Christmas Gifts Anyone? Fair Trade Coffee, Teas and Other Goods

Please consider purchasing Fair Traded goods for gifts for family, friends, neighbors and
colleagues. Consider giving yourself Fair Traded coffee or tea for your daily routine. Your investing in
Fair Traded goods helps to promote international and local economic justice by paying fair wages to
many persons throughout the world that live on less than $2 a day.  Visit http://www.crsfairtrade.org/ for access to fair traded products sponsored or related to Catholic Relief Services.

In the local Youngstown area, economic justice can also be done by utilizing the services of locally cooperatively owned businesses for your needs, like the Beatitude House Green Clean Cooperative, which recently obtained a national grant from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD).  This cooperative provides residential and commercial cleaning services.

Cardinal to Aid Workers: God's Moment Is Now

Urges Participation in the New Evangelization
CZESTOCHOWA, Poland, DEC. 1, 2010 ( Zenit.org ).- Now is the time for a new evangelization, for God's moment to reach out to all people through his Church, says Cardinal Antonio Cañizares.

The prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments affirmed this at a spiritual exercises retreat organized by the Pontifical Council Cor Unum for diocesan leaders of Caritas and other ecclesial agencies throughout Europe.

The retreat, which began Monday and ends Friday, is taking place at the Marian shrine of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa, Poland, on the theme, "Here I Am."

In his talk, the cardinal said, "In our days we see a powerful request for evangelization; the cry is raised: 'Help us!'"

"Evangelization is possible," he added, "it is urgent, and God asking for it."

"It is God's moment," the prelate affirmed, "the hour of the new evangelization, the time of a missionary Church that proclaims and attests that God is Love."

He continued: "This is what is most urgent.

"It is about a new evangelization in a pagan world, which has distanced itself from God and does not even pose the question to itself.

"It is urgent to evangelize. This is our future. This is God's great appeal to the Church of our time."

The Lord's mandate

Cardinal Cañizares affirmed that "the truth of evangelization, the sign that the Lord's mandate to evangelize is being carried out, which Andrew and the Apostles obeyed and which we are called to follow, is the great sign of charity, which is the dimension of a Christian's life and the indispensable pillar that supports the Church."

He added that this is "the sign of the Messiah, Savior and hope of humanity, which men, sinners and poor, sick and destroyed are awaiting, so that the poor are evangelized."

The prelate noted, "It is the great sign that the Kingdom of God is near to us, from whom we received the good news of the Kingdom of God, which is rooted in us: God's love reigns in our hearts."

He continued, "This is, hence, the true sign that makes the Gospel credible: charity, precisely this, the love that we are called to bear one another as Christ has loved us, a living and effective love, practical and concrete toward our brothers, above all toward those who are in conditions of greater poverty and need."

"From this all will know that we are his disciples: by loving one another as he loves us and with his same love," the cardinal affirmed.

He explained that "the charity that the Spirit realizes in us points us to the practice of an active and concrete love toward every human being."

Cardinal Cañizares stated that "it is urgent and imperative" to have a charity that "must also, necessarily, be a service to culture, to politics, to the economy and to the family, so that the fundamental principles on which the destiny of humanity depends are respected, in which its inviolable dignity is at stake, as well as its fundamental and inalienable rights."

He asserted, "This dimension of charity is an inseparable component of evangelization."

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On ZENIT's Web page:

Full text: www.zenit.org/article-31124?l=english

Pope Benedict XVI Sunday Angelus: Charity and Social Responsibility

Pope Reflects on Beauty Found in Today's Liturgy


The Greatest Gift That Gives Others Worth




VATICAN CITY, JAN. 31, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible is found in today's liturgy, and it indicates the path to reach perfection.

The Pope spoke of St. Paul's "hymn to charity" (1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13) before he prayed the midday Angelus today with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

The Holy Father noted how Paul says the way of perfection "does not consist in possessing exceptional qualities: speaking new languages, knowing all the mysteries, having a prodigious faith, or doing heroic deeds. It consists rather in charity -- 'agape' -- that is, in authentic love, that love that God revealed to us in Jesus Christ."

"Charity is the 'greatest' gift," the Pontiff affirmed, saying it "confers worth on others, and yet 'does not boast, does not puff up with pride,' indeed, 'it rejoices in truth' and the good of others."

"In the end," he continued, "when we will meet God face to face, all the other gifts will disappear; the only one that will remain in eternity will be charity, because God is love and we will be like him, in complete communion with him."

The Pope added that while we are in this world, "charity is the Christian difference."

"The Christian’s whole life is summed up by charity: what he believes and what he does," he said. "For this reason, at the beginning of my pontificate, I wanted to dedicate my first encyclical precisely to the theme of love: 'Deus caritas est.'"

Benedict XVI recalled how the encyclical illustrates the two components of charity: meaning and practice.

"Love is the essence of God himself, it is the meaning of creation and history, it is the light that gives goodness and beauty to every man’s existence," he explained. "At the same time, love is the 'style,' of God and the believer, it is the comportment of him who, responding to God’s love, makes his own life a gift of self to God and neighbor."

And these two aspects "form a perfect unity" in Jesus, the Pontiff said. "Fixing our gaze upon him, we can confess with the Apostle John: 'We have seen the love that God has for us and we have believed in it.'"

Saints

Benedict XVI noted how the saints, with the "variety of their spiritual gifts, and also their human characters" are "hymn[s] to charity."

The saints are, he affirmed, "a living canticle to God’s love!"

Recalling the saint whose feast is today, St. John Bosco, the Bishop of Rome concluded by invoking his intercession "so that priests always be educators and fathers for young people; and that, experiencing this pastoral charity, many young people will welcome the call to give their life for Christ and the Gospel. May Mary Our Help, model of charity, obtain these graces for us."

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On ZENIT's Web page:

Full text: www.zenit.org/article-28210?l=english

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ZE10013106 - 2010-01-31
Permalink: http://zenit.org/article-28214?l=english

Pope Remembers the Jobless




VATICAN CITY, JAN. 31, 2010 (Zenit.org).- As the global economic crisis continues to keep people out of work, Benedict XVI is calling on everyone to assume a "great sense of responsibility."

The Pope made this exhortation today after praying the midday Angelus with those gathered in St. Peter's Square.

"The economic crisis is causing the loss of numerous jobs, and this situation requires a great sense of responsibility on the part of everyone: entrepreneurs, workers, [and] government officials," he said.

The Holy Father mentioned in particular situations in Termini Imerese, Italy, where a FIAT plant with some 3,000 workers has had some temporary closures and plans a total shut down in 2012; and in Portovesme, Italy, where the Pennsylvania-based Alcoa company has a factory that has also had temporary closures.

The Pope affirmed that he joins with the Italian episcopal conference in asking "that everything possible be done to protect and increase employment, assuring families of dignified work and adequate support."