Papal Themes and Memes

The pope is certainly busy in declarations these days............

Themes and memes : yes, discernment, faith, communication and evangelisation  are hot ,hot, hot topics at the moment.

Alongside the theme for the global church's next World Communications Day in 2012 which is "Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization." : see previous post here,
he has also declared a "Year of Faith" starting on October 11, 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of the Vatican II Council which approved key Catholic Church reforms. 

 

"I would like to announce that I have decided to decree a year of faith," the Pope said in his homily on Sunday, addressing some 8,000 delegates taking part in a Vatican-hosted conference on evangelization at a mass in St Peter's Basilica.

He said it would give "a greater impulse to the mission of the entire Church to bring man out of the desert where he often finds himself, towards life and towards friendship with Christ who gives us this life in all its variety."

The year will start on October 11, 2012 and conclude on November 24, 2013.

"It will be a moment of grace and of engagement for an ever fuller movement towards God, to strengthen the faith in Him and to announce it with joy to modern man."

He will soon publish an "apostolic letter" outlining what he wants the Church to gain from the year of reflection.

Reminds me of the parable below :

Then he told them a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being.  

And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ 

 For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, ‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being,  because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.’”

The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them?

I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Has the Pope been having acute intimations of his own mortality or is he hinting at an imminent  second coming? - crikey let's all look busy !!