Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Loving your Sister
In further explanation of my position, my firm belief is that, in the words of St. Thérèse, there is really only one vocation: to Love. The other vocations - priesthood, "religious life", marriage - are but temporary manifestations of that one vocation. They are temporary in the sense that they exist for this earthly life as an anticipation of the life that is to be revealed at the end of time.
"Treat. . . younger women as sisters, with absolute purity." In a way, if I am married to a woman, I need to keep in mind that above all, she is my sister in Christ. The bonds of marriage end with death, but she is my sister in Christ for eternity. I could phrase it in an analgous way to how I explained vocations above: marriage is a temporary manifestation of the call to love a particular woman as my sister in Christ.
So, in regards to any sister in Christ, the question is not whether or not to love her, but how does God want me to love her.
"Treat. . . younger women as sisters, with absolute purity." I must have a "passion for purity." By God's grace, I am to keep in the forefront of my mind that she is my sister, and that the goal is to see her fall more deeply in love with Jesus. True love must want what God wants, and the one who truly loves desires that the other should follow Jesus wherever he leads them.
And really, should that not be my goal with everyone I meet?
May God help me to do so.
1 comments
I believe that prayer is Christian and Catholic from spreading. You wonder why you can publish the news and if you can spread it to your friends on the blog.
thanks
fr. Paolo Padrini
Sacred texts: Vatican embraces iTunes prayer book
5 days ago
VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican is endorsing new technology that brings the book of daily prayers used by priests straight onto iPhones.
The Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications is embracing the iBreviary, an iTunes application created by a technologically savvy Italian priest, the Rev. Paolo Padrini, and an Italian Web designer.
The application includes the Breviary prayer book — in Italian, English, Spanish, French and Latin and, in the near future, Portuguese and German. Another section includes the prayers of the daily Mass, and a third contains various other prayers.
After a free trial period in which the iBreviary was downloaded approximately 10,000 times in Italy, an official version was released earlier this month, Padrini said.
The application costs euro0.79 ($1.10), while upgrades will be free. Padrini's proceeds are going to charity.
Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Social Communications, praised the new application Monday, saying the Church "is learning to use the new technologies primarily as a tool or as a mean of evangelizing, as a way of being able to share its own message with the world."
Pope Benedict XVI, a classical music lover who was reportedly given an iPod in 2006, has sought to reach out to young people through new media. During last summer's World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia, he sent out mobile phone text messages citing scripture to thousands of registered pilgrims — signed with the tagline "BXVI."
