“He adored the Blessed Sacrament about twenty times a day”

The Universal Church celebrates on 22 October the feast of Pope St John Paul II. The Holy Father lived for and in Christ, giving himself to his neighbor entirely through the hands of the Virgin Mary, for whom he had a deep devotion, having dedicated to her his papal motto: Totus Tuus (All yours). He left a vast legacy and travelled tirelessly around the world to carry the message of the Gospel, a message of Hope, of Love and of God’s Mercy. When told to slow down his work and travel, he used to reply with a smile: “I will rest in Eternal Life.” St John Paul II was certainly one of the most outstanding figures of the 20th century.

St Josemaria Parish, Gerona, Tarlac, Philippines

Beauty as Ideal

It is often said that our age is a time in which we suffer from a crisis of ideals, our young people no longer know what to believe. Why not offer them the ideal of beauty again? But not beauty only in an aesthetic sense, but as a profound value behind which they will always find God. The Church had understood this, promoting the most artistically valid sacred music, the sacred art of the highest level, literature at the highest levels: true beauty is the seed of holiness.

Rubrics…or Fidelity?

I am a priest from the diocese of … I always follow you and read with great interest, trying to implement your precious indications in the parish entrusted to me. I would like to open my mind to tell you what the liturgical formation we have had since the seminary and then the refresher courses … We were told that the liturgical books should not be mandatory, but should be used as a general indication to guide our creativity. In short, the book was not to be read, but recreated with our own words according to the assembly for which it was celebrated. We were all afraid of being considered ‘rubricists’ and we felt (in good faith) authorized to freely remake rites and texts. It seems that this was not the Church’s thinking … Please clarify …