Christ is our Hope September 2009 : Page 2
Year for Priests © MCzarnecki 2009 seraphicrestorations.com © MCzarnecki 2009 seraphicrestorations.com From the Bishop Setting the record straight with the passing of years, that affinity grew to familial proportions. When I was a boy, my Jewish “aunts” traveled to Memphis for the high holy days, and they always stayed in our home. They were, and always will be, members of my family, my kin. I As I grew older, I was surprised to learn that the relatives and ancestors of my Jew- ish aunts had been objects of scorn and persecution for many centuries, too often at the hands of Christians. Later I learned of the Shoah, the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews were killed by the Nazis. Not only did I gain a sense of the despi- cable horror of it all, I also felt a personal connection, a personal horror, because of my love for my aunts. Of special interest to me is the sub- ject of the Holocaust and the Catholic Church. Following World War II, Pope Pius XII was universally acclaimed for his role both in speaking out publicly and privately against Nazi atrocities to- ward the Jews and in saving the lives of many Jewish people. A 1963 play, how- ever, and a series of books that followed (especially in the 1990s), cast a shadow over Pope Pius XII and made many people see him in a very mistaken light. Thankfully, competent scholars are setting the record straight. I thought it important to offer you a small sample A Priest’s Prayer Loving Father, I praise you, I love you, I adore you. Send your Holy Spirit to enlighten my mind to the truth of your Son, Jesus, Priest and Victim. Through the same Spirit guide my heart to his Sacred Heart, to renew in me a priestly passion that I, too, might lay down my life upon the altar. May your Spirit wash away my impurities and free me from all my transgressions in the Cup of Salvation, Year for Priests June 19, 2009 - June 19, 2010 Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations Let only your will be done in me. May the Blessed Mother of your dearly beloved Son, wrap her mantle around me and protect me from all evil. May she guide me to do whatever of the work of a leader among those scholars, Professor Ronald Rychlak of the University of Mississippi. Professor Rychlak has written a two-part series of articles especially for Christ is our Hope, and I am pleased that he is helping cor- rect the false characterizations of Pope Pius XII that have been popularized in recent years. Bishop Peter Sartain Christ is our Hope September 2009 He tells me. May she teach me to have the heart of St. Joseph, her spouse, to protect and care for my bride. And may her pierced heart inspire me to embrace as my own your children who suffer at the foot of the cross. I humbly cry to her: please be my consoling mother, and help me to be a better son. Lord, make me a holy priest, inflamed with the fire of your love, seeking nothing but your greater glory and the salvation of souls. I humbly bless and thank you, my Father, through the Spirit, in Christ Jesus, your Son and my brother. Amen. O Mary, Queen of priests, pray for us. Saint John Vianney, pray for us. Liturgical Calendar: St. Gregory the Great, pope and doctor of the church September 3 | Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary September 8 | St. Peter Claver, prie on Pope Pius XII Do you have a petition for Bishop Sartain’s prayer list? You may send it to him at: Bishop Sartain’s Prayer List, Diocese of Joliet; 425 Summit St., Joliet, IL 60435-7193. inherited from my parents a natural and spontaneous love for the Jewish people. My father’s childhood had been rather difficult, and he was reared in part by his Jewish next-door neighbors whose home served as a shelter for him when life at his house was stormy. A natural affinity existed between one of the few Catholic families and one of the few Jewish families in their small east Tennessee town, and,
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