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“There is nothing more beautiful than to
be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is
nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our
friendship with him.”
These words of Pope Benedict XVI were the inspiration for Nothing More Beautiful, the name
Archbishop Richard Smith has given to a new evangelization initiative
in the Archdiocese of Edmonton. In this five-year process of reflection
and renewal, we are invited to encounter anew the beauty of our
faith and our own relationship with Jesus Christ.
The focus of Nothing More Beautiful
is a series of evening encounters that combine music, prayer and
speakers at St. Joseph's Basilica. In the 2008-09 liturgical year,
these encounters centre on the theme of The Beauty of the Human Person.
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To view these encounters on video, please visit our Nothing More
Beautiful Video Gallery
On this page you will find
information and resources to help you share in the experience of Nothing More Beautiful.
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Encounters Schedule
Speaker
Biographies
Prayer
Prière
Video
Gallery
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Reflection
Questions
Resource
Documents
Printable
Promotional Materials
Contact Us
Parking Map |
The
Human Body in God's Creative Design
Following
is the introduction to Sister Timothy Prokes' presentation
at the Nothing More Beautiful encounter on Thursday, February 12:
The human body in God’s creative design: this is the MYSTERY
that Archbishop Richard Smith has invited us to reflect on
prayerfully tonight. I do not use the term “Mystery”
lightly. In faith, mystery is a truth so profound that we will
never completely grasp it. Mystery is a gift to be lived-into at
ever greater depth, enlightened by Revelation.
The lived body is not merely a chance mutation in an
unfolding universe. Rather, it has been revealed that divine
loving intent is involved in the design and creation of the human body
– male and female – whatever may have preceded this during billion-fold
years of preparation. Only in Jesus Christ has the full potential
of the human body been realized – exceedingly beautiful, beyond our
limited understanding of beauty.
Think with me, for a moment, on the wonder of the
human body. It centers and locates a person in the
universe. Sometimes, it is described as a mid-way point in the
material universe, a living presence, in size, somewhere between
sub-atomic particles and the macro galaxies that hurtle outward in the
universe. Not static, lived bodies are in constant interchange
with the larger material universe. I recall reading in a biology
textbook that an ELECTRON from the page that I was reading might now be
at the far reaches of the Milky Way.
Lovers tell one another that there is stardust in the beloved’s eyes –
and that is true. Not only in death, but also in life, we need to
remember and wonder that “We are dust and unto dust we will
return.” Precious dust, destined for transformation,
resurrection. Full text
Helpful Materials for
further reflection
Some suggested reflection
questions
Mike and Terese Ferri
also shared a powerful witness to the beauty of the Gospel
message in their own lives as a couple and a family:
MIKE:
Good Evening.
I am Mike Ferri and this is my wife Terese. We live in the Pembroke
Diocese near Ottawa. Before His Grace, Archbishop Smith, came to you in
Edmonton, he was our Bishop for five years. So we were very glad to
come at his request to speak to you tonight.
His Grace has asked us to share with you “how the beauty of the Gospel,
particularly as it finds expression in Pope John Paul II’s ‘theology of
the body’, has inspired and guided us in our personal and family lives.”
Terese and I have found this a formidable task. For the first
time in a very long time, we found it much more difficult to talk about
a subject than to live it.
But this task has afforded us an opportunity to reflect upon God’s love
for us, his many blessings and his continuous presence in our lives at
every step along the way.
For this we are grateful and humbly submit our reflections for your
consideration as you encounter the person of Jesus Christ.
Terese and I are approaching 33 years married. We have 14 children,
eight daughters and six sons. Our oldest son is turning 32
shortly and our youngest is 9 years of age. Six of our children
are married, one is engaged, one is discerning a religious vocation and
six continue to live at home with us. We have 13 grandchildren
born so far, and six more to be born in the next few months including
our daughter Angela’s twin boys who are due any day now. We have
lived in Pembroke for the past 11 years where I practice medicine as a
specialist in psychiatry, and Terese is a lawyer practicing family law.
TERESE
Few of us understand as we approach the altar to give ourselves to each
other in Holy Matrimony, the magnificence and full meaning of our
vocation. We were no exception. Thirty three years ago we were a
young engaged couple on the threshold of our life together. We were
filled with the worldliness typical of our generation. We had little
experience in self-sacrifice and little insight into the power of
Divine Providence. But what we lacked in maturity, we made up for, by
the grace of God, in sincerity. Full text
Some suggested reflection
questions
On Video ...
On
December 12 some 1,450 faithful attended the first in a series of
encounters at St. Joseph's Basilica, where the theme was In the Image
and Likeness of God. Featured speakers were Archbishop Richard Smith
and Lea Singh of the Canadian Organization for Life and Family.
Visit our Video Gallery to
experience their presentations. Click here to download
some suggested reflection questions to consider after viewing.
Coming soon: Video
from the February 12 encounter: The Human Body in God's Creative Design.
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Printable
Promotional Materials
 Click
on the image to download prayer for printing
Prière en francais, version imprimable
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Coming Up at
St. Joseph's Basilica in 2009
Date/Topic
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Catechist
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Witness
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Our New Life in Jesus Christ
7
p.m., Thursday, April 30
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Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, Archbishop
of Denver
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Mary Rose Bacani, Producer, Salt + Light
Television, Toronto
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Towards a Culture of Life
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Most Rev. John Corriveau, Bishop of
Nelson |
Patrick Stewart, Director, Marian
Centre, Edmonton |
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Speaker Biographies
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Archbishop Richard Smith,
a native of Halifax,
was ordained to the
episcopate on June18, 2002, and served the Diocese of Pembroke before
being
appointed to the Archdiocese of Edmonton in 2007. He was struck by the
words of
Benedict XVI in the homily at his papal inauguration Mass:
“There is nothing more beautiful than to be
surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing
more
beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship
with him.”
This was the inspiration for Nothing More
Beautiful, the name Archbishop Smith has given to a five-year
process of
reflection and renewal in the Archdiocese. |
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Lea
Singh
is Assistant Director of the Catholic Organization for Life and Family
(COLF), a national nonprofit organization devoted to education and
intervention in the Canadian public square on life and family issues.
Lea grew up in Edmonton, where she attended Archbishop MacDonald High
School. She completed her university education in the United States at
Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. In 2003 Lea passed the New
York bar and worked as an associate in a major New York City law firm.
A year later, she decided to work more directly for the Church, and
worked as Legal Counsel of the Catholic Family & Human Rights
Institute (C-FAM), on whose behalf she lobbied the United Nations.
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A Franciscan Sister of the Eucharist, Sister Timothy Prokes
has published Towards a Theology of the Body and
Mutuality:
the Human Image of Trinitarian Love, in addition to several
articles. She
has taught at many universities in the U.S. and Canada, and
frequently lectures at
conferences on the themes of theology of the body, bioethical issues
and the
spiritual life. She is also a professor of the Permanent Diaconate
Program of
the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., conducts retreats for both
religious
communities and the laity, and delivers lectures and short courses for
parish,
diocesan, and professional groups.
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Michael and Terese Ferri live in Pembroke, Ontario.
Michael is a psychiatrist
and medical chief of staff at Pembroke General Hospital. Terese
practises family law at her own firm. They have been been married for
32 years and have 14 children and 13 grandchildren. Mike and Terese are
frequent speakers in the area of family life. They will share how the
beauty of the Gospel, particularly as it finds expression in Pope John
Paul II's theology of the body, has inspired and
guided them in their personal and family lives.
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Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is spiritual leader of
almost 385,000 Catholics in 120 parishes in the Archdiocese of Denver.
A member
of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, St. Augustine Province, he was
ordained to the
priesthood in 1970 and to the episcopate in 1988. Pope John Paul II
appointed
him Archbishop of Denver on February 18, 1997. As a member
of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Tribe, Archbishop Chaput
is the second Native American to be ordained bishop in the United States, and the
first Native
American archbishop. In his new book, Render
Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living
our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, Archbishop Chaput calls
for
Catholics to deepen their commitment to Church teaching on abortion,
the death
penalty, immigration, poverty and other matters of social justice, and
to carry
their faith-rooted convictions into public life.
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Mary
Rose Bacani remembers three special transitional
moments in
her life when she felt called by God to do something:
one was to go to Rhode Island to join
the
Regnum Christi movement as a consecrated member after one year at the
University of Toronto, the next was to go to California to attend
Thomas
Aquinas College for her Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts, and the third
was finally
to go back home to Toronto. There
she did what she felt in her heart she had to do – check out Salt +
Light
Television. Since then Mary Rose has produced several shows and
documentaries for
S+L, including Journey of Light and Catholic
Women’s League: for God and Canada. Her most
recent project is The
World I Know: Virtues in Action series co-produced with the
Dufferin-Peel
Catholic District School Board.
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Bishop John Corriveau grew up in small-town Ontario and went on to
become the
worldwide leader of his religious order, the Franciscan Order of Friars
Minor
Capuchins, in 1994. During his two terms as Minister General of the
Capuchins,
he was based in Rome but travelled
widely. Upon
his return to Canada in 2006, he
was assigned to
work at St. Francis’ Table, a restaurant for the poor in Toronto’s Parkdale
area, where he
greeted guests and waited on tables. He was serving as Provincial
Minister of
the Capuchins’ Province of
Central Canada in November
2007 when Pope
Benedict XVI appointed him Bishop of Nelson. The diocese, located in
the
beautiful Okanagan and Kootenay regions of British Columbia, is home
to about 78,000
Catholics.
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Patrick Stewart
has spent the last 11 of his 18 years in the
Madonna House community serving at the Edmonton
inner-city
apostolate known as the Marian Centre. He was born in Frankfurt,
Germany,
and raised and
educated in the United
States.
He spent 11 years serving as a commissioned
officer in the U.S. Navy, a period in which he abandoned his Roman
Catholic
faith and committed himself to a secular vision of life.
Six months before ending his naval
career
however, Patrick was profoundly confronted by the shallowness of his
personal
life and the emptiness of his heart. A
Roman Catholic priest in North
Carolina, a friend of his
family, stepped into this void
and helped Stewart recover his faith and claim a long-denied call from
the
Lord. Patrick is also an accomplished artist with an international
patronage. |
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Prayer
Nothing More Beautiful
Heavenly Father,
we
come before you in praise and thanksgiving
for
you have called us to be your own.
You
sent your Word
to
bring us truth
and
your Spirit to make us holy.
Through
them we come to know
the
Beauty that is You.
Draw
us to a new encounter with Jesus, your Son.
Deepen
our love for His Church.
Help
us to embrace anew
the
beauty of our faith in all of its richness.
Empower
us to see there is nothing more beautiful
than
our relationship with You,
so
that we may reflect to others your image,
in
which we have been created.
We
pray that, rooted and grounded in your love,
and
through the healing power of the Cross of your Son,
we
may be strengthened for mission
by
your Holy Spirit.
We make this prayer through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Printer friendly version, hymnal-sized
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Prière
Rien
de plus beau
Père céleste,
Nous venons vers toi en te glorifiant
Et dans l’action de grâce,
Car tu nous appelles et nous t’appartenons.
Tu nous as donné ta Parole pour nous révéler la
Vérité
Et ton Esprit pour nous sanctifier.
Ils nous font découvrir que tu es de toute beauté.
Guide-nous vers une nouvelle rencontre avec Jésus, ton
Fils.
Approfondis notre amour pour Son Église.
Aide-nous à redécouvrir la beauté de notre foi
Dans toute sa richesse.
Donne-nous de saisir qu’il n’y a rien de plus beau
Que notre amitié avec toi
Afin que nous devenions pour les autres le reflet de ton image
À laquelle nous avons été créés.
Nous prions qu’enracinés fermement dans ton amour
Et réconciliés par la puissance de la Croix de ton Fils
Nous soyons fortifiés pour la mission
Par ton Esprit-Saint.
Nous te le demandons par le Christ notre Seigneur.
Amen.
Version
imprimable
Resource
Documents
The following
documents can provide insight into Nothing More Beautiful
and the new evangelization.
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In the Image and Likeness of God: Text
of Archbishop Richard Smith's opening presentation at the Nothing More
Beautiful encounter on December 12, 2008:
“Jesus
Christ is the answer to the question that is every human life.”
(cf. Pope John Paul II - Homily in Orioles Park at Camden Yards - 8
October 1995, n.6)
This is a quotation from the Servant of God, Pope John Paul II, of
blessed memory, who said: Every human life is a question, and Jesus is
the answer. The question of meaning in life; the question of human
destiny; the hungers of the human heart for love, relationship, peace;
the ultimate question of salvation: all find their answer or
fulfillment in Jesus Christ. He is the Son of God, truly God and truly
human. He reveals to us the truth about God; he reveals to us as well
the truth about ourselves
(cf. Gaudium et Spes, 21). Jesus is the answer to the question that is
every human life. Full text
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In the Image and Likeness of God: Text
of witness presentation by Lea
Singh at the Nothing More Beautiful encounter on December 12, 2008:
Pope Benedict
has
said: “There is nothing more beautiful than being a
Christian.” Why did he say that? I would have expected him to say that
there is nothing “better” than being a Christian. But instead, he
associates beauty and Christianity.
In
our culture,
we are taught to think of beauty as what we see on the front pages of
magazines, or in material things like beautiful cars or beautiful
homes. But the Gospel calls us to dig deeper. Seeing beauty on the
outside is just the most superficial way of seeing.
One of the times
when these two understandings of beauty became very clear for me was in
1997, when Princess Diana and Mother Teresa died within a couple of
months of each other. Princess Diana was an icon of the world’s
understanding of beauty. But Mother Teresa was a witness to the words
of Pope Benedict: “There is nothing more beautiful than being a
Christian.” It was her life that glowed like a bright lamp with the
authentic beauty of the Gospel.
Full text
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Homily of Archbishop Richard Smith on
the Feast of Triumph of the Cross, September 14, 2008
“…God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not
perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16.)
Our Gospel passage for today, taken from St. John, is a summons to joy
and hope. It announces the love of God for his people, and describes
that love as active and near. God does not remain distant from his
people, indifferent to their needs. On the contrary, God comes to us
and steps into our human reality, complete with its joys and sorrows,
hopes and pains, in order to lift us up, to be our strength and to save
us from all that endangers us. Full
text
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Pastoral Letter of Archbishop Smith on
the Solemnity of Pentecost, May 11, 2008
In St. Paul’s first
letter to the Christian community at Corinth he speaks beautifully of
the wonderful diversity of gifts given to the Church for the service of
God and His people: “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;
and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are
varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of
them in everyone.” ( 1 Corinthians
12: 4-6.) We celebrate on Pentecost Sunday the bestowal of the Holy
Spirit to the Church and the gifts He instills in the disciples of
Jesus Christ. I give God thanks for what is truly a wonderful variety
of charisms and good works among the faithful of the Archdiocese of
Edmonton. From the Christian witness I have encountered during my
first year as your Archbishop, it is clear that many of you have been
touched and transformed by the beauty of the Gospel. Through this
letter I wish to thank you for your wonderful service to the Church. At
the same time I wish to invite you to participate in an important
initiative by which we can share with others the joy that we have found
in our encounter with Jesus Christ. Full text
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Homily of His Holiness Benedict XVI at
Mass
of his Inauguration – April 2005
“There is nothing more
beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with
Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak
to others of our friendship with him.”
Full text
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Gaudium et Spes, 22 – Pastoral
Constitution
on the Church in the Modern World – Pope Paul VI (especially Ch.1, The
Dignity of the Human Person)
“It is only in
the mystery of the Word incarnate that light is shed on the mystery of
the human being.”
Full
text
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Internet: A New Forum for Proclaiming
the
Gospel – Message for 36th World Communications Day – Pope John Paul II
"The Church
approaches this new medium with realism and confidence. Like other
communications media, it is a means, not an end in itself. The Internet
can offer magnificent opportunities for evangelization if used with
competence and a clear awareness of its strengths and weaknesses. Above
all, by providing information and stirring interest it makes possible
an initial encounter with the Christian message, especially among the
young who increasingly turn to the world of cyberspace as a window on
the world. It is important, therefore, that the Christian community
think of very practical ways of helping those who first make contact
through the Internet to move from the virtual world of cyberspace to
the real world of Christian community." Full
text
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Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope
Benedict
XVI) speaks on The New Evangelization
"Human life
cannot be realized by itself. Our life is an open question, an
incomplete project, still to be brought to fruition and realized. Each
man´s fundamental question is: How will this be realized --
becoming man? How does one learn the art of living? Which is the path
toward happiness?
"To evangelize means: to show this path -- to teach the art of living.
At the beginning of his public life Jesus says: I have come to
evangelize the poor (Luke 4:18); this means: I have the response to
your fundamental question; I will show you the path of life, the path
toward happiness -- rather: I am that path." Full text
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More Beautiful? Some key contacts:
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Copyright of content and the design-mark " Nothing More Beautiful" are owned
by the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton 2008, or necessary copyright
permission has been obtained. Written permission from the Archdiocese
must be obtained prior to any copying or reproduction in whole or in
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