God in the Midst of Us .... in Silence

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Георгий Свиридов

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Святый Боже ('Holy God') Зарю бьют ('Dawn Strikes') The dawn beats. From my hand my shabby copy of Dante falls to the ground. On my lips, the half-pronounced verse ceases to shape meaning. - My soul flies far off. - Familiar, everyday living sound, although you often radiate far out, I shrink away - into my silent sense of age. 'Pastoral'
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The Presentation of Our Lady in the Temple

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The solemn dedication of the Church of the Mother of God near the Temple in Jerusalem took place on November 21, 543; this felicitous association of the Mother of God with the Temple supports the ancient tradition of the Blessed Virgin Mary's presentation in the Temple as a child. Saint John Damascene -- interpreting the Holy Name of Mary as "Lady" -- tells us that the "Lady of every creature and the Mother of the Creator . . . first saw the light in Joachim's house, hard by the Pool of Bethesda, at Jerusalem, and was carried to the Temple." Secundum Verbum Tuum In the hidden recesses of the old Temple, the Holy Spirit prepares the new Temple, the all-holy Virgin, to become the Mother of God . She who is destined to be the living Temple of the Word dwells in the Temple of the Old Dispensation. She hears the chanting of the psalms, the prophets, and the Law. Was it there that she learned Psalm 118, the long litany of loving surrender to the Word? And was i
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The Church in Iraq

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In Iraq the very survival of one of the world’s oldest Christian communities now hangs in the balance. Continuing attacks against the faithful have prompted successive waves of emigration. According to UN reports in 2010, of the 1.6 million Iraqi refugees abroad, up to 40 percent were thought to be Christians. According to some of the country’s most senior bishops, over the past decade the number of Christians haemorrhaged from nearly 900,000 to perhaps fewer than 200,000, a rate of decline far steeper than official figures suggest. By 2011, some sources gave an even lower figure for the number of Christians left in Iraq. Nor does there seem any end in sight to the problem, with Christian emigration continuing unabated. Catholic leaders said the number of Christians remaining in Baghdad by early 2011 would be a mere fraction of the 200,000 living there at the start of 2003. Even more Christians fled the city after the 31st October 2010 siege of Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation Syr
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