Monday thru Friday at www.DailyCatholic.org See why so many consider the Daily CATHOLIC as the "USA Today for CATHOLICS!" e-mail: DailyCatholic@dailycatholic.org

Holy Father traces God's Love from Old Testament to the New Covenant in leading us all back to the Father through love from and for God

    In his most recent regular weekly Wednesday Papal Audience in St. Peter's Square, Pope John Paul II spoke about the ultimate love God has for man through His creation and imparting the commandments to show man how to live in grace. The Holy Father traces this love from the Old Testament to the fulfillment of Love in the New Testament when He sent His only-begotten Son - the ultimate sign of Love - and Jesus exhibited His ultimate sign of Love by dying for us after teaching us of His Love. The Vicar of Christ completes his catechesis "The Theological Virtue of Love: Love for God" by showing how the Holy Spirit reinforces and perpetuates that Love from God and in us. For the Pope's words on his talk, "Who loves has known God, because God is Love," click on THE VICAR OF CHRIST SPEAKS.

"The Theological Virtue of Love: Love for God"

Papal Audience Address from Wednesday, October 13, 1999

    On this past Wednesday, the Holy Father addressed over 16,000 in St. Peter's Square as the crowds continue to swell. He called all to practice the theological virtue of charity with a special emphasis on loving God for through obedience to Him we show the greatest love toward God and are enabled to nourish that through the Holy Spirit Who, along with Jesus, brings us to the Father.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

1. In Ancient Israel the fundamental commandment of love for God was inserted into their daily prayer: "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest."

    At the root of this command to love God in a total way we find the love which God Himself bears for humanity. He awaits a true and proper response of love from the people he loves with a preferential love. He is a jealous God (cf. Ex 20:5), who cannot tolerate idolatry, to which his people are continually tempted. Hence the commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Ibid., v. 3).

    Israel continually grows in the understanding that beyond this relationship of profound respect and exclusive adoration, they must have a childlike and even nuptial attitude towards the Lord. The Song of Songs is intended and read as such, transfiguring the beauty of human love in the spousal dialogue between God and His people.

    The Book of Deuteronomy recalls two essential characteristics of this love. The first is that man would never be worthy of this love, if God did not give him the strength, through "circumcision of the heart" (cf. Dt 30:6), to rid the heart of every attachment to sin. The other characteristic is that, far from being mere feeling, this love is a concrete "walking in the ways" of God, and observing "his commandments, decrees and ordinances" (Ibid., v.16).

2. The precept of Deuteronomy returns unaltered in the teaching of Jesus, Who defines it as "the greatest and first of the commandments," strictly uniting it to the love of neighbor (cf Mt 22:34-40). Reproposing the precept in the same terms as the Old Testament, Jesus shows that on this point revelation has already reached its apex.

    At the same time, precisely in the person of Jesus, the sense of this commandment assumes its fullness. In him, in fact, the maximum intensity of man's love for God is realized. From now on, to love God with all my heart, all my soul and all my strength means to love this God who is revealed in Christ, and to love Him with Christ's love, infused in us "through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5).

3. Love constitutes the essence of the new "commandment" taught by Jesus. It is in effect the soul of all commandments, the observance of which confirms and even becomes the clear demonstration of love for God: "For the love of God is this, that we obey His commandments" (1 John 5:3). This love, which is complete love for Jesus, represents the condition for being loved by the Father: "Whoever has My commandments and observes them is the one who loves Me. And whoever loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him" (John 14:21).

    Love for God, made possible by the gift of the Spirit, is founded on the mediation of Jesus, as he Himself affirmed in His priestly prayer: "I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved Me may be in them and I in them" (John 17:26). This mediation is made concrete above all in the gift that he made of His life, the gift that gave the greatest love a sweeping testimony, by requiring from others the observance of what Jesus commands: "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you" (John 15:13-14).

    Christian love draws from this wellspring of love, which is Jesus, the Son of God offered for us. The capacity to love as God loves is offered to every Christian as the fruit of the paschal mystery of the death and resurrection.

4. The Church has expressed this sublime reality by teaching that love is a theological virtue. It is worthy of being called a virtue directly referring to God, and allows the human creature to enter into the circuit of Trinitarian love. In fact, God the Father loves us as He loves Christ, seeing in us His image. This image is, so to speak, painted in us by the Spirit, Who like an "iconographer" accomplishes it in time.

    It is also always the Holy Spirit Who designs the fundamental lines of the Christian response in the depths of our person. The dynamism of love for God springs forth as such from a sort of "connaturality" accomplished by the Holy Spirit Who, according to traditional Eastern language, "divinizes" us.

    In the strength of the Holy Spirit, love inspires the moral action of the Christian, and directs and reinforces all the other virtues, which build in us the structure of the new man. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, "the exercise of all the virtues is animated and inspired by love. This is the 'chain of perfection' (Col 3:14); it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and coordinates them; it is the source and end of their Christian practice. Love guarantees and purifies our human capacity to love. It elevates to the supernatural perfection of divine love" (N. 1827). As Christians, we are always those called to love.

---

Former Prefect of the Apostolic Signature, President of the Fabric of Peter, and Vicar General of Rome Cardinal Aurelio Sabattani now lives in retirement inside the walls of the Vatican

   We continue with this special series introducing you to the Princes of the Church. Our one-hundred-twelfth red-hat we feature, in alphabetical order is 87 year-old Cardinal Aurelio Sabattani, who retired in 1991 at the age of 79 from all active duty and the next year from eligibility to vote in the Sacred Conclave after faithfully serving the Church since 1935 in various Secretariat of State assignments as well as the Vicar General of Rome for Pope John Paul II, the Bishop of Rome who elevated him to the cardinalate during his Consistory of February 2, 1983. On April 5, 1993 he was transferred to the order of cardinal priest. For more on Cardinal Aurelio Sabattani, click on COLLEGE OF CARDINALS COLLECTION

112.   Cardinal Aurelio Sabattani

    Retired for the past eleven years, Cardinal Aurelio Sabattani was the Prefect of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signatura until 1988. He was born eighty-seven years ago today on October 18, 1912 in Casal Fiumanese, Italy. After studying for the priesthood in his Diocese of Imola, he was ordained on July 26, 1935 at the age of 23. Besides various pastoral duties he returned to school where he received his degree summa cum laude from the Lateran Pontifical University in 1939. From there he was summoned to Rome to work for the Secretariat of State but his parents became ill and he requested to be closer to them by transferring back to the Diocese of Imola. There he remained until 1955 when he returned to Rome as prelate auditor of the Holy Roman Rota.

    Ten years later Pope Paul VI named him Titular Archbishop of Justinian Prima on June 24, 1965 and the Prelate of Loreto - the Holy Family's house near the Adriatic Sea where he was declared Pontifical Delegate for the sanctuary there. In 1971 the Holy Father returned him to Rome to become the Secretary of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and Consultor of the Secretariat of State who was Cardinal Augustin Bea at the time. He remained in this position until 1982 when he was named Pro-Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura. A year later Pope John Paul II elevated him to the cardinalate during his Consistory of February 2, 1983 where he received the titular church of St. Apollinaris and promoted to Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura. At the same time he was given the additional post of Archpriest of the Patriarchal Vatican Basilica and President of the Fabric of Peter until resigning in 1991. Today he resides in retirement in Rome at Palazzo del Tribunale, Piazza San Marta in Vatican City.

Appreciation of the Foundation and Mission of the Church

    Today we continue with our new series in the search to uncover the great treasuries of the Church contained in the great Deposit of Faith. We focus today on the Foundation and Mission of the Church as charged by Jesus Christ. For the thirty-fourth installment, click on APPRECIATING THE PRECIOUS GIFT OF OUR FAITH

THE FOUNDATION AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH

    Our Lord Jesus Christ commanded His Apostles to establish the Church all over the world; that was His express command. The Apostles and their successors, the Bishops, have complied with this command, this mission of the Church to continue Christ’s teaching and to apply the fruits of His Sacrifice to all men. In the process many have suffered martyrdom for their mission. Saint Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, one of the Apostolic Fathers, whose feast we celebrated yesterday, received the crown of martyrdom in the second century under Trajan; he was thrown to the wild beasts in the Amphitheatre during the public games.

    Jesus Christ founded the Church to bring all men to eternal salvation. “For the grace of God our Saviour has appeared to all men, instructing us, in order that, rejecting ungodliness and worldly lusts, we may live temperately and justly and piously in this world; looking for the blessed hope and glorious coming of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and cleanse for himself an acceptable people, pursuing ood works” (Titus 2: 11-14).

    Our Lord Jesus Christ established the Church in order to lead men to Heaven by: (a) continuing His teaching and example; and (b) Applying the fruits of His Sacrifice on the cross to all men until the end of the world.

    Our Lord gave to the Church a three-fold office: the office of teacher, the office of priest or sanctifier, and the office of pastor or ruler. By these offices Christ intended His Church to accomplish the purpose for which He founded it.

    The Church founded by Christ was a visible organization, with the Apostles as superiors and rulers. From the very beginning they exercised their authority and powers. They did not advise; the directed, as superiors, and decided, as judges. Thus Saint Paul excommunicated the sinful Corinthian; and he commanded the Hebrews: “Obey your superiors, and be subject to them” (Hebrews 13:17). The Church is enabled to lead men to salvation by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Who gives life.

    God the Father and God the Son sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in the Church. On the feast of Pentecost, we celebrate a mystery which is forever renewed in the Church and in our souls: the mystery of the indwelling of God, the reign of the law of love which succeeded the law of bondage and fear (cf. Romans 8:15).

    The Holy Spirit guides the rulers of the Church, especially the Pope, and helps them in their duties. Before the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles had been timid and afraid. After His coming they went forth to teach, whatever hardships came; they remembered and understood all the teachings of Christ.

   

Tomorrow: The Foundation of the Church part three

SIMPLY SHEEN:

Hell is full of fool!

      They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the words of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen have been known to launch a thousand images in one's mind, one of the ways this late luminary did so much to evangelize the faith. Because of the urgency of the times and because few there are today who possess the wisdom, simplicity and insight than the late Archbishop who touched millions, we are bringing you daily gems from his writings. The good bishop makes it so simple that we have dubbed this daily series: "SIMPLY SHEEN".

"Dante in his description of hell said that when he first entered it, he found some spirits that were neither rebellious nor faithful, but existed solely for themselves. They were 'hateful, distasteful to God and to His enemies.' When these indifferent souls steal, they do not restore; when they have moral collapse, disgusting to the moral sense, they do not repent, but creep back into an old respectability; they judge themselves by the accepted standards of the group in which they move; social refinement is regarded as the flower and the aroma of virtue; secular conventions are given the force of Divine commands; and finally, they may call themselves stupid but never sinful."

    Today is the Feast of the Evangelist Saint Luke while tomorrow we commemorate another martyred feast - that of the North American Martyrs including the Jesuit Missionaries Saint Isaac Jogues and Saint John de Brefeuf at the hands of the Mohawks. For the readings, liturgies, meditations, and vignettes on these feasts, click on DAILY LITURGY.

Monday, October 18, 1999

Monday October 18:
Feast of SAINT LUKE, Evangelist

Red vestments

First Reading: 2 Timothy 4: 10-17
Psalms: Psalm 145: 10-13, 17-18
Gospel Reading: Luke 10: 1-9

    Historians differ on whether Saint Luke the Evangelist, author of the Third Gospel, was martyred or died a natural death around the year 84 AD in Boetia. Also unknown is his exact origin though many believe he was Greek hailing from Antioch which is substantiated by Saint Jerome and Saint Eusebius. Others surmise Luke was one of 70 disciples and a close associate of the teacher and prophet Lucius of Cyrene (cf. Acts 13:1) which would more likely confirm Luke's Grecian heritage. Whether this Lucius was the same one who was Paul's companion at Corinth (cf. Romans 16:21) is open to conjecture. We do know he was a physician and a Gentile (cf. Colossians 4: 10-14) and traveled with Saint Paul on his second missionary journey around 51 AD. He stayed on at Philippi in charge of the Christian community there until about 57 when he rejoined Paul on his third journey and accompanied him to Rome where he was during Paul's imprisonment from 61 to 63 AD. After Paul's martyrdom in 66, Luke went back to Greece. There, is is assumed, he wrote his Gospel as well as the Acts of the Apostles as a sort of epilogue so to speak. While Sts. Eusebius and Jerome claim he wrote it before Paul's death while in Rome, their counterpart Saint Iraneaeus maintains it was afterwards. Without a doubt Luke's Gospel was written for Gentile Christians and his account in Acts depicts the growth of the new Church from around 35 to 63 AD, all under the inspiration of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity which was founded by the Second Person of the Trinity Jesus Christ. Whether Luke ever met Jesus is open to conjecture though the evangelist was believed to have been born the same year of Our Lord. While Luke is venerated as the Patron Saint of Doctors, along with Saints Cosmas and Damian, he is also associated with painters for another legend from the sixth century on has him as an accomplished master of various paintings including several icons of the Blessed Virgin Mary for he is believed to have visited Our Lady in Jerusalem before her Assumption into Heaven. There is also the possibility this could have occurred after her Assumption and she appeared to him much in the same manner she appeared to Saint James and countless visionaries throughout the centuries right up to the present day. Luke's writings exhibit an extraordinary literary flow and these, too, could easily have been dictated largely by Heavenly means as so much of Sacred Scripture is. His Gospel shows a steady movement from Nazareth to Jerusalem and Acts shows a direction away from Jerusalem to Rome. His Gospel describes the announcement of good tidings and is broken into six sections: the narrative of Christ's infancy, the Messianic attributes of Jesus, His carrying out these attributes in Galilee, Christ's preaching, His Passion and Death, and the fruits of Jesus' salvific act through His Resurrection and Ascension. In addition, none of the evangelist painted more pictures with words as Luke who is credited with the most parables as related by Our Lord. In paintings Luke is associated with the ox which symbolizes strength as well as sacrifice which introduces his Gospel with the history of Zechariah or Zachary the father of Saint John the Baptist, who offered sacrifice to God (cf. Luke 1:9-25).

Tuesday October 19:
Feast of Saint Isaac Jogues, SJ and Saint John de Brebeuf and their companion North American Martyrs

Red vestments

First Reading: Romans 5: 12, 15, 17-19, 20-21
Psalms: Psalm 40: 7-10, 17
Gospel Reading: Luke 12: 35-38

   Born into a wealthy family in Orleans, France in 1607, Saint Isaac Jogues was enrolled by his parents in the Jesuit school there and became a priest of the Society of Jesus in 1636. Longing to work with the Huron Indians in the foreign missions, Isaac requested and received the assignment to go to Quebec, Canada almost immediately after ordination. The Jesuits had established missions there as the first missionaries in Canada and the upper United States after French explorer J. Cartier discovered this land in 1534. For six years he was very successful and effected many conversions among the Hurons traveling between Nova Scotia and Maryland. But in 1642 a band of Iroquois, who were the natural enemy of the Hurons, captured Isaac along with Rene Goupil and another group of Jesuits. Rene was martyred but Isaac and his companions allowed to live though they underwent hideous and inhumane torture which included mutilation. Isaac's fingers were severed and he was left to die in the wilderness but the Dutch rescued him and he was able to return to France in 1644. However he longed to be a martyr and finally secured a transfer back to Quebec in 1646. Once they had arrived Isaac and new companion Saint Jean Brebeuf set out for Iroquois country for a peace treaty had been signed. But warmongers among the Mohawks intercepted the missionaries and cruelly tomahawked them and scalped them from the neck up at Auriesville, New York on October 18 and 19, 1646. Isaac died on the 18th and Jean the next day. Over the next three years five other missionaries would join Isaac, Rene and Jean on the list of the 8 Jesuit martyrs: Noel Chabanel, Anthony Daniel, Charles Garnier, John de Lalande, and Gabriel Lallemant. Exactly ten years after Isaac's death a young Indian girl was born in the same village where Fr. Jogues was murdered. Her name: Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. In 1930 Pope Pius XI canonized the group proclaiming them the Martyrs of North America and patron saints of Canada.

Click here to go to SECTION THREE or return to SECTION ONE or click here to return to the graphics front page of this issue.

October 18, 1999 volume 10, no. 198  DAILY CATHOLIC