Sunday, December 10, 2017

After a century, the largest Catholic church in North America is finally complete

By Sharon Samber, Religion News Service via USATODAY.COM:

WASHINGTON (RNS) — The largest Catholic church in North America is now complete.

After 100 years of construction, thousands of worshippers Friday witnessed the blessing of 24 tons of Venetian glass that embellish the dome of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Called the “Trinity Dome,” the glass mosaic is the final architectural element of the church, a shrine to Mary which sits next to the Catholic University of America and is visited by nearly 1 million people a year.

A 10-minute procession of cardinals, bishops, and priests preceded the two-hour ceremony and Mass to mark the dedication of the dome.

Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl who celebrated the Mass called the basilica a “modern-day masterpiece.” Faith, he said, was the reason why so many people, for so many years, sacrificed to finish the church.

“Mary believed that nothing is impossible with God,” Wuerl said in his homily. “She is the supreme model of what it means to believe.”

The Trinity Dome is one of the largest mosaic installations of its kind in the world, composed of more than 14 million pieces of glass. It depicts the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, a procession of saints and angels, the four evangelists and the Nicene Creed. It also includes stained-glass windows dedicated to the many donors to the dome.


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Thursday, December 7, 2017

Pope says he wants to change the words to the Lord's Prayer because current interpretation suggests God leads us 'into temptation'

By Reuters and Sara Malm for MailOnline

Pope Francis has said he wants to change the interpretation of 'Our Father', the best known prayer in Christianity.

The Pontiff said the Roman Catholic Church should adopt a better translation of the phrase 'lead us not into temptation' in the Italian version of the Lord's Prayer.

He said the current phrasing, which is the same in English and many other languages, suggests that it is God who has a choice to lead us into temptation or not.

'That is not a good translation, because it speaks of a God who induces temptation',' the pope said in a television interview on Wednesday night.

Francis said the Catholic Church in France had opted for a different phrasing, which worked around this particular issue.

The French translation uses the phrase 'do not let us fall into temptation' as an alternative, which, the Pope said, implies that the fault would be human.

He indicated that it or something similar should be applied worldwide.

The prayer is part of Christian liturgical culture and memorised from childhood by hundreds of millions of people within all branches of the religion - both Catholic and Protestant.

It is a translation from the Latin vulgate, which was translated from ancient Greek, which was in turn translated from Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus.

Liturgical translations are usually done by local Churches in coordination with the Vatican.

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