An invitation to joy in the house of Nazareth
- Parent Categories: Spirituality
by Ottavio De Bertolis
We want to learn to pray with one of the simplest and most common prayers of the Christian people, the Hail Mary. After the "Our Father" it is certainly the most frequent on our lips, and it is important to understand what we say while we pray. The word "Ave", as is known, means nothing in Italian, and only makes sense when we use it in this context, as we all know that we intend to repeat the greeting that the Angel addressed to Mary at the annunciation : indeed, it is his greeting itself, and this shows first of all how it is a prayer inspired by sacred writing, which finds its roots in it.
“Ave” is a Latin expression, which translates the Greek verb “cháire”, which means exactly “rejoice”: “Ave Maria” therefore means “rejoice Mary”, and is a quote from the prophet Zephaniah, when he invites Jerusalem to rejoice because the messianic times have come to pass. In this way, with this expression that we find in the Gospel of Luke, and which Luke takes from the Old Testament, we contemplate in Mary the true "daughter of Zion", the personification of Jerusalem, the complete and perfect faith of the Old Testament.
Return to me with all your heart
- Parent Categories: Spirituality
of Mother Anna Maria Cánopi
The spirituality of the season of Lent
it is a constant call to return to God.
Making God dwell at the center of our interests
and manage our living in co-ownership
Already at the beginning of the 4th century there is evidence of the practice, in the Church, of a period of forty days in preparation for the celebration of the Sacred Paschal Triduum - Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ - which is the center of the entire liturgical year.
Originally this time - which draws its symbolic meaning from the forty years of the crossing of the desert by the chosen people (exodus), from the retreat of Moses on Sinai and even more of Jesus himself in the desert at the beginning of his preaching - coincided with the preparation of the catechumens who would receive Baptism at Easter. They were so thoughtfully supported by the entire Christian community that with them was preparing for a new spiritual rebirth. Lent was also the period in which public sinners subjected themselves to a particular austerity of life, to be readmitted, on Holy Thursday, into the ecclesial community by approaching the Eucharistic table.
God the creator becomes a creature in Jesus
- Parent Categories: Spirituality
by Gianni Gennari
For ten meetings now (this is the eleventh) we have been searching for the "face" of the God we believe in. In fact, the Creed begins with Him. “I believe in God”. So who is our God? We have gradually seen how a natural religiosity asserts itself in the story of humanity in its quest to overcome the limits of knowledge and power over the reality of nature which accompanies, but also dominates, humanity, making it experience its limits, up to that of dying.
This is how what we call "natural religions" are born, in which man's ignorance and impotence generate a vision of divinity as a reflection of the opposite of the experienced limits: divinity, the gods, are large and man is small, they are wise and man is ignorant, they are strong and man is weak... Here are "the myths", which describe the superiority of the divinities to whom the mysterious and unknown aspects of human experience are attributed, and here are "the rites", which should serve, with offerings and sacrifices to the divinities, to protect man from the dangers that nature presents to him and which he cannot dominate... Natural religion, conceived and as if invented by men, is an antidote to ignorance and impotence. In it the divinity is opposed to humanity, distant, superior, and protects only those who offer submission and sacrifices...
very briefly, it is the thousand-year panorama of natural religions, up to ancient polytheism, and their survivals in still primitive peoples and in the remnants still alive in indigenous societies of various continents, cult of spirits, of the dead as alive, voodoo and others infinite varieties that anthropologists of religion continue to analyze and describe.
The beauty of our family is knowing how to say thank you
- Parent Categories: Spirituality
by Giosy Cento
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On the humble cave-house of Bethlehem descends, in the Holy Night, the divine song of the Choir and the celestial Orchestra: "Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men". Rebounded for centuries, in ears and hearts, this short hymn always lights up, before the eyes, the living image of the man-God who has become flesh and touchable tenderness.
it has become a Eucharistic hymn because, even in the bread and wine, we touch and embrace Christ in every moment of history, until the end of time, with infinite love. In this moment of the celebration, especially on Sundays and holidays, there is the song of "Thanks to You, Lord, who, from above, perform wonders of total peace, that is, of salvation, among all men". it is also the most beautiful and right prayer, but perhaps also a little forgotten by us children regarding the Trinity, from whose infinite love everything and all of us come. Jesus said thanks to the leper that he thanked him, because he read there a fragment of gratitude from the ten healed lepers.