Did You Know Series # 15



Feast of The Annunciation

 Did you know?

“It has been stressed several times that the full union of the Catholic Eastern Churches with the Church of Rome which has already been achieved must not imply a diminished awareness of their own authenticity and originality.  Wherever this occurred, the Second Vatican Council has urged them to rediscover their full identity, because they have ‘the right and the duty to govern themselves according to their own special disciplines.  For these are guaranteed by ancient tradition, and seem to be better suited to the customs of their faithful and to the good of their souls’” (Orientale Lumen 21, Pope John Paul II).

Great Lent

Today Great Lent commences.  The liturgical life is fundamentally one of imitating Jesus and sharing in the mystery of his life.  Driven by the Spirit, through prayer and fasting Jesus prepared himself for his future ministry.  Even throughout the next three years he spent his nights in prayer so as to constantly stay attuned to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Great Lent beckons us to get in tune with what's really driving us and to examine how attuned we are to the Spirit of Holiness.

Did You Know Series # 14

Presentation of the Lord

Did you know?

“It has been stressed several times that the full union of the Catholic Eastern Churches with the Church of Rome which has already been achieved must not imply a diminished awareness of their own authenticity and originality. Wherever this occurred, the Second Vatican Council has urged them to rediscover their full identity, because they have ‘the right and the duty to govern themselves according to their own special disciplines. For these are guaranteed by ancient tradition, and seem to be better suited to the customs of their faithful and to the good of their souls’” (Orientale Lumen 21, Pope John Paul II).

Did You Know Series # 13

Theophany of the Lord

Did you know?

“The Church of Christ is one.  If divisions exist, that is one thing; they must be overcome, but the Church is one, the Church of Christ between East and West can only be one, one and united. . . . . . True union is possible only in total respect for the other’s dignity without claiming that the whole array of uses and customs in the Latin Church is more complete or better suited to showing the fullness of correct doctrine” (Orientale Lumen 20, Pope John Paul II).

Did You Know Series # 12

Did You Know?

“The Catholic Church values highly the institutions of the Eastern Churches, their liturgical rites, ecclesiastical traditions and their ordering of Christian life.  For in those churches, which are distinguished by their venerable antiquity, there is clearly evident the tradition which has come from the Apostles through the Fathers and which is part of the divinely revealed, undivided heritage of the Universal Church” (Vatican II Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches 1).

Ikon of St. Nikolaus

Did You Know Series # 11

Did You Know?

In the matter of reconciliation between the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Church of Rome, “conversion is also required of the Latin Church, that she may respect and fully appreciate the dignity of Eastern Christians, and accept gratefully the spiritual treasures of which the Eastern Catholic Churches are the bearers, to the benefit of the entire catholic communion; that she may show concretely, far more than in the past, show much she esteems and admires the Christian East and how essential she considers its contribution to the full realization of the Church’s universality” (Orientale Lumen 21, Pope John Paul II).

Presentation of Mary in the Temple (Nov 21st)

Did You Know Series # 10

Assumption of Mary — Coptic

Did you know?

“From their very origins, the Churches of the East have had a treasury from which the Church of the West has drawn largely for its liturgy, spiritual tradition, and jurisprudence. Nor must we underestimate the fact that the basic dogmas of the Christian faith concerning the Trinity and the Word of God made flesh from the Virgin Mary were defined in Ecumenical Councils held in the East” (Vatican II Decree on Ecumenism 14).