Online Edition:
June-July 2013
Vol. XIX, No. 4
News & Views
Worldwide Solemn Eucharistic Adoration on Corpus Christi in the Year of Faith | Vatican Museums: “Beauty to Be Heard” | Veterum Sapientia Latin Study Program | Liturgy and Doctrine Linked, says CDF Head | A Prayer for the New Evangelization in the Year of Faith | Prayer for Religious Freedom
Worldwide Solemn Eucharistic Adoration on Corpus Christi in the Year of Faith
Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, has announced a special event to mark the centrality of the Eucharist in the observance of the Year of Faith. A worldwide Solemn Eucharistic Adoration on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) will take place on Sunday, June 2.
From the Annus Fidei website:
On the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Holy Father will preside over a special Eucharistic adoration that will extend at the same time all over the world involving the cathedrals and parishes in each diocese. For an hour, at 5 pm (Rome time), the whole world will be united in prayer and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
The US bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship (BCDW) said that because of normal Sunday Mass schedules, it will be a particular challenge to schedule such a gathering simultaneously in the various time zones of the United States, which would be held at 11:00 am Eastern, 10:00 am Central, 9:00 am Mountain, 8:00 am Pacific, 7:00 am in Alaska, and 5:00 am in Hawaii.
For this reason, the BCDW recommends “keeping the spirit of the gathering by holding such a Holy Hour at a more convenient time on that day, such as on Sunday afternoon following the last Mass of the day. Such a celebration could include a traditional Eucharistic procession. It would also be appropriate to mark the celebration of regularly scheduled Masses at that particular hour (11:00 am Eastern) with special solemnity, and to note the unity of prayer with the Holy Father at that time through the homily and Prayer of the Faithful.”
For more information, visit the announcement on the Year of Faith website: AnnusFidei.va/content/novaevangelizatio/en/eventi/adorazioneeucaristica.html.
Source: Newsletter, April 2013 (p. 13)
USCCB Committee on Divine Worship
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Vatican Museums: “Beauty to Be Heard”
The Vatican Museums will host “Beauty to Be Heard,” 21 evenings of music, from May 3 until the end of October (except during August), as reported April 19 by Vatican Information Service (VIS).
Every Friday the Vatican Museums will be open from 7:30-11:00 pm. Concerts — beginning at 8:30 pm and featuring the music of Brahms, Debussy, Beethoven, Respighi, Piazzolla, Mendelssohn, and others — will be held in the Rooms of Raphael, the Gregorian Museum, the terraces of the Pinacoteca, and the Courtyard of the Pinecone.
“Beauty to Be Heard” is the result of a collaboration between the Vatican Museums, the Venaria Real (the Royal Palace of Turin, Italy, a Baroque masterpiece declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site), and the Giuseppe Verdi National Conservatory of Turin.
The VIS report said that “this initiative was born of the conviction that the museums and the Venaria Real are not simply collections, architecture, history, or culture from the past, but the ideal meeting place for all those who want to transform art into a passion to be shared.”
Some concerts will be held in the Apostolic Palace in the “Stanza della Segnatura” (one of the rooms decorated with Raphael’s frescos), “where two winged cupids in the lunette … bear tablets with the words Numine afflatur [“inspired by the Spirit,” quoting Virgil] inviting us to contemplate that Art, in all its manifestations, is inspired by divinity.
“The beauty of music and the beauty of the figurative arts go hand in hand, Raphael says…
“This unity is what the youth of the Giuseppe Verdi National Conservatory wish to demonstrate in their Friday concerts at the Vatican Museums. The initiative also includes Saturday performances at the Venaria Reale during the summer months.”
The Vatican Museums’ administration has also provided for a series of thematic guided visits on the musical iconography within the museums. The complete schedule of “Il Bello da Sentire” (Beauty to Be Heard) — with information regarding the places where the concerts will take place and details of the guided “musical” visits — is available on the Vatican Museums website: museivaticani.va.
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Veterum Sapientia Latin Study Program
Veterum Sapientia is a week-long Latin study program that seeks to revitalize the Catholic Church’s Latin heritage in the modern world. It will take place at Belmont Abbey College, August 4-10. The title Veterum Sapientia (Wisdom of the Ancients) is taken from the 1962 Apostolic Constitution of Blessed Pope John XXIII, who intended to revive the study of Latin.
The program is jointly sponsored by Belmont Abbey College and by SALVI, an organization dedicated to the promotion of Latin. It offers intensive instruction to intermediate and advanced students of Latin with opportunities for practice in listening comprehension and speaking. It offers a guided exploration of the most important categories of writing that make up the Church’s Latin patrimony. Classes and related activities will be conducted in Latin and in a combination of Latin and English, as appropriate to participants’ level of experience.
The class sessions will be devoted to reading and discussion of texts representing the major genera of Latin writing in the life of the Church: scriptural, patristic, liturgical, scholastic, and ecclesiastical (curial) Latin, as well as Gregorian chant.
All classes, common meals, and recreational activities will be conducted on the Belmont Abbey College campus; participants’ lodging will be off-campus. Info: latin.org/programs/veterumsapientia.
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Liturgy and Doctrine Linked, says CDF Head
Saint Pius V “sought to strengthen the unity of the faith through the reform and unification of the liturgy,” said Archbishop Gerard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in an address to staff members of the CDF on April 30, the feast of the 16th-century pope and patron of the doctrinal congregation.
Saint Pius V, who was pope from 1566 to 1572, “was a tenacious upholder of both the faith and Church unity,” Archbishop Müller said, and promoting the integrity of the faith and the unity of the Church are the pope’s key tasks. Helping the pope do this is the job of the doctrinal congregation, he said.
“Where the faith of the apostles is alive and where the visible unity of the Church is realized, witnesses are born” who naturally share the Gospel with others, said the CDF prefect. “When faith and unity are real, charity and a missionary impulse increase as well.”
Source: Catholic News Service
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A Prayer for the New Evangelization in the Year of Faith
Heavenly Father,
Pour forth your Holy Spirit to inspire me with these words from Holy Scripture.
Stir in my soul the desire to renew my faith and deepen my relationship
with your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, so that I might truly believe in
and live the Good News.
Open my heart to hear the Gospel and grant me the confidence to
proclaim the Good News to others.
Pour out your Spirit, so that I might be strenghtened to go forth and
witness to the Gospel in my everyday life through my words and actions.
In moments of hesitation, remind me:
If not me, then who will proclaim the Gospel?
If not now, then when will the Gospel be proclaimed?
If not the truth of the Gospel, then what shall I proclaim?
God, our Father, I pray that through the Holy Spirit I might hear the
call of the New Evangelization to deepen my faith, grow in confidence to
proclaim the Gospel, and boldly witness to the saving grace of your Son,
Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen +
–USCCB
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O God Our Creator, from your provident hand we have received our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You have called us as your people and given us the right and the duty to worship you, the only true God, and your Son, Jesus Christ.
Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit, you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world, bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel to every corner of society.
We ask you to bless us in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty. Give us the strength of mind and heart to readily defend our freedoms when they are threathened; give us courage in making our voices heard on behalf of the rights of your Church and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.
Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father, a clear and united voice to all your sons and saughters gathered in your Church in the decisive hour in the history of our nation, so that, with every trial withstood and every danger overcome — for the sake of our children, our grandchildren, and all who come after us — this great land will always be "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen
— Copyright
© 2012 USCCB used with permission
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