Category: World Touch

In the Philippines alone, where Blessed Candida’s congregation, the Hijas de Jesus, first arrived in 1932, there are over 10,000 students currently enrolled in nine schools and almost 6,000 children and youth benefiting from catechetical instruction outside the school. All over the world, innumerable individuals and communities likewise benefit from the congregation’s apostolic and pastoral work in 17 countries, mostly in Asia, Latin America and Africa where the need is greatest. “We dedicate ourselves to education in its multiple forms,” says Sr. Emelinda “Lynn” Falsis, FI, directress and principal of Manresa School in Parañaque. “Education is our means of proclaiming to all the Good News, moved by the desire to help people as Jesus did. Mother Foundress’ spirit can be felt in the instructional methods and activities that are always in light of the school’s vision-mission, which is seeing to it that the gospel values are integrated, deepened and lived by the students in their daily life experiences.” One of the most shining examples of God’s astonishing work in her life is in how Blessed Candida was able to establish a congregation of Christian educators when she herself was practically illiterate. She was first known to the world as Juana Josefa Cipitria y Bariola, born in the Basque province of Guipuzoa, Spain, on May 31, 1845. To help support her impoverished family, the young Juanita left home at the age of 17 to work as a domestic helper for a wealthy family in Burgos. Despite her humble stature, Juanita displayed extraordinary piety and compassion for those even more destitute than herself.  On April 2, 1869, while praying in the chapel of Rosarillo, she received an inspired message from the Blessed Virgin to found a religious order of women to be known as the “Hijas de Jesus.” Her spiritual director, a Jesuit named Fr. Miguel Herranz, immediately confirmed her vision, having received a similar message himself. Through his patient mentoring, Juanita learned to read, write and speak Castilian at the age of 24, hurriedly preparing her for her imminent role as foundress of a teaching congregation. The Hijas de Jesus embodied Mother Candida’s vision of using education for uplifting those who were poor and powerless. She was a pioneer of social justice and women’s rights in 19th century Spain, opening schools for girls of all social backgrounds at a time when over 80% of the female population could barely read or write. Mother Candida died in Salamanca, Spain, on August 9, 1912. At the moment of death, she declared: “In my 40 years of religious life, I could not recall a single moment that did not belong to God alone.”  Beatified on May 12, 1996, no less than Pope John Paul II described Blessed Candida as a “visionary” who was “blessed with a prophetic view of the modern world.” And explained: “Her deep experience of God’s love for each of His creatures led her to respond with generosity and dedication. She concretely expressed her love of others by founding the congregation

Melissa Wilde, an associate professor of sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, led a team of researchers that investigated data from the Vatican Secret Archive to determine the critical factors influencing how bishops voted at the Second Vatican Council, a university statement announces. Their findings are outlined in “Religious Economy or Organizational Field? Predicting Bishops’ Votes at the Second Vatican Council,” published in the August issue of American Sociological Review. The researchers found that the relationship between the Church and state, as well as changes in the institution’s situation in relation to other institutions, particularly a loss of dominance and the presence of and relationship with other religious institutions, were crucial factors in predicting whether religious leaders would be open to change and also what kinds of change they would prioritize. They concluded that, in places where the Catholic Church enjoyed a stable monopoly as the state church, religious leaders were almost impervious to outside influence and opposed to most kinds of change. In areas in which Catholicism was not the established faith but where the religious field was stable, however, leaders of other religious institutions were a crucial source of influence on bishops who attended and voted at Vatican II. The article also explores factors that predicted bishops’ votes on two of the most contentious issues dividing the Roman Catholic Church during Vatican II from 1962-1965: the validity of a document titled “On the Sources of Revelation,” which upholds the inerrancy of the Bible, and the importance of the Virgin Mary. “This is the first attempt to subject any Council votes to rigorous quantitative analysis,” said lead author Wilde, who studies the processes and factors that direct religious change. “It was exciting being the first person to gain access to these votes on an event as important as the Council.”  

Reflecting on the Day’s theme, “The building of ecclesial communion is the key to mission,” the Pope recalls the words of the Gospel of John “We want to see Jesus” (Jn 12:21), the claim that some Greek pilgrims who had gone to Jerusalem for Easter, made of the apostle Philip. “It resonates in our hearts,” writes Benedict XVI, and “reminds us of the commitment and the task assigned to the whole of the evangelical Church, ‘missionary by its nature’ (Ad Gentes, 2),” and invites us to become leaders of the newness of life, made of authentic relationships, in communities founded on the Gospel. In a multiethnic society that increasingly experiments with forms of loneliness and worrying indifference, Christians must learn to offer signs of hope and universal brotherhood, cultivating the great ideals that transform history and, without unnecessary fear or false hopes, undertake to make the planet home for all peoples.”  Like the Greek pilgrims of two thousand years ago, the men of our time, perhaps unconsciously, are asking believers not only to ‘talk’ of Jesus, but to ‘show’ Jesus, make the Face of the Redeemer shine in all four corners of the earth before the generations of the new millennium, and especially before young people from every continent, privileged recipients and subjects of the Gospel. They need to feel that Christians bear the word of Christ because He is the Truth, because they have found in Him the way, the truth for their lives.”  But the missionary mandate, continues the Pope, cannot be realized without “a deep personal, community and pastoral conversion. Indeed, awareness of the call to preach the Gospel not only encourages every individual believer, but all diocesan and parish communities to a complete renovation and to open more and more to missionary cooperation among Churches, to promote the proclamation of the Gospel in the heart of every person, every people, culture, race, nationality, in every corner.” Ecclesial communion is therefore “constantly looking” for those dedicated to the mission “so that the phenomenon of interculturation can be integrated into a model of unity, in which the Gospel is the leaven of liberty and progress, the source of brotherhood, humility and peace (cf. Ad Gentes, 8).