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From the Daughters of St. Paul, who run Pauline Books and Media on East 52nd Street:

PAULINE BOOKS AND MEDIA IS MOVING!

We are moving to 64 West 38th Street
(between 5th and 6th Avenues).

We are opening at the new location on July 21.

Our present location will be closed as of July 4.

Hours: Mon, Tu, Wed: 10:00-5:30
Thurs, Fri: 10:00-7:00
Phone: 212-754-1110
Email: manhattan [at] paulinemedia.com

You are all in our prayers,
The sisters and staff at Pauline Books and Media

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At yesterday’s General Audience, Pope Benedict XVI continued to introduce the Church to his thoughts and aspirations for the Jubilee Year for Priests.

Building on the reflections he offered last week, the Holy Father described further the great connection existing between the identity of the priest and his mission.  If after the Council, the pope explained, more emphasis has been placed on the priest’s service than on his sacramental identity, then the time has come to reunite these two in the popular Catholic imagination, at least for the sake of appreciating the authentic fruitfulness of the priest’s service.  As in the life of Christ, identity and mission—word and sacrament—come together inextricably in the life of the priest, who is sacramentally configured to Christ to continue his presence and mission in the world.  As it was for Christ, so it is for the priest. Identity first, and from this flows mission.

The pope observed that we see here the primacy of the divine initiative.  God always acts first with his grace in the lives of Christians, and this is especially true in the lives of priests. Through the grace of ordination, priests are united personally to Christ the Head of the Church, and from this identity flows the priest’s explicitly supernatural mission—in word and sacrament—of reconciliation and sanctification. It must be noted, the pope explained, that the priest’s sacramental identity distinguishes his mission from all other forms of service, both in the Church and in the world.

The Holy Father concluded his remarks by recommending specific spiritual practices for the Jubilee Year for Priests, including Eucharistic adoration for the sanctification of priests and for priestly vocations.

General Audience Address
July 1, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters:

As you know, with the celebration of First Vespers for the solemnity of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the Pauline Year has come to a close — the year that marked the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of the Apostle to the Gentiles. Let us give thanks to the Lord for the spiritual fruits that this important initiative has brought to so many Christian communities.

As a precious heritage of the Pauline Year, we can reap the Apostle’s invitation to go deeper into the knowledge of the mystery of Christ, so that he becomes the heart and center of our personal and social realities.

This is, in fact, the indispensable condition for a true spiritual and ecclesial renewal. As I already emphasized during the first Eucharistic celebration in the Sistine Chapel after my election as the Successor of the Apostle St. Peter, it is precisely from that full communion with Christ that “flows every other element of the Church’s life: first of all, communion among all the faithful, the commitment to proclaiming and witnessing to the Gospel, the ardor of love for all, especially the poorest and lowliest” (1st Message at the End of the Eucharistic Concelebration With the Members of the College of Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel, April 20, 2005).

This is true in the first place for priests. Because of this, I thank Divine Providence, which now offers us the possibility of celebrating the Year for Priests. It is my heartfelt wish that this will be an opportunity for interior renewal for every priest, and consequently, [a year of] firm reinvigoration in the commitment to his own mission.

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