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Pope signs Apostolic Letter marking sixtieth anniversary of Gravissimum Educationis

Joining students of Pontifical Universities on Monday, as part of the Jubilee of the World of Education, Pope Leo XIV signed an Apostolic Letter, written to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of Gravissimum Educationis, and to reflect on the current relevance of the Conciliar Declaration and on the challenges that education has to face today, in particular for Catholic schools and universities.

The Letter will be made public on Tuesday, 28 October.

Pope Leo went on to lament that in the modern world, humanity has become “experts in the smallest details of reality” yet struggles to recover an overall vision - one that unites knowledge with meaning.

Against this fragmentation, he invited scholars to rediscover the harmony between intellect and spirit, a unity embodied by saints such as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Ávila, and Edith Stein.

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Principles of Aesthetics - Integritas, Consonantia, Claritas

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For the medieval theologian a beautiful thing had three primary characteristics (Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 39, Article 8):

1. Integritas (wholeness) – It must not be deficient in what it needs to be most itself.

2. Consonantia (proportionality) – Its dimensions should suitably correspond to other physical objects as well as to a metaphysical ideal, an end.

3. Claritas (radiance) – It should clearly radiate intelligibility, the logic of its inner being and impress this knowledge of itself on the mind of the perceiver.

*Architectural historian and liturgical design consultant Dr. Denis McNamara, assistant director at the Liturgical Institute of the University of Saint Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary (Illinois, US) explains:

Integritas, claritas, and consonantia prove critical in building a church, because as a theological and sacramental revelation of the new heaven and new earth, a beautiful church will provide a fullness of theological ideas but being complete not only in all of its functional parts, but also in its sacred imagery.

Moreover, these parts will be proportional to their nature, showing not merely an earthly meeting hall, but an icon of a glorified reality, conventionally understood in architecture through sophistication of design, rich materials, and high levels of craft to be worthy of a church. This worthiness and glorification is made knowable to the mind of the viewer, for whom the church building impresses into his or her mind the signs and symbols of heavenly realities.

This participation in the liturgy is the aim to be considered before all else specifically because by perceiving heavenly realities in earthly matter, we have the opportunity to become heavenly ourselves, and we are suited to live happily with God for eternity.
(Denis Robert McNamara, Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy (2009))

#beauty

~St.Cyril of Jerusalem

Pope: Educate to promote dignity, justice, and trust in a war-torn world

The Apostolic Letter "Drawing New Maps of Hope", released today, marks the sixtieth anniversary of the conciliar declaration "Gravissimum Educationis". In it, Pope Leo XIV reaffirms and expands that document’s vision, applying it to the challenges of the present time.

The Letter reaffirms Paul VI’s warning against reducing education to functional training or economic productivity.
Education, Pope Leo XIV writes, must serve human dignity and the common good.

The Pope reaffirms that the family remains the first and fundamental place of education. Other institutions can assist but never replace it. Collaboration among families, schools, and the wider community is essential, based on listening, shared responsibility, and mutual trust.

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"Those in the Church who perform the function of prayer and continual penance, contribute to the growth of the Church and the salvation of the human race to a greater degree than those who cultivate the Lord's field by their activity; for, if they did not draw down from heaven an abundance of divine grace to irrigate the field, the evangelical workers would certainly receive less fruit from their labors (Pius XI: Umbratilem).

Prayer intention:- Please pray for my uncle his name is Amit. He is not keeping well and has been hospitalized. May your prayers and Our Lady's powerful intercession help him to recover soon. Amen...

Thank you everyone, God bless you all!

I have the most urgent prayer request right now.
I have a Muslim friend and she is pregnant but is trying to decide if she wants to abort the baby or not. I told her I would adopt the child but I’m begging her not to terminate the pregnancy. Please pray that she has a change of heart!! 🙏🏼

(Prayer Request from one of my sister online)

UnHerd - Edward Feser - The Catholic fight over immigration - The Church upholds migrant rights - and borders (10/25/25)

[...] The economic needs of its own citizens are among the considerations a government may weigh when determining how many immigrants to let in.

In a 1996 address, Pope St. John Paul II affirmed that “illegal immigration should be prevented” and that “the supply of foreign labor is becoming excessive in comparison to the needs of the economy, which already has difficulty in absorbing its domestic workers”.

Likewise, in a 2011 address, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged that host countries also have a “legitimate concern for security and social coherence” so that “states have the right to regulate migration flows and to defend their own frontiers” and “immigrants… have the duty to integrate into the host country, respecting its laws and its national identity”.

And in a 1988 document from the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace, we read that “it is up to the public powers who are responsible for the common good to determine the number of refugees or immigrants which their country can accept, taking into consideration its possibilities for employment and its perspectives for development, but also the urgency of the need of other people”. Overly heavy migration waves, the document warns, can lead to “rejection”, especially when “another culture is perceived as directly threatening the identity and customs of the local community that receives them” [...].

[...] The legitimacy of this concern for national identity is something that has been affirmed repeatedly in the Catholic tradition. In his book Memory and Identity, first published in 2005, John Paul II affirmed that the duty of patriotism is an extension of our obligation to honor our parents, and writes: “Patriotism is a love for everything to do with our native land: its history, its traditions, its language, its natural features. It is a love which extends also to the works of our compatriots and the fruits of their genius. Every danger that threatens the overall good of our native land becomes an occasion to demonstrate this love”.

Several popes have been quite frank about the social problems that can develop when a minority cultural group fails to assimilate to the larger culture in which it resides. For example, in the encyclical Pacem in Terris, Pope St. John XXIII observed that “these minority groups, in reaction, perhaps, to the enforced hardships of their present situation, or to historical circumstances, frequently tend to magnify unduly characteristics proper to their own people. They even rate them above those human values which are common to all mankind, as though the good of the entire human family should subserve the interests of their own particular groups”. He went on to call for such groups to associate themselves more closely with the majorities among whom they live, and not to harness their identity to separateness.

Pope Francis, too, acknowledged the problem. In a 2016 press conference, he noted that while “hearts must not be closed to refugees… those who govern need prudence… A political price can be paid for an imprudent judgement, for accepting more than can be integrated”.

Non-integration, Francis warned, leads to migrants becoming “a ghetto. A culture that does not develop in relationship with another culture, this is dangerous”.

Most recently, Pope Leo XIV, in an address in which he praised Italy’s generosity to migrants, immediately went on to underscore “the importance of constructively integrating those arriving into the values ​​and traditions of Italian society” [...].

Source: https://unherd.com/2025/10/catholics-fight-trumps-migration-policy/

The Church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) 🔗

She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes [. . .] she will lose many of her social privileges [. . .] As a small society, [the Church] will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members.

It will be hard-going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek.

[...] The process will be long and wearisome as was the road from the false progressivism on the eve of the French Revolution — when a bishop might be thought smart if he made fun of dogmas and even insinuated that the existence of God was by no means certain . . . But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church.

Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty.

Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith.

She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.

Source: “The Church will become Small”, from Faith and the Future (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009). Note that the original publication date of "Faith and the Future" was 1969.

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Hey guys ive got a new video up on YouTube on the symbolism of beauty and how it relates to baptism. Be sure to check it!!

God bless

Urgent

Please Pray for My Mother

Pray for God to keep her safe

Her name is Rose

Urgent Prayer Request:-

My uncle (Amit) is very serious and on the verge of death. Please pray for his speedy recovery and good health.

Thank you everyone for your prayers, God bless you all!

Pope to students: Do not let technology use you


Pope Leo challenges students participating in the Jubilee of the World of Education to work for a better society through education, which is “one of the most beautiful and powerful tools for changing the world.”

For this reason, the Pope urged them to come together for “a new season of education” where everyone becomes witnesses of truth and peace.

But they must not do this alone. He encouraged them to include their friends in the search for truth and the building of peace.

To help students with this task, Pope Leo referred to a reflection by St. John Henry Newman, who once said that “knowledge grows when it is shared, and that it is through the conversation of minds that the flame of truth is kindled.”

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