{"id":4181,"date":"2006-03-12T10:21:10","date_gmt":"2006-03-12T10:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/busy-weekend.html"},"modified":"2006-03-12T10:21:10","modified_gmt":"2006-03-12T10:21:10","slug":"busy-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/03\/busy-weekend.html","title":{"rendered":"Busy weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

..for the Pope, as usual. We’ll work backwards. From today’s Angelus:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Human existence is a journey made in \u201ctwilight\u201d rather than in \u201cfull light\u201d. Thus, especially in the Lenten period, there is the need to \u201clisten to Christ, like Mary\u201d. Benedict XVI today reminded pilgrims in St Peter\u2019s Square, before the Angelus, that the period before Easter was a time especially dedicated to \u201clistening to the Lord, who always speaks to us\u201d. And he specified: \u201cListening to him in his Word, preserved in the Holy Scripture. Listening to him in the very events of our lives, seeking to read the messages of Providence in them. Listening to him, finally, in our brothers, especially the lowly and the poor, in who Jesus himself asks for our concrete love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost as if he were sharing with those present the fruit of the Spiritual Exercises which ended yesterday, preached by Cardinal Marco C\u00e8, Patriarch Emeritus of Venice, the Pope said the Lord, especially in this time of Lent, \u201cexpects more attention from us\u201d. This attention to the Word of God is necessary to face up to daily life. \u201cHuman existence is a journey of faith and, as such, it progresses more in twilight than in full light, and is not without moments of shadows and even pitch darkness,\u201d said the Pontiff. \u201cWhile we are down here, our relationship with God unfolds more in listening than in vision; and contemplation takes place, so to speak, with closed eyes, thanks to the inner light lit in us by the Word of God.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There are many striking things about Benedict. What always interests and affects me the most is what seems to be his deep understanding of life in the world and his almost effortless ability to bring the Scriptures and the tradition to bear on that life, effectively and powerfully. When he spoke in his opening homily as Pope about the "deserts" of contemporary life…and here. There’s no abstraction, distant from the realities of human life. He weaves it all together, showing us, time after time, what this thing we call "faith" is, truly.<\/p>\n

Last night, there was a gathering of youth at St. Peter’s – well, in the Paul VI Hall, actually: <\/p>\n

<\/a>First, he prayed with them<\/p>\n

<\/a>And then they processed – to Piazza Navona, I think. (Hey! I’ve walked that journey! Not with a torch, though…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

..for the Pope, as usual. We’ll work backwards. From today’s Angelus: Human existence is a journey made in \u201ctwilight\u201d rather than in \u201cfull light\u201d. Thus, especially in the Lenten period, there is the need to \u201clisten to Christ, like Mary\u201d. Benedict XVI today reminded pilgrims in St Peter\u2019s Square, before the Angelus, that the period…<\/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-4181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBusy weekend - 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\/2006\/03\/busy-weekend.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Busy weekend - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"..for the Pope, as usual. We’ll work backwards. From today’s Angelus: Human existence is a journey made in \u201ctwilight\u201d rather than in \u201cfull light\u201d. Thus, especially in the Lenten period, there is the need to \u201clisten to Christ, like Mary\u201d. 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We’ll work backwards. From today’s Angelus: Human existence is a journey made in \u201ctwilight\u201d rather than in \u201cfull light\u201d. Thus, especially in the Lenten period, there is the need to \u201clisten to Christ, like Mary\u201d. 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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\/4181","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=4181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}