Daily Prayer for Priest O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church ... give us holy priests. You yourself maintain them in holiness.
O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil's traps and snares, which are continually being set for the souls of priests.
May the power of Your Mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring the naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priest, for You can do all things. - St. Faustina (Diary, 1052)
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Today Christmas Has Become a Commercial Celebration
By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict ushered in Christmas for the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics on Saturday, urging humanity to see through the superficial glitter and commercialism of the season and rediscover the real significance of the humble birth of Jesus.
 The 84-year-old pope, celebrating the seventh Christmas season of his pontificate, also urged that those marking the holiday in poverty, suffering or far from home not be forgotten.
At the start of a Christmas Eve service, he was wheeled up the central aisle of St Peter’s Basilica standing on a mobile platform which he has been using since October.
The Vatican says it is to conserve his strength, allow more people to see him and guard against attacks such as one on Christmas Eve, 2009, when a woman lunged at him and knocked him to the ground. He is believed to suffer from arthritis in the legs.
But he seemed to be in good shape during the solemn service in Christendom’s largest church as choirs sang, cantors chanted and organ music filled the centuries-old basilica.
Benedict, wearing resplendent gold and white vestments, urged his listeners to find peace in the symbol of the powerless Christ child in a world continually threatened by violence.
“Today Christmas has become a commercial celebration, whose bright lights hide the mystery of God’s humility, which in turn calls us to humility and simplicity,” he said in his homily to about 10,000 people in the basilica and millions more watching on television throughout the world.
“Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light.”
The Christmas story of how Jesus, who Christians believe is the son of God, was born powerless “in the poverty of the stable” should remind everyone of the need for humility.
“… let us strip away our fixation on what is material, on what can be measured and grasped. Let us allow ourselves to be made simple by the God who reveals himself to the simple of heart,” he said.
PEACEMAKERS
The pope, who earlier placed a “candle of peace” on the windowsill of his apartments as the life-size nativity scene in St Peter’s Square was inaugurated, called for an end to violence, for oppressors to put down their “rods” and for all to become peacemakers.
“God has appeared – as a child. It is in this guise that he pits himself against all violence and brings a message that is peace,” he said.
“At this hour, when the world is continually threatened by violence in so many places and in so many different ways, when over and over again there are oppressors’ rods and bloodstained cloaks, we cry out to the Lord…” he said.
“…we suffer from the continuing presence of violence in the world, and so we also ask you: manifest your power, O God. In this time of ours, in this world of ours, cause the oppressors’ rods, the cloaks rolled in blood and the footgear of battle to be burned, so that your peace may triumph in this world of ours.”
Those celebrating Christmas in comfortable circumstances should remember those less fortunate.
“And let us also pray especially at this hour for all who have to celebrate Christmas in poverty, in suffering, as migrants, that a ray of God’s kindness may shine upon them, that they – and we – may be touched by the kindness that God chose to bring into the world through the birth of his Son in a stable,” he said.
On Christmas Day, the pope will deliver his twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message and blessing from the central loge of St Peter’s Basilica.
He continues his Christmas and New Year’s celebrations on Dec 31 with a year-end Mass of thanksgiving known by its Latin name Te Deum.
On January 1 he marks the Roman Catholic Church’s World Day of Peace, on January 6 he marks the Epiphany and on January 8 will baptise several newborns in the Sistine Chapel.
He is due to visit Mexico and Cuba in March.
(Reporting By Philip Pullella; Editing by Peter Graff)
It Must Be Listened To With Obedience, Trust, and Awareness.
From: Vatican Information Service
VATICAN CITY, 9 NOV 2011 (VIS) – In his general audience this morning Benedict XVI  focused his catechesis on Psalm 119, the longest of the Psalms, constructed as an acrostic in which each stanza begins with one of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Its subject matter is “the Torah of the Lord; that is, His Law, a term which in its broadest and most complete definition comprehends teaching, instruction and life guidance. The Torah is revelation, it is the Word of God which is addressed to man and which arouses his response of faithful obedience and generous love”, the Pope said.
“The Psalmist’s faithfulness arises from listening to the Word, from keeping it in his heart, meditating upon it and loving it, like Mary who ‘treasured in her heart’ the words addressed to her, the marvellous events in which God revealed Himself and asked for her response of faith”, he explained. The Psalmist describes those who walk in the Law of the Lord as blessed, and indeed “Mary is blessed because she bore the Saviour in her womb, but above all because she accepted God’s annunciation and treasured His Word attentively and lovingly”.
Psalm 119 is constructed around this Word of life and blessing. Its central theme is the Word and the Law, and its verses are replete with synonyms thereof such as “precepts, decrees, promises”, associated with verbs such as “to know, to love, to meditate, to live”, the Holy Father explained. “The entire alphabet features in the twenty-two verses of the Psalm, as does the entire vocabulary of the believer’s relationship of trust with God. We find praise, thanksgiving and trust, but also supplication and lamentation; however, all of them are pervaded by the certainty of divine grace and the power of the Word of God. Even those verses most marked by suffering and darkness remain open to hope and are permeated with faith”.
The Law of God, which is “the centre of life”, must be “listened to with obedience but not servility, with filial trust and awareness. To listen to the Word is to have a personal encounter with the Lord of life. … The fulfilment of the Law is to follow Jesus“. Thus Psalm 119 “guides us towards the Gospel”, the Pope explained. In this context he focused particularly on verse 57: “The Lord is my portion; I promise to keep your words”.
“The term ‘portion’”, he explained, “evokes the partition of the Promised Land among the tribes of Israel, when the Levites were given no part of the territory because their ‘portion’ was the Lord Himself. … These verses are also important for us today, especially for priests, who are called to live from the Lord and from His Word alone, with no other guarantees, no other wealth, and having Him as their one source of true life. It is in this light that we can understand the free choice of celibacy for the Kingdom of heaven, which must be rediscovered in all its beauty and power.
“These verses are also important for the faithful, the People of God who belong only to Him”, the Pope added in conclusion. “They are called to experience the radical nature of the Gospel, to be witnesses of the life brought by Christ, the new and definitive ‘High Priest’ Who offered Himself in sacrifice for the salvation of the world. The Lord and His Word are our ‘land’ in which to live in communion and joy”.
Pope Meditates On Death
From: Vatican Insider
During today’s General Audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall, on the day of the Commemoration of the dead, the Pope touched on the subject of death, as it is lived in society.
“As we visit cemeteries to pray with affection and love for our loved ones who have passed away, we are called once again, to renew our faith in eternal life, with courage and with strength, to live with this hope and testify it to the world: there is no nothingness behind the present.”
“Despite the fact that death is often almost a forbidden subject in our society, and that there is a constant effort to distract our minds from the thought of death, this fact of life involves each and every one of us, it involves humans of all eras and all spaces,” Benedict XVI warned. According to the Pope, “before this mystery, all of us, even unconsciously, are looking for something that encourages us to hope, a sign that can consoleus, that can open up some kind of horizon, that can still offer a future.”
According to this way of seeing things, “the road to death is a path of hope and walking through our cemeteries, as well as reading inscriptions on graves, means following a path marked by hope for eternity.”
“It is precisely that faith in eternal life – the Pope added – which gives Christians the courage to love our countries with greater intensity and to work to build a future for them, to give them a true and certain hope.”
In our world today, we tend to see death from a rational point of view, which leads us to imagine a form of extraterrestrial reality that is similar to the one we live in. “Today – the Pope affirmed – the world has become far more rational, or rather, there is a diffused tendency to think that every reality must be judged, using the criteria of experimental science, and that we must not respond to the great question surrounding death, so much with faith, but starting from experimental, empirical knowledge.”
“Jesus Is The Good King Who Reigns With Humility And Gentleness.”
From EWTN news.
By: DavidKerr
One day before the gathering of religious leaders from around the world in the town of Assisi, Pope Benedict XVI declared that the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus ushered in a new kingdom of peace of which Christ is king.
“The Cross is the new arch of peace, a sign and instrument of reconciliation, of forgiveness, of understanding, a sign that love is stronger than all violence and all oppression, is stronger than death: the evil is overcome with good, with love,” the Pope said to pilgrims gathered in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall on Oct. 26.
“This new reign of peace in which Christ is the king, is a kingdom that extends over the whole earth.”
The Pope’s comments came at his weekly general audience which also served as a prayer vigil ahead of tomorrow’s “Day of Reflection and Prayer for Peace” with other world religious leaders in the Italian town of Assisi.
Today’s vigil was due to take place in St. Peter’s Square but inclement weather forced a change of venue. This resulted in the majority of pilgrims being sent to the Paul VI Hall and the overflow being shepherded into St. Peter’s Basilica.
Pope Benedict briefly greeted those in the basilica and imparted his apostolic blessing upon them. He then proceeded to the audience hall where Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Vicar General of the Diocese Rome, read several passages from sacred scripture, to which the Pope responded with his speech.
The incarnation of Jesus Christ as king of peace, said the Pope, was foreshadowed in the Old Testament reading from the Book of Zechariah. “Behold, your king comes to you. He is just and victorious,” the Old Testament prophet said to the Jewish people.
“But the announcement does not refer to a king with human powers and force of arms,” said the Pope, “this is a gentle king who reigns with humility and gentleness before God and man, a king quite different from the great sovereigns of the earth.”
The unfolding of Zechariah’s prophecy first becames apparent at the time of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, Pope Benedict said, recalling how the angels proclaimed “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.” Thus, he said, “the birth of that baby, who is Jesus, brings a proclamation of peace throughout the world.”
Similarly, the apostles would have recalled Zechariah’s words after “Christ’s passion, death and resurrection,” when “with the eyes of faith, they reconsidered their Master’s joyful entry into the Holy City.”
“He did not enter Jerusalem accompanied by a mighty army of chariots and horsemen. He is a poor king, the king of the poor of God,” said the Pope, “he is a king who will make the chariots and steeds of battle disappear, who will break the weapons of war, a king who brought peace on the Cross, uniting heaven and earth and building a bridge between all mankind.”
And the kingdom of Jesus, the Pope noted, is universal. Its horizon is not “the territorial horizon of a State,” but “the confines of the world,” and wherever Christ is to be found “in the great network of Eucharistic communities covering the earth, wherein the prophecy of Zecheriah re-emerges in splendor.”
Christians can help expand the bounds of this kingdom of peace “not with the might of war or force of power,” but “with the giving of self, with love carried to its extreme consequences, even towards our enemies,” said the Pope.
He then turned the pilgrims’ attention to a physical reminder of that attitude, pointing to a statue of St. Paul with a sword in hand—the means by which he was executed in Rome—located on the front of St. Peter’s Basilica.
St. Paul’s strength “lay in the fact that he did not seek a quiet life,” said the Pope, but rather in the fact that “he was consumed by the Gospel” and “gave all of himself without reserve.” This led to him becoming the “great messenger of peace and reconciliation in Christ.”
Similarly, he said, Catholics today must be willing “to pay in person,” even if that means suffering “misunderstanding, rejection and persecution.”
“It is not the sword of the conqueror that builds peace, but the sword of those who suffer and give up their own lives.”
The Holy Father concluded by asking everybody to pray that “tomorrow’s meeting in Assisi might favor dialogue between people from different religions,” so that “rancor may give way to forgiveness, division to reconciliation, hatred to love, violence to humility, and that peace may reign in the world.”
Strong Families Teach the Values That Society Needs
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 18, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says a key to solving the economic problem is strengthening the family, since it is in the family that a person leans how to interact in the world of work.
The Pope said this Saturday when he received in audience members of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, which promotes the social doctrine of the Church.
Their meeting this year marked the 20th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Centesimus Annus, published 100 years after Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, as well as the 30th anniversary of the apostolic exhortation Familiaris Consortio.
Benedict XVI cited his predecessor in noting how a family teaches the values that society needs. 
John Paul II wrote. “By respecting and fostering personal dignity in each and every one as the only basis for value, this free giving takes the form of heartfelt acceptance, encounter and dialogue, disinterested availability, generous service and deep solidarity.
“From this perspective,” Benedict XVI said, “the family passes from being a mere object to being an active subject capable of recalling the ‘human face’ that the world of economy must have.”
He said that the family’s model of love, gratitude and gift can be applied to a universal dimension.
“Commutative justice — ‘give to have’ — and distributive justice — ‘give to owe’ – are not sufficient in social living,” the Pontiff explained. “To have true justice it is necessary to arrive at gratuitousness and solidarity. ‘Solidarity is first and foremost a sense of responsibility on the part of everyone with regard to everyone, and it cannot therefore be merely delegated to the State. While in the past it was possible to argue that justice had to come first and gratuitousness could follow afterwards, as a complement, today it is clear that without gratuitousness, there can be no justice in the first place.”
There is no “market of gratuitousness” the Pontiff said, citing Caritas in Veritate, and “attitudes of gratuitousness cannot be established by law.” But both market and politics need individuals open to “reciprocal gift.”
So although the Church cannot define how to address the economic crisis, the Holy Father noted, it is the Church’s members who “have the duty to denounce evils, to attest to and to keep alive the values on which the dignity of the person is founded, and to promote those ways of solidarity that foster the common good, so that humanity will become the family of God.”
The Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation was founded by Pope John Paul II in 1993. As a lay foundation, it aims to promote the social doctrine of the Church in professional and business sectors
Pope Benedict: Priests Must Live Saintly Lives,
Obey Church Rules Including Celibacy
(Reuters: by Sonya Dowsett and Judy MacInnes) – Pope Benedict said Saturday Roman Catholic priests must live saintly lives and men should only enter the priesthood if they were convinced they could live by all the Church’s rules, including celibacy.
On the third day of a visit that has been marked by protests, the pope celebrated Mass for some 4,500 seminarians training for the priesthood in Madrid’s La Almudena cathedral.
“We have to be saints so as not to create a contradiction between the sign that we are and the reality that we wish to signify,” he said in a sermon as part of activities of the Church’s World Youth Day.
He said priests must understand their “decision to live in celibacy for the kingdom of heaven,” adding that men should approach the priesthood only “if you are completely determined to exercise it in obedience to the Church’s precepts.”
 The Catholic Church has been mired in scandal in recent years over disclosures that priests sexually abused children in many countries and that Church officials covered up the abuse.
On several of his trips Benedict has met abuse victims and apologized for priests’ abuse, but victims’ groups say he and the Vatican have not done enough to bring the guilty to justice.
The cost of the trip to the capital has angered some Spaniards struggling with recession and high unemployment. Heavy security has surrounded the pontiff, with roads cut off to traffic and thousands of police on the streets.
“The street belongs to everyone, not to one church … I’m against the public cost of the Pope’s visit,” said Santiago Bonaire, a 54-year old engineer.
Demonstrations over the visit have resulted in clashes between police and protesters and there is now a large police presence in the center of Madrid.
“There have been protests in the center every night over the Pope’s visit, with people chanting ‘the Pope’s a Nazi’ and such like. But since Wednesday when pilgrims were met with angry protests and there were injuries, the police have been out in droves,” said 60-year-old Englishman Richard Hunter who lives in city center.
“The center is now a mixture of prostitutes and police.”
Benedict’s trip has also reignited criticism by Los Indignados (The Indignants), a group whose mainly young members occupied Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square in May to protest against high unemployment and government spending cuts.
Gay activists in Madrid plan to stage an anti-Pope protest to defend same sex partnerships later Saturday while Benedict attends a prayer vigil with thousands of young people from around 190 countries in an aerodrome outside Madrid.
In 2005, Spain became the third country in the world to legalize gay marriage, a move the Church opposed.
Employ The Rosary As Your Spiritual Weapon!
EWTN News-Pope Benedict XVI issued a special call to pray the Rosary during May, the month dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
The pontiff spoke at the conclusion of his May 11 General Audience. He exhorted “everyone to intensify the pious practice of the Holy Rosary, especially in this month of May dedicated to the Mother of God.”
“I invite you, beloved young people, to value this traditional Marian prayer, which helps us better understand and assimilate the central moments of the salvation wrought by Christ,” the Pope said.
He then encouraged the sick “to turn with confidence to the Virgin through this pious exercise, entrusting all your needs to her.”
He concluded by addressing newlyweds and inviting them to “make the recitation of the family Rosary a time of spiritual growth under the gaze of the Virgin Mary.”
“Priests Must Not Preach Christianity ‘A La Carte’!”
From the CNA, By: Alan Holdren
Red and Bold added.
Priests must not preach “Christianity ‘a la carte’” and should be willing to approach even  uncomfortable aspects of the Gospel, Pope Benedict said in a meeting with priests this week.
In a meeting with priests and religious from the Diocese of Rome on March 10, the Pope led a Scripture meditation as the “pastor of the pastors.”
He based the meditation – called a “lectio divina” (sacred reading) – on a chapter from the Acts of the Apostles in which St. Paul leaves the faithful in Ephesus with instructions on how to continue preaching the Gospel after his departure.
Paul’s advice to be humble and vigilant in preaching the faith, to make themselves completely available in service to Christ and the Church, and prayerful as they protect their “flocks” are all relevant characteristics of priests nearly 2,000 years later, said the Pope.
He implored priests to show “full-time” fidelity to their vocation as priests, “being with Christ and being ambassadors of Christ.”
The Pope also called on priests today not to shrink from proclaiming “the entire plan of God.”
“This is important,” said the Pope. “The Apostle does not preach Christianity ‘a la carte,’ according to his own tastes, he does not preach a Gospel according to his own preferred theological ideas; he does not take away from the commitment to announce the entire will of God, even when uncomfortable, nor the themes he may least like personally.
“It is our mission to announce all the will of God, in its totality and ultimate simplicity. But the fact that we must instruct and preach is important – as St. Paul says – and really proposes the entire will of God.”
In a world where people are curious to know everything, “so much more should we be curious to know the will of God,” said Pope Benedict.
“What thing could be more interesting, more important, more essential for us than to know what God wants, to know the will of God, the face of God?”
He called on priests and religious to respond to this curiosity and awaken it in others, assisting them in “knowing truly all the will of God and knowing then how we can and must live, which is the path of our lives.”
Let us pray for our priests so that they will have the courage to preach the fullness of faith without compromise!
Is Anyone Listening To Peter?
By: Kevin Whiteman
A new Dark Age on the horizon?
Catholics, Protestants, Agnostics… the vast majority of conservatives of every stripe would agree with this almost non-reported speech made by Pope Benedict XVI on 20 December, 2010.
In a speech to Papal representatives from all over the world, the Pope spoke in the context of a the near total collapse in the Western world of any moral consensus rooted in Christian ethics and heritage.
In comments aimed directly at the secularization and abandonment of God by the West, Benedict stunned those in a attendance when he stated;
“Alexis de Tocqueville, in his day, observed that democracy in America had become possible and had worked because there existed a fundamental moral consensus which, transcending individual denominations, united everyone.
Only if there is such a consensus on the essentials can constitutions and law function. This fundamental consensus derived from the Christian heritage is at risk wherever its place, the place of moral reasoning, is taken by the purely instrumental rationality of which I spoke earlier.
In reality, this makes reason blind to what is essential. To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.”
“No pleasure is ever enough, and the excess of deceiving intoxication becomes a violence that tears whole regions apart – and all this in the name of a fatal misunderstanding of freedom which actually undermines man’s freedom and ultimately destroys it.”
Benedict even forcefully spoke of the destruction from within that has polluted the Catholic Church since the implementation of the “spirit of Vatican II” and the abandonment of moral absolutes by many, many Catholic priests, bishops and cardinals;
“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorized as something fully in conformity with man and even with children.
This, however, was part of a fundamental perversion of the concept of ethos. It was maintained – even within the realm of Catholic theology – that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a “better than” and a “worse than”. Nothing is good or bad in itself.
Everything depends on the circumstances and on the end in view. Anything can be good or also bad, depending upon purposes and circumstances. Morality is replaced by a calculus of consequences, and in the process it ceases to exist.
The effects of such theories are evident today.”
In Order To Heal From The Sex Abuse Scandals!
The solution to the problem of clerical sex abuse lies in a spirit of penitence and conversion, rather than a radical change of church structures, said Pope Benedict.
Using an indirect historical analogy, the Pope recalled the words of XII century Saint Hildegard, according to whom “a true renewal of the ecclesiastic community is the result less of structural changes than of a sincere spirit of repentance and an active path towards conversion”, said an AFP report in the Sydney Morning Herald.
St Hildegard at the time was fighting the criticism by German sects “proposing a radical reform of the Church in order to fight abuses by clergy,” Benedict said.
However, she “bitterly reproached demands to subvert the very nature of the church” and she urged the faithful, especially the clergy and monastic communities, to live holy and virtuous lives, said the Catholic News Service.
“This is a message we must never forget,” he said.
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