Deserts...

What the pallium indicates first and foremost is that we are all carried by Christ. But at the same time it invites us to carry one another. Hence the pallium becomes a symbol of the shepherd's mission, of which the second reading and the Gospel speak. The pastor must be inspired by Christ's holy zeal: for him it is not a matter of indifference that so many people are living in the desert. And there are so many kinds of desert. There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love. There is the desert of God's darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life. The external deserts in the world are growing, because the internal deserts have become so vast. Therefore the earth's treasures no longer serve to build God's garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction. The Church as a whole and all her pastors, like Christ, must set out to lead people out of the desert, towards the place of life, towards friendship with the Son of God, towards the One who gives us life, and life in abundance.

Comments

[Jason]

Is this a reference to environmentalism?

[amy]

Umm..I don't think so. Desert=life sucking, denying, lonely dry. External desert = cultural and social structures that are anti-life, anti-joy, etc..

[radtrad001]

Interesting factoid.

Do you know why the Queen of Spain and the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg were wearing white, when all the other ladies were wearing black?

Catholic women who are royalty are the only women allowed to wear white at an audience with the Holy Father.

There are, I think, only four Catholic royal houses left. Spain, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Monaco.

[Nancy]

I was touched when he asked all of us to pray for him as he undertakes this humanly impossible job. I'm including him in my daily intentions.

[Henry Dieterich]

Is "radtrad001" suggesting that the royal house of Belgium is not Catholic? (That is, any less Catholic than the others?)

[radtrad001]

Right!

I knew I forgot one.

Sorry, there are five then.

Spain, Monaco, Belgium, Lichtenstein, and the grand duchy of lux.

Mea culpa!

[Liam]

The desert is the existential desert of modernity, a spiritual desolation that can cause or exacerbate the psychological illnesses of depression, disthymia, et cet., which tend to be rampant in the developed world.

PS:

The privilege du blanc (sp?) is the reference for the usage.

Female Catholic sovereigns or sovereign consorts have the privilege of wearing white mantillas at pontifical occasions. But that does not obtain at papal funerals (the Vatican not having adopted the French royal custom of white as a color of mourning....).

[Daniel H. Conway]

External deserts="There is the desert of poverty, the desert of hunger and thirst, the desert of abandonment, of loneliness, of destroyed love."
Internal deserts="There is the desert of God's darkness, the emptiness of souls no longer aware of their dignity or the goal of human life."

He provides some expamles in the statements before.

[Rod Dreher]

There is the desert of parish life these days. There is the desert of American Catholicism that the faithful have to cross.

[Mark R]

Catholid monarch's wives are allowed to wear white since they count as royalty in protocol.

I suppose said monarchs are probably more Catholic than a radtrad in schism :-)

I liked the Pope's pallium. It is more in the style of the Early Church than what bishops and such normally wear. It made him look like one of the Fathers of the Church.

[Mark R]

Oops, "Catholic" (sp.!)