reader that I have not lived anything like an exemplary Christian life; I’m a sinner as sure as anyone else is, and I mean it very literally when I reflect that Christ came into the world to save sinners, “of whom I am first.” If you wrote every sin I’ve committed on a standard yellow sticky note, you could wallpaper Edmonton.

But as the priest at Mass noted yesterday, that heightened awareness of sinfulness is one of the things that separates the people who have entered into the light of the Christian faith (of which Catholicism is the pinnacle) from those still caught up in darkness. That’s not to say that Christians are any more or less sinful than non-Christians…it is merely to remark that they are more aware that they do, in fact, sin. For what does sin, despite its reality, mean to an atheist?

In my faith journey, I try and live by the Bible, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Code of Canon Law. I could ask for no better guidelines for living than these three books, and to the best of my ability I try and live a life that follows the tenets outlined in each of them. Of course, I fail at doing so on many accounts, which is why I am eternally grateful that Christ instituted in the Church the glorious and somber Sacrament of Reconciliation (also called Confession). When I am confronted, in my life, with a conflict between my desires and the teachings of the Church, I strive to remember that I am flawed and weak, and that there will never arise a circumstance in which I am correct and the revelation given to (and through) the Church incorrect. And should any occasion arise in which I cannot achieve even that reconciliation in mind, I will still cleave to the faith and my ongoing participation in it, rather than walk away as so many of my family have done.

I rise and fall on the Apostle’s Creed (and the Nicene Creed as well), and that same prayer I would gladly have as my death warrant, if it came to that.

For me, the source and summit of faith is the Eucharist, and ongoing participation in that Sacrament is the most important action I can, will, and do undertake in my life. I find, especially, that I am drawn to, and captivated by, the Blood of Christ during the celebration of the Eucharist. During consecration, I always strive to ensure that I can catch at least a glimpse of the cup holding the Blood, and for me the moment that the wine is consecrated and transformed is the pinnacle of the Mass.

I hope that the above, while short, is an adequate answer to the question posed. It’s a complex question that I could, if I gave myself more time, compose a very lengthy answer to. I’ve tried to hit the main points, at least. And I hope I have done at least that.