The New Beginning

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

A. Bacevich, The Crisis of US Military Policy

via The Western Confucian: The Great Divide--THE CRISIS OF U.S. MILITARY POLICY, Andrew J. Bacevich

Stop Loss

What will Southrons make of the movie? If it is well-done, those who are tired of the South sharing much of the burden for the American imperial war machine will at least approve of the movie's message, if not the movie itself.

While the stop loss policy in itself my not be illegal , since the possibility of being kept on active duty, or being recalled, is listed under the terms of one's enlistment contract (and it does seem from the trailer that the movie gets this wrong, as if the Army is breaking its part of the contract somehow), still there is a moral point to be made--is stop loss moral or just? Is it fair to demand so much from our soldiers (and their families), some of whom have had their rotations home cut short (of the "promised" period of time) so they can be redeployed to Afghanistan and Iraq again? If our stay in Iraq is so important, shouldn't GWOT cheerleaders be encouraged to enlist, or even drafted so we can meet the manpower requirements? Or should the draft be reinstated? (Of course, that will probably not happen, because the National Government is aware of the popular backlash that would result.)

Are our soldiers like the Roman legionaries, being sent away far from home on long campaigns for the glory of the Empire? How did the legionaries cope with being away from home? Are our soldiers somehow weaker if they want to be home instead of being far away? Or should we say instead that at least they still have an idea of what it means to be a free citizen whose devotion should be to home, rather than being an instrument of the American Empire to further goals that have nothing to do with protecting the homeland?

Unfortunately, pretty boy Ryan Phillippe may undermine the message of the movie. Does he make a credible soldier? Or a Southron, for that matter?

Rolling Stones review
Yahoo Movies
Rotten Tomatoes

Photos of The Forbidden Kingdom

Here, via Twitch; some photos of Liu Yi Fei from that album.

Interview of Yifei Liu (Talking About Forbidden Kingdom)

Thomas Storck, Is the Acton Institute a Genuine Expression of Catholic Social Thought?

Is the Acton Institute a Genuine Expression of Catholic Social Thought?

Building Catholic Communities

From the Chesterbelloc Mandate: Building Catholic Communities

A lecture series exploring how to create new communities based on the tradition and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church

Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family
4250 Harewood Road, NE
Washington, D.C.

The Shrine is just down the street from the National Basilica of the Immaculate Conception on the left side of the road. Park in the rear and enter the building through the four large wooden doors on the front of the building.

February 11 – April 30, 2008

All lectures will be digitally recorded and posted on the website:
http://www.buildingcatholiccommunities.org/

All lectures are free and open to the public

Thomas Storck
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
7:00 PM
"Community and Dwelling Space: Some Reflections from Catholic Doctrine and Tradition"

Fr. Dominic Lenk, OSB
Thursday, April 3, 2008
7:00 PM
"Saint Benedict: Himself, His Rule, His Disciples"

Andrew Sorokowski, PhD
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
7:00 PM
"The Rule of St. Basil as a Model for Community Life"

John Sharpe
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
7:00 PM
"Our Birthright of Responsibility: Real Property Ownership and its Restoration Today"

Milton Grenfell
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
7:00 PM
"Beguinage: Cohousing in Medieval Flanders"

Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family
Building Catholic Communities

This is the series that was originally scheduled to be held at CUA, but was cancelled because of the controversy surrounding Dr. E. Michael Jones.

No audio files available yet.

2nd trailer for Redbelt now online

@ Apple

Alas, with these two trailers I think they gave away most of the story.

Donald Vandergriff has a blog now

via DNI: Don Vandergriff

He is the author of Path to Victory and Raising the Bar.

Raising the Bar, by Major Don Vandergriff
Unit Manning will Benefit the Many by MAJ Donald Vandergriff
The People Side Of Transformation: A Path to Victory
Atlantic Unbound | Fallows@large | 2003.01.15
Careers and Cohesion for Effective 21st Century Leadership: By Don ...
Not a Good Day to Die, Reviewed by MAJ Don Vandergriff

HBO's The Pacific

Found an ad for The Greatest Generation Foundations @ Laura Ingraham's website. The ad featured some photos for HBO's The Pacific, which is about the Pacific campaign during World War 2, focusing on the Marines. It's supposed to be in 10 parts.

Here's the HBO announcement:

August 16, 2007 | Production Begins on 'The Pacific'

Production has begun in Australia on THE PACIFIC. Shooting through mid-2008, the epic ten-hour miniseries is executive produced by Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman, the creative team behind the Emmy®-winning 2001 HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers."

THE PACIFIC is produced by HBO Films in association with Playtone and DreamWorks Television. The production is based at Melbourne Central City Studios in Melbourne, Victoria, with filming taking place in and around Melbourne, where U.S. troops camped in 1943, and multiple locations in Far North Queensland. Kary Antholis, senior vice president, HBO Films, is the executive in charge of the project. THE PACIFIC is scheduled to debut on HBO in 2009.

The miniseries tracks the intertwined odysseys of three U.S. Marines - Robert Leckie (played by James Badge Dale), Eugene Sledge (Joe Mazzello) and John Basilone (Jon Seda) - across the vast canvas of the Pacific. The extraordinary experiences of these men and their fellow Marines take them from the first clash with the Japanese in the haunted jungles of Guadalcanal, through the impenetrable rain forests of Cape Gloucester, across the blasted coral strongholds of Peleliu, up the black sand terraces of Iwo Jima, through the killing fields of Okinawa, to the triumphant, yet uneasy, return home after V-J Day.

Carl Franklin (HBO's "Rome"), Jeremy Podeswa (HBO's "Six Feet Under"), Tony To (HBO's "Band of Brothers"), Tim Van Patten (HBO's "The Sopranos") and Graham Yost (HBO's "From the Earth to the Moon") will direct episodes. Writers and additional directors will be announced as they are confirmed.

In addition to James Badge Dale ("The Departed"), Joe Mazzello ("Without a Trace") and Jon Seda ("Kevin Hill"), actors featured in THE PACIFIC include (in alphabetical order) Akos Armont, Jon Bernthal ("The Office"), Joshua Biton ("National Treasure"), Adam Booth ("Doctors"), Simon Bossell ("Hotel de Love"), Laurence Breuls ("Ghost Rider"), Tom Budge ("Last Train to Freo"), Linda Cropper ("McLeod's Daughters"), Brendan Fletcher ("Tideland"), Eamon Farren ("The Outsider"), Leon Ford (HBO's "Tsunami: The Aftermath"), Daniel Frederiksen ("Stingers"), Scott Gibson ("Lucky Number Slevin"), Joshua Helman, Ashton Holmes ("A History of Violence"), Andrew Lees, Rami Malek ("The War at Home"), Martin McCann ("Closing the Ring"), Ian Meadows ("Home and Away"), Toby Moore ("Joanne Lees: Murder in the Outback"), Rohan Nichol ("All Saints"), Henry Nixon ("Happy Feet"), Keith Nobbs ("The Black Donnellys"), Annie Parisse ("Law & Order"), Sam Parsonson ("Love My Way"), Jacob Pitts ("The Novice"), Rupert Reid ("The Matrix Reloaded"), Mitch Ryan, William Sadler ("The Shawshank Redemption"), Gary Sweet ("Down in Splendor"), Anna Torv ("Young Lions"), Sandy Winton ("Two Twisted"), Dylan Young and Ashley Zukerman. Additional actors will be announced as they are confirmed.

THE PACIFIC is based on the books "With the Old Breed," by Eugene Sledge, which was hailed by historian Paul Fussell as "one of the finest memoirs to emerge from any war," and "Helmet for My Pillow," by Robert Leckie (recipient of the Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Annual Award), as well as original interviews conducted by the filmmakers. Continuing the World War II oral history work begun by his father Stephen E. Ambrose (author of the book "Band of Brothers"), Hugh Ambrose serves as a consultant on the miniseries.

THE PACIFIC is produced by HBO Films in association with Playtone and DreamWorks Television; executive producers, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Gary Goetzman; co-executive producers, Tony To, Graham Yost; supervising producer, Bruce McKenna; producer, Gene Kelly; co-producers, Robert Schenkkan, George P. Pelecanos, Michelle Ashford.

Abuna Zakaria

via the comments for this thread at Mark Shea's blog:

The apologetics website (in Arabic)
Fr. Zakaria's web

Dhimmi Watch: Coptic TV Show Causes Controversy in Egypt
FrontPage Magazine
CWNews - The Lifelong Ministry of Father Zakaria

Father Zakaria Botros - islameyat.com

Apparently there is some question about his current ecclesial (whether he is in communion with the Coptic patriarch or not) and clerical status ?

Katherine Jenkins

katherine jenkins
Katherine Jenkins USA (fan site)
We Love Katherine Jenkins
Welcome to Katherine Jenkins International
BBC - Wales - Katherine Jenkins
Katherine Jenkins Video Photos from Opera Mezzo Soprano

Katherine Jenkins and Hayley Westenra sing Ave Maria

Katherine Jenkins - Ave Maria - Faenol Festival 2005

Katherine Jenkins - Ave Verum Corpus - Faenol Festival 2005

Monday, March 24, 2008

Sense and Sensibility comes to Masterpiece Theater

next week.

PBS page

Perhaps the only production out of the Complete Jane Austen that I will watch on TV. Perhaps.

Adam Shepard interview

Adam Shepard is the author of the book Scratch Beginnings. Video intro to the book: Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard. Intriguing.

Adam Shepard Interv. by Stacey Cochran w/ Natasha Gilliam
Part 1, 2, 3

Scratch Beginnings: An Interview with Adam Shepard ∞ Get Rich Slowly
Adam Shepard and the Rebirthing of an American Dream

Critical remarks on Fr. Cantalamessa

@ Rorate Caeli: A Charismatic Preacher

AT: Stumbling towards Confucius-ville

Stumbling towards Confucius-ville
As part a Beijing-sponsored "cultural renaissance", the 2,500-year-old teachings of Confucius are back in vogue as a counterbalance to the meteoric rise of modern China. But a plan to erect a US$4.2 billion "Chinese Cultural Symbolic City" in the philosopher's hometown has hardly inspired the peace and social harmony of which Confucius wrote. - Wu Zhong

Noveske Diplomat

There's a profile of the Diplomat 6.8mm in this month's issue of Arms Magazine.

Noveske Rifleworks - N4 7.5" Diplomat

Not listed at the official site?
Noveske Rifleworks

Noveske Diplomat/VIS build... - M4Carbine.net Forums
The Guns of Noveske Rifleworks - Military Photos
DSG Arms: Noveske Upper - Diplomat 7.5 inch Complete - 5.56
Noveske 7.5" Diplomat 6.8 mm SPR Comp Upper [Noveske 7.5" 6.8mm ...
AR15.COM :: Forums :: Topic :: WTS Noveske Diplomat in 6.8 $1000 ...

Related:
Noveske Rifleworks - Project Leonidas, 100 rds 7.62mm - AOL Video

SHOT 2008

Welcome to the SHOT Show Homepage
SHOT Show 2008
DRTV SHOT Show 2008

Magpul Modular Assault Pistol Prototype SHOT Show 2008

Magpul Industries SHOTSHOW 2008 Part 1
YouTube - Magpul Industries SHOTSHOW 2008 Part 2
Part 3

Magpul PDR
AOL video

The Distributist Review: Aristotle and the Subprime Mess

Sharon Astyk, "Hard Times Come Again"- voices of those who have been there before

"Hard Times Come Again"- voices of those who have been there before
Sharon Astyk, Casaubon's Book
If you still have a few teensy, eensy, weensy doubts about whether the magic of nationalized debt will fix everything for you, I thought it might be instructive for all of us to sit back and listen just a little to people who have already been through a really bad economic crisis

Zenit: Magdi Allam Recounts His Path to Conversion

Magdi Allam Recounts His Path to Conversion

Benedict XVI Baptized the Journalist at Easter Vigil

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Magdi Allam’s account of his conversion to Catholicism. The Muslim journalist was baptized by Benedict XVI at Saturday's Easter Vigil Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

An abbreviated form of this account appeared as a letter to Paolo Mieli, the director of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Allam is the paper’s deputy director. The Italian version of the complete text is available at magdiallam.it.

* * *

Dear Friends,

I am particularly happy to share with you my immense joy for this Easter of Resurrection that has brought me the gift of the Christian faith. I gladly propose the letter that I sent to the director of the Corriere della Sera, Paolo Mieli, in which I tell the story of the interior journey that brought me to the choice of conversion to Catholicism. This is the complete version of the letter, which was published by the Corriere della Sera only in part.

* * *

Dear Director,

That which I am about to relate to you concerns my choice of religious faith and personal life in which I do not wish to involve in any way the Corriere della Sera, which it has been an honor to be a part of as deputy director “ad personam” since 2003. I write you thus as protagonist of the event, as private citizen.

Yesterday evening I converted to the Christian Catholic religion, renouncing my previous Islamic faith. Thus, I finally saw the light, by divine grace -- the healthy fruit of a long, matured gestation, lived in suffering and joy, together with intimate reflection and conscious and manifest expression. I am especially grateful to his holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who imparted the sacraments of Christian initiation to me, baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, in the Basilica of St. Peter’s during the course of the solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil. And I took the simplest and most explicit Christian name: “Cristiano.” Since yesterday evening therefore my name is Magdi Crisitano Allam.

For me it is the most beautiful day of [my] life. To acquire the gift of the Christian faith during the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection by the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable and inestimable privilege. At almost 56 […], it is a historical, exceptional and unforgettable event, which marks a radical and definitive turn with respect to the past. The miracle of Christ’s resurrection reverberated through my soul, liberating it from the darkness in which the preaching of hatred and intolerance in the face of the “different,” uncritically condemned as “enemy,” were privileged over love and respect of “neighbor,” who is always, an in every case, “person”; thus, as my mind was freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimates lies and deception, violent death that leads to murder and suicide, the blind submission to tyranny, I was able to adhere to the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom.

On my first Easter as a Christian I not only discovered Jesus, I discovered for the first time the face of the true and only God, who is the God of faith and reason. My conversion to Catholicism is the touching down of a gradual and profound interior meditation from which I could not pull myself away, given that for five years I have been confined to a life under guard, with permanent surveillance at home and a police escort for my every movement, because of death threats and death sentences from Islamic extremists and terrorists, both those in and outside of Italy.

I had to ask myself about the attitude of those who publicly declared fatwas, Islamic juridical verdicts, against me -- I who was a Muslim -- as an “enemy of Islam,” “hypocrite because he is a Coptic Christian who pretends to be a Muslim to do damage to Islam,” “liar and vilifier of Islam,” legitimating my death sentence in this way. I asked myself how it was possible that those who, like me, sincerely and boldly called for a “moderate Islam,” assuming the responsibility of exposing themselves in the first person in denouncing Islamic extremism and terrorism, ended up being sentenced to death in the name of Islam on the basis of the Quran. I was forced to see that, beyond the contingency of the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive.

At the same time providence brought me to meet practicing Catholics of good will who, in virtue of their witness and friendship, gradually became a point of reference in regard to the certainty of truth and the solidity of values. To begin with, among so many friends from Communion and Liberation, I will mention Father Juliàn Carròn; and then there were simple religious such as Father Gabriele Mangiarotti, Sister Maria Gloria Riva, Father Carlo Maurizi and Father Yohannis Lahzi Gaid; there was rediscovery of the Salesians thanks to Father Angelo Tengattini and Father Maurizio Verlezza, which culminated in a renewed friendship with major rector Father Pascual Chavez Villanueva; there was the embrace of top prelates of great humanity like Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Monsignor Luigi Negri, Giancarlo Vecerrica, Gino Romanazzi and, above all, Monsignor Rino Fisichella, who personally accompanied me in the journey of spiritual acceptance of the Christian faith.

But undoubtedly the most extraordinary and important encounter in my decision to convert was that with Pope Benedict XVI, whom I admired and defended as a Muslim for his mastery in setting down the indissoluble link between faith and reason as a basis for authentic religion and human civilization, and to whom I fully adhere as a Christian to inspire me with new light in the fulfillment of the mission God has reserved for me.

Mine was a journey that began when at four years old, my mother Safeya -- a believing and practicing Muslim -- in the first in the series of “fortuitous events” that would prove to be not at all the product of chance but rather an integral part of a divine destiny to which all of us have been assigned -- entrusted me to the loving care of Sister Lavinia of the Comboni Missionary Sisters, convinced of the goodness of the education that would be imparted by the Catholic and Italian religious, who had come to Cairo, the city of my birth, to witness to their Christian faith through a work aimed at the common good. I thus began an experience of life in boarding school, followed by the Salesians of the Institute of Don Bosco in junior high and high school, which transmitted to me not only the science of knowledge but above all the awareness of values.

It is thanks to members of Catholic religious orders that I acquired a profoundly and essentially an ethical conception of life, in which the person created in the image and likeness of God is called to undertake a mission that inserts itself in the framework of a universal and eternal design directed toward the interior resurrection of individuals on this earth and the whole of humanity on the day of judgment, which is founded on faith in God and the primacy of values, which is based on the sense of individual responsibility and on the sense of duty toward the collective. It is in virtue of a Christian education and of the sharing of the experience of life with Catholic religious that I cultivated a profound faith in the transcendent dimension and also sought the certainty of truth in absolute and universal values.

There was a time when my mother’s loving presence and religious zeal brought me closer to Islam, which I occasionally practiced at a cultural level and in which I believed at a spiritual level according to an interpretation that at the time -- it was the 1970s -- summarily corresponded to a faith respectful of persons and tolerant toward the neighbor, in a context -- that of the Nasser regime -- in which the secular principle of the separation of the religious sphere and the secular sphere prevailed.

My father Muhammad was completely secular and agreed with the opinion of the majority of Egyptians who took the West as a model in regard to individual freedom, social customs and cultural and artistic fashions, even if the political totalitarianism of Nasser and the bellicose ideology of Pan-Arabism that aimed at the physical elimination of Israel unfortunately led to disaster for Egypt and opened the way to the resumption of Pan-Islamism, to the ascent of Islamic extremists to power and the explosion of globalized Islamic terrorism.

The long years at school allowed me to know Catholicism well and up close and the women and men who dedicated their life to serve God in the womb of the Church. Already then I read the Bible and the Gospels and I was especially fascinated by the human and divine figure of Jesus. I had a way to attend Holy Mass and it also happened, only once, that I went to the altar to receive communion. It was a gesture that evidently signaled my attraction to Christianity and my desire to feel a part of the Catholic religious community.

Then, on my arrival in Italy at the beginning of the 1970s between the rivers of student revolts and the difficulties of integration, I went through a period of atheism understood as a faith, which nevertheless was also founded on absolute and universal values. I was never indifferent to the presence of God even if only now I feel that the God of love, of faith and reason reconciles himself completely with the patrimony of values that are rooted in me.

Dear Director, you asked me whether I fear for my life, in the awareness that conversion to Christianity will certainly procure for me yet another, and much more grave, death sentence for apostasy. You are perfectly right. I know what I am headed for but I face my destiny with my head held high, standing upright and with the interior solidity of one who has the certainty of his faith. And I will be more so after the courageous and historical gesture of the Pope, who, as soon has he knew of my desire, immediately agreed to personally impart the Christian sacraments of initiation to me. His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.

For my part, I say that it is time to put an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious choice. In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who live their new faith in peace. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are forced to hide their faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who lurk among us. By one of those “fortuitous events” that evoke the discreet hand of the Lord, the first article that I wrote for the Corriere on Sept. 3, 2003 was entitled “The new Catacombs of Islamic Converts.” It was an investigation of recent Muslim converts to Christianity in Italy who decry their profound spiritual and human solitude in the face of absconding state institutions that do not protect them and the silence of the Church itself. Well, I hope that the Pope’s historical gesture and my testimony will lead to the conviction that the moment has come to leave the darkness of the catacombs and to publicly declare their desire to be fully themselves. If in Italy, in our home, the cradle of Catholicism, we are not prepared to guarantee complete religious freedom to everyone, how can we ever be credible when we denounce the violation of this freedom elsewhere in the world? I pray to God that on this special Easter he give the gift of the resurrection of the spirit to all the faithful in Christ who have until now been subjugated by fear. Happy Easter to everyone.

Dear friends, let us go forward on the way of truth, of life and of freedom with my best wishes for every success and good thing.

Magdi Allam

Zenit: Pope's Message for Easter

Pope's Message for Easter

"The Resurrection of Jesus Is Essentially an Event of Love"

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of Benedict XVI's Easter message delivered today at midday before he imparted his blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city of Rome and the world).

* * *

Resurrexi, et adhuc tecum sum. Alleluia! I have risen, I am still with you. Alleluia! Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus, crucified and risen, repeats this joyful proclamation to us today: the Easter proclamation. Let us welcome it with deep wonder and gratitude!

Resurrexi et adhuc tecum sum -- I have risen, I am still with you, for ever. These words, taken from an ancient version of Psalm 138 (v. 18b), were sung at the beginning of today’s Mass. In them, at the rising of the Easter sun, the Church recognizes the voice of Jesus himself who, on rising from death, turns to the Father filled with gladness and love, and exclaims: My Father, here I am! I have risen, I am still with you, and so I shall be for ever; your Spirit never abandoned me.

In this way we can also come to a new understanding of other passages from the psalm: "If I climb the heavens, you are there; if I descend into the underworld, you are there … Even darkness is not dark for you, and the night is as clear as day; for you, darkness is like light" (Ps 138:8,12). It is true: in the solemn Easter vigil, darkness becomes light, night gives way to the day that knows no sunset. The death and resurrection of the Word of God incarnate is an event of invincible love, it is the victory of that Love which has delivered us from the slavery of sin and death. It has changed the course of history, giving to human life an indestructible and renewed meaning and value.

"I have risen and I am still with you, for ever." These words invite us to contemplate the risen Christ, letting his voice resound in our heart. With his redeeming sacrifice, Jesus of Nazareth has made us adopted children of God, so that we too can now take our place in the mysterious dialogue between him and the Father. We are reminded of what he once said to those who were listening: "All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Mt 11:27).

In this perspective, we note that the words addressed by the risen Jesus to the Father on this day -- "I am still with you, forever" -- apply indirectly to us as well, "children of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him" (cf. Rom 8:17). Through the death and resurrection of Christ, we too rise to new life today, and uniting our voice with his, we proclaim that we wish to remain forever with God, our infinitely good and merciful Father.

In this way we enter the depths of the Paschal mystery. The astonishing event of the resurrection of Jesus is essentially an event of love: the Father’s love in handing over his Son for the salvation of the world; the Son’s love in abandoning himself to the Father’s will for us all; the Spirit’s love in raising Jesus from the dead in his transfigured body. And there is more: the Father’s love which "newly embraces" the Son, enfolding him in glory; the Son’s love returning to the Father in the power of the Spirit, robed in our transfigured humanity. From today’s solemnity, in which we relive the absolute, once-and-for-all experience of Jesus’s resurrection, we receive an appeal to be converted to Love; we receive an invitation to live by rejecting hatred and selfishness, and to follow with docility in the footsteps of the Lamb that was slain for our salvation, to imitate the Redeemer who is "gentle and lowly in heart", who is "rest for our souls" (cf. Mt 11:29).

Dear Christian brothers and sisters in every part of the world, dear men and women whose spirit is sincerely open to the truth, let no heart be closed to the omnipotence of this redeeming love! Jesus Christ died and rose for all; he is our hope -- true hope for every human being. Today, just as he did with his disciples in Galilee before returning to the Father, the risen Jesus now sends us everywhere as witnesses of his hope, and he reassures us: I am with you always, all days, until the end of the world (cf. Mt 28:20). Fixing the gaze of our spirit on the glorious wounds of his transfigured body, we can understand the meaning and value of suffering, we can tend the many wounds that continue to disfigure humanity in our own day.

In his glorious wounds we recognize the indestructible signs of the infinite mercy of the God of whom the prophet says: it is he who heals the wounds of broken hearts, who defends the weak and proclaims the freedom of slaves, who consoles all the afflicted and bestows upon them the oil of gladness instead of a mourning robe, a song of praise instead of a sorrowful heart (cf. Is 61:1,2,3). If with humble trust we draw near to him, we encounter in his gaze the response to the deepest longings of our heart: to know God and to establish with him a living relationship in an authentic communion of love, which can fill our lives, our interpersonal and social relations with that same love. For this reason, humanity needs Christ: in him, our hope, "we have been saved" (cf. Rom 8:24).

How often relations between individuals, between groups and between peoples are marked not by love but by selfishness, injustice, hatred and violence! These are the scourges of humanity, open and festering in every corner of the planet, although they are often ignored and sometimes deliberately concealed; wounds that torture the souls and bodies of countless of our brothers and sisters. They are waiting to be tended and healed by the glorious wounds of our Risen Lord (cf. 1 Pet 2:24-25) and by the solidarity of people who, following in his footsteps, perform deeds of charity in his name, make an active commitment to justice, and spread luminous signs of hope in areas bloodied by conflict and wherever the dignity of the human person continues to be scorned and trampled. It is hoped that these are precisely the places where gestures of moderation and forgiveness will increase!

Dear brothers and sisters! Let us allow the light that streams forth from this solemn day to enlighten us; let us open ourselves in sincere trust to the risen Christ, so that his victory over evil and death may also triumph in each one of us, in our families, in our cities and in our nations. Let it shine forth in every part of the world. In particular, how can we fail to remember certain African regions, such as Dafur and Somalia, the tormented Middle East, especially the Holy Land, Iraq, Lebanon, and finally Tibet, all of whom I encourage to seek solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good! Let us invoke the fullness of his Paschal gifts, through the intercession of Mary who, after sharing the sufferings of the passion and crucifixion of her innocent Son, also experienced the inexpressible joy of his resurrection. Sharing in the glory of Christ, may she be the one to protect us and guide us along the path of fraternal solidarity and peace. These are my Easter greetings, which I address to all who are present here, and to men and women of every nation and continent united with us through radio and television. Happy Easter!

[Translation distributed by the Holy See]

© Copyright 2008 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Zenit: Benedict XVI's Easter Vigil Homily

Benedict XVI's Easter Vigil Homily

"We Are Not Called to Darkness, But to Light"

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of the homily Benedict XVI delivered Holy Saturday at the Mass of the Easter Vigil, celebrated in St. Peter's Basilica.

* * *

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In his farewell discourse, Jesus announced his imminent death and resurrection to his disciples with these mysterious words: "I go away, and I will come to you", he said (Jn 14:28). Dying is a "going away". Even if the body of the deceased remains behind, he himself has gone away into the unknown, and we cannot follow him (cf. Jn 13:36). Yet in Jesus’s case, there is something utterly new, which changes the world.

In the case of our own death, the "going away" is definitive, there is no return. Jesus, on the other hand, says of his death: "I go away, and I will come to you." It is by going away that he comes. His going ushers in a completely new and greater way of being present. By dying he enters into the love of the Father. His dying is an act of love. Love, however, is immortal. Therefore, his going away is transformed into a new coming, into a form of presence which reaches deeper and does not come to an end. During his earthly life, Jesus, like all of us, was tied to the external conditions of bodily existence: to a determined place and a determined time.

Bodiliness places limits on our existence. We cannot be simultaneously in two different places. Our time is destined to come to an end. And between the "I" and the "you" there is a wall of otherness. To be sure, through love we can somehow enter the other’s existence.

Nevertheless, the insurmountable barrier of being different remains in place. Yet Jesus, who is now totally transformed through the act of love, is free from such barriers and limits. He is able not only to pass through closed doors in the outside world, as the Gospels recount (cf. Jn 20:19). He can pass through the interior door separating the "I" from the "you", the closed door between yesterday and today, between the past and the future. On the day of his solemn entry into Jerusalem, when some Greeks asked to see him, Jesus replied with the parable of the grain of wheat which has to pass through death in order to bear much fruit. In this way he foretold his own destiny: these words were not addressed simply to one or two Greeks in the space of a few minutes.

Through his Cross, through his going away, through his dying like the grain of wheat, he would truly arrive among the Greeks, in such a way that they could see him and touch him through faith. His going away is transformed into a coming, in the Risen Lord’s universal manner of presence, in which he is there yesterday, today and for ever, in which he embraces all times and all places. Now he can even surmount the wall of otherness that separates the "I" from the "you". This happened with Paul, who describes the process of his conversion and his Baptism in these words: "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). Through the coming of the Risen One, Paul obtained a new identity. His closed "I" was opened. Now he lives in communion with Jesus Christ, in the great "I" of believers who have become -- as he puts it -- "one in Christ" (Gal 3:28).

So, dear friends, it is clear that, through Baptism, the mysterious words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper become present for you once more. In Baptism, the Lord enters your life through the door of your heart. We no longer stand alongside or in opposition to one another.

He passes through all these doors. This is the reality of Baptism: he, the Risen One, comes; he comes to you and joins his life with yours, drawing you into the open fire of his love. You become one, one with him, and thus one among yourselves. At first this can sound rather abstract and unrealistic. But the more you live the life of the baptized, the more you can experience the truth of these words. Believers -- the baptized -- are never truly cut off from one another. Continents, cultures, social structures or even historical distances may separate us.

But when we meet, we know one another on the basis of the same Lord, the same faith, the same hope, the same love, which form us. Then we experience that the foundation of our lives is the same. We experience that in our inmost depths we are anchored in the same identity, on the basis of which all our outward differences, however great they may be, become secondary. Believers are never totally cut off from one another. We are in communion because of our deepest identity: Christ within us. Thus faith is a force for peace and reconciliation in the world: distances between people are overcome, in the Lord we have become close (cf. Eph 2:13).

The Church expresses the inner reality of Baptism as the gift of a new identity through the tangible elements used in the administration of the sacrament. The fundamental element in Baptism is water; next, in second place, is light, which is used to great effect in the Liturgy of the Easter Vigil. Let us take a brief look at these two elements. In the final chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews, there is a statement about Christ which does not speak directly of water, but the Old Testament allusions nevertheless point clearly to the mystery of water and its symbolic meaning. Here we read: "The God of peace … brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant" (13:20).

In this sentence, there is an echo of the prophecy of Isaiah, in which Moses is described as the shepherd whom the Lord brought up from the water, from the sea (cf. 63:11). Jesus appears as the new, definitive Shepherd who brings to fulfillment what Moses had done: he leads us out of the deadly waters of the sea, out of the waters of death. In this context we may recall that Moses’ mother placed him in a basket in the Nile. Then, through God’s providence, he was taken out of the water, carried from death to life, and thus -- having himself been saved from the waters of death -- he was able to lead others through the sea of death. Jesus descended for us into the dark waters of death.

But through his blood, so the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, he was brought back from death: his love united itself to the Father’s love, and thus from the abyss of death he was able to rise to life. Now he raises us from death to true life. This is exactly what happens in Baptism: he draws us towards himself, he draws us into true life. He leads us through the often murky sea of history, where we are frequently in danger of sinking amid all the confusion and perils. In Baptism he takes us, as it were, by the hand, he leads us along the path that passes through the Red Sea of this life and introduces us to everlasting life, the true and upright life. Let us grasp his hand firmly! Whatever may happen, whatever may befall us, let us not lose hold of his hand! Let us walk along the path that leads to life.

In the second place, there is the symbol of light and fire. Gregory of Tours recounts a practice that in some places was preserved for a long time, of lighting the new fire for the celebration of the Easter Vigil directly from the sun, using a crystal. Light and fire, so to speak, were received anew from heaven, so that all the lights and fires of the year could be kindled from them. This is a symbol of what we are celebrating in the Easter Vigil.

Through his radical love for us, in which the heart of God and the heart of man touched, Jesus Christ truly took light from heaven and brought it to the earth -- the light of truth and the fire of love that transform man’s being. He brought the light, and now we know who God is and what God is like. Thus we also know what our own situation is: what we are, and for what purpose we exist. When we are baptized, the fire of this light is brought down deep within ourselves. Thus, in the early Church, Baptism was also called the Sacrament of Illumination: God’s light enters into us; thus we ourselves become children of light.

We must not allow this light of truth, that shows us the path, to be extinguished. We must protect it from all the forces that seek to eliminate it so as to cast us back into darkness regarding God and ourselves. Darkness, at times, can seem comfortable. I can hide, and spend my life asleep. Yet we are not called to darkness, but to light. In our baptismal promises, we rekindle this light, so to speak, year by year. Yes, I believe that the world and my life are not the product of chance, but of eternal Reason and eternal Love, they are created by Almighty God. Yes, I believe that in Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, in his Cross and resurrection, the face of God has been revealed; that in him, God is present in our midst, he unites us and leads us towards our goal, towards eternal Love.

Yes, I believe that the Holy Spirit gives us the word of truth and enlightens our hearts; I believe that in the communion of the Church we all become one Body with the Lord, and thus we encounter his resurrection and eternal life. The Lord has granted us the light of truth. This light is also fire, a powerful force coming from God, a force that does not destroy, but seeks to transform our hearts, so that we truly become men of God, and so that his peace can become active in this world.

In the early Church there was a custom whereby the Bishop or the priest, after the homily, would cry out to the faithful: "Conversi ad Dominum" -- turn now towards the Lord. This meant in the first place that they would turn towards the East, towards the rising sun, the sign of Christ returning, whom we go to meet when we celebrate the Eucharist. Where this was not possible, for some reason, they would at least turn towards the image of Christ in the apse, or towards the Cross, so as to orient themselves inwardly towards the Lord.

Fundamentally, this involved an interior event; conversion, the turning of our soul towards Jesus Christ and thus towards the living God, towards the true light. Linked with this, then, was the other exclamation that still today, before the Eucharistic Prayer, is addressed to the community of the faithful: "Sursum corda" -- "Lift up your hearts", high above the tangled web of our concerns, desires, anxieties and thoughtlessness -- "Lift up your hearts, your inner selves!" In both exclamations we are summoned, as it were, to a renewal of our Baptism: Conversi ad Dominum -- we must distance ourselves ever anew from taking false paths, onto which we stray so often in our thoughts and actions.

We must turn ever anew towards him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We must be converted ever anew, turning with our whole life towards the Lord. And ever anew we must allow our hearts to be withdrawn from the force of gravity, which pulls them down, and inwardly we must raise them high: in truth and love. At this hour, let us thank the Lord, because through the power of his word and of the holy Sacraments, he points us in the right direction and draws our heart upwards. Let us pray to him in these words: Yes, Lord, make us Easter people, men and women of light, filled with the fire of your love. Amen.

[Translation distributed by the Holy See]

© Copyright 2008 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Christus Resurrexit! Alleluia!

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Christos Anesti - Χριστός ανέστη

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E-Christos Anesti

The Easter Paschal Homily of Saint John Chrysostom | Resurrection ...
Easter Sermon of St. John Chrysostom