Catholicism

Stirred by the first Encyclical Letter of the Pope Benedict XVI sent to me by a friend, I looked up the Vatican's homepage and was surprised, amazed and joyed to find wholesome meditations, insightful prayers and wisdom on the internet. All in a delightfully and, I think, appropriate ceremonious tone. Check it out for yourselvses!

www.vatican.va

Here's an appetizer from the abovementioned Encyclical Letter:

"How might love be experienced so that it can fully realize its human and divine promise? Here we can find a first, important indication in the Song of Songs, an Old Testament book well known to the mystics. According to the interpretation generally held today, the poems contained in this book were originally love-songs, perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and meant to exalt conjugal love. In this context it is highly instructive to note that in the course of the book two different Hebrew words are used to indicate “love”. First there is the word dodim, a plural form suggesting a love that is still insecure, indeterminate and searching. This comes to be replaced by the word ahabà, which the Greek version of the Old Testament translates with the similar-sounding agape, which, as we have seen, becomes the typical expression for the biblical notion of love. By contrast with an indeterminate, “searching” love, this word expresses the experience of a love which involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice."

Very culturally relevant and beautifully insightful. They don't become popes for nothing!