Month: December 2018

I began praying the Rosary in Latin about three years ago. I promised myself that I would take one year to learn the Latin Rosary, no matter what and that I would say the prayer every day.

During the first two months, I must admit feeling dizzy and disoriented. I found videos of people praying the Latin Rosary on YouTube and said the prayers along with them. After a year, they seemed natural and in my humble opinion, beautiful.

On several of the videos, I heard the Requiem aeternam and that lead to much researching on my part. That lead to so much information about the Faith for me. I cannot imagine how any Catholic can understand the teachings of the Church without the understand of purgation.

The Catholic Prayer, Requiem aeternam, asks God to hasten the progression of the souls of the faithful departed in Purgatory to their place in Heaven.

We find this Roman Catholic doctrine in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1030-1032:

All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned…From the beginning the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead.

I found these prayers we can recite individually or within groups.

I.

Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine
Et lux perpetua luceat eis
Requiescant in pace.
Amen.

Eternal rest, grant unto them, O LORD,
And let perpetual light shine upon them.
May they rest in peace.
Amen.

II.

Oh Lord hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you.
O God, the creator and redeemer of all the faithful, grant to the souls of your departed servants the remission of all their sins that through our prayers they may obtain that pardon which they have always desired. Amen

On 10 December 2018, several news outlets reported that a 22 person team of Georgians removed enough of a West Bank minefield to unblock the site of Jesus’s baptism. Historically called Qasr el-Yahud, biblical accounts also say the Israelites entered Canaan at this crossing and Elijah the Prophet ascended to heaven. It lies near an ancient road and river ford connecting Jerusalem and Jericho with biblical sites such as Madaba, Mount Nebo and the King’s Highway. 

During the 1967 Six-Day War, Jordanians and Israeli’s mined both sides of the river. Jordan removed their mines after signing the Peace Treaty with Israel in 1994. Israel did not clear Qasr al-Yahud until 2000, when Pope John Paul II landed there in a helicopter and held private worship. Israel refused to open Qasr al-Yahud to the public until 2011. The government limited the clearing to a narrow corridor leading to the river.  

The mine field on the West Bank encompasses seven church compounds. One Israeli newspaper said the Georgians cleared landmines from three of the seven church compounds. Also, five monasteries at the Qasr el-Yahud baptism site became casualties of the 1967 war. The Israeli Defense Ministry and the British anti-mine organization HALO Trust estimated 6,500 landmines and booby traps lined the holy site. 

The site remains under control of the IDF military zone.

Also see an article from Scotland’s National Newspaper