{"id":4536,"date":"2006-11-19T13:49:36","date_gmt":"2006-11-19T13:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/11\/the-angelus.html"},"modified":"2006-11-19T13:49:36","modified_gmt":"2006-11-19T13:49:36","slug":"the-angelus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/11\/the-angelus.html","title":{"rendered":"The Angelus"},"content":{"rendered":"

From earlier today:<\/a><\/p>\n

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The day for those who pray (Pro orantibus), which is celebrated on 21 November, the commemoration of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, is traditionally dedicated to remembering cloistered religious communities. The value of this day and of cloistered life itself were at the heart of the reflection of Benedict XVI before today\u2019s Angelus, delivered to tens of thousands of faithful gathered in St Peter\u2019s square. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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This day is an \u201copportunity, as timely as ever, to thank the Lord for the gift of so many people who, in monasteries and hermitages, dedicate themselves totally to God in prayer, silence and seclusion.\u201d The pontiff appealed that \u201cour spiritual and even material support\u201d to such cloistered communities, male and female, will not fall short, \u201cso that they may fulfill their mission of keeping alive in the Church the ardent expectation of the return of Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pope said that in our time, \u201cthere are not a few people who leave their professional, often promising careers, often to the surprise of friends and acquaintances, to embrace the austere, regulated life of a cloistered monastery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benedict XVI cited many objections that abound in society about such vocations: \u201cSome ask what meaning and value their presence could have in our time, when there are numerous and urgent situations of poverty that need to be tackled.\u201d Why \u201cclose yourself\u201d forever within the walls of a monastery and thus deprive others of the contribution of your capabilities and experience? What effectiveness could your prayers have for the solution of so many problems that continue to afflict humanity?\u201d<\/p>\n

The pope showed that behind apparent futility, there lay a great, effective witness for believers and non believers. Above all, people who embrace the cloistered life have understood that the \u201cKingdom of the heavens is a \u2018treasure\u2019 which it is well worth giving up everything for (cfr Mt 13:44)? In effect, these brothers and sisters of ours testify silently that in the midst of daily life, at times rather tortuous, the only support that never vacillates is God, the unshakeable rock of faithfulness and of love. \u201cTodo se pasa, Dios no se muda<\/em>\u201d, wrote the great spiritual teacher, St Teresa d\u2019Avila, in a renowned text.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the second place, cloistered monasteries \u201capparently futile, are really indispensable, like the green \u2018lungs\u2019 of a city: they do good to all, even those who do not visit them and who perhaps ignore their existence.\u201d And this is why there is the \u201cwidespread need\u201d to \u201cleave the daily routine of large urban cities in search of propitious places of silence and meditation, of monasteries of contemplative life that are like an \u2018oasis\u2019 in which man, pilgrim on earth, can better draw from the source of the Spirit and quench himself along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From earlier today: The day for those who pray (Pro orantibus), which is celebrated on 21 November, the commemoration of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, is traditionally dedicated to remembering cloistered religious communities. The value of this day and of cloistered life itself were at the heart of the reflection of Benedict XVI…<\/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-4536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Angelus - 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\/11\/the-angelus.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Angelus - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From earlier today: The day for those who pray (Pro orantibus), which is celebrated on 21 November, the commemoration of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple, is traditionally dedicated to remembering cloistered religious communities. 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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\/4536","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=4536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}