Learning to be Quick to Listen

A group of young adults in Spain are bringing to the big screen a novel about the renewal of the Cistercian Order by three saints who strove to recover the poverty, simplicity and austerity of the early monastic era. “Three Rebel Monks” tells the story of Saint Robert of Molesmes, Saint Albéric, and Saint Stephen Harding, who overcame the challenges of monasteries that resisted their efforts. The film is an adaptation of the book with the same title written by M. Raymond. The film director, Aleix Forcada, said that he began with a short university project and ended up with a thorough production. The film was shot at the medieval monastery of Santa Maria de Huerta in Soria, Spain, where there is currently a Cistercian community. Forcada and the other filmmakers are young adults in the Schoenstatt movement in Madrid. They spent four years in filming and editing, a period of time that they say has been an opportunity to encounter God, according to a press release on the movie. Althou...

Second-grader Taylor Garrison got the best birthday present ever April 12 -- her first Communion. She received the sacrament at St. Mark's Church in Edgewood on the day she turned 8. Her journey to meeting Jesus in the Eucharist wasn't easy, but came about through a combination of hard work, modern technology -- like an iPad and the Internet -- and God's grace. "I feel really excited," she said told The Witness, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, in an interview a few days before the special ceremony. "It was a little difficult, but I really wanted to have my first Communion." As a member of a military family, she currently lives at Fort Knox, an Army post in Kentucky, where her father is stationed. Because the Catholic resources there were lacking, Taylor's parents, Pam and Shane Garrison, looked elsewhere to enroll their daughter in a preparation class for the sacrament. "There are no religious education teachers here," said the mot...

To avoid living like pagans, Christians must guard against the temptation of "slipping toward worldliness and power" and of seeking Jesus only to fulfill their material interests, said Pope Francis. "This is the daily temptation for Christians, for all of us who make up the church," the pope said at his morning Mass April 20 in the Domus Sanctae Marthae. After the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, the people in the day's Gospel account (Jn 6:22-29) seek Jesus not "because of the religious awe that leads one to worship God," the pope said, but "for their material interests." When one tries to profit from following Jesus -- an attitude frequently shown in the Gospels -- then one "risks not understanding" and even obscuring the "true mission of Jesus," said the pope. "Many people follow Jesus for their own interests," the pope said. "Even among his apostles: the sons of Zebedee, who wanted...

People from a variety of faiths and backgrounds will unite in Washington, D.C., April 25 to uphold marriage as the union of a man and a woman in the third annual March for Marriage. “It’s going to be a diverse group, and it’s going to highlight how people of different faiths and backgrounds all come together to support the truth, and marriage is the union of a man and a woman,” Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, told CNA. The third annual March for Marriage will take place on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and precedes April 28 oral arguments at the Supreme Court on a critical marriage case that could determine the civil definition of marriage nationwide. The march normally takes place in June, but Brown told CNA that this year it was rescheduled to April to coincide with the oral arguments for Obergefell v. Hodges. That case involves four marriage decisions by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in November. At that time, the court upheld trad...

For a "good Easter," Christians must do more than simply recall the passion of Jesus during Holy Week; they must "enter into the mystery" of the Easter Triduum and make Jesus' feelings and attitudes their own, Pope Francis said. During his general audience April 1, he also recalled the "true martyrs" of today, men and women who "offer their lives with Jesus" for their Christian faith. Their witness, in imitation of Christ's sacrifice, "reflects a ray of this perfect, full and pure love (of Christ)," he said. Theirs, he added, "is a service of Christian witness to the point of bloodshed. It is the service Christ did for us, he redeemed us." The pope began his catechesis, dedicated to the celebration of Holy Week and Easter, by saying that the death and resurrection of Christ are "the culmination" of the entire liturgical year and of the Christian life. The pope offered reflections for each day of the Triduum, ...