tirsdag den 29. januar 2008

Gia Kiem – med 12 svaler, 30 gråspurve og 1500 mennesker til messe!

Hvor er folk her rige! Materielt er de nok fattige. Ja, sine steder skal der kun skrabes lidt i overfladen, førend den grimme fattigdom er synbar og rå. Dog er der kun ganske få tiggere og endnu færre forhutlede stakler. Ja, færre end jeg har set i Nordvestkvarteret i København. Og rige er de, ja, åndeligt og moralsk er de fleste her superrige.

Der er 9300 medlemmer af sognet dette sogn, som hedder Kim Thuong. I dette sogn modtager 2000 børn og unge katekese to gange om ugen fordelt på 32 kateketiske klasser. Der er 60 frivillige kateketer. Dertil kommer en helårlig program med henblik på at forberede unge til ægteskab. Ikke færre end 400 mennesker deltager i dette program hvert år. Dette kan være en stærkt medvirkende årsag til, at der kun er få skilsmisser i sognet. Pt. er der således kun fire fraskilte par. I sognet er der også et stort børnekirkekor, et endnu større ungdomskor og et voksen kor, som synger på skift til messerne. Der er 60 frivillige voksne involveret i alt, hvad der foregår omkring messen. Hertil kommer et stort antal ministranter.

Der er to søsterordener i sognet, som driver børnehaver. I den ene orden, er der ikke færre end 30 forholdsvis unge søstre. Min gæstfrie vært, Fr. Le Vinh Hien, er sognepræst her. Der er også en andenpræst. I ferien bor her fem seminarister. Der er masser af kald. Flere af de unge, jeg har talt med tænker seriøst på at blive præster eller ordensfolk.

Der er to messer hver eneste morgen. Under begge messerne er den kæmpestore kirke næsten fyldt. Allerede kl. 4.00 (!) om morgenen fejrer de her den første messe, da mange skal tidligt ud på marken eller ind til storbyen for at arbejde. Den næste messe er kl. 5.00. Denne kaldes børnemessen, fordi over halvdelen af deltagerne er i den skolesøgende alder eller teenagere. Blot til denne messe var der her til morgen – en kedelig hverdagsmorgen – omkring 1500 mennesker.

Om søndagen går det helt i selvsving med fire messer og i alt omkring 8000 mennesker. Folk står helt ude på gaden og hele vejen rundt om kirken. Kirkegangprocenten må ligge tæt de 100. Blot inden for få hundrede meters afstand på hver side af kirken ligger to andre kirker med tilsvarende antal kirkegængere.

Jeg begynder at forstå, hvorfor så mange vietnamesere i Danmark finder det svært at opgive deres traditioner og deres spiritualitet til fordel for Kingo, Brorson og Grundtvig og mine i heldigste fald dannede men ofte blot lommefilosofiske prædikener med udgangspunkt i Karen Blixen og H.C. Andersen. Hvorfor skulle de dog det? Et langt stykke af vejen kommer vietnameserne jo med noget langt rigere. Ja, lad os i al ydmyghed indrømme, at de kommer med noget, der ikke blot er vietnamesisk, men noget, der er universelt katolsk, hvad angår kirkens lære, moral og liv. For så vidt er det, de kommer med, så meget desto mere forpligtende og livgivende for os alle uanset etnisk baggrund!

mandag den 28. januar 2008

Paa statsbesoeg!

Det har indtil nu vaeret et voldsomt toptunet program, jeg har vaeret igennem. Jeg foeler mig lidt som regentparret, der er paa statsbesoeg. Jeg bliver slaebt rundt til praester, soesterordner, boernehaver, valfarter, fester og kateketiske klasser. Gaestfriheden er overvaeldende og hjertelig. Det er altsammen utroligt spaendende og opklarende for mig, der arbejder en del med vietnamesere i Danmark. Her er jeg for eksempel sammen med een af de stedlige menighedsraad, som jeg absolut skulle tale til.

Fr. Joseph - praest i Gia Kiem

Fr. Joseph har vaeret min meget generoese vaert i Gia Kiem. Her ses vi sammen med praestestuderende paa vores tur til een af hans venner, som bor ud til havet.

Paa tur til Da Lat i bjergene







Praestestuderende paa markarbejde

Paa praesteseminariet i Da Lat skal de studerende bogstaveligt talt arbejde for foeden - tre timer hver dag. Indtaegten fra marken goer det oekonomisk muligt at koere praesteseminariets aktiviteter.

Kateketerne og jeg




Boernene og jeg






Og saa er der katekese bagefter!








onsdag den 16. januar 2008

DUKs Årstema - Abbot Hughs kommentar

Hvis du er interesseret i at vide mere om Pluscarden Kloster er deres hjemmeside: www.pluscardenabbey.org

tirsdag den 15. januar 2008

Farvel til Pluscardon

Uendelig smuk og stilren gregoriansk sang. Flotte korrektudførte latinske liturgier med masser af røgelse, klokker og knælen, der drager én til andægtighed og bøn. Befriende højlydt gaben og bøvsen i koret. Dybsindige samtaler om Tolkien, stanken på de offentlige toiletter i Ghana, voldelige japanske meditationstekniker og Pave Benedikts sidste rundskrivelse den halve time hver dag, hvor vi må tale sammen. Fantastisk mad på festdagene og den knapt så fantastiske ditto de andre dage. Vandreture i skovene. Hellige og disciplinerede munke og uautoriserede smil og spontane udbrud. Højtlæsning under måltiderne. Velforberedte og åndsbårne prædikener og munke, der sover under dem. En masse personlig læsning. Bearbejding af megen materiale, som jeg samlet, mens jeg rejste rundt i England. Bøn. Ja, masser af bøn! Eksistentiel angst og stor glæde og nogle få Gin and Tonics til at skylde det hele med. Og midt i det hele blev et barn født i Betlehem, tre vise mænd kom uventet på besøg og en dåb. Åh, hvor jeg kommer til at savne dette sted. Måske skulle jeg blive munk!? Jeg har i hvert fald fundet en ro og en kærlighed her, som jeg længe har savnet. Og dog går turen hjemad… og videre til Vietnam.

DUKs Årstema - Br Augstins kommentar

Broder Augustin er novicemester på Pluscarden Kloster. Ikke så få unge ønsker at blive munke på klosteret. Mens jeg var der, have de en postulant. Der ville komme een yderligere i løbet af foråret. Postulanttiden er det første korte forløb, inden man ansøger om at blive novice. Br Augustin fortalte, at for tre år siden havde en femtenårig gut sendt ham et pænt brev, hvori han bad om oplysninger om, hvordan han kunne blive munk. Br Augustin havde sendt ham noget materialle men havde i øvrigt svaret ham, at han ville opfordre ham til at vente og først at engagere sig i katolsk ungdomsarbejde. Hvis han så, når han blev atten, stadig var interesseret, var han da velkommen til at henvende sig igen. Herefter havde Br Augustin ikke hørt fra ham i flere år. Men her den anden dag fik han igen et brev. Heri skrev gutten, at nu han netop var fyldt atten, og at han ville gerne bede om lov til at komme op til en indledende samtale. Det er da det, man kan kalde udholdenhed i sit kald!
Er du interesseret i at vide, hvordan du kan blive munk, kan du læse nærmere på http://www.pluscardenabbey.org/becoming-a-monk.asp

lørdag den 12. januar 2008

Jesu absoluthed

””Jesus Christ is the ’Yes’ to all that God promised” (2. Kor. 1,20)… The enigmatic term ’Son of Man’ presents us in concentrated form with all that is most original and distinctive about the figure of Jesus, and his being. He comes from God and he is God. But that is precisely what makes him – having assumed human nature – the bringer of true humanity.”Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 334.

fredag den 11. januar 2008

Altid at være åben – søgen uden forpligtelse

Om den religiøse søgen der insisterer på at altid at være åben, skriver Pave Benedikt: ”Today it is fashionable to regard Jesus as one of the great religious founders who were granted a profound experience of God… this notion of Jesus’ “experience of God” remains purely relative and needs to be supplemented by fragments of reality perceived by other great men.” Pave Benedikts indvending mod denne tilgang er, at vi ender med et religiøst supermarked, hvor alt er relativt og subjektivt og intet er absolut sandt endsige forpligtende. ”It is man, the individual subject, who ends up being the measure: The individual decides what he is going to accept from the various ”experiences,” what he finds helpful and what he finds alien. There is no definitive commitment here.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 293.

Versus personkult i Kirken

”Man knows himself only when he learns to understand himself in light of God, and he knows others only when he sees the mystery of God in them. For the shepherd in Jesus’ service, this means that he has no right to bind men to himself, to his own little “I”… The shepherd in Jesus’ service must always lead beyond himself in order to enable others to find their full freedom; and therefore he must always go beyond himself into unity with Jesus and with the Trinitarian God.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 282f..

torsdag den 10. januar 2008

Kirkens behov for blive beskåret

Med udgangspunkt i lignelsen om vintræet giver Pave Benedikt udtryk for, at Kirken såvel som enkeltindivider konstant har behov for blive renset og endda skåret tilbage. ”When man and his institutions climb too high, they need to be cut back; what has become too big must be brought back to the simplicity and poverty of the Lord himself. It is only by undergoing such processes of dying away that fruitfulness endures and renews itself. The goal of purification is fruit, the Lord tells us.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 261.

Begejstring og behovet for udholdenhed

I en tid, hvor vi glæder os til den euforiske begejstring ved Verdensungdomsdagen i Sydney, kan det være sundt at høre Pave Benedikts ædruelige ord: ”Initial enthusiasm is easy. Afterward, though, it is time to stand firm, even along the monotonous desert paths that we are called upon to traverse in this life – with the patience it takes to tread evenly, a patience in which the romanticism of the initial awakening subsides, so that only the deep, pure Yes of faith remains.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 262.

Gud er død! – en kommentar til globale miljøkatastrofe

I en kommentar til fortællingen om vingården, der lægges øde, da vingårdsarbejderne gør oprør mod ham, der ejer vingården, og slår arvingen ihjel, skriver Pave Benedikt om arbejdernes motivation og oprørets konsekvenser: ”(Vingårdsarbejderne siger:) Let us declare that God is dead, then we ourselves will be God. At least we no longer belong to anyone else; rather, we are simply the owners of ourselves and of the world. At last we can do as we please. We get rid of God; there is no measuring rod above us; we ourselves are our only measure. The “vineyard” belongs to us. What happens to man and the world next? We are already begin to see it…” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 257.

onsdag den 9. januar 2008

Frihed og løgn

“Those who understand freedom as the radically arbitrary license to do just what they want and to have their own way are living in a lie, for by his very nature man is part of a shared existence and his freedom is shared freedom.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 204.

At forelskes – historien om den barmhjertige samaritaner

”The Samaritan, the foreigner, makes himself the neighbor and shows me that I have to learn to be a neighbor deep within and that I already have the answer myself. I have to become like someone in love, someone whose heart is open to being shaken up by another’s need. Then I find my neighbor, or – better – then I am found by him.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 197.

tirsdag den 8. januar 2008

Led os ikke ind fristelse – at blive sat på prøve

”God does not abandon man, but he does allow him to be tried… In order to mature, in order to make real progress on the path leading from superficial piety into profound oneness with God’s will, man needs to be tried. Just as the juice of the grape has to ferment in order to become a fine wine, so too man needs purifications and transformations; they are dangerous for him, because they present the opportunity to for him to fall, and yet they are indispensable as paths on which he comes to himself and to God… When we pray it (“Led os ikke ind i fristelse”), we are saying to God: ’I know I need trials so that my nature can be purified. When you decide to send me these trials, when you give evil some room to maneuver … then please remember that my strength goes only so far. Don’t overestimate my capacity. Don’t set too wide the boundaries within which I may be tempted, and be close to me with your protecting hand when it becomes too much for me.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 163.

Fri os fra det onde - febrilsk at presse mest muligt ud af livet

”Today … there is … the ideology of success, of wellbeing, that tells us, ’God is just fiction, he only robs us of our time and our enjoyment of life. Don’t bother with him! Just try to squeeze as much out of life as you can.’ These temptations seem irresistible… The Our Father … (is) trying to tell us that it is only when you have lost God that you have lost yourself; then you are nothing more than a random product of evolution. Then the ‘dragon’ has really won. So long as the dragon cannot wrest God from you, your deepest being remains unharmed, even in the midst of all the evils that threaten you.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 166.

Forlad os vor skyld - Skyldens forfærdelige pris

“Newman once said that while God could create the whole world out of nothing with just one word, he could overcome men’s guilt and suffering only by bringing himself into play, by becoming in his Son a sufferer who carried this burden and overcame it through his self-surrender. The overcoming of guilt has a price: We must put our heart – or, better, our whole existence – on the line. And even this act is insufficient; it can become effective only through communion with the One who bore the burdens of us all.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 160.

Ske din vilje

”… what we are ultimately praying for in this third petition ("Komme dit rige") of the Our father is that we come closer and closer to him, so that God’s will can conquer the downward pull of our selfishness and make us capable of the lofty height to which we are called.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 150.

mandag den 7. januar 2008

Fadervor og vi-aspektet

”In praying the Our Father, we pray totally with our own heart, but at the same time we pray in communion with the whole family of God, with the living and dead, with men of all conditions, cultures and races.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 141.

Hvordan skal vi bede?

“Our prayers can and should arise above all from our heart, from our needs, our hopes, our joys, our sufferings, from our shame over sin, and from our gratitude for good. It can and should be a wholly personal prayer. But we also constantly need to make use of those prayers that express in words the encounter with God experienced both by the Church as whole and by individual members of the Church. For without these aids to prayer, our own praying and our image of God become subjective and end up reflecting ourselves more than the living God...”

”… we may be sure that each of us, along with our totally personal relationship with God, is received into, and sheltered within this prayer (Fadervor). Again and again, each one of us with his mens, his own spirit, must go out to meet, open himself to, and submit to the guidance of the vox, the word that comes to us from the Son.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 130 og 133.

søndag den 6. januar 2008

En mageløs Hellig Tre Kongers prædiken

Med stor retorisk sans havde Fr Abbot Hugh bygget sig prædiken til Hellig Tre Kongers Søndag over mottoet: ”They came. They saw. They were conquered. They went home.” Da det kom til andendelen af dette motto, sagde Fr. Abbot Hugh: ”They came and they saw. They leave the road and enter the house. Their walking is over and they fall to their knees. Their eyes forget the star and find the Child. “Not crowned with a diadem, nor resting on gilded bed,” says Chrysostom. “Small in size, dependent on others, powerless to act, differing no way from any other human baby,” says Leo. And yet “their eyes were glad as they looked at a poor little child; for the Spirit within them told them he was a Being of Awe” (Chrysostom). For in this Child “something great lay hidden” (Augustin). Here was the One begotten before the Day-star. Here, in the House of Bread (ordspil over navnet Bethlehem), was the Bread come down from heaven to give life to the world. Here, at the centre of this feast, with all its movement and colour, with its gold and frankincense and myrrh, there falls a sudden silence…”

“… They came, they saw, and they went home – by a different way. They go home, they leave the stage, we know nothing more. Back to their families and world, back to their work, back to pressing on and growing older and dying in the end. But home by a different way. By a different way because they are different people now. Their saddles were lighter, but their hearts were fuller. They had come out of the shadows, and now they carried a memory, they carried the image, in mind and heart, of the child they had seen. Within them, brighter than a star, shone a vision of the humble, helpless love of the stars’ Creator. Within them now the Child was their conscience, and the way of the Child their way. They had seen and touched the gentleness of God. More, it had seen and touched them. They already knew, even though they didn’t, the mystery of the cross, of love to the end. How could they not go back by a different way?”

Røgelse, munke og bevægelse

Der er fest. Det er Hellig Tre Kongers Dag. Der er Røgelse. Masser af røgelse! Andægtig stilhed og bevægelse. Munke og præster på vej fra klostergang til kirke. Billedet er rystet. Hvordan kunne det blive andet? Jeg var rystet. Ja, bevæget. Som de tre vise mænd må have været det, da de med den mægtige stjerne foroven bukkede sig for at gå ind i stalden.

lørdag den 5. januar 2008

Jesu universalitet

”He (Jesus) brought the God of Israel to the nations, so that all the nations now pray to him and recognize Israel’s Scriptures as his word, the word of the living God. He has brought the gift of universality… This universality, this faith in the one God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – extended now in Jesus’ new family to all nations over and above the bonds of decent according to flesh – is the fruit of Jesus’ work. It is what proves him to be the Messiah. It signals a new interpretation of the messianic promises that is based on Moses and the prophets, but also opens them up in a completely new way.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 116 f..

Jesus som den nye Torah

”In Jesus’ case it is not the universally binding adherance to the Torah that forms the new family. Rather, t is adherence to Jesus himself, to his Torah.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 115.

Kristen moral og at finde sig selv

”… the true morality of Christianity is love. And love does admittedly run counter to self-seeking – it is an exodus out of oneself, and yet this is precisely the way in which man comes to himself.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 99.

At søge sandheden – På vej til Gud

”Edith Stein once said that anyone who honestly and passionately searches for truth is on the way to Christ.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 91.

Forsoningens forudsætninger

”Only the man who is reconciled with God can also be reconciled and in harmony with himself, and only the man who is reconciled with God and himself can establish peace around him and throughout the world.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 85.

fredag den 4. januar 2008

Pave Benedikts opgør med “Vi tror jo alle sammen på det samme”!

”It is claimed that in the pre-Vatican II period ’ecclesiocentrism’ was the dominant position: The Church represented as the center of Christianity. Then there was a shift to Christocentrism, to the doctrine that Christ is the center of everything. But it is not only the Church that is divisive – so the argument continues – since Christ belongs exclusively to Christians. Hence the further step from Christocentrism to theocentrism. This has allegedly brought us closer to the community of religions, but our final goal continues to elude us since even God can be cause of division between religions and between people.

Therefore, it is claimed, we must now move toward “regnocentrism,” that is, toward the centrality of the Kingdom. This at last, we are told, is the heart of Jesus’ message, and it is also the right formula for finally harnessing mankind’s positive energies and directing them toward the world’s future. “Kingdom,” on this interpretation, is simply the name for a world governed by peace, justice, and the conservation of creation. It means no more than this … This is supposedly the real task of religions: to work together for the coming of the “Kingdom”. They are of course perfectly free to preserve their traditions and live according to their respective identities as well, but they must bring their different identities to bear on the common task of building the “Kingdom”, a world, in other words where peace, justice, and respect for creation are the dominant values.

This sounds good; it seems like a way of finally enabling the whole world to appropriate Jesus’ message without requiring missionary evangelization of other religions… On closer examination, though, it seems suspicious. Who is to say what justice is? What serves justice in particular situations? How do we create peace? On closer inspection, this whole project proves to be utopian without any real content… But the main thing that leaps out is that God has disappeared; man is the only actor left on stage… Faith and religions are now directed toward political goals. Only the organization of the world counts. Religion matters only insofar as it can serve that objective… But Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God, not just any Kingdom.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 53-55.

At gøre Gud til en subjektiv virkelighed

”The common practice today is to measure the Bible against the so-called mordern worldview, whose fundamental dogma is that God cannot act in history – that everything to do with God is to be relegated to the domain of subjectivity. And so the Bible no longer speaks of God, the living God; no, now we alone speak and decide what God can do and what we will and should do. And the Antichrist, with an air of scholarly excellence, tells us that any exegesis that reads the Bible from the perspective of faith in the living God, in order to listen to what God has to say, is fundamentalism; he want to convince us that only his kind of exegesis, the supposedly purely scientific kind, in which God says nothing and has nothing to say, is able to keep abreast of the times.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 35-36.

Antichrist - den store teolog!

Da Jesus blev fristet på bjerget, viste djævelen sig at være en kompetent teolog og ekseget, der behændigt og snedigt kunne bruge skriftsteder, som det passede ham. Ikke uden en vis humor henviser Pave Benedikt her til den russiske forfatter Vladimir Soloview, der med denne fristelse som udgangspunkt har skrevet en lille fortælling, hvor han lader Antikrist være en teolog, der får en æresmedalje fra det berømte universitet i Tübingen for sine skriftstudier! Pave Bendikt fortsætter: ” The fact is that scriptual exegesis can become a tool of the Antichrist… The alleged findings of scholarly exegesis have been used to put together the most dreadful books that destroy the figure of Jesus and dismantle faith.“ Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 20.

torsdag den 3. januar 2008

Djævelen og Fogh som udspekulerede fristere – at forvise Gud til privatsfæren

”The tempter is not so crude as to suggest to us directly that we should worship the devil. He merely suggests that we opt for the reasonable decision, that we chose to give priority to a planned and thoroughly organized world, where God may have his place as a private concern but must not interfere in our essential purposes.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 41.

Jesus der i vores sted overvinder Satan

”His (Jesu) Baptism is a decent into the house of the evil one, combat with “the strong man” (cf. Lk 11,22) who holds men captive… Throughout all its history, the world is powerless to defeat the “strong man”; he is overcome and bound by one yet stronger, who, because of his equality with God, can take upon himself all the sin of the world and then suffers through to the end – omitting nothing on the downward path into identity with the fallen. This struggle is the “conversion” of being that brings it into a new condition, that prepares a new haven and a new earth.” Pave Benedikt den 16., Jesus of Nazareth, p. 20.

DUK’s Årstema -Przemieks kommentar

Przemiek har i flere år overvejet sit kald. Han har fået tilbud om et rigtigt og spændende job. Men efter at have afsluttet sin grad i Business Management har han ikke desto mindre bestemt sig til at søge om optagelse som munk på Pluscarden Kloster for på den måde at følge Jesus.

onsdag den 2. januar 2008

Tid

Tiden bliver en anden på et kloster! Hverdages navne mister deres betydning. Nat bliver til dag, dag nat, og nat dag. Mørke og lys, regn og sol, frost og varme følger på hinanden uden dato og klokkeslæt stærkt og sanseligt, som da man først var barn. Det, der her holder tiden ud fra hinanden, er helligdage og festdage og klokker i tårnet, der kalder os til messe hver dag og til bøn syv gange i døgnet. Al tid bliver her til hellig tid. Til tid viet til Gud. Til tid velsignet af Gud. ”Bed og arbejd,” sagde den hellige Benedikt. Bedt bliver der. Og arbejdet bliver der. Også med mig selv. Også med mine dæmoner. Stor fylde og endeløs tomhed følger på hinanden. Glæde, der pludselig bobler op i én. Sorgen, som man troede for længst var glemt. Angsten for ikke at slå til. Angsten for ikke at være elsket. Hovmodet. De dømmende tanker. De sødeste og dejligste drømme. Frydefuld ihukommelse af venner, der har betydet mig. Søvn så lang og så ukompliceret. Og så lyder klokken igen som et pulsslag, kalder mig ud af mig selv, mod Gud, mod ham, der er den helt anderledes, og som dog elskede sig ihjel for mig og for hver eneste barn og ung, som jeg har at pastoralt ansvar for. Denne hans kærlighed bliver til tak, til forbøn, til tanker, til planer. Og så er jeg allerede på vej til Danmark, hvor tid igen er målt ud i sekunder, minutter og dage i en fyldt kalender. Borte fra klokken bliver tiden igen en anden. Men er den en hellig tid?

Bøn "light" og dens fare

“But it would be wrong to think that ordinary Christians can be content with a shallow prayer that is unable to fill their whole life. Especially in face of the many trials to which today’s world subjects faith, they would be not only mediocre Christians but ‘Christians at risk’. They would run the insidious risk of seeing their faith progressively undermined, and would perhaps end up succumbing to the allure of ‘substitutes’, accepting alternative religious proposals, and even indulging in far-fetched superstitions” Pope John Paul II, Novo Millenio Ineunte, 34.

Barnagtig tro vs. kaldet til at kæmpe for troen

“It is not enough to be enthusiastic as a Catholic. It is also important to be well informed. But many Catholics, unfortunately, remain at the stage they were at age fourteen in religious matters, they are grievously ignorant. They don’t know. But they don’t know that they don’t know, until you ask them a question. They can’t defend their faith. We’re not expected to understand the Incarnation or the Blessed trinity. But we are expected to defend our faith in a way that shows that it is reasonable to believe.” Cardinal Arinze i Fit for Mission? Schools, p.30.

tirsdag den 1. januar 2008

Gud har givet dig en opgave, som han ikke har givet til nogen som anden

Her på Pluscardon Abbey fandt jeg dette citat af John Henry Newman. Det handler om kald. Om at lige netop du, hvem så end du er, er kaldet af Gud til en helt bestemt tjeneste. Ingen anden har han nemlig givet denne tjeneste. Det er op til dig at udføre den! ”God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission – I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told in the next. Somehow I am necessary for his purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his – if, indeed, I fail, he can raise another, as he could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do his work; I shall be angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep his commandments and serve him in my calling.” John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions, 1953, p 217.