Learning to be Quick to Listen

Pope Francis closed the Year of Faith by calling on people to keep Christ at the center of their lives, especially in times of trouble. "When Jesus is at the center, light shines even the darkest moments of our lives; he gives us hope," he said in his homily November 24, the feast of Christ the King. The closing Mass in St. Peter's Square also saw, for the first time, the exposition for public veneration of bones believed to be those of St. Peter. The apostle is believed to have been martyred on a hill overlooking St. Peter's Square and buried a tomb now located two levels below the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica. Eight bone fragments, each two to three centimeters long, were nestled in an open bronze reliquary displayed to the side of the altar. During the ceremony, the pope -- the 265th successor of Peter -- held the closed reliquary for several minutes in silent prayer while choirs sang the Nicene Creed in Latin. The bones, which were discover...

The devastation brought on by Super Typhoon Haiyan is on a scale so big it is "unimaginable," said Jesuit Father Edwin Gariguez, head of Caritas in the Philippines. "This is beyond our capacity," said Father Gariguez, "that's the reason why we have our Caritas network with us now." When the typhoon hit November 8, the CRS country representative to the Philippines, Joe Curry, was already in Bohol dealing with relief from the October 15 earthquake, so CRS was able to get its assessment teams to Leyte November 10. With about 600,000 people displaced by the storm, the task of getting aid to Filipinos posed a challenge in terms of coordination and the logistics. International aid started began arriving the week of November 10, while local relief began immediately after the typhoon hit. But five days after the storm cut a path of damage that obliterated as many as 90 percent of the houses in some areas, there were still stories of people not receiving an...

Pope Francis has asked Catholic young people around the world to read, meditate and act on the beatitudes as they celebrate World Youth Day in their dioceses in 2014 and 2015 and as they prepare to join him in Poland in 2016. Taking the text of the beatitudes from the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Pope Francis has chosen the themes for World Youth Day celebrations for the next three years, the Vatican announced November 7. World Youth Day is celebrated annually on a local level and every two or three years with an international gathering with the pope. At the end of World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis announced the next international gathering would be held in Krakow, Poland, in 2016. The annual Rome diocesan celebration with the pope is held on Palm Sunday each year; the date of the celebration in other dioceses varies. But don't wait until then. Urge the youth, and for that matter everyone, in your home parish to adopt the beatitudes to guide their daily liv...

The Archbishop of Denver warned that an increasing rejection of God endangers the foundations of democracy, urging Catholics to embrace the truth of the Gospel and to live it “both personally and publicly. When one does away with God, one embraces, whether knowingly or unknowingly, the father of lies and the evil one,” Archbishop Samuel Aquila said in a recent homily. “If there is no truth and if there is no God that is referenced, it means that we, as human beings, are the ones who decide what is good and what is evil,” he added, warning that the complete rejection of God results not in true freedom and justice, but in “dictatorship” and “totalitarianism.” His homily was delivered at the archdiocesan Red Mass, celebrated at Regis University in Denver. The Red Mass is a more than 700-year-old tradition invoking the Holy Spirit's aid for lawyers, judges, and government officials. Archbishop Aquila drew on Christ’s parable from the Gospel of Luke about the prayers of the self-righteo...