Sunday, April 20, 2008

Mass at Yankee Stadium: Catch it livestream on EWTN Now!!!

Mass at Yankee Stadium starts in about 15 minutes.

I'll be editing this post periodically during the Mass.

If you don't have EWTN or cable, you can catch a live stream of the Mass on the web. I made a post like this yesterday and there were numerous outclicks to these resources by people searching for them on the web and stumbling on them here. Thanks be to God for these kinds of resources because this enables anyone in the world to watch, listen and read!

One place to get the EWTN stream is at Pope2008.com

If that doesn't work for you, then go to this page at EWTN and pick your speed.

If you have missed any of the events and want to watch them, go to the multimedia page at EWTN and you'll find video and audio at varying speeds.

You will also find written words of Pope Benedict here at EWTN.

It looks like Fr. Z will be blogging in one main post throughout the Mass as he did with the one at St. Patricks. Use his home page and keep refreshing for updates on the post that is there. However, yesterday he made a separate post for the homily, then continued updating the original one.

I have to say that as a result of so much time absorbed in the Pope's visit has left me behind on many things. I have lots to blog about, but I have other priorities that must be dealt with, that just can't be neglected.

The way I see it, these addresses given by Pope Benedict gives us plenty to blog about for weeks to come. The words need to be read, and re-read, digested and discussed. Hence, I'm not going to try to rush it. Rather, I'm going to be spending some times with these documents and coming back to them in the coming days and weeks.

I'm sure there will be ongoing commentaries at many other blogs and other online sources.

UPDATES:

3:00PM: Note how deeply in prayer the Holy Father is during the Gloria (Gloria, from Missa O Magnum Mysterium – Tomás Luis da Victoria). Some would say that he was not participating because he was not singing. Nothing could be further from the truth. This kind of sacred music is meant to help us to engage in interior, active participation whereby we lift our very being up to God in worship. The soul does not require exterior, active participation to engage in worship. In fact, the mystics would probably consider it noise.

3:37 PM: The homily from Yankee Stadium, which is now online at EWTN, like all of the Pope's addresses will need to be combed over. Here is one excerpt:


The first reading also makes clear, as we see from the imposition of hands on the first deacons, that the Church's unity is "apostolic". It is a visible unity, grounded in the Apostles whom Christ chose and appointed as witnesses to his resurrection, and it is born of what the Scriptures call "the obedience of faith" (Rom 1:5; cf. Acts 6:7).

"Authority" … "obedience". To be frank, these are not easy words to speak nowadays. Words like these represent a "stumbling stone" for many of our contemporaries, especially in a society which rightly places a high value on personal freedom. Yet, in the light of our faith in Jesus Christ - "the way and the truth and the life" - we come to see the fullest meaning, value, and indeed beauty, of those words. The Gospel teaches us that true freedom, the freedom of the children of God, is found only in the self-surrender which is part of the mystery of love. Only by losing ourselves, the Lord tells us, do we truly find ourselves (cf. Lk 17:33). True freedom blossoms when we turn away from the burden of sin, which clouds our perceptions and weakens our resolve, and find the source of our ultimate happiness in him who is infinite love, infinite freedom, infinite life. "In his will is our peace".

This nails something I say every time someone tells me, "you need to think for your self rather than let the Church do your thinking for you":

Only one who is truly free can choose obedience. It's not a matter of being forced to accept something, but a humble willingness to follow. That means, obedience is a choice. Christ humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8). So then, my beloved, obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present but all the more now when I am absent, work out your salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).

People think that because we choose not to go along with the world we are held captive. It is not the obedient who are held captive by the Church, but the disobedient who are held captive by the world. Jesus' death on the cross exemplifies death to self for all Christians.


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