Despite once being declared 'a national embarrassment', Matera's ancient stone dwellings and water systems are now renowned as a model for sustainable living. I was having coffee with Antonio Nicoletti in the Piazza Vittorio Veneto in the southern Italian city of Matera, when he recalled how the piazza was abuzz with anticipation in 1991.
In today’s passage, John is inspired by an episode in the life of Jesus. He uses it to develop the central theme of the Christian message: the salvation given by Christ. He uses a biblical language: the dark–light contrast. In the Bible, darkness always has a negative connotation. It is the symbol of the dark power of evil, death, and destruction. Light represents an orientation towards God, the choice of good and life.
Increasing prices combined with the decline of household incomes has meant the number of people requesting support from the St Vincent de Paul Society has doubled in comparison with last year.This is according to Stories from the Frontline: The real price of the cost of living crisis, a new SVP publication which describes the extent to which individuals and support structures are fatigued and under-resourced.
“The novel, literature, you see, reads the human heart. It helps us embrace desire, splendor and misery. It is not theory. It is helpful for preaching to know the heart…” That is what Francis told me when I interviewed him in 2016, near the end of our meeting. Ten years after his election to the papacy (March 13, 2013), we want to go in search of the formation of his thinking and pastoral attitude.
The heartfelt words of the prophet who calls his people to conversion—“Come here all of you who are thirsty, come to the water!” (Is 55:1)—are the prelude to those spoken by Jesus in the Temple Mount: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink” (Jn 7:38). He is the source of pure water that quenches all thirst.
Pope Francis has revamped his advisory body of cardinals by appointing five new members, including Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, one of the leaders of the global synod process. The council of cardinals was established by the Pope soon after his election to assist him in governing the Church.
Sources close to the conservative Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA), which represents churches on every continent and the majority of Anglicans worldwide, have said that they fully expect the organisation to “formally disassociate” from both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of England.
For centuries the interests of the Latin Catholics living in the Ottoman Empire – this year is the 100th anniversary of its fall, a fate decided by the victors in the First World War – had been protected at the Sublime Porte by the representative of France. This right originally had its basis in the “Capitulations,” agreements of a politico-commercial nature that soon opened up to the protection of individuals or individual communities residing in the Empire.
When God calls a person or chooses a people, He entrusts them with a mission to make them carriers of his blessings intended for all. So Abraham has to become “a blessing to all the families of the earth.” Israel, the servant of the Lord, is charged to “bring justice to the nations” (Is 42:1), and Paul is a “chosen instrument to carry the name of Christ before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel” (Acts 9:15). The vocations of God do not confer any privilege. They do not offer any reason to feel superior or better than others. They are a request for availability to serve, to become mediators of salvation.
Since the first half of the first century, the Holy Land has been home to Christian communities whose members have played an important role both in the development of Christianity and in the evolution of society in the area. In 1948, with the establishment of the state of Israel, Christians became citizens of a state that defined itself as Jewish. For the first time a Jewish majority held sway over a Christian minority, a new historical reality for both Jews and Christians.