Joy of the Gospel!

What the bulk discounts look like:
5 – 10 copies 10%
11 – 25  copies 15%
26 – 50  copies 20%
51 – 100 copies 25%
over 100 copies 30%

The Joy of the Gospel! It's in your heart, but is it on your bookshelf?

Be sure to let your parish ministry team know that the handy paperback edition  of Pope Francis' document is ready to ship--and that there are bulk discounts available (at $9.95, it's already the least expensive version out there, and the bulk rates start at only five copies!).

Here in Chicago, I'm committing myself to not just study the document, but to guide a Lenten adult faith program on it. (That way I have to study it--but will also equip myself to offer presentations on Francis' prescriptions for spiritual health.)

Meanwhile, some of the mega-wealthy are taking umbrage at what the Pope had to say in the document about the idolatry of money. Some are even hinting that if that's how the Pope feels, maybe they won't be so generous in donating to Catholic causes...thus pretty much proving the Pope's point. (This is going to be an interesting discussion in our Lenten program!)

Francis: the Saint and the Pope

"Francis, rebuild my Church." Words that changed the world.

St Francis
Detail of an altarpiece from the
Walters Museum of Art
(used under Creative Commons License).

Today's feast of St. Francis is especially significant, since Pope Francis has chosen to spend this first "Name Day" with his eight Cardinal-collaborators in Assisi (a city he has never visited before). "This," he said about his associates, "is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down, but also horizontal."

With the upcoming [today? this weekend?] release of his encyclical on poverty and the interview published earlier this week, the Holy Father is, as it were, setting up a classroom. We might find the key to his lesson in his words to the unbelieving journalist, Eugenio Scalfari about his patron:

St. "Francis wanted a mendicant [dependent on alms] order and a traveling one. Missionaries who wanted to meet, listen, talk, help, to spread faith and love. Especially love. And he dreamed of a poor Church that would take care of others, which would receive material aid and use it to support others, with no concern for itself. 800 years have passed and times have changed a lot, but the ideal of a missionary, poor Church is still more than valid. That is still the Church that Jesus and his disciples preached about."