Feeding the masses at World Youth Day

Sydney, July 15, World Youth Day, the Catholic Church's youth pilgrimage has officially opened. The event's organizers have the task of feeding over 150,000 international and Australian pilgrims. And what's on the menu for this feeding of the masses? Why, Vegemite, of course!

"We want to provide pilgrims with a good feed and a little bit of an Australian taste," Geoff Morris, the World Youth Day director of services, said. "A good feed" is Australian for "a good meal".

Pilgrims will also be treated to such Aussie classics as meat pies, lamingtons and baked beans. The organizers have also planned a barbie of biblical proportions.

Reactions to Vegemite amongst the pilgrims has been varied, to say the least. With some enjoying the revelatory rush of vitamins, while others made the mistake of spreading it on too thickly. My advice to the pilgrims would be: like all of life's little pleasures, Vegemite should be enjoyed in moderation!

The Center is the Wilderness - A Journey of Faith

When something really big happens, you need time to make sense of it - to put it in perspective. When the event is trauma or grief, we call this stage denial. The same dynamic is in play with something unexpectedly joyful. Suppose you were to win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes? It's the reason people don't remember much of the events of their wedding day.

St. Paul, as recounted in the book of Acts, had a mystical experience on the road to Damascus that turned his life around. It changed him from a persecutor of the young Christian movement to one of its chief representatives. He was blinded by the light -- literally blinded as the result of a mystical encounter with the risen Christ. Paul was then befriended by one of the very Christians he was on his way to arrest. He was healed of physical and spiritual blindness, baptized as a follower of Jesus, then went home to Tarsus where he worked as a tentmaker for many years. He needed time to make sense of his experience and stayed there until God, in the person of a man named Barnabas, came to get him to begin his ministry.

Jesus had mystical experiences. His intimate relationship with God and his knowledge of God's nature is indicative of mystical experience. When he came up out the baptismal waters, from John the Baptist, Jesus experienced a clarification of his identity. The Gospels describe this experience by saying that the heavens opened up and Jesus heard God say, "This is my son, the beloved."

Jesus found in the baptismal waters, and even more deeply in his wilderness struggle, that he was a person of incredible value with the power, potential, and presence of the Spirit enabling us to change the world in partnership with God. What Jesus did is exactly what God invites us to do. Bring your questions, what challenges or may confuse you. Bring your wisdom and all of who you are. We are on a journey into the wilderness to discover who we are, who we can be, and what we can do.

Grandpa Jerry and St. Paul - Down Home Story

Grandpa Jerry Williams was a great admirer of Saint Paul and would not have invoked the name of the revered apostle deliberately to frighten the wits out of a St. Louis drummer. Besides, Grandpa had to replace the church-yard gate and repair the steeple.

"What did Paul say?"
What Paul said on the subject usually took a solid hour, or a bit more, to relate. Grandpa didn't get many opportunities to atone for his youthful disobedience to God's call, so he made the most of every one.

Despite Grandpa Jerry's scriptural verbosity, he was an imposing figure in the pulpit. He was a large man, tall, with a wild crop of bushy white hair. When he got wound up about Paul, he commanded attention. He voice boomed, and he emphasized his words with thumps on the pulpit.

Folks allowed as how the regular-ordained pastors were easier to take, week-end-week-out. Still, a good dose of Saint Paul now and then purged the soul.

The spiritual home for that little country congregation was about five miles from town. As was the custom, it was left unlocked so passersby could enter for mediation or shelter.
Grandpa Jerry's farm was nearby, and he often went there in the evening, after chores, to look after the church. After mending a window pane, or mowing the grass in the graveyard out front, he would commune with God in the empty sanctuary.

It was on such an occasion during Lent that Grandpa Jerry and the St. Louis salesman encountered each other briefly. Grandpa went to the church that evening to sweep the floor and make sure the hymnals were evenly distributed for Easter Sunday. This done, he lingered to think and pray.

Catholic Social Teaching

What is Catholic Social Teaching?
Catholic Social Teaching (also known as Catholic Social Doctrine) sums up the teachings of the Church on social justice issues. It promotes a vision of a just society that is grounded in the Bible and in the wisdom gathered from experience by the Christian community as it has responded to social justice issues through history.

Three Elements:
The social teachings are made up of three different elements: principles for reflection; criteria for judgment; and guidelines for action.
The principles for reflection apply across many different times and places, but the guidelines for action can change for different societies or times. Uniform guidelines for action wouldn’t work because societies are so different from one another, and they are always changing over time creating new situations with different problems and possibilities.
The criteria for judgment may be thought of as ‘middle axioms’ mediating between the highly authoritative but necessarily general and abstract principles for reflection, and the details of the concrete social reality. They are less authoritative than the principles for reflection but more so than the guidelines for action.
Guidelines for action are always dependant on contingent judgments and the information available through human knowledge. There is frequently scope for legitimate differences of opinion among believers on a range of social justice issues.

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Catholic Church

The Catholic Church has been in existence on the earth longer than any other Christian denomination. The Catholics can trace the Pope’s and the Catholic Church’s authority back to Peter at the time of Jesus Christ. Most other Christian churches broke away from the Catholic Church at one point in time or another. But, they still retain many of the traditions and beliefs of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church defines its mission as spreading the message of Jesus Christ, found in the four Gospels, administering sacraments that aid the spiritual growth of its members and the exercise of charity. To further its mission, the Church operates social programs and institutions throughout the world. These include schools, universities, hospitals, missions and shelters, as well as Catholic Relief Services, Caritas Internationalism and Catholic Charities that help the poor, families, the elderly and the sick.

The Catholic Church rests on a foundation of four basic beliefs or tenets. These beliefs are: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Here are brief definitions of the beliefs to make them clearer:

One: One stands for the one true gospel of Jesus Christ. Although there are many principles within the gospel, there is only one true gospel and one true Church as Jesus Christ set it up. It also stands for the one body of Jesus Christ.

Holy: Holy means that the Catholic Church is perfect, pure and sanctified. Although the members and even the leadership are not perfect the church itself is perfect.

Catholic: The word Catholic can be traced back to the Greek word “katas” which means universal or whole. If you were to look at the statement of beliefs for some Protestant religions not just the Catholic Church, you would find the term “catholic” in them as well. When Jesus Christ was on the earth, he commanded his followers to take the gospel to the whole earth so that in theory all people would share one belief and faith.

Apostolic: Just as when Christ was on the earth, the Catholics set up a Church with apostles.

The Catholics in the world today number over 1 billion. The church is concerned that it is not growing as fast as some of the Protestant and other religions.

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