#with matthew its wanting priority over francis and she wins that

[fumblingmusings]

Fun thing about writing [fem] 19th Century England is you can genuinely go one step forward three steps back like oh I just wrote positive interactions between them and America which was in fact the very opposite of toxic yay progressive steps forward only to then the following chapter go and be like ah yes but what if they were the absolute worst to Oz. Like irredeemably insecure and greedy and selfish. That's the ticket.

[pope-francis-quotes]

10th May >> (@ZenitEnglish) #Pope Francis #PopeFrancis Tells Religious Superiors: ‘No One Can Rob us of the Passion for Evangelization’. Speech to Meeting of the International Union of Superiors General.

The Holy Father on 10th May 2019, received in audience, in Paul VI Hall, the participants in the Meeting of the International Union of Superiors General, being held in Rome from May 6-10, on the occasion of the 21st Plenary Assembly entitled “Sowers of Prophetic Hope,” with the participation of some 850 Superiors General from 80 countries.

Here is a translation of the Holy Father’s address in the course of the audience.

* * *

The Holy Father’s Address

Dear Sisters:

I’m very happy to receive you today, on the occasion of your General Assembly, and to wish you a paschal time full of peace, joy, and passion to take the Gospel to all corners of the earth. Yes, Easter is all this, and it invites us to be witnesses of the Risen One by living a new evangelizing stage marked by joy. No one can rob us of the passion for evangelization. There is no Easter without mission: “Go and proclaim the Gospel to all men” (Cf. Matthew 16:15-20). The Lord asks His Church to show the triumph of Christ over death; He asks that she show His Life. Go, Sisters, and proclaim the Risen Christ as source of joy that no one can take away from us. Renew constantly your encounter with the Risen Jesus Christ and you will be His witnesses, taking to all men and women loved by the Lord — particularly those that feel themselves victims of the culture of exclusion –, the sweet and comforting joy of the Gospel.

Consecrated life, as Saint John Paul II affirmed in his day, like any other reality of the Church, is going through a “delicate and hard” time (Saint John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, 13). In face of the numerical decrease that consecrated life is living, particularly the feminine, the temptation is that of discouragement, resignation or “arrocamiento” [hardening] in “it has always been done like this.”

In this context, I repeat to you energetically what I’ve said to you on other occasions: don’t be afraid to be few, but be afraid of being insignificant, of no longer being light that illumines all those that are immersed in the “dark night” of history. Neither <must you> be afraid of “confessing with humility and at the same time with great trust in God’s love, your fragility” (“Letter to All the Consecrated,” November 21. 2014, I, 1). Be afraid, more than that, panic if you fail to be salt that gives flavor to the life of men and women of our society. Work tirelessly to be watchmen that announce the coming of dawn (Cf. Isaiah 21:11-12); to be ferment where you meet and with whom you meet, even if that seemingly doesn’t bring you tangible and immediate benefits (Cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 210). There are many people that need you and wait for you. They need your friendly smile which gives back confidence to them; <they need> your hands to support them in their journey, your word that sows hope in their hearts, your life in Jesus’ style (Cf. John 13:1-15), which heals the most profound wounds caused by loneliness, rejection, and exclusion. Never give in to the temptation of self-reference, of becoming “closed armies.” Neither should you take refuge “in a work to elude the charism’s operative capacity” (“The Strength of Vocation,” 56). Rather, develop the imagination of charity and live creative fidelity to your charisms. With them you will be able to “reproduce the holiness and the creativity of your Founders” (Saint John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata, 37), opening new paths to take the breadth and light of the Gospel to the different cultures in which you live and work, in the most diverse ambits of society, as they did in their time. With them, you will be capable of re-visiting your charism, of going to the roots living the present suitably, without being afraid to walk, “without letting the water stop running [. . . ]. Consecrated life is like water: stagnant it rots” (“The Strength of Vocation,” 44-45). And so, without losing the memory, always necessary to live the present with passion, you will avoid “restorationism” as well as the ideology of whatever sign it is, which do so much damage to consecrated life and to the Church herself.

And do everything with your humble presence and service, always animated by free prayer and the prayer of adoration and praise. To pray, to praise and to adore is not to waste time. The more united we are to the Lord, the closer we will be to humanity, particularly suffering humanity. “Our future will be full of hope,” as the motto of this Plenary Assembly affirms, and our projects will be projects with a future, in the measure that we pause daily before the Lord in the gratitude of prayer, if we don’t want the wine to be turned into vinegar and the salt to become insipid. It will only be possible to know the plans the Lord has made for us if we keep our eyes and our heart turned to the Lord, contemplating His Face and listening to His Word (Cf. Psalm 33). Only thus will you be able to awaken the world with your prophecy, distinctive note and priority of your being religious and consecrated (Cf. “Letter to All the Consecrated,” November 21, 22014, II, 2). The more urgent it is to be de-centered to go to the existential peripheries, the more urgent it is to be centered on Him and concentrated on the essential values of our charisms.

Among the essential values of religious life is fraternal life in community. I see with great joy the great achievements that have been attained in that dimension: more intense communication, fraternal correction, the search for synodality in conducting the community, fraternal hospitality in respect of diversity . . . ; however, at the same time, it worries me that there are brothers and sisters that lead their life on the margin of fraternity; sisters and brothers that are illegitimately absent for years from their community, reason for which I’ve just promulgated a Motu Proprio Communis Vita, with very precise norms to avoid those cases.

In regard to fraternal life in community, I’m also concerned that there are Institutes in which multi-culturalism and internationalization aren’t seen as a richness, but as a threat, and they are lived as conflict, instead of living them as new possibilities that show the true face of the Church and of religious and consecrated life. I ask those responsible in Institutes to open themselves to the new — proper of the Spirit, which blows where it will and as it wills (Cf. John 3:8) and to prepare generations of other cultures to assume responsibilities. Live the change of your communities’ face with joy, and not as an evil needing conversion. There is no going back on internationalism and inter-culturalism.

I am worried by the generational conflicts when young people are unable to carry forward the dreams of the elderly to make them fructify, and the elderly don’t accept the prophecy of young people (Cf. Joel 2:28). As I like to repeat: young people run a lot, but the adults know the way. Necessary in a community are both the wisdom of the elderly as well as the inspiration and strength of young people.

Dear Sisters: in you, I thank all the Sisters of your Institutes for the great work they do in the different peripheries in which they live. The periphery of education, in which to educate is to win always, to win for God; the periphery of health, in which you are servants and messengers of life, and of a worthy life; and the periphery of pastoral work in its most varied manifestations, in which, witnessing the Gospel with your lives, you are manifesting the maternal face of the Church. Thank you for what you are and for what you do in the Church. Never stop being women. “It’s not necessary to stop being a woman to be equal” (“The Strength of Vocation.” 111). At the same time, I ask <you to> cultivate passion for Christ and passion for humanity. Without passion for Christ and for humanity, there is no future for religious and consecrated life. Passion will fling you to prophesy, to be fire that light other fires. Continue to take steps in the mission shared between different charisms and with the laity, calling them to significant works, without leaving anyone without the due formation and the sense of belonging to the charismatic family. Work on mutual relations with Pastors, including them in your discernment and integrating them in the selection of presences and ministries. The path of consecrated life, both masculine as well as feminine, is the path of ecclesial insertion. Outside of the Church and in parallel with the local Church, things don’t work. Pay great attention to formation, both permanent as well as initial and to the formation of formators, capable of listening and of accompanying, of discerning, of going out to encounter those that call at our doors. And, even in the midst of the trials we might be going through, live your consecration with joy. That’s the best vocational propaganda.

May the Virgin accompany you and protect you with her maternal intercession. For my part, I bless you from my heart and I bless all the Sisters that the Lord has entrusted to you. And, please, don’t forget to pray for me.

[Original text: Spanish] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrester].

© Libreria Editrice Vatican

10th MAY 2019 16:37PAPAL TEXTS

[seekfirstme]

The following reflection is courtesy of Don Schwager © 2020. Don's website is located at Dailyscripture.net

Meditation: What's the best way to repair a damaged relationship? Jesus offers his disciples spiritual freedom and power for restoring broken or injured relationships.

Don't brood over an offense - speak directly and privately

What can we learn from Jesus' instructions about how to mend a damaged relationship (Matthew 18:15-20)? If you feel you have been wronged by someone, Jesus says the first step is to speak directly but privately to the individual who has done the harm. One of the worst things we can do is brood over our grievance. This can poison our mind and heart and make it more difficult to go directly to the person who caused the damage.

Seek the help of wise Christians

If we truly want to settle a difference with someone, we need to do it face to face. If this fails in its purpose, then the second step is to bring another person or persons, someone who is wise and gracious rather than someone who is hot-tempered or judgmental. The goal is not so much to put the offender on trial, but to persuade the offender to see the wrong and to be reconciled. And if this fails, then we must still not give up, but seek the help of the Christian community. Note the emphasis here is on restoring a broken relationship by seeking the help of other Christians who hopefully will pray and seek a solution for reconciliation based on Christian love and wisdom, rather than relying on coercive force or threat of legal action, such as a lawsuit.

Pray for the offender - for healing and reconciliation

Lastly, if even the Christian community fails to bring about reconciliation, what must we do? Jesus seems to say that we have the right to abandon stubborn and obdurate offenders and treat them like social outcasts. The tax-collectors and Gentiles were regarded as "unclean" by the religious-minded Jews and they resorted to shunning them. However we know from the Gospel accounts that Jesus often had fellowship with tax-collectors (as well as other public sinners), ate with them, and even praised them at times! Jesus refuses no one who is open to receive pardon, healing, and restoration.

Set no obstacle in seeking to heal your brother's wound

When you are offended, are you willing to put aside your own grievance and injury in order to help your brother's wound? The Lord Jesus wants to set us free from resentment, ill-will, and an unwillingness to forgive. The love of Christ both purifies and sets us free to do good to all - even those who cause us grief. The call to accountability for what we have done and have failed to do is inevitable and we can't escape it, both in this life and at the day of judgment when the Lord Jesus will return. But while we have the opportunity today, we must not give up on praying for those who cause us offense. With God's help we must seek to make every effort to win them with the grace and power of God's healing love and wisdom. Do you tolerate broken relationships or do you seek to repair them as God gives you the opportunity to mend and restore what is broken?

"Lord Jesus, make me an instrument of your healing love and peace. Give me wisdom and courage to bring your healing love and saving truth to those in need of healing and restoration."

The following reflection is from One Bread, One Body courtesy of Presentation Ministries © 2020.

SIGNED, SEALED, AND DELIVERED

“Pass through the city [through Jerusalem] and mark an X on the foreheads of those who moan and groan over all the abominations that are practiced within it.” —Ezekiel 9:4

The Lord destroyed the idolators of Jerusalem. Only those marked with a cross-like figure on their foreheads were spared (Ez 9:6). This was a prefigurement of the end of the world. Only those with the seal of the Lamb of God will be saved (Rv 7:3). Those with the mark of the beast (Rv 13:17) will be damned.

We can receive the seal of the Lamb of God only by being baptized into Jesus and faithfully living that immersion into Him. This entails:

• washing our robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb (Rv 7:14),

• accepting the grace of salvation in Jesus through faith and living a life of the good works the Lord has prepared for each of us (Eph 2:8-10; cf Heb 13:21), and

• confessing with our lips that Jesus is Lord and believing in our hearts that He is risen from the dead (Rm 10:9).

These are a few ways of expressing the richness of our salvation.

When you were baptized, you were probably signed with the sign of the cross. This symbolizes the fullness of salvation. If you live the meaning of the sign of the cross, you will be saved and live in the love of Jesus forever. Live the cross.

Prayer:  Father, may the central priority of my life be to accept Your Son, Jesus, as my Lord, Savior, and God.

Promise:  “Again I tell you, if two of you join your voices on earth to pray for anything whatever, it shall be granted you by My Father in heaven. Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in their midst.” —Mt 18:19-20

Praise:  St. Jane Frances lived an eventful life as wife and mother. As a grieving widow, she met St. Francis de Sales. Through God’s providence and aided by Francis, she founded the Visitation nuns.

Reference:  

Rescript:  "In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat for One Bread, One Body covering the period from August 1, through September 30, 2020. Most Reverend Joseph R. Binzer, Auxiliary Bishop, Vicar General Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio October 1, 2019"

The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements

[newstfionline]

After Aung San Suu Kyi’s First Year in Power, Dismay Swirls in Myanmar

By Richard C. Paddock, NY Times, April 8, 2017

MAWLAMYINE, Myanmar--The scene would have been unlikely a year ago. Tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets to protest a decision by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s government to name a new bridge for her father.

“Recognize the will of the local ethnic people,” protesters chanted last month as they marched along the waterfront of this historic city in southern Myanmar.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate once celebrated as a champion of democracy, was insulting the Mon people, the dominant ethnic group in the area, protest leaders said, by naming the bridge for a Burmese leader infamous here for steamrollering over their rights.

“This is not a democratic process,” said Min Zarni Oo, general secretary of the Mon Youth Forum. “This is a big issue for the local people. The government doesn’t value ethnic diversity.”

No one expected governing to be easy for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who became the country’s de facto leader a year ago after her party won a landslide election that ended more than a half-century of military rule.

Even so, her first year has been a disappointment to many.

She made it a top priority to end the long-running ethnic insurgencies that have torn the country apart, but her anemic peace effort has proved fruitless so far, and fighting between government forces and ethnic groups has increased.

The world has been shocked by reports that the military has carried out atrocities, including rape and murder, against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority in western Myanmar, but Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has said little on the matter and done even less.

Her government’s growing suppression of speech on the internet seems perverse for a onetime democracy icon who spent 15 years under house arrest.

Among the public, patience is wearing thin. “She doesn’t have support like before,” said Zar Zar Oo, 31, a vendor selling bottled water at the Yangon train station. “We loved her so much before, but it seems like she doesn’t do enough for us. For now, we are in trouble.”

In a televised speech to the nation commemorating her first year in office, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi struck a defensive note, acknowledging her government’s lack of progress and saying people could choose another leader if they were unhappy with her.

“If you think I am not good enough for our country and our people, if someone or some organization can do better than us, we are ready to step down,” she said.

Some voters apparently listened. In parliamentary by-elections last weekend, her National League for Democracy won only nine of 19 seats.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, 71, cites building roads as one of her biggest accomplishments. The party spokesman Win Htein said her government had doubled spending on health care and education, though he provided no details.

And the economy has continued to grow as the country emerges from isolation under military rule.

But Richard Horsey, a political analyst and former United Nations official, said that the growth had slowed and that foreign investment had dipped significantly. Washington’s lifting of economic sanctions last year has yet to translate into stronger trade, investment or job creation, he said.

“Aung San Suu Kyi’s administration has not offered any compelling economic vision,” he said.

In Yangon, people are waiting for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to deliver results, said Myat Suu Mon, 28, a department store clerk. The cost of taking the run-down bus to work has doubled, she said, while her pay has remained the same.

“Support is less than before because people’s expectations were too high,” she said. “But in reality we don’t see things changing here.”

Zaw Htay, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s spokesman, acknowledged that progress had been slow but said the government faced complex problems, such as ethnic conflicts and clashes with the Rohingya, that had been years in the making. “It’s very complicated,” he said in an interview. “We are not magicians.”

Indeed, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi faces daunting challenges. In rebuilding the country, she must overcome decades of mismanagement and profiteering by previous military governments that enriched the generals and their cronies and brought the economy to its knees.

Though her party has a strong majority in Parliament, it is hamstrung by a power-sharing arrangement dictated by the military-drafted Constitution, which gives the military control of key ministries and enough seats in Parliament to block any constitutional amendment.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is barred by the Constitution from serving as president because her children are foreigners, a prohibition she circumvented by creating the office of state counselor for herself and declaring that the president would report to her. She also named herself foreign minister.

Supporters say her ability to get along with the military is a significant accomplishment. But critics suggest she suffers from Stockholm syndrome, becoming too cozy with her former captors.

Moreover, they say, her imperious approach alienates potential allies and contributes to the country’s growing crises.

“She’s Mary Poppins without a sense of humor,” said David Scott Mathieson, an independent analyst. “She has a schoolmarmish way where instructions are given and obedience is observed. She takes that approach with government, and it is highly misplaced. Politics is compromise.”

She rarely takes questions from the news media or speaks out on major issues. Her office declined a request for an interview for this article.

Perhaps most disheartening to many of her longtime supporters has been her record on human rights. While she released dozens of political prisoners held by the former regime and repealed laws used to suppress political dissent, she left in place a law that is increasingly used to stifle criticism of public officials.

Under the telecommunications act, defaming someone online is punishable by three years in prison. Anyone can bring a case, and suspects can be held without bail while they await trial.

The previous government, which adopted the law in 2013, used it only seven times. In the year since Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi took office, 47 cases have been brought, according to Maung Saungkha, who was once imprisoned under the law and now tracks its use.

In one case, two media executives were jailed after posting comments on Facebook questioning why a government official was wearing an expensive watch. Five cases have been brought by supporters of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi against people they claim defamed her, Mr. Maung said.

“Without freedom of expression, there won’t be democracy,” he said. “If the government wants national reconciliation, this kind of law has to be discarded.”

The biggest stain on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s record may be her government’s brutal treatment of the Rohingya, and her tepid response to it.

In recent months, government soldiers have been accused of widespread killing and rape of Rohingya in Rakhine State. A United Nations report concluded in February that the army and police had slaughtered hundreds of men, women and children; gang-raped women and girls; and forced as many as 90,000 people from their homes.

The deadly crackdown, which the government says was a response to attacks on police posts by Rohingya insurgents, has been roundly criticized by human rights groups, the United Nations, Pope Francis and even 13 of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s fellow Nobel laureates, who wrote a letter calling it “a human tragedy amounting to ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”

Although Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has no direct control over the military, she has played down the reports of atrocities and stood by the military.

“I don’t think there is ethnic cleansing going on,” she said in a rare interview with the BBC last week. “I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what is happening.”

She did appoint a commission led by Kofi Annan, the former United Nations secretary general, to examine conditions in Rakhine, but reviewing the military’s conduct was not part of its mandate.

“Entire villages were razed,” said Matthew Smith, director of the group Fortify Rights. “Children were thrown into fires. Suu Kyi’s denials and failure to provide a shred of moral leadership to deal with the situation is a really damning revelation of her character.”

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has said her most important goal is negotiating peace with armed ethnic groups, and in August, she convened a peace conference with great fanfare to resolve the conflicts in northern Myanmar. But the meeting produced no cease-fire agreements, and analysts say there is more fighting now in that part of the country than there has been in many years.

The blowback over the bridge-naming in Mon State, seen here as more evidence that the government is out of touch with the concerns of ethnic minorities, should have been easier to avoid.

Mr. Zaw, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s spokesman, said senior party leaders had been warned that naming the bridge for her father, Gen. Aung San, would turn the population against them. They went ahead anyway, and last weekend it cost them the parliamentary seat in Chaungzon, the township across the bridge from Mawlamyine. “It was a mistake to name this bridge,” Mr. Zaw said. “It is a good lesson for N.L.D. leaders.”