Just 68 Days Until WYD!

But who’s counting?

The people over at xt3.com sure are. Check out their interactive countdown to World Youth Day Rio, 2013.

During his World Youth Day trip in 1989, Blessed John Paul II said:

It is more and more necessary that, even in the most remote parts of the world, there be witnesses, young witnesses of the Gospel, who without fear or dread of difficult situations or circumstances, are able to live out the demands of the faith…

World Youth Day responds to this necessity, nourishing young people, filling them with hope, and then sending them out into the world. Let us continue to pray for those planning the event in Rio and for all of those preparing to attend, including Pope Francis himself. 

Totus Tuus Ego Sum

Totus Tuus Ego Sum—I am totally yours.

Blessed John Paul II chose this as the motto for his pontificate, consecrating his years of service to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus and Mediatrix of Grace. Today these words hold special significance, because it was this complete devotion that protected our beloved Holy Father exactly 32 years ago, during an attempt on his life.

For more about the assassination attempt and its connection to today’s feast of Our Lady of Fatima, check out the Blessed John Paul II Shrine website. 

Jesus Is Not A Dry Cleaner

Last week, Pope Francis delivered an engagingly potent homily about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. He said:

Jesus in the confessional is not a dry cleaner, it is an encounter with Jesus but with this Jesus who waits for us just as we are…Many times we think that going to confession is like going to the dry cleaner to clean the dirt from our clothes.

We are tempted to feel this way about reconciliation, but in actuality, Jesus gives us so much more. He “donates to us the peace that only he gives.”

For more of Pope Francis’ homily about the graced experience of Reconciliation, go here. 

The Lifting Up

The "lifting up," that is, the ascension into heaven, signified the sharing of Christ as man in the power and authority of God himself. This sharing in the power and authority of the Triune God is manifested in the sending of the Counselor, the Spirit of truth who, "taking" (Jn 16:14) from the redemption affected by Christ, brings about the conversion of human hearts.

-Blessed John Paul II, General Audience on April 19, 1989

A Leper With The Lepers

Jozef De Veuster received the name of Damien in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. When he was 23 years old, in 1863, he left Flanders, the land of his birth, to proclaim the Gospel on the other side of the world in the Hawaiian Islands. His missionary activity, which gave him such joy, reached its peak in charity. Not without fear and repugnance, he chose to go to the Island of Molokai to serve the lepers who lived there, abandoned by all. Thus he was exposed to the disease from which they suffered. He felt at home with them. The servant of the Word consequently became a suffering servant, a leper with the lepers, for the last four years of his life. In order to follow Christ, Fr. Damien not only left his homeland but also risked his health: therefore as the word of Jesus proclaimed to us in today's Gospel says he received eternal life…Let us remember before this noble figure that it is charity which makes unity, brings it forth and makes it desirable. Following in St. Paul's footsteps, St. Damien prompts us to choose the good warfare, not the kind that brings division but the kind that gathers people together. He invites us to open our eyes to the forms of leprosy that disfigure the humanity of our brethren and still today call for the charity of our presence as servants, beyond that of our generosity.

-Pope Benedict XVI, October 11 2009

Oh St. Damien Molokai, beatified by our patron Blessed John Paul II, you built the Church above on the abandoned island of Molokai. From your place in heaven, please pray for us sinners on this day of your feast, that we may imitate your example in bringing the Church to those who are far away, especially the poor and the marginalized.