“Encountering the Living Lord Jesus,” a women’s retreat given by Father Ben Cameron, CPM, February 6-8, 2009

“The Cross: The Power of God (1 Cor 1:18),” given by Father Frank Sofie, February 20-22, 2009

“Christ Our Hope,” given by Father Larry Paolicelli, May 29-31, 2009.

All retreats begin at 7:00 pm on Friday and end after lunch on Sunday. The suggested donation for the retreats, $160 per person and $270 per couple, include accommodations and five meals. For more information or to make reservations for yourself or a group, please visit our website at http://www.sisterservants.org, email us at sisterservants@earthlink.net, or call us at (205) 956-6760.

  In his First Letter to the Thessalonians, said the Holy Father, “St. Paul speaks of the return of Jesus, an event known as the ‘parusia’ or advent”. The saint describes this vividly “using symbolic images that nonetheless transmit a simple and profound message: ‘In the end we will be with the Lord forever’. … Our future is ‘to be with the Lord’”.

 

  Benedict XVI pointed out how in his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle “changes perspective and speaks of the negative events that will precede the end. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived, he says, as if the Day of the Lord were truly imminent by some chronological calculation. … The continuation of the Pauline text makes it clear that the coming of the Lord will be preceded by apostasy and by the appearance of a person identified only as ‘the lawless one’, the ‘one destined for destruction’, whom tradition came to identify as the Antichrist”.

 

  The Pope examined the fundamental attitudes a Christian must adopt in the face of the ultimate realities of death and the end of the world: “The first attitude”, he said, “must be the certainty that Jesus rose and that, with the Father, He remains with us forever. … Secondly, the certainty that Christ is with me; and since the future world has already begun in Christ, this gives us the certainty of hope. The future is not an area of darkness in which no-one can find their way. … Without Christ, the future is dark even today. … Christians know that the light of Christ is stronger and hence they experience a hope that is not vain, a hope that gives certainty and courage to face the future”.

 

  The third attitude, the Pope went on, “is responsibility before Christ for the world and for our fellow man and, at the same time, the certainty of His mercy. … We have to work to ensure this world opens to Christ, that it is renewed. …We know that God is the true Judge, we are sure He is good, we know His face, the face of the risen Christ. … For this reason we can be sure of His goodness and live our lives courageously”.

 

  At the end of his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul “repeats a prayer of the early Christian communities of Palestine, putting it into the mouths of the Corinthians themselves: ‘Marana tha! Our Lord, come!’ … which is also how the Book of the Apocalypse ends. … Can we pray like this today? In our lives, in our world, it is difficult to pray sincerely for this world to perish, for the coming of the New Jerusalem, the Final Judgement, Christ the Judge. … Nonetheless, like the first Christian community we can say: Come Jesus! Of course we do not want the end of the world to come now. On the other hand, we do want the world of injustice to end, we do want the world to change, the civilisation of love to begin, a world of justice and peace to come, a world without violence and hunger. … But without the presence of Christ a truly just and renewed world will never come”.

 

  “We can and must cry out urgently in the circumstances of our own time: Come, Lord! Come in Your way, in the ways that You know. Come where there is injustice and violence. Come into the refuge camps of Darfur and North Kivu, in so many parts of the world. Come where drugs dominate. Come also among the rich who have forgotten You and who live for themselves alone. Come where You are known. Come in Your way and renew today’s world. Come also into our hearts … that we too may become light of God, Your presence”.

In today’s general audience, held in St. Peter’s Square in the presence of 20,000 faithful, the Pope spoke of St. Paul’s theology of the Cross.

The Holy Father recalled how the Apostle of the Gentiles, following his experience on the road to Damascus, changed his life completely. Paul remained deeply marked by “the central significance of the Cross: he understood that Jesus died and rose for everyone. The Cross, then, demonstrated the gratuitous and merciful love of God”, he said.

“For St. Paul the Cross had a fundamental primacy in the history of humanity. It is the focal point of his theology because ‘Cross’ means salvation as grace for all creatures. The theme of the Cross became an essential and principal element of the Apostle’s preaching”.

Benedict XVI then went on to highlight how “the ‘stumbling block’ and ‘foolishness’ of the Cross”, of which St. Paul, speaks are to be found “in the fact that where there seemed to be only failure, suffering and defeat, there, in reality, is all the power of God’s limitless Love”.

“If for the Jews the reason for rejecting the Cross was in the Revelation, in other words in the God of the Fathers, for the Greeks – that is, the pagans – the criterion for opposing the Cross lay in reason. For them, in fact, the Cross was death, foolishness. … It was clearly inconceivable to imagine that a God could end up on a Cross! And we see how this Greek logic has also become the common logic of our own time”.

“Why”, the Pope asked, “did St. Paul make the word Cross such a fundamental part of his preaching? The answer”, he said, “is not difficult: the Cross reveals ‘the power of God’ which is different from human power; it reveals, in fact, His love”.

For the Apostle “the crucified Christ is wisdom because He truly shows Who God is: the power of love which goes even unto the Cross to save man. God uses means and instruments that to human beings seem to be mere weakness. The crucified Christ reveals, on the one hand, the weakness of man and, on the other, the true power of God, in other words the gratuitousness of love; and precisely this complete gratuitousness of love is true wisdom”.

The Holy Father explained how St. Paul, in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, makes “two fundamental affirmations: the one, that Christ, Whom God made to be sin for our sake, died for everyone; and the other, that God reconciled us to Him not counting our trespasses against us. It is from this ‘ministry of reconciliation’ that all slaves are ransomed”.

“St. Paul renounced his own life and committed himself totally to the ministry of reconciliation, of the Cross which is salvation for us all. This is something we must also do. We can find our strength in the humility of love and our wisdom in the weakness to renounce, thus to enter into the strength of God. … We have to mould our lives on this true wisdom, not living for ourselves, but living in faith in the God of Whom we can all say: ‘He loved me and gave Himself for me’”.

December 2008

3-4^th                 DRE Retreat 

                        Saint Paul’s Guide to Daily Living

                        Presented by Michael Dubruiel

                        Saint Bernard’s, Cullman

25-31^st             Christmas Candle of Hope Celebration

                        Year of Saint Paul Meditations

January 2009

1-6^th                 Christmas Candle of Hope Celebration

                        Year of Saint Paul Meditations

10^th                  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast

                        Saint Paul’s Influence on King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”

                        Presented by Father Manuel Williams

                        Cathedral of Saint Paul, Birmingham

23^rd                  Catholic Schools Mass (Birmingham)

                        Year of Saint Paul School Awards

                        Most Reverend Robert J. Baker

                        Cathedral of Saint Paul, Birmingham

25^th                  Feast of Conversion of Saint Paul

                        Mass

                        Most Reverend Robert J. Baker

                        Saint Paul, Athens

28^th                  Catholic Schools Mass (Huntsville)

                        Year of Saint Paul School Awards

                        Most Reverend Robert J. Baker

                        Von Braun Center, Huntsville

February 2009

6^th                    Continuing Education Conference on Saint Paul

                        Saint Paul: Minister and Preacher, Then and Now

                        Presented by: Dr. Michael Gorman

                        Beeson Lecture Hall

                        Samford University, Birmingham

6^th                    Ecumenical Worship Service and Talk

                        Paul in One Sentence 

                        Presented by: Dr. Michael Gorman

                        Most Reverend Robert J. Baker

                        Andrew Gerow Hodges Chapel

                        Samford University, Birmingham

7^th                    Presentation

                        Saint Paul

                        Presented by Dr. Michael Gorman

                        Sacred Heart Catholic Church Anniston

8^th                    Presentation

                        Saint Paul

                        Presented by Dr. Michael Gorman

                        Cathedral of Saint Paul, Birmingham

20-21^st             Mission

                        Saint Paul Teaching on the Power of the Cross

                        Presented by Michael Dubruiel

                        Annunciation of the Lord Parish, Decatur

April 2009       

19^th                  Lecture

                        Dr. Tim Carmody

                        Pauline Letters

                        Parish Life Center, St. Mark the Evangelist, Birmingham

May 2009

3^rd                    Lecture

                        Dr. Tim Carmody

                        Pauline Letters

                        Parish Life Center,  St. Mark the Evangelist, Birmingham

June 2009

29^th                  Closing Mass of the Year of Saint Paul

                        Televised live on EWTN

                        Most Reverend Robert J. Baker

                        Cathedral of Saint Paul, Birmingham

September 4, 2008, on Saint Paul and Baptism.

September 11, 2008 on Saint Paul and Confession.

September 18, 2008 on Saint Paul and Confirmation

September 25, 2008 on Saint Paul and Eucharist

October 2, 2008 on Saint Paul and Holy Orders, Part I

October 2, 2008 on Saint Paul and Holy Orders, Part II

October 9, 2008 on Saint Paul and Marriage

The Church is not an association but a community “called by God.” In order for it to truly be a “Church” as Saint Paul intended, i.e. a “place where God truly dwells” and as a “community structured around warm interpersonal relations founded on the family,” we must be “a place for God’s charity” where he is “present in this world and in our history.” In continuing his presentation on the life and ideas of Saint Paul, Benedict XVI spoke today about the Apostle to the Nations and the Church before a crowd of almost 30,000 people who had gathered in St Peter’s Square for the general audience.

The term Church, he said, “comes from the Greek ekklesia, and is taken from the Old Testament where it means the assembly of the People of Israel called by God. [. . . .] Now it is the new community of believers in Christ.”

The word refers to “assemblies of God that exist in given places, but also to unity, that of the Church as one entity,” which “is not just the sum of various local Churches, but is instead the various local Churches together as the Church of God, which comes before them as their fulfilment.”

Paul almost always spoke about the “Church of God,” by which he meant that “God had called it,” that the “unity of God creates the unity of the Church wherever it is;” the one and only Church of God, “bride of Christ.”

“Paul knew that not only do we not become Christians by coercion but also that in the internal configuration of the new community, the institutional component was inevitably tied to [. . .] the announcement made to all nations, uniting them as one people of God,” Benedict XVI said.

“We know that as a young man, Paul opposed the Church of Christ” because he saw threats to the “faith in one God” and to its “tradition” as defined by circumcision, cultic purity and observance of the Sabbath, something which Jews “paid in blood”.

Saint Paul realised however that “in meeting the Risen, Christians were not traitors. On the contrary, the God of Israel had come for every nation and every nation found its fulfilment in the one God,” in the “one People of God” and in the “Church of God in Christ.”

“At the heart of Saint Paul’s preaching stands the turning point of his life” and “the purpose of his evangelising work was to set up the community of the faithful in Christ.”

“We do not know why the community picked the word ekklesia,” but “continuity with the Old Testament is certainly crucial for it explicitly expresses a call ab extra, i.e. a call by God who unites individuals into a community.” Hence, from this “the exclusively Pauline concept of the Church as the ‘Body of Christ’ follows.”

Two aspects of this concept need elucidation for Benedict XVI. First, in the sociology of Ancient Rome, “the body was made up of parts and cannot exist without them.” Thus a “people is like a body made up of different parts, each with its own function, but all, even the most insignificant, are necessary for the whole to exist.”

In this sense, Paul “acknowledges that the ecclesial body has various parts as well as a structure that protects it from the dangers of disorder and disintegration.”

Yet he also said that “the Church is not just an organism but becomes the true Body of Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, wherein everyone receives his body.” And “in receiving it we truly become His body, one body and one spirit in Christ.” For this reason “reality transcends any sociological image” for “not only are we one thing in Christ but we are also only one in Christ.”

Pope Benedict continues his catechesis on Saint Paul, from Asia News Italy:

In “knowing” Jesus what matters are not the details of his life or viewing him as an event in history but rather following him as a “living reality” as Saint Paul did. “Jesus is alive, speaks for us and lives with us. This is the “true way” of knowing him as “our brother, who is with us, who shows us how to live and die.” This, according Saint Paul, is what “knowing” Jesus can teach us, the main topic of what Benedict XVI told the 25,000 people who had gathered in St Peter’s Square for today’s general audience.

In continuing his catecheses about the Apostle to the Nations, the Pope offered the faithful “what Saint Paul learnt about the earthly Jesus”, his life, teachings and passion.

For Saint Paul, said Benedict XVI, there are two ways of knowing Jesus or anyone else. In the Letter to the Corinthians, he wrote that “we regard no one according to the flesh . . . .” Indeed for Paul there are two ways of knowing people. One, “knowing according to the flesh, means knowing from the outside, applying external criteria—face, form, life experiences—without knowing the real inner self, who one is. [However], one can truly and in truth know someone else only with heart.” For whilst the “Sadducees and Pharisees met Jesus, heard his teachings, learnt about his life, they never knew him.”

“What do people say about me?” Jesus asked. “But who do you say that I am?” he asked the twelve disciples. Although people know him, they do not know who he is; instead the twelve do. [. . .] This is true even today. There are people who know Jesus in almost every detail but have never met him and then there are those who do not know every detail but have met him.”

As for Paul he “is certain not to have seen or met him on earth,” but did meet him through the apostles and the nascent Church.

In Paul’s Letters there are various explicit and direct references to knowing the pre-Easter Jesus, noted the Pope, his Davidic lineage, his words about the indissolubility of marriage, and the Last Supper. Paul knows about the Sermon on the Mountain and quotes some passages almost verbatim like the one about loving one another and one’s persecutors.

In referring to Paul’s “faithful transposition” the Pope mentioned the pre-Easter tradition use of the word father. On the Mount of Olives, “before falling asleep, the disciples heard Jesus call out to his Father, abba, a word familiarly used by children, but not by Jews when they addressed God. Here as a true son Jesus speaks to his Father.” In using this word Paul says that “the baptised can turn to the Father, speak like Jesus, because they have become sons through the Son.”

For Benedict XVI another “faithful reproduction” of Jesus’ words is found when it is said that “the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve . . .” which in the Pauline doctrine sees “Jesus’ death as ransom, redemption and reconciliation.”

“We shall have an opportunity to talk about Jesus’ death as a mystery of reconciliation,” the Pope added.

In conclusion Paul “never thought about Jesus in historical terms, as someone from the past. He knew him and treated him as living reality; his words do not belong to the past, for Jesus is alive, speaks for us and lives with us.”

“This is the real way. This way we can learn to meet Jesus, not in the flesh, but as our brother who is with us, who shows us how to live.”

OUR NATION AND WORLD

OCTOBER 7, 2008

FEAST OF OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY

As our government leaders attempt to bring stability to financial institutions of our nation and give hope to market and trade sectors of our economy, I ask that the Catholic Community of Northern Alabama, in the Diocese of Birmingham, set aside Tuesday, October 7, 2008, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, as A Day of Prayer for our Nation and World.

With further rumors of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Iran, complicating an already precarious situation on the international scene, we need also to pray for peace in our world.

I ask that each Sunday over the next several weeks, parishes and Religious houses include in their Sunday General Intercessions the following prayers:

“That the Holy Spirit may guide our government leaders as they address the problems facing our nation’s economy and as they seek proper paths to peace in our world, we pray to the Lord…”

“For the guidance of the Holy Spirit as voters choose the best possible candidates as leaders for local, state, and national offices, people who will protect the most vulnerable among us, especially the unborn, and promote the cause of life in all its forms and family life, we pray to the Lord…”

On Tuesday, October 7, 2008, at 10:00 a.m., I will dedicate the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes on the grounds of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville. This is the 150th anniversary year of the apparitions to St. Bernadette in Lourdes, France.

I ask that Catholics of the Diocese have recourse to the prayer of the Rosary daily during the Month of October we as a nation put God back into the center of our solutions for all our national and international problems.

Most Reverend Robert J. Baker, S.T.D.

Bishop of Birmingham in Alabama