{"id":2966,"date":"2007-02-12T10:02:28","date_gmt":"2007-02-12T10:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/roots.html"},"modified":"2007-02-12T10:02:28","modified_gmt":"2007-02-12T10:02:28","slug":"roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/roots.html","title":{"rendered":"Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

In words that speak to many of us, the Pope last week offered a friendly reminder:<\/a><\/p>\n

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This morning Pope Benedict XVI received, in the Vatican\u2019s Paul VI Hall, members of the National Italian Confederation of the "Misericordias."  The Holy Father thanked those gathered for their concrete expressions of love but warned them not to let their volunteer activities become mere activism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith your presence and your action, you contribute to the spreading of God\u2019s Gospel of love for all mankind,\u201d the Pontiff said at the beginning of his discourse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Misericordias,\u201d he continued, \u201care the oldest type of volunteer organization to have arisen in the world.\u201d  The group, according to its founder was formed, \u201cto give honor to God with works of mercy towards neighbors, with the utmost anonymity and totally without cost,\u201d the Holy Father pointed out.<\/p>\n

The Pope reminded the group how, in man\u2019s final encounter with the Lord, \u201cHe will ask us if, in the length of our earthy existence, we provided food for the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty; if we welcomed the stranger and opened the doors of our hearts to the needy.  In a word, at the final judgment God will ask us if we loved, not in an abstract way, but concretely, with our works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citing St. John of the Cross, he recalled that, \u201cat the end of our lives we will be judged by love,\u201d and continued by affirming that, \u201clove is a language which goes directly to the heart and opens it to faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI exhort you,\u201d the Holy Father said, \u201cto always be ready to respond when you are asked for the reason for the hope which is with in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pope also reflected on the important work the group does in preserving the \u201cChristian roots\u201d of Italy and Europe.  The Holy Father affirmed that, \u201cthe Misericordias are not an ecclesial aggregation, but that its historical roots are unmistakably Christian.\u201d<\/p>\n

To maintain its roots, the Pope emphasized the need for carrying out \u201cperiodical moments of qualification and training, to study evermore the human and Christian motives of our activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risk,\u201d he added, \u201cis that volunteering can be reduced to a simple activism.  If instead the spiritual weight remains vital, you can share with others much more than just the material goods they need, you can offer to your neighbor facing difficulties, the gaze of love which he needs.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In words that speak to many of us, the Pope last week offered a friendly reminder: This morning Pope Benedict XVI received, in the Vatican\u2019s Paul VI Hall, members of the National Italian Confederation of the "Misericordias."  The Holy Father thanked those gathered for their concrete expressions of love but warned them not to let…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nRoots - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/02\/roots.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Roots - 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}