The crucifixion date for Jesus is now determined to be April 3, 33. [1] But 1,979 years later, the Vatican is rife with intrigue, from power struggles and political backstabbing to financial mismanagement and corruption as well as the age-old question of whether or not the butler did it. [2] Paolo Gabriele, the Pope's butler, was charged with illegal possession of documents and arrested by the Vatican and placed in a cell within the Vatican. Was he the culprit or was he simply doing his duty, following orders to protect the Pope and the Catholic Church? If the butler turns out to be a pawn in the staging of evidence possibly by the Opus Dei which also happens to be the entity in charge of the investigations against a sinister player in this developing saga, then was he cooperating with Opus Dei in order to do God's work (pardon the pun)? If that is the case, who might this sinister character be? It seems that for now, all fingers are pointing to Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.
Who is Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone? He is Pope Benedict XVI's Secretary of State. Based on an article published by the Catholic Exchange on February 3, 2012, Cardinal Bertone seems to be an attention-hoarding, power-hungry Cardinal who acted as if he were the Pope. [3] Perhaps he is pro-Italy and in his mind it is time to return the control of the Vatican to the Italians, especially when Italy wants a share of the money the Catholic Church is pulling in to support the debt-ridden Italian government. In order to do so, Cardinal Bertone wanted more "confidentiality" rather than what the Pope wants which is transparency in the Vatican's financial operations. [4]
So where is God in all of this? I'm really not sure. You can "tweet" Pope Benedict XVI @Pope_Benedict. Maybe he has an answer. [5]
[1] http://news.discovery.com/history/jesus-crucifixion-120524.html
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/26/popes-butler-charged-leaked-letters
[3] http://catholicexchange.com/vatican-watch-cardinal-bertones-overreach/
[4] http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gWr-mfVtHJn9yNC5SdrRDVvw9x0A?docId=99326afe325b40028903beb8e4227ce8
[5] Follow-up: Pope Benedict XVI's sermon on this Pentecost Sunday at St. Peter's Basilica answers this question with circumlocutional eloquence: http://www.radiovaticana.org/en1/Articolo.asp?c=591415
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Thoughts On God, Saturday Vigil, May 19, 2012
It is not enough to be thankful for one's blessings; one needs to love God.
How? It's different for each person and everyone knows how deep down. It's natural to love.
How? It's different for each person and everyone knows how deep down. It's natural to love.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Thoughts On Mother Of God & Mom, Sunday, May 13, 2012
Reflections on Mother’s Day
I have my mom. I love her dearly because she is my mom, a mom whom I pray for and try to protect. I have another mother whom I also love because she is the Mother of God, a mother whom I pray to and ask for protection. I am incomplete without either and am grateful for both.
My mom is human and she has her failings and it is because of her failings that I have learned forgiveness. Mary, Mother of God, was human but I doubt she had many faults and even if she had them, the few she had been sanctified by her constant prayers and intercessions for those who go to her for help and for those who have failed to acknowledge her. The love of Mary is immense and I suppose humanly incomprehensible in many instances. It is because of the breadth of Mary’s love that I am able to reach for her forgiveness despite my continuous failings.
As a young child, I had daydreams about a mother’s love. Without really understanding it or perhaps not being able to obtain it when I needed it, I was only able to feel that love vicariously, by equating my love for my mom to my mom's love for me. That love in my fantasy world was inseparable from my very being and in its absence I was completely lost and in tears. I did not know Mary then, not in the way I know Mary now. I knew her to be the Mother of God but considered her to be a peripheral figure in my nascent self-formed beliefs in God, Satan, angels, demons, Heaven and Hell. Mary was not there when I was the boy who was seemingly lost, alone and distraught.
When such episodes vanish, I had my mom to go to and gone were my tears to be replaced by my mom’s presence and my contentedness to be by her side. No wonder Mary did not see a need to reveal herself and assert her constant love as if I were not being loved at all.
As I grew up, the boy in me did not. I still needed a lot of love, forgiveness and support but was too grown-up to rely on my mom for all of that. I needed a perfect mother to whom I could be fully truthful and bare my all and who would understand and love me unconditionally. It took time, but I found this love and my complete trust in Mary, Mother of God.
She came to me gently in the beginning because I did not know her. I felt that because she was my other mother, she was weak and that I needed to protect her. She proved me wrong and found the perfect chance to do so. I was moving from LA to SF one summer, loaded up my trunk and drove up Highway 5 when the passenger rear blew out in the middle of nowhere after a couple of hours of speeding. I was trying to loosen the lug nuts and could not. I did not know what to do (this was before cell phones were common). I said some Hail Marys but that did not work fast enough for me, so I thought that it was stupid to pray to Mary since she was a woman and she would be too weak to help me loosen them. Because I was not strong enough to do it myself, I prayed to Mary again and all of a sudden the first lug nut came loose, the rest of them then came off quickly. Perhaps it was pure physics, that time had passed and the wheel had just enough time to cool off for the lug nuts to come loose. Perhaps it was that, but I deliberately felt the heat on the metal and the nuts and all of them were still quite hot to the touch. Somehow I knew it was Mary who wanted to prove me wrong. This was the first time in my life I had felt Mary's presence. I am now convinced that Mary is strong, far stronger than I am, or any human for that matter.
From that time forward, Mary has been someone I go to, in happy times and in desperate, to share with her every aspect of my life that I am not prepared to share with my mom, for I do not wish to burden her with my internal struggles and unhappiness.
On this Mother’s Day, I am content that I have both my moms.
I have my mom. I love her dearly because she is my mom, a mom whom I pray for and try to protect. I have another mother whom I also love because she is the Mother of God, a mother whom I pray to and ask for protection. I am incomplete without either and am grateful for both.
My mom is human and she has her failings and it is because of her failings that I have learned forgiveness. Mary, Mother of God, was human but I doubt she had many faults and even if she had them, the few she had been sanctified by her constant prayers and intercessions for those who go to her for help and for those who have failed to acknowledge her. The love of Mary is immense and I suppose humanly incomprehensible in many instances. It is because of the breadth of Mary’s love that I am able to reach for her forgiveness despite my continuous failings.
As a young child, I had daydreams about a mother’s love. Without really understanding it or perhaps not being able to obtain it when I needed it, I was only able to feel that love vicariously, by equating my love for my mom to my mom's love for me. That love in my fantasy world was inseparable from my very being and in its absence I was completely lost and in tears. I did not know Mary then, not in the way I know Mary now. I knew her to be the Mother of God but considered her to be a peripheral figure in my nascent self-formed beliefs in God, Satan, angels, demons, Heaven and Hell. Mary was not there when I was the boy who was seemingly lost, alone and distraught.
When such episodes vanish, I had my mom to go to and gone were my tears to be replaced by my mom’s presence and my contentedness to be by her side. No wonder Mary did not see a need to reveal herself and assert her constant love as if I were not being loved at all.
As I grew up, the boy in me did not. I still needed a lot of love, forgiveness and support but was too grown-up to rely on my mom for all of that. I needed a perfect mother to whom I could be fully truthful and bare my all and who would understand and love me unconditionally. It took time, but I found this love and my complete trust in Mary, Mother of God.
She came to me gently in the beginning because I did not know her. I felt that because she was my other mother, she was weak and that I needed to protect her. She proved me wrong and found the perfect chance to do so. I was moving from LA to SF one summer, loaded up my trunk and drove up Highway 5 when the passenger rear blew out in the middle of nowhere after a couple of hours of speeding. I was trying to loosen the lug nuts and could not. I did not know what to do (this was before cell phones were common). I said some Hail Marys but that did not work fast enough for me, so I thought that it was stupid to pray to Mary since she was a woman and she would be too weak to help me loosen them. Because I was not strong enough to do it myself, I prayed to Mary again and all of a sudden the first lug nut came loose, the rest of them then came off quickly. Perhaps it was pure physics, that time had passed and the wheel had just enough time to cool off for the lug nuts to come loose. Perhaps it was that, but I deliberately felt the heat on the metal and the nuts and all of them were still quite hot to the touch. Somehow I knew it was Mary who wanted to prove me wrong. This was the first time in my life I had felt Mary's presence. I am now convinced that Mary is strong, far stronger than I am, or any human for that matter.
From that time forward, Mary has been someone I go to, in happy times and in desperate, to share with her every aspect of my life that I am not prepared to share with my mom, for I do not wish to burden her with my internal struggles and unhappiness.
On this Mother’s Day, I am content that I have both my moms.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Thoughts On God, Sunday, May 6, 2012
Dante Alighieri gave us a glimpse of how he was inspired to write:
In contrast, plenty of attention is paid to everything else aside from Love by today's media, as was probably in Dante's time as well. Love, which we all desire, is far down that list. It is almost undetectable and an embarrassment to verbalize and is equally as invisible as the miracle of our very existence. And love, which is God's nature and ours, us being God's creation, is as much a part of what is required to sustain life as life's most basic necessities.
Therefore, when love is being factored out or when it is being commoditized and monetized in every which way conceivable, we as a society are not well. A society that is sick and when its sickness is denied becomes sicker and sicker and its sustainability becomes more and more like God, hoped for but unattainable.
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Canto XXIV, p. 491. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
And I: "When Love inspires me with delightEven Dante took his cues from inspiration, and as talented as he was, he was unable to write on demand. Of all the things that could inspire him, Dante picked Love. It was Love, not power, fame, wealth, talent, beauty, possessions or the accomplishments of self or others that gave him his voice.
or pain, or longing, I take careful note,
and as he dictates in my soul, I write." [1]
In contrast, plenty of attention is paid to everything else aside from Love by today's media, as was probably in Dante's time as well. Love, which we all desire, is far down that list. It is almost undetectable and an embarrassment to verbalize and is equally as invisible as the miracle of our very existence. And love, which is God's nature and ours, us being God's creation, is as much a part of what is required to sustain life as life's most basic necessities.
Therefore, when love is being factored out or when it is being commoditized and monetized in every which way conceivable, we as a society are not well. A society that is sick and when its sickness is denied becomes sicker and sicker and its sustainability becomes more and more like God, hoped for but unattainable.
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Canto XXIV, p. 491. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
Friday, May 4, 2012
3 a.m. Telephone Call
BEIJING, China. It was more or less 3am EDT (Eastern Daylight Time) in Washington D.C. on or about April 29, 2012, when the telephone in the White House started ringing. America's children were safe and asleep. [1] On the other end was a blind Chinese activist (now a dissident [2]) critical of China's one-child enforcement tactics with a telephone on or about the same day, more or less 3pm CST (China Standard Time), calling the President of the United States from the US
Embassy in Beijing. No one picked up the call.
Meanwhile, Hillary was busy with a trip to Beijing. After she arrived, she picked up the telephone and spoke to the blind man. [3] Was this the 3am telephone call coming true? [1] The boss in the White House is still silent. The US President does not know what to do or say but the blind dissident had plenty to say and lots of ideas what he could do. He even called Congress. [4] During that call, the blind dissident said he wanted to leave China, fly to the US with Hillary, and rest. He said he had not rested for 10 years [5] even though he had been under house arrest for quite some time.
The story is still developing. It seems that the blind dissident has been offered a chance to study at NYU as a visiting scholar but the university did not indicate how long he would be permitted to visit. [6] He has also indicated that he feared for his immediate family and those who helped him escape. It is possible that this blind self-taught lawyer might organize a large community to protest against China's human rights record, perhaps as large as a 1/4 billion people and ask President Obama and NYU to bring them all to the United States so that they could rest in front of their televisions watching Wall Street protesters work on their behalf, to have the US government give them their entitlements, in the same way that he had been given food, shelter and healthcare in China [7]. He might even run for President as an even bigger community organizer than the current President of the United States, but not right away because he does not have a US birth certificate yet.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yr7odFUARg
[2] Definition of dissident (only for the purpose of this post): a person who is being dissed behind closed doors in Beijing and in Washington D.C.
[3] "Clinton urged China to protect human rights but made no specific mention of Chen, whom she had spoken to on Wednesday after he left the embassy." See http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/03/11514848-blind-activist-chen-guangcheng-i-want-to-leave-china-on-hillary-clintons-plane?lite
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD5BEYt9apY
[5] What do people do when they are under house arrest? Are they busy 24/7? They do not ever rest? Quite an exciting house arrest program China must have.
[6] http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/18145239/clinton-says-progress-made-in-resolving-chinese-dissident-dispute
[7] What exactly does this blind man do when he was under house arrest? How did he get to have a house in the first place and who provides him food, water, clothing and healthcare?
Meanwhile, Hillary was busy with a trip to Beijing. After she arrived, she picked up the telephone and spoke to the blind man. [3] Was this the 3am telephone call coming true? [1] The boss in the White House is still silent. The US President does not know what to do or say but the blind dissident had plenty to say and lots of ideas what he could do. He even called Congress. [4] During that call, the blind dissident said he wanted to leave China, fly to the US with Hillary, and rest. He said he had not rested for 10 years [5] even though he had been under house arrest for quite some time.
The story is still developing. It seems that the blind dissident has been offered a chance to study at NYU as a visiting scholar but the university did not indicate how long he would be permitted to visit. [6] He has also indicated that he feared for his immediate family and those who helped him escape. It is possible that this blind self-taught lawyer might organize a large community to protest against China's human rights record, perhaps as large as a 1/4 billion people and ask President Obama and NYU to bring them all to the United States so that they could rest in front of their televisions watching Wall Street protesters work on their behalf, to have the US government give them their entitlements, in the same way that he had been given food, shelter and healthcare in China [7]. He might even run for President as an even bigger community organizer than the current President of the United States, but not right away because he does not have a US birth certificate yet.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yr7odFUARg
[2] Definition of dissident (only for the purpose of this post): a person who is being dissed behind closed doors in Beijing and in Washington D.C.
[3] "Clinton urged China to protect human rights but made no specific mention of Chen, whom she had spoken to on Wednesday after he left the embassy." See http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/03/11514848-blind-activist-chen-guangcheng-i-want-to-leave-china-on-hillary-clintons-plane?lite
[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD5BEYt9apY
[5] What do people do when they are under house arrest? Are they busy 24/7? They do not ever rest? Quite an exciting house arrest program China must have.
[6] http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/18145239/clinton-says-progress-made-in-resolving-chinese-dissident-dispute
[7] What exactly does this blind man do when he was under house arrest? How did he get to have a house in the first place and who provides him food, water, clothing and healthcare?
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