Posted on 06/09/2007 1:48:13 PM PDT by Frank Sheed
I agree with you all: when one looks at the world scene today, it does not take much imagination to come to the thought that maybe the hierarchs in Rome, Moscow, Jordanville, Constantinople, Athens and Belgrade have some inspired insight that we do not have. I share K’s concern, also, that after Benedict, who? I guess we are just going to have to wait and see as to all of this.
Well, I'm impressed! :)
We have some really bright people on this forum, K. Mad Dawg is impressive. And An American Mother has not been heard from as yet!
One benefit of knowing you is that it is always here. I got one of those awesome rotating bookcases right by my confuser desk. It's got about 4 bobbles, and a concordance and some other stuff and my Greek Prayerbook that I bought in a million years ago seminary to study.
It ain't how smart you are, it's how big your book allowance was ....
But seriously, I think the real live sho' 'nuff Xtian Dharma is in for a rocky time. We need to get over some of this stuff. (We sang the serpahic hymn as part of our Corpus Christi worship today. You know; "Let all mortal flesh ..." Some people know how to rock 'n roll, and others don't and that's all there is to it.)
Frank,
Thank you for those kind words. It’s undeserved, but I’ll take it! (Everything else I have is unmerited too, why stop now?)
Your book allowance far outweighs mine, and your Christian intellect dwarfs my Guinness-sotted brain, kind sir.
;-o)
“We have some really bright people on this forum, K. Mad Dawg is impressive.”
Oh, FS, I know! Mad Dawg and I are on a real first name basis and have been for sometime!
“Copied it right out of my Liturgy of Saint Chrystostom! :-)”
Remarkable resource, that! Pick up a copy of the Greek/English “Great Week and Pascha” missal. That’s full of that lex orandi, lex credendi stuff I’m always talking about. I keep mine right next to my copy of Father’s Latin/English “St. Joseph’s Daily Missal” from 1956! :)
I have one from the early 60's. Treasures to keep and value forever!
One day I thank God that the unification talks are approaching so rapidly, the other I fear that the West is not ready. Pope John Paul liked to say that we are young. Maybe we are too young. I'd love to see an accelerated return to liturgical piety in the West before West embraces East again, because I fear that such premature union will not hold. Assisi was not a personal quirk of the late pope, -- it was a sign of immaturuty in our Church. The liturgical liberalism is another such sign.
I pray about this often.
Do you mean to say that Alexy II, after all of our (RC) bending over backwards and forwards and returning icons and sending Cardinals who couldn’t get an appointment, etc. etc. may at long last actually deign to meet with the Pope?
OH HAPPY DAY!
And what a load off the Pope’s mind!
However would Pope Benedict XVI be able to struggle along without having had a meeting with someone who seems to be such a warm and welcoming man as Alexy II, willing to put past offenses on both sides behind him and so full of pastoral understanding for how touchy the Ukrainian Catholics are over that little dust-up of having their Churches confiscated, their priests incarcerated, and their hierarchy martyred - and way back in the 40s anyhow?
Will the meeting be held in one of the welcoming monasteries of that fun-loving bunch on Mount Athos?
Yes!
The Holy Father has the entire Catholic Church to consider. I cannot even fathom the weight he bears on those frail, Bavarian shoulders. His title is “the servant of the servants of God.” I’m sorry you’re angry; he is being Christ-like. Jesus told Peter to forgive his brother not “seven times, but seventy times seven.” I’d say that is where we are now.
How’d you like to go to bed contemplating that one billion souls are your responsibility—entrusted to your care, and that YOU are to shepherd them with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in union with the Magisterium of the Church?
I doubt I’d ever be able to sleep again unless I had total Faith in God and in His Divine guidance.
F
I’m not angry.
In fact, I agree with everything you’ve said.
Of course the Pope is being Christ-like.
My only point was that nothing of what I’ve read of Alexy II’s words or actions would indicate that HE is (let alone the gang on Athos). From what I’ve been able to observe, ecumenism with Orthodoxy is a one way street. And after all the nastiness from Alexy II, to suddenly start doing cartwheels because he MIGHT deign to meet with Benedict XVI is - well, to my mind, just plain silly.
Yes, it would be nice if it happens.
And maybe we’ll be able to see the fireworks from Athos here in Boston.
On the other hand, maybe Alexy II will get in another snit.
And it won’t happen.
And my point is: at this point, no big deal.
Remember Cardinal Kasper waiting in Moscow, hoping for an audience.
Remember Paul VI on his knees kissing the feet of the Orthodox delegation?
Apparently he should have waited for them to turn around before he puckered up.
I don’t know how life was for Baby Alexy back in Estonia or wherever he’s from, but the nonsense with Kasper and the lack of simple civility over other gestures of JP II - just plain bad manners.
And as for “Seventy-times seven”?
Once again, I’d say that simply in terms of the Ukrainian Catholics killed, honey, we’re way past 490 . . . .
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