Changing established life-styles

This is the culture which is hoped for, one which fosters trust in the human potential of the poor, and consequently in their ability to improve their condition through work or to make a positive
contribution to economic prosperity. But to accomplish this, the poor—be they individuals or nations—need to be provided with realistic opportunities. Creating such conditions calls for a concerted worldwide effort to promote development, an effort which involves sacrificing the positions of income and of power enjoyed by the more developed economies.

This may mean making important changes in established life-styles, in order to limit the waste of environmental and human resources, thus enabling every individual and all peoples of the earth to have a sufficient share of those resources.

(Centesimus Annus 52, emphasis in original)

Old commentary on this great passage from John Paul II-but still fresh today-can be found here - thanks for making it available.

Pre-Order ...

Giving Up Stealing for Lent! (and other family stories) is available for pre-order at the the website today!

The Cuthbert Mayne booklet is up and ready for sale at the website!

Personal Vocation & God's Will

"John Paul II handled his dying as he did out of the conviction that this was the form his personal vocation had taken — what God was asking of him as the final act of fidelity..."

This is from an article this morning on Catholic Exchange by Russell Shaw. I quote it this morning because it reminds me of something I read over the weekend in "He Leadeth Me" by Fr. Walter Ciszak SJ. He and a fellow priest have secretly entered Russia to provide the sacraments to Polish refugees and/or the Russian people. They find however that no one will even talk about religion with them. They are discouraged and wonder why they are even in Russia:

"And then one day it dawned on us. God granted us the grace to see the solution to our dilemma ... It was the grace quite simply to look at our situation from His viewpoint rather than ours. It was the grace not to judge our efforts by human standards, or by what we ourselves wanted or expected to happen, but rather according to God's design."

Isn't this the daily strugge we each have in living our personal vocation-to accept God's will for us-even when we think we are better suited for other work or when our expectations are not met. It can be hard at times to see His will and not ours.

Our first book for children!

Unlike the books posted below, this one won't be ready until October 2006-but we do preview it in our catalog (the catalog will be in the mail this week. If you'd like one, leave a comment below or at the website: www.RequiemPress.com )

The Story of Our Lady of Victory
story and illustrations by Agnes Penny (Your Labor of Love & Your Vocation of Love)

This book, for pre-schoolers and early readers, told in rhyme, will introduce the child to the rosary, the power of prayer and heroic Christian soldiers at the battle of Lepanto.

New Release: Lives of the English Martyrs!

In 1905, a two volume set on the lives of the English Martyrs were released in England. Volume I covered the 15 martyrs under Henry VIII declared blessed by Pope Leo XIII. Volume II related the lives of 24 martyrs beatified by Leo XIII who died under Elizabeth I.

Many of these martyrs are virtually unknown in America. RequiemPress is hoping to re-print the entire two volume set as individual booklets. They will be easy to carry and quick to read, but these heroic tales will inspire your heart with love for God and the Faith.

The first in the series is about St. Cuthbert Mayne...

St. Cuthbert Mayne was canonized in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the 40 martyrs of England and Wales. He was the first martyr from the English seminary at Douay.

A convert to the Faith and former Protestant minister, Cuthbert Mayne fled England when his name as potential Papist was revealed.

He studied for the priesthood at the English seminary at Douay and then returned to England to provide the sacraments to the faithful there and to meet his martyrdom.

Release of this booklet is expected on March 29th 2006. Look for it on the website then.

Here it is!

We should start taking pre-orders in about a week. The official release is scheduled for April 1st. Here is the blurb:

56 years of marriage and 11 children. ..

The Maddens of Baltimore will surprise you, comfort you, make you laugh until you cry, and make you cry until you laugh again! From games of "pitch" to petty thievery, from over zealous confessions to exacerbating obedience, there is truly never a dull moment!

But these true stories about a real family, as told by the youngest brother, are much more than just a collection of humor. Together, they weave a tapestry about family life—the way it should be lived and enjoyed. The virtues and the vices, the laughter and the frustration, the happiness and the mourning, the prosperity and the poverty: the family is the first school of love.

Experience this with the Maddens of Baltimore. Bring them home with you today!

Brother Charles Madden, OFM Conv. was born in Baltimore, MD in January 1940, the youngest of eleven children. He is the author of "Freemasonry: Mankind’s Hidden Enemy".

"Giving Up Stealing ... for Lent!" at 111 pages is attractively priced at $9.95. It is a perfect Easter Basket stuffer for your spouse.

Notes

I have finally added a link to my personal blog on the sidebar.

Our Spring Catalog, which has preview of the our year ahead, should be in the mail by weeks end. If you are interested in getting a catalog, and haven't ordered from us before, you can visit the Requiem Press website and fill out your name and address in the box on the "Contact Us" page. We'll make sure you get a catalog.

We'd like to do an overhaul of the website-and maybe have this blog part of the website, but it will have to wait until the summer at least. It will be a busy year with several new booklets and several new major releases also.

Thanks for stopping by.

The April 2006 issue of Initiatives (newsletter of the National Center for the Laity) quotes Russell Shaw - again on the distinctions between ministry and lay apostolate. (available online at the link.)

More on Lay Apostolate

This article appearing on the 12th at Beliefnet by Russell Shaw makes some further points to the story I linked yesterday. Here he says:

The bishops have meant well—for their aim has been to encourage Catholic lay people to participate more fully in the life of the Church—but they have made a damaging mistake. Promoting lay ministry has come at the expense of an earlier tradition of promoting Catholic lay apostolate—and the two are very different things. I argue that the bishops ought to switch their priorities, for lay apostolate not only fills important needs but is specifically designed to help lay people do what they can do best: putting Gospel values to work in their jobs, schools, neighborhoods, and homes.

...Back before the Second Vatican Council, there was a healthy network of Catholic groups in America such as the National Council of Catholic Men and the National Council of Catholic Women and their diocesan councils and affiliates—groups that were committed to giving lay people spiritual and doctrinal formation for apostolate. Lay apostolate also got significant attention in the Church's schools and educational programs. Some of the support was superficial and ineffective, and it didn't help that most pre-Vatican II apostolic groups operated on the old "Catholic Action" model in which lay activity was under clerical control.

...The ministry boom didn't start until seven years after the Council wound up in 1965. Pope Paul VI issued a document in 1972 abolishing the 'minor orders'—stages such as lector and acolyte through which candidates for the priesthood formerly had to pass on their way to ordination. Functions previously linked to those minor orders—such as serving Mass and reading the Scriptures--could now be assigned to lay people. Paul also left the door open to other forms of lay ministry. Theologians and lay employees of the Church grabbed the idea and ran with it. There was an explosion of books, articles, conferences, and academic programs on lay ministry. A new Catholic cottage industry had been born, especially in the United States.

Read the rest...or read the book!

What’s a Lay Apostolate?

Russell Shaw answers this question today on CatholicExchange. Here's an excerpt:

I was trying to explain the idea of lay apostolate to an intelligent Catholic laywoman. Oh sure, she said, she knew exactly what I meant. Lay apostolate was lay people participating in parish-based activities of various kinds — serving on the parish council, teaching an RCIA class, things like that.

What could I say? These obviously are admirable, excellent things to do. How helpful would it have been for me to point out that, good as they are, they definitely aren't lay apostolate? ....

A key part of lay apostolate is that it happens in a secular environment, not in church. Vatican Council II's Constitution on the Church spoke of it as a "special vocation" — making faith "present and fruitful" in those places where that can only be done by the laity. What places might those be? The home, the neighborhood, and the workplace come to mind. If Christianity is to be lived out there, it's up to lay people to do it.

Apostolate happens out there in the big, wide, secular world. At the risk of some oversimplification, you could put it like this: lay ministry is something that some Catholic lay people do on Sunday morning; lay apostolate is what all Catholic lay people should be doing every day of the week.

Read the rest here. Of course you can get a much more complete treatment by reading our own "Catholic Laity in the Mission of the Church" by Russell Shaw-available here .