Pope Paul VI encyclical: Christi Matri Rosarii (Rosaries to the Mother of Christ) for Peace

Pope Paul VI issued the encyclical Christi Matri Rosarri pleading for worldwide praying of the holy rosary, to be offered especially for peace.  The emphasis is mine.

The following is from his holiness' salutation:

To His Venerable Brothers the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See. 

Venerable Brothers, Health and Apostolic Benediction.

It is a solemn custom of the faithful during the month of October to weave the prayers of the Rosary into mystical garlands for the Mother of Christ. Following in the footsteps of Our predecessors, We heartily approve this, and We call upon all the sons of the church to offer special devotions to the Most Blessed Virgin this year. For the danger of a more serious and extensive calamity hangs over the human family and has increased, especially in parts of eastern Asia where a bloody and hard-fought war is raging. So We feel most urgently that We must once again do what We can to safeguard peace. We are also disturbed by what We know to be going on in other areas, such as the growing nuclear armaments race, the senseless nationalism, the racism, the obsession for revolution, the separations imposed upon citizens, the nefarious plots, the slaughter of innocent people. All of these can furnish material for the greatest calamity.

Devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Too often these days two of Mary's great and powerful gifts - the Rosary and the Scapular - are being ignored and, sad to say, even totally neglected...

...At Fatima Our Blessed Mother emphasized the importance of these sacramentals.  In fact, she said:  "I am the lady of the Rosary", and she asked over and over again, that the Rosary be prayed daily and often for the conversion of sinners and world peace.  As to the Brown Scapular, in her final appearance at Fatima, Mary appeared as Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, holding the Brown Scapular.

As to the Brown Scapular, during the past seven hundred years the Church as encouraged this devotion, and our pontiffs have placed many indulgences upon its devout use.  Numerous authenticated miracles and favors, both spiritual and temporal, have proved the devotion's validity and emphasized Our Blessed Mother's promise that whoever dies wearing the Brown Scapular will be saved.

Fatima or Moscow?  by Clentine Lenta

Fine Art Friday - The Chalice of Christ

July is the month we honor the Precious Blood.  So, this week's Fine Arts Friday honors the Chalice of the Precious Blood in art.

"Christ with the Chalice by Juan de Juanes

Picture source

"Christ with the Chalice" after Sebastiano Conca

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"St. John the Evangelist Drinking from the Poisoned Chalice" by Bernat Martorell

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"The Eucharist: a Gold Chalice,  a Host, Two Silver Candelabras in a Stone Niche" by Jan van Kessel

"Ezekiel and the Angel Holding the Chalice of the Passion from the Sacristy of St. Mark" by Melozzo da Forli

ACN News - Syrian Christians fear persecution by ISIS in Lebanon as well

By Andrea Krogmann

Somewhere in the Beqaa Valley, Lebanon (July 13, 2016)—Let us call them Samir and Sabine. Let us say they are in their early 50s, Christians who have fled from Raqqah, Syria, the ISIS stronghold.

“No photo, no names!” Samir’s gesture is clear: otherwise his head will roll, he darkly suggests. Then he lets his arms fall back to his sides, in his hands is a piece of paper: a receipt for the tax on Christians in levied by the Islamic State.

The amount that the jihadists levy per year and family is about $4,000—protection money, but no one is safe from the terror, the man said.

Samir and his family were doing well in Raqqah. And then ISIS came. Samir paid. When the threat became bigger, the family converted to Islam.

“I hated the life, the veil, and that I wasn’t allowed out on the street without a male escort,” Sabine explained. “That is not for us Christians!” Samir prayed at the mosque for the sake of appearances, to protect his family.

Then a car with fighters pulled up at the family home. Someone had denounced the family, saying that they had not really converted to Islam, and that were still praying at home to their Christian God.

Samir and his family were able to flee. They found shelter with a Muslim friend. They made their way to Aleppo, but the terror followed them. “After two months in Aleppo, I received a call. They told me that they would come and kill me,” Samir said.

The family fled again, this time to Beirut, the Lebanese capital. Until the phone rang there again, “We know where you are!” The implied threat drove the family to the Beqaa Valley.

Samir and Sabine are happy that they no longer have to renounce their faith. “We had a picture of St. Charbel with us the entire time, that is what saved us,” Sabine said. They both say that their faith is “stronger than ever.”

However, their faith is also the reason why they want to leave the Middle East. “We aren’t safe anywhere here,” Samir said. The phone has already rung where they are now: “No matter where you are, we will find you!”

“There are families here who had to climb over the corpses of their neighbors so that they could flee,” said Sana, the only one to give her name. Sana is Lebanese and, with the support of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the international Catholic charity, she has been helping the refugees in her city since the beginning of the Syrian crisis.

“Their children are still drawing these scenes of horror today.” It will take time to come to terms with this trauma, but Sana is happy that some of the refugees have started to talk about what they have experienced. 

She calls herself Maria. The Christian from Sadat does not want to tell her own story and talks about her neighbors instead.

“That night in October 2013,” she said, “the men from ISIS came. They called out ‘Allahu Akbar’ three times. Then they killed everyone: the grandmother, the grandfather, the parents, the daughter and the son.”

“Three generations. They threw the corpses into the fountain.” Maria falls silent.

Andrea Krogmann is a reporter for KNA, the German Catholic news agency.

With picture of graffiti in the town of Zahle, in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley (© ACN)

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy Father, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need.  ACN is a Catholic charity - helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Father Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity,” the organization is now at work in over 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 43 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information contact Michael Varenne at michael@churchinneed.org or call 718-609-0939 or fax718-609-0938. Aid to the Church in Need, 725 Leonard Street, PO Box 220384, Brooklyn, NY 11222-0384.  www.churchinneed.org

ACN News - In Venezuela, ‘the people are afraid’

By Maria Lozano

Venezuela was once the country of dreams—but those dreams have turned into nightmares. Such is the verdict of one of the country’s bishops.

Case in point, Bishop Jaime Villarroel of the Diocese of Carúpano, told international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that most of the young people in the north-western state of Sucre have left their university studies because they “do not have the money for paper, let alone for photocopies or pens.”

A university education has become the privilege of a select few, the prelate charged, adding that many young people join gangs or become criminals: “The people are afraid,” he continued, as drugs, murder and torture have now become part of everyday life.

“We are worse off than ever. Hospitals have neither medicine nor bandages. There is no food in the houses. Trucks are constantly being plundered because the people are hungry and no longer have any regard for anything,” the bishop said.

Citizens receive food rations each month that include flour, noodles, butter and sugar, but the portions are too small.

“Each family receives 300 grams of powdered milk, half a kilo of pasta or 200 grams of butter. If they would like to buy something else, such as meat, eggs or fish, then they have to pay for it with money that they don’t have,” Bishop Villarroel said.

He continued, “The children especially are suffering from malnutrition. The food rations are supposed to be enough for a month, but they don’t even last a week. The people are fainting from hunger.”

“Famine reigns, which used to be unthinkable for Venezuela. We no longer know what to do or to whom we should turn. The police and also the politicians are often corrupt. We feel forsaken.”

The Church has a crucial role in mitigating best it can the impact of the crisis. “It is our job to be there for our people and to relay a message of trust in God. Pastoral visits are a source of great strength in this terrible situation,” the prelate stressed.

However, the Church is also battered itself. In the Diocese of Carúpano—where only 2 percent of the people go to Mass, and where evangelization efforts “haven’t reached the hearts of the people”—the bishop said, churches and even cathedrals are subject to violent attacks.

Elsewhere, four young seminarians were recently assaulted and humiliated—with no response from authorities.

Bishop Villarroel said the Church and its people have to do their utmost to persist in a “culture of survival,” a severe test for the spirit of the country.

In 2015, Aid to the Church in Need funded 27 pastoral projects in Venezuela with a total of more than $220,000 in grants. Another 15 projects are being funded this year, the bulk—like last year—going to publishing initiatives, because the shortages of basic goods, including paper, make it practically impossible to produce catechetical materials.

With picture of Venezuelans at Mass (© ACN)

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy Father, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need.  ACN is a Catholic charity - helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Father Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An Outstanding Apostle of Charity,” the organization is now at work in over 145 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 43 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information contact Michael Varenne at michael@churchinneed.org or call 718-609-0939 or fax718-609-0938. Aid to the Church in Need, 725 Leonard Street, PO Box 220384, Brooklyn, NY 11222-0384.  www.churchinneed.org