VATICAN CITY, MARCH 2, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher of the Pontifical Household, will dedicate his Lenten meditations this year to the theme «Remember your leaders and imitate their faith. The Fathers of the Church: Masters of Faith.»
As is customary, ZENIT will publish the complete texts of the reflections, starting next Friday, March 9. This first Friday of Lent was spent by the Pope and the curia in their annual Lenten retreat.
The theme is taken from the Letter to the Hebrews, and Father Cantalamessa explained in a note released by the Prefecture of the Pontifical Household that «in preparation for the Year of Faith called by the Holy Father Benedict XVI, the four Lenten sermons will seek to energize and refresh our beliefs through a renewed contact with ‘giants of faith’ of the past.»
Each week’s sermon will be dedicated to one of four great doctors of the Eastern Church: St. Athanasius, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Gregory Nyssa, «to see what each of them has to say to us today about the dogma they championed, respectively: the divinity of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity and knowledge of God.»
Quoting words of Servant of God Pope Paul VI, Fr. Cantalamessa noted that «returning to the Fathers of the Church is part of that return to the roots of Christianity without which it would be impossible to undertake biblical renewal, liturgical reform and the new theological research endorsed by Vatican Council II.»
