The Radio Immaculata Show

With this first episode, we start a series on "Philosophy for All," investigating what Metaphysics is. In this first lesson we focus on the perception of reality with the help of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. How do we know what is real? How do we know that the reality we perceive is the final reality and not a mere appearance? What is real and what is apparent? Man is made for what is real and lasting: the ultimate reality.Every first Sunday of the month, at 2pm, in St Jospeh's Hall - Tangier Road - Portsmouth (UK), we meet in person for a lecture on Philosophy open to and made easy for all.

St Joseph's heart is the mystery to contemplate at this Holy Christmas to welcome with it God's greatest gifts: Our Lady and Jesus, our Saviour. Joseph was espoused to Mary in a very unique and holy way - a virginal one. Through her, he embraced Our Lord and became His virginal father. St Joseph's heart was the very place where these two mysteries were laid, prefiguring also the cave of Bethlehem.

The 1930s saw a frequent objection made to Christianity: since salvation is personal, Christianity would easily pave the way for individualism, where every Christian looks for his own happiness, forgetting all others. Henri de Lubac wrote "Catholicism" (1937) to reply to this objection by making the point of "social Catholicism." However, few years later, this concept, though well grounded in the Church Fathers, became ideologically ridden, so as to affirm that Faith and its celebration were merely social. What about today? Whilst it seems very odd to preach about saving one's soul, a 'communal salvation' has led to prioritise social issues, such as building up a more human society and ecology (detached from Christ). A strong Marxist component is now facing the Church from within. What is then salvation? The unity and the trinity of the Triune God should be reflected in this discorse. Saving souls is still the supreme law of the Church.

In this homily given on Christmas Day, Fr Serafino reflects on the mystery of the Word made flesh. The very difference between any philosophy, any natural religion, and Christianity is that the Word spoke and is made flesh. Incarnation is a gift not a right, as grace is a gift and never a right. Yet, in today's Church, as in the society, grace seems to be a right. Even blessings have become a human right. Christmas celebrated with faith and love is the way to regain the concept of 'gratuitous love,' by which we are mad creatures and Christians.

St Francis of Assisi heard the word of the Crucifix: "Go Francis and repair my Church." Only at the third church he arrived with the intention of refurbishing it, St Mary of the Angels, the Poverello understood the correct meaning of that mission: he had to build up the Body of Christ, purchased by Our Lord with his Blood. At the Portiuncula, St Francis was identified with the Mother of God to "give birth unto the spirit of Gospel truth" (St. Bonaventure). That was the beginning, a sort of Franciscan Annunciation. St. Francis, then, identified with Our Lady Co-redemptrix, gave life, as another Christ Crucified on La Verna, to the Church by generating Christ into many souls as well as into society and culture. The point is Co-redemption.

In this podcast Fr Serafino M. Lanzetta explores the historical and theological meaning of St Francis' Mission for the Church. There are quite a few similarities between the Church at the time of St Francis and the Church of today. It seems that one same heresy binds together that time and ours: pauperism, i.e., poverty seen as an end and no longer as a means. This led to overlap the institution and the charism. The institution had to be charismatic, forged by poverty, while the charism became the way of the Church replacing doctrine and dogma. Precisely what happens today. That's why St. Francis needs to come back.