A Teenage Victim

In the news this morning, a 58-year old woman driving a Mercedes-Benz SUV up to speeds of 128.75 kilometers per hour or 80 miles per hour on a city street slammed into a minivan stopped at a red traffic light, killing a 16-year old boy and critically injuring the mother and her daughter.  The driver of the SUV survived the crash with minor injuries.  The injured mother and daughter and the deceased teenage son were victims of a woman possessed by evil.

Do I even care?  I do care [1].  Not only do I care [1] about my family and friends, those who are part of my life temporarily, those who are not a part of my life but whom I see frequently and those with whom I share the same city but never met, I also care [1] about those with whom I share this world but a world apart, those who are in war zones, refugee camps, government offices, grand palaces, at home, at work or at play.  I care [1] because we are all part the whole of creation without regard to time and space and part of this living planet, breathing in the same air, drinking the same water and feeding off the same earth.  Even though we are not in proximity with each other, we are united by time -- the present -- and when one of us leaves us and this place that we once shared, we ought to feel that, just as much as we ought to feel for the ones who are still living and possessed by evil.  Those who have departed need our prayers so that they maybe forgiven and have salvation in heaven since they are not able to pray for forgiveness themselves anymore.  Those who are possessed by evil also need our prayers since they are so consumed by evil forces that they cannot see God anymore.  Our prayers would help extricate them from the suffocating grip of evil so that they would have another chance in choosing God over Satan.

If all of us can function as a whole, within the whole of creation, united to God, then truly we would be doing God's will on earth and it is in heaven.


[1] I must qualify the word "care" because there are varying degrees of care.  Sometimes I wonder if I even care even though I would like to think that I do.  Sometimes I am impatient or upset and care only about myself and that is not good.  Then there are times that I care and pray for everyone.  Those are the times I feel the happiest and like myself the best.

My E-mail To Unversalis.com

The following e-mail was sent today regarding:

Midday Prayer Friday 27 September 2013

Dear Unversalis,

First of all, thank you for the website.

Today, I have questions on one of the prayers at Sext.  The prayer follows with the word in question highlighted:

Let us pray.
Lord Jesus Christ,
  who at this sixth hour, when the whole world was shrouded in darkness,
  mounted the wood of the cross
  as the innocent victim for our redemption,
give us always that light
  which will bring us to eternal life.
You live and reign for ever and ever.
Amen.

Why is Christ, the Son of God who chose freely to obey His Father, to suffer and be crucified for the redemption of Sin, a victim?  Can Christ Who is part of the Holy Trinity can ever be a victim?  Was Christ not someone who could have walked away from the Cross freely by choosing a different birth, a different path, or by submitting Himself to the will of the ruling Jews and Romans?  Was He not trying to set an example for all of us, to become leaders, to speak His Truth, to become His warriors, to battle for and become a testament to the Truth?  Is it not true that a victim has the right to blame others for their plight?  Did any of Christ's disciples blame anyone for theirs?  Do you think any one of them would consider themselves to be hapless victims rather than saviors of souls?  Do you think that Christ ever thought the He was a victim of circumstances beyond His control and therefore we can rightly consider Him to be a "victim"?

I would be most grateful if you are able to answer my questions and enlighten me.

Thank you.

Al

God And Natural Disasters

Question #1:  "Where is God when natural disasters strike?"
Question #2:  "Why does God allow natural disasters to happen?"

Questions similar to these have been asked and none of the answers that I have heard was satisfactory.  Perhaps there is no good answer.  Certainly I do not have any, but I have questions, and I will ask them, even though they may sound offensive to many because I am rude for replying to question with a question and because some of my questions may go too far into one's conscience and may make people feel uneasy..

To those asking question #1, I ask:

Is it possible that God is where God was placed at the last wild party, while on vacation, when hurting the ones who love you, when betraying the Truth, or during all those calm days and years before the earthquakes, the sunamis, the volcanic eruptions, the tornadoes, the heavy rains, the floods and/or landslides, at that forgotten place called  NOWHERE, or OBLIVION, or maybe INDIFFERENCE?

Is it possible that it does not matter even if God is sitting at our dinner table asking us to do the same things Christ in the Gospels and the Blessed Virgin Mary during her many apparitions have asked us to do in order to avoid such calamities, because those requests would go in one ear and out the other after God leaves, and on the very next day, we would go back to the status quo, doing the same things we are used to doing, that we had done just yesterday, and the years before?  Would we even believe that disaster will come upon us when we feel so secure in our own environment?  Have we believed in the words in the Book of Revelations?  Do we even believe that things might change for the worse if we do not pray? [1]  Do we believe in evil, in Satan and its works? [2]  Do we truly believe in God, and are we truly kind, forgiving and loving in the way we want God us to be, I mean TRULY?  And if we are true followers of God, and pray with sincerity and humility and love, would we even suffer the consequences of a natural disaster in a big way? [3]

To those asking question #2, I ask:

Whose earth is it anyway?  Is it ours to claim?  Has it not been ours to abuse and destroy, disrespecting the natural order of Mother Nature?  Do we deny that earthquakes, sunamis, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, heavy rains, floods and landslides occur since we live in the very areas, build dwellings and amass possessions that are exposed to such known risks, however infrequent they occur or recur?  Why do we blame God for all that we have done to this planet?  Why do we blame God for our collective sins?  Are we perfect like God so that God is obligated to save us because we are sinless and identical to God in every way?  Do we find God to be imperfect and unfair because natural phenomenons occur, when they have been part of the natural course of events before we existed?  How can we expect to live in harmony with Mother Nature when we are so selfish, claiming Mother Nature to be ours to uproot, to carve out, to abuse and manipulate in every possible way using every possible means, invented and yet to be invented, to destroy it?  Is it not a natural law for all things to return to an equilibrium?  Does Mother Nature not have a right, under God Who created her, to assert her right to be beautiful and pristine again?  Did God give us humans the unfettered right to make Mother Nature our slave mother, to submit to our every whim, however self-centered?  Did God not give us the answer to the previous question by giving force and power to Mother Nature?

Can we honestly claim that we are victims of natural disasters or are we victims of our own Free Will making the wrong choices?  And why do we call merely natural phenomenons natural disasters?  Does placing ourselves deliberately in the path of natural phenomenons turn them into natural disasters?  Can we do no wrong?  Has our pride blinded us to the fact that perhaps we are the disasters? [4]

To those going to ask a combination of question #1 and #2, I have an answer:

On the one hand, I assert that we have abused Mother Nature and that she has the right and the power to reclaim what belongs to her while on the other hand, I assert that God will protect us against the wrath of Mother Nature if we prayed with sincerity, humility and love.  Does that mean that praying in such a manner would give us the right to abuse Mother Nature because we would be protected?  No.  Praying in such a manner does not mean we would be protected fully; it just means that by the grace and love of God, we are forgiven of our past selfishness and given another chance at life, however inconvenient or difficult it might be compared to what life was like before.  Therefore, we ought to wake up, to ask God always to lead us onto the right path and redirect us back to it whenever we stray, so that by praying daily with sincerity, humility and love and by our continuous and sincere efforts in following Christ, we could be saved by the mercy and love of God, in the flesh during this lifetime and in the spirit for an eternity afterwards.



[1] Think carefully, and deeply.  Things have already changed in the world for the worse because so many have not believed or  prayed.
[2] First arm yourself with the Truth of God in your heart, then look around, look into the eyes and conscience of those around you, especially the liars and hypocrites, and you will see.
[3] What about those who for the sake of God are/were persecuted and martyred?  Persecutions are not natural disasters.  Nonetheless, I am convinced that those persecuted and martyred have a special and close relationship with God and have been given God's peace while in life as their flesh suffered.
[4] On Judgment Day, when we face the Truth, there is nobody to blame but ourselves.  Better own up to our own mistakes now and take responsibility for our own choices and pray for forgiveness before it is too late.  There is no benefit in being bitter and blaming God for the ills and pains in our lives unless one wants to please Satan and aspires to spending an eternity in Hell.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux on Humility

In her autobiography, Thérèse of Lisieux wrote: "Many of the Sisters think that you [Mother Marie de Gonzague, Prioress] spoiled me, that since my entrance into the holy ark, I have received from you nothing but caresses and compliments.  Nevertheless, it was not so.  You will see, dear Mother, in the copybook containing my childhood memories, what I think of the strong and maternal education I received from you.  From the bottom of my heart I want to thank you for not sparing me.  Jesus knew very well that His little flower stood in need of the living waters of humiliation, for she was too weak to take root without this kind of help, and it was through you, dear Mother, that this blessing was given to me." (Emphasis original) [1]

At any time when we think we are too wise to heed the teachings of Christ through the words of another, too self-sufficient, too invincible to supplicate or too proud of our own experiences and intellect is when we become weak.  We cannot "take root" in the fertile soil of Goodness when we, as living creatures that need to feed on wholesomeness which springs forth from God's plenitude of gifts, are too proud or busy to nurture and cultivate the spiritual vastness that characterizes our souls.  Without the Food of Life, our souls wither like a flower without water, and our life is without meaning like a blossom without fragrance or color.  Without the kind of help that Thérèse received from her Prioress, we are but weaklings, vulnerable to the influences of evil.

Even Thérèse of Lisieux, as saintly as she was, was not free from the sin of pride.  The "strong and maternal education" she received from her Mother was probably kind but stern.  These lessons were for Thérèse the "living waters of humiliation," lessons that were blessings from Jesus.  These lessons she learned well and she reached a point where she no longer needed them.

"For a year and a half now, Jesus has willed to change the manner of making His little flower grow.  He has no doubt found her sufficiently watered, for now it is the sun that aids her growth.  Jesus wants to give her nothing but His smile and this He does through you, dear Mother.  This gentle sun, far from causing the little flower to wilt, makes her progress in a marvelous manner.  She preserves, in the bottom of her calyx, the precious drops of dew she had received, and these serve to remind her always how little and weak she is."  (Emphasis original) [2].

I suppose only a saint can ever reach the apex of holiness where lessons of humility are no longer necessary save a few drops of "living waters of humiliation" preserved purposefully as a reminder of how precarious the grounds of holiness are, how much care needs to be exercised to avoid misstepping, for it is easy to misstep and be once again engulfed by the quicksand of evil.  For most of the rest of us, we need to be taught lessons of humility, over and over, so that we, too, can be strong and stand firm like Thérèse on the grounds of holiness and not fall into the putrid sinkholes of pride that trap us without warning, requiring much effort from those trying to extricate us and our willingness to be extricated and washed clean by the "living waters of humiliation."

The day we are able to emerge under the soft embracing rays of the warm sun smelling fresh like an unfolding blossom nurtured by the "living waters of humiliation," we must be vigilant, especially while others are looking at us, wherever we go, at how beautiful we are, as Thérèse was vigilant after she attained her state of saintliness: "All creatures can bow toward her, admire her, and shower their praises upon her.  I don't know why this is, but none of this could add one single drop of false joy she experiences in her heart.  Here she sees herself as she really is in God's eyes:  a poor little thing, nothing at all." [3], [4].

In true humility, we are nothing at all, for all the good and beauty that we have come from God.  Without God, we are but shades without light, where fulfillment of the spirit does not exist, giving way to the emptiness of attention and vapidity of earthly honors, the kinds of nourishment that do not feed but rather starve the prideful soul, that it sadly, but insatiably, craves.



[1] Thérèse, de Lisieux, Saint.  Story of a Soul The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux . 3rd Edition. Translated by John Clarke, O.C.D.  Washington D.C.:  Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc., 1996, p.206.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] "I say I do not know why, but [is] it because she was preserved from the water of praise all the time her little calyx [was sufficiently] filled with the dew of humiliation?  Now there is no longer any danger; on the contrary, the little flower finds the dew with which she was filled so delightful that she would be very careful not to exchange it for the insipid water of praise."  Ibid.  I used brackets in the quote because I took out the double negative in the original translated sentence: "I say I do not know why, but isn't it because she was preserved from the water of praise all the time her little calyx was not sufficiently filled with the dew of humiliation?" Emphasis added.

Defeating Evil

Evil exists.

Evil was present before and during the time of Christ and it is not going anywhere or diminishing in power or influence.  Evil is present in the very people who are around us and among us.  They can be people we know or do not know, people who walk, who drive, who make laws, who are victims, heroes, celebrities, reporters, movie stars, entrepreneurs, white collar workers and blue collar laborers.  In short, they can be us.

Indeed, evil is present in us, from a small to a large extent.  In the absence of evil, there is the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the angels [1] and in the absence of good, there is Satan and its minions.

In each and every moment of every day, we have a choice between good and evil.  It is easy to be good when everything is going smoothly but not so easy when nothing seems to be right, when one unfortunate incident is followed by a next and a next.  That is when we are being tested, as Christ was being tested, first by a betrayal, then by scourging, followed by public humiliation wearing a crown of thorns before being crucified.  None of us have days as bad as that in these modern times but none of us is Christ in these times either.  We do, however, have bad days, and days when luck is just not on our side.  Those difficult days are days when prayers do not seem to matter, when we find ourselves distancing from the very goodness that we have sought before, when we become angrier and angrier, more and more judgmental, more and more vengeful and when that happens, we had better realize quickly where we are headed, and say some serious prayers before we find ourselves falling deeper and deeper into the vortex that is forever spinning toward the pits of Hell. [2].

Saying it another way, when we lose our patience, our tolerance, when we become unforgiving of others, when we lash out, that is when we become ugly (just look in the mirror) and that ugliness will become permanent if we continue down this path that Satan so enterprisingly put before us, for us to go on, to lead us to its disgusting and repulsive embrace.  During these times, we seem to be beside ourselves, losing control of ourselves, but we must not minimize or forget or let go of what is important, which is our focus on what is good, on God, so that we can to return to our prayers, and find our way back to our center, where we have Christ in the middle of His Passion, where we have the Blessed Virgin Mary praying incessantly, where evil can be soundly defeated, when we are able to look again in the mirror and see the reflection of love and kindness deep in our souls, until we become again vulnerable to our shortcomings, to the difficulties that confront us, when evil rises up once more, working assiduously to capture us and chain us to a hate that crescendos endlessly.  This cycle continues and continuously we must break it.




[1] Saints are not included because they were all born with Original Sin.
[2] One helpful reading is quoted below.  It is part of the Compline (Night Prayer) from Universalis.com on for Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at http://universalis.com/20130918/compline.htm   NOTE: Since universalis.com updates continuously, the link to this page with the Psalm below may no longer be available.

Psalm 30 (31)
Trustful prayer in time of adversity

O God, be my protector and my refuge.

In you, Lord, I put my trust: may I never be put to shame.

  In your justice, set me free,

Turn your ear to me,

  make haste to rescue me.

Be my rampart, my fortification;

  keep me safe. 

For you are my strength and my refuge:

  you will lead me out to the pastures,

  for your own name’s sake.

You will lead me out of the trap that they laid for me –

  for you are my strength. 

Into your hands I commend my spirit:

  you have redeemed me, Lord God of truth. 

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,

  as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,

  world without end.

Amen.

O God, be my protector and my refuge.

[3]

Christ's Love

Christ loves us all equally and completely with undiminished intensity  [1] even though He loves each of us differently.  For example, Christ loves Peter and gave him the Mother Church [2], and Christ also loves John but gave him His mother. [3]  It is not for us to judge, or be jealous of, the way Christ loves another one of us. [4]  Be content to know that we are loved, and to the best of our abilities, love God in return. [5]

[1] That remains true until we reject God in favor of Satan.
[2] Matthew 16:18
[3] John 19:26-27
[4] John 21:20-23.
[5] This applies in a family situation as well where a parent loves each child differently.  It is incumbent upon each child to return the love without weighing on a scale how much love was received relative to his/her siblings.

Temptations And The Tempter

A week ago I wrote in a footnote that temptation in and of itself is not evil but the inability to resist it is [1].  While resisting one luscious temptation after another offered by others everywhere is not easy, especially when the next temptation is even more luring, when it excites and heightens even more our deep seated desires, whatever they maybe at the moment, resisting the urge to tempt another [2] with increasing intensity, each time with an even redder and sweeter and more fragrant "forbidden" fruit in order to exhume another's forsaken debaucheries is more difficult, because when one is the tempter, he/she has already succumbed to the tenacious grip of the Dark Archangel of All Temptations and is already doing the work of Satan.

It is very difficult to see ourselves as slaves of Satan even though every day most of us inevitably do some of its work, either deliberately or unknowingly.  None of us has the power to overcome Satan's will and dominance over us without prayer.

Adam, a creation of God, given his Free Will and everything else any human would ever want without having to work for any of it, was unable to resist the Serpent's one and only temptation because the Evil One is powerful.  It took the Son of God, Himself a part of the Holy Trinity, to be able to freely resist and reject without reservation the advances of Satan [3] and the Mother of God, conceived without Sin by the Holy Spirit, to do the same.

Accordingly, prayers are the salvation of our souls and the souls of those for whom we pray.  I believe it to be worthwhile to place God daily on our minds, on our lips and in our hearts.

God Bless.



[1] http://lemomentdepaix.blogspot.com/2013/09/another-thought-on-good-and-evil_7.
[2] Although I maintain that a temptation is not in and of itself evil, it does not follow that being the tempter is not evil.  The tempter is evil.  Temptation has to exist for Free Will to veer away from all that is good without being asked to do so.  What an entreater of temptation does is to manipulate and deceive Free Will to embrace what is evil -- that is an active force of evil and has in its center the energy and very essence of Evil.
[3] Martyrs and saints had been able to withstand Satan's beckonings, bribes or torments with the grace of God.  None of them had lived their entire lives without Original Sin and its progeny in thought or in deed.  If any of them had, then he/she would have been like the Blessed Virgin Mary Who was entirely human and entirely sinless, and there has been no record of anyone before or since who has been so blessed.

One Of Mother Angelica's Visions

A viewer called in during Mother Angelica's live program in 1999 [1] and told Mother that she was spending more time in than out of the hospital, and that she was often visited by a sister (not certain if she is a sister-nun or sister-relative) who questioned God as to why people had to suffer.  Mother responded by recalling an earlier time when she was starting ETWN, when she was sick, when the broadcasting business was losing money, when she went to pray in a chapel, asking, "Why me?" since she did not know anything about broadcasting and had no interest in it.  She asked "why" many times.  Then she said she heard a quiet voice that said to her after a sigh: "Why me?"  After she heard that, conjuring up images of Christ's suffering, His crucifixion and His resurrection, she said she never asked that question again.

Without a doubt in my mind, that was an encounter with Christ.

On the question of why there is suffering, the Blessed Virgin Mary of Kibeho had this to say [2]:

5. The suffering that saves:
This subject is among the most important among the revelations in Kibeho, particularly for Natalie Mukamazimpaka. Suffering, which is unavoidable in this life, is necessary for Christians to attain eternal glory. On May 15, 1982, Mary said to her visionaries, especially to Natalie, "No one will reach heaven without suffering," or, "A child of Mary does not reject suffering." Suffering is both a means of compensating for the sins of the world and participating in Jesus' and Mary's sufferings for the salvation of the world. The visionaries were invited through this address to live very specifically, accepting suffering through faith in love, mortifying themselves and denying themselves pleasures for the conversion of the world. Thus, Kibeho is a reminder of the role of the cross in the life of a Christian and the Church. 

I had asked a priest when I was still a teenager, a priest who later accused me of something I did not do, who refused to accept the truth of the matter by drawing his own conclusion based on what he thought the truth was, a variation of the same question: When you are in pain, do you pray to God to take away the pain?  His answer was to ask God to help you endure the pain.  His name was Fr. Andrew.  He died from a heart attack one afternoon many years later when he was rushing to Vespers, I think.  He collapsed right before he entered the room.  When I asked Fr. Andrew the question, I was thinking only of physical pain.  What he accused me of doing gave me pain that was not physical.  I can still recall that pain today, whenever I recall the episode, although it is much attenuated by the passage of time.  The memory of this pain never left me because I never prayed to God to help me endure it.  I was determined to face it on my own.



[1] A recording of Mother Angelica's Classic that was re-broadcasted today on EWTN.
[2] http://www.kibeho.org/en/mary.php

Homily At the Vigil For Peace - September 7, 2013

Vigil for peace homily on September 7, 2013, follows [1]:

“And God saw that it was good” (Gen 1:12, 18, 21, 25). The biblical account of the beginning of the history of the world and of humanity speaks to us of a God who looks at creation, in a sense contemplating it, and declares: “It is good”. This allows us to enter into God’s heart and, precisely from within him, to receive his message. We can ask ourselves: what does this message mean? What does it say to me, to you, to all of us?

It says to us simply that this, our world, in the heart and mind of God, is the “house of harmony and peace”, and that it is the space in which everyone is able to find their proper place and feel “at home”, because it is “good”. All of creation forms a harmonious and good unity, but above all humanity, made in the image and likeness of God, is one family, in which relationships are marked by a true fraternity not only in words: the other person is a brother or sister to love, and our relationship with God, who is love, fidelity and goodness, mirrors every human relationship and brings harmony to the whole of creation. God’s world is a world where everyone feels responsible for the other, for the good of the other. This evening, in reflection, fasting and prayer, each of us deep down should ask ourselves: Is this really the world that I desire? Is this really the world that we all carry in our hearts? Is the world that we want really a world of harmony and peace, in ourselves, in our relations with others, in families, in cities, in and between nations? And does not true freedom mean choosing ways in this world that lead to the good of all and are guided by love?

But then we wonder: Is this the world in which we are living? Creation retains its beauty which fills us with awe and it remains a good work. But there is also “violence, division, disagreement, war”. This occurs when man, the summit of creation, stops contemplating beauty and goodness, and withdraws into his own selfishness. When man thinks only of himself, of his own interests and places himself in the centre, when he permits himself to be captivated by the idols of dominion and power, when he puts himself in God’s place, then all relationships are broken and everything is ruined; then the door opens to violence, indifference, and conflict. This is precisely what the passage in the Book of Genesis seeks to teach us in the story of the Fall: man enters into conflict with himself, he realizes that he is naked and he hides himself because he is afraid (cf. Gen 3: 10), he is afraid of God’s glance; he accuses the woman, she who is flesh of his flesh (cf. v. 12); he breaks harmony with creation, he begins to raise his hand against his brother to kill him. Can we say that from harmony he passes to “disharmony”? No, there is no such thing as “disharmony”; there is either harmony or we fall into chaos, where there is violence, argument, conflict, fear ....

It is exactly in this chaos that God asks man’s conscience: “Where is Abel your brother?” and Cain responds: “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen 4:9). We too are asked this question, it would be good for us to ask ourselves as well: Am I really my brother’s keeper? Yes, you are your brother’s keeper! To be human means to care for one another! But when harmony is broken, a metamorphosis occurs: the brother who is to be cared for and loved becomes an adversary to fight, to kill. What violence occurs at that moment, how many conflicts, how many wars have marked our history! We need only look at the suffering of so many brothers and sisters. This is not a question of coincidence, but the truth: we bring about the rebirth of Cain in every act of violence and in every war. All of us! And even today we continue this history of conflict between brothers, even today we raise our hands against our brother. Even today, we let ourselves be guided by idols, by selfishness, by our own interests, and this attitude persists. We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves. As if it were normal, we continue to sow destruction, pain, death! Violence and war lead only to death, they speak of death! Violence and war are the language of death!

At this point I ask myself: Is it possible to change direction? Can we get out of this spiral of sorrow and death? Can we learn once again to walk and live in the ways of peace? Invoking the help of God, under the maternal gaze of the Salus Populi Romani, Queen of Peace, I say: Yes, it is possible for everyone! From every corner of the world tonight, I would like to hear us cry out: Yes, it is possible for everyone! Or even better, I would like for each one of us, from the least to the greatest, including those called to govern nations, to respond: Yes, we want it! My Christian faith urges me to look to the Cross. How I wish that all men and women of good will would look to the Cross if only for a moment! There, we can see God’s reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with the language of death. In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue, and peace is spoken.

This evening, I ask the Lord that we Christians, and our brothers and sisters of other religions, and every man and woman of good will, cry out forcefully: violence and war are never the way to peace! Let everyone be moved to look into the depths of his or her conscience and listen to that word which says: Leave behind the self-interest that hardens your heart, overcome the indifference that makes your heart insensitive towards others, conquer your deadly reasoning, and open yourself to dialogue and reconciliation. Look upon your brother’s sorrow and do not add to it, stay your hand, rebuild the harmony that has been shattered; and all this achieved not by conflict but by encounter!

May the noise of weapons cease! War always marks the failure of peace, it is always a defeat for humanity. Let the words of Pope Paul VI resound again: “No more one against the other, no more, never! ... war never again, never again war!” (Address to the United Nations, 1965). “Peace expresses itself only in peace, a peace which is not separate from the demands of justice but which is fostered by personal sacrifice, clemency, mercy and love” (World Day of Peace Message, 1975). Forgiveness, dialogue, reconciliation – these are the words of peace, in beloved Syria, in the Middle East, in all the world! Let us pray for reconciliation and peace, let us work for reconciliation and peace, and let us all become, in every place, men and women of reconciliation and peace! Amen.

[1]  http://www.news.va/en/news/prayer-vigil-for-peace-homily-of-pope-francis
This was the best event this papacy had conducted so far.  To whoever composed this homily, I say, please give us more of such kinds of homilies.  Again, never being fully satisfied with excellence, I would like to have woven delicately and seamlessly into the homily what the Blessed Virgin Mary told the visionaries between 1981 and 1983 at Kibeho, Rwanda, about the need to pray with purity of heart and saying the rosary regularly, about 11 - 13 years before the Rwandan genocide in 1994.  See http://www.kibeho.org/en/mary.php and http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/genocide_in_rwanda.htm

Another Thought On Good And Evil

Good which comes from God is constant, unwavering and eternal, and it is always present.  If goodness has a human image, it is one with open arms and a welcoming smile waiting patiently for us to approach.  It is not an action figure, but rather a passive one.  This is because we have been given Free Will to either embrace or reject it.  Therefore it does not come toward us; we have to go toward it.  The steps going toward the good are not easy steps because we are predisposed to Original Sin, and its variations are chains around our bodies that weigh us down, keeping us from moving forward easily.  In order to proceed toward goodness, we must remove link by link from each interlocking chain that enslaves us.

In contrast, evil is not a creation of God; it exists by default because of Free Will [1].  Since Free Will exists co-extensively with goodness, it is always present and therefore evil, which is derived from Free Will making the wrong choice, too, is always present.  Evil was manifested when Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit and when Lucifer rebelled against God.  And when Lucifer became Hell's Satan, evil became far more sophisticated because the Fallen Angel continues to possess the extreme intellect of an angel and has used that intellect to make evil almost irresistible to humans, creatures that Lucifer has always despised.

If evil has a human image, it is one that has a seductive smile that awakens sinful desires and it is beckoning with seductive fingers on the hand of an outstretched arm, motioning us to approach, almost touching us.  Evil is an action figure and its craftiness compels us to act.  The temptations are so powerful that unless we resist them, we fall into Satan's trap that offers one temptation after another, with each successive temptation more desirable than the last until we begin to create or imagine for ourselves temptations that we desire and that we continuously seek but not find.  That one day when we realize what has been happening, we will see the sign: Welcome to Hell!  Hopefully, it is not too late to unchain ourselves completely and fly toward the open arms of goodness that have been waiting so patiently for our return.



[1] The serpent in the Garden of Eden is not in and of itself evil because temptation in and of itself is not evil, but the inability to resist it is evil.  Then the next question is whether Adam and Eve's desire to be powerful like God an evil thing created by God.  My answer is no because Free Will necessitates the rejection of good.  Evil therefore exists by default.

"The World Over" On EWTN

Raymond Arroyo said on the program "The World Over" that aired on September 5, 2013, that "we [the United States] are destroying the cradle of Christianity all over the Middle East," following a video of foes of the Assad forces targeting a Christian community which made him recall his many discussions on this very topic he had on his program during and after the war in Iraq.

It is my belief that Satan is behind all of this misery by making those in power its puppets on earth.  Accordingly, I predict that the United States will attack Syria [1] although I continue to pray that it will not, that the president will be granted the fortitude of Christ to say: "Away from me, Satan!" [2], [3]


[1]  If not this administration, then a subsequent one, unless the nation returns to one under God and the government runs the country consistent with the teachings of Christ without hypocrisy.
[2] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+4%3A1-11&version=NIV, line 10.
[3] Obama is not quite Satan.  But see http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/09/04/egyptian-media-portray-obama-as-satan/  Satan is far, far more beguiling.  There is still hope for him to defeat Satan.  He must not miss the chance to save his soul by choosing peace.  Because Satan is so powerful, no one can escape its temptations without supplication, without praying the rosary. 

Wars Of Pride

Humility never leads to war.  Pride does [1], [2].  Pride also led to Lucifer's fall from heaven.  Lucifer is the crown prince of pride, now residing as Satan in Hell.  Accordingly, all wars are conceived by Satan and executed by its minions.  Satan wants to rule the whole world but it has to amass power, and it has, by transforming those in the seat of power with a myriad of temptations, of which the temptation of pride is the most powerful.   The only way to stop Satan is by praying, by supplicating.  There is no other.

[1] Avarice is the bride of pride and insatiability is her constitution.  Avarice will lead to war.  The Iraq war in my opinion is an example of a war out of avarice for oil and personal wealth.
[2] The insatiability for power and control is also the spouse of pride.  This defect is especially prominent in those who rise to position of influence who may have had come from broken families, poverty and/or a cultural or racial underclass that had been the subject of discrimination.

Multiple Choice

1.  ____________ is to the United States as ____________ is to the Russian Federation.

A.  Rawanda
B.  Syria
C.  Sudan (Dafur)
D.  Israel
E.  None of the above

(Answer:  D, B)
 

2.  ____________ is for peace and ____________ is for war.

A.  Christ
B.  Satan

(Hint:  "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God."  See http://biblehub.com/matthew/5-9.htm)

Vatican's Anemic Call For Peace

The Vatican is asking for prayers and fasting on September 7, at 7 p.m., Rome time. [1]  I hope that it would not be too late or too little to stop the missiles from landing in Syria.  We will all know soon enough.

Even though I criticize the pope for his lack of severe condemnation of the "dramatic developments" [2] that were taking place, i.e., the calls for war against Syria, and for the lack of impassioned pleas for peace, he gets credit, albeit very little, for at least saying something, however feeble, however seemingly reluctantly, and for planning a prayer service.

Why does the voice of Christ sound so diplomatic?  Was he speaking as the head of state?  The Vicar of Christ ought not to assume the role of a politician but instead continue to walk on the ground of sinners carrying their cross.  The suffering and crucifixion of Christ, acts of complete selflessness of God the Father sacrificing a part of the Holy Trinity to redeem us from Adam and Eve's Original Sin (hereafter "Sin"), does not mean the death and eradication of Sin's progeny.  Nor does the resurrection of Christ mean that the path to salvation is free-for-all without any personal accountability.  The off-springs of Sin continues to proliferate.  Therefore, the cross that Christ bore that carried the weight of the Original Sin has been transformed and passed onto Peter and his successors, though no longer bearing the weight of Sin, is now carrying the weight of the multitude of sins that are committed continuously by us on earth, directly and indirectly.  This cross that has been handed down from Peter is not a glamorous ornament to be hung around the neck; it is filthy and disgusting, and it is heavy.  For a pope to gloss over an impending war with diplomatic words or by symbolic deeds is to demean the purpose of Christ's life, to secularize His death and to be indifferent to or to disbelieve in His resurrection.  In a time of looming crisis, one evening of prayer and fasting is not enough and words from the throne of Peter that are not rooted in the foundation of Christ's existence are empty.  



[1] http://www.news.va/en/news/pope-francis-renewed-appeal-for-peace-full-text
[2] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/pope-announces-day-fasting-prayer-syria

Behind The Glass

I have been thinking about my entry last Thursday: Life is about becoming invisible yourself and transparent like a piece of glass so others see a bit of Christ through you. [1]  Today, I would like to expand on it.  Since Christ is the Light, the Light that illuminates the path to God, then those who are able see a glimpse of Light behind your piece of glass will not only be shown the path lit by Christ, the Light will also illuminate their spirits, if only momentarily. [2]

[1] http://lemomentdepaix.blogspot.com/2013/08/no-need-to-write-book-on-life.html
[2] If one's existence becomes that piece of glass through which the Light of Christ can be seen, it draws attention, whether wanted or unwanted.  Sometimes those who are drawn to the illumination of Christ are like the black holes in the universe, they crave light and swallow it into their bottomless pit of blackness where it does not escape.  Stay away from these dark creatures for they have sold their souls to the Devil.  They, like Satan, want to devour the Light of Christ but they cannot but that does not mean they would not try and try again, ceaselessly.  Draw a line and be firm so that God's inner peace can exist without being disturbed by these shameless and virtually soulless entities (they are shades in my earlier posts).  Other times there are those who see the Light and are frightened.  You can detect the depth of their fear, the fear of God, even as they try not to reveal it on their faces.  Deep in the souls of these pitiful people, they are in denial of the Truth.  These people need to be saved by prayers.  Then there are those who are oblivious of the Light but have not yet sold their souls.  Because they do not see the Light, they also cannot hear the Truth.  Let them be, for they know their Free Will and by the grace of God, they would one day choose to see and hear.

Isaiah 17, Amos 6 And Matthew 24

Recent momentous events developing around the world have led me to scour for biblical answers on the internet based on my conclusion that a war in Syria will lead to both the destruction of both Syria and Israel because in a war involving these countries could mark the beginning of World War III where in the end nobody wins and everybody loses and suffers.  My conclusion can be supported by Isaiah 17 that prophesied the doom of Damascus [1] and by Amos 6 that prophesied the doom of Israel [2].  World War III is not inevitable, but should it take place it could be the precursor of another biblical prophesy: the end of the world [3].


[1] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+17&version=NIV

Isaiah 17

New International Version (NIV)

A Prophecy Against Damascus

17 A prophecy against Damascus:

“See, Damascus will no longer be a city
    but will become a heap of ruins.
² The cities of Aroer will be deserted
    and left to flocks, which will lie down,
    with no one to make them afraid.
³ The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim,
    and royal power from Damascus;
the remnant of Aram will be
    like the glory of the Israelites,”
declares the Lord Almighty.

⁴ “In that day the glory of Jacob will fade;
    the fat of his body will waste away.
⁵ It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain,
    gathering the grain in their arms—
as when someone gleans heads of grain
    in the Valley of Rephaim.
⁶ Yet some gleanings will remain,
    as when an olive tree is beaten,
leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches,
    four or five on the fruitful boughs,”
declares the Lord, the God of Israel.

⁷ In that day people will look to their Maker
    and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.
⁸ They will not look to the altars,
    the work of their hands,
and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles^[a]
    and the incense altars their fingers have made.

⁹ In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation.

¹⁰ You have forgotten God your Savior;
    you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress.
Therefore, though you set out the finest plants
    and plant imported vines,
¹¹ though on the day you set them out, you make them grow,
    and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud,
yet the harvest will be as nothing
    in the day of disease and incurable pain.

¹² Woe to the many nations that rage—
    they rage like the raging sea!
Woe to the peoples who roar—
    they roar like the roaring of great waters!
¹³ Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters,
    when he rebukes them they flee far away,
driven before the wind like chaff on the hills,
    like tumbleweed before a gale.
¹⁴ In the evening, sudden terror!
    Before the morning, they are gone!
This is the portion of those who loot us,
    the lot of those who plunder us.

 [2] http://www.biblestudytools.com/amos/6.html

Amos 6 (New International Version)

Woe to the Complacent

1 Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria, you notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come! 2 Go to Calneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath, and then go down to Gath in Philistia. Are they better off than your two kingdoms? Is their land larger than yours? 3 You put off the evil day and bring near a reign of terror. 4 You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. 5 You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. 6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. 7 Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.

The LORD Abhors the Pride of Israel

8 The Sovereign LORD has sworn by himself--the LORD God Almighty declares: "I abhor the pride of Jacob and detest his fortresses; I will deliver up the city and everything in it." 9 If ten men are left in one house, they too will die. 10 And if a relative who is to burn the bodies comes to carry them out of the house and asks anyone still hiding there, "Is anyone with you?" and he says, "No," then he will say, "Hush! We must not mention the name of the LORD." 11 For the LORD has given the command, and he will smash the great house into pieces and the small house into bits. 12 Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison and the fruit of righteousness into bitterness-- 13 you who rejoice in the conquest of Lo Debar and say, "Did we not take Karnaim by our own strength?" 14 For the LORD God Almighty declares, "I will stir up a nation against you, O house of Israel, that will oppress you all the way from Lebo Hamath to the valley of the Arabah."

[3] http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+24&version=NIV

Matthew 24

New International Version (NIV)

The Destruction of the Temple and Signs of the End Times

24 Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ² “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

³ As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
⁴ Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵ For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. ⁶ You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷ Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸ All these are the beginning of birth pains.
⁹ “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. ¹⁰ At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, ¹¹ and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. ¹² Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, ¹³ but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. ¹⁴ And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
¹⁵ “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’^[a] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— ¹⁶ then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷ Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house. ¹⁸ Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. ¹⁹ How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! ²⁰ Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. ²¹ For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
²² “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. ²³ At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. ²⁴ For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. ²⁵ See, I have told you ahead of time.
²⁶ “So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it. ²⁷ For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ²⁸ Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
²⁹ “Immediately after the distress of those days

“‘the sun will be darkened,
    and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from the sky,
    and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’^[b]

³⁰ “Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth^[c] will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.^{[d] 31} And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

³² “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. ³³ Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it^[e] is near, right at the door. ³⁴ Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ³⁵ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

The Day and Hour Unknown

³⁶ “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,^[f] but only the Father. ³⁷ As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸ For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; ³⁹ and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰ Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹ Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
⁴² “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. ⁴³ But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. ⁴⁴ So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

On The Road To Damascus

There is a story about Saul of Tarsus who, on the road to Damascus to round up the followers of Christ for persecution, was himself being hunted down by the same people whom he served before his conversion. [1]  I pray that those on both sides of the conflict who are on the road to Damascus to kill would see the light of Christ and be healed of their collective blindness.

On this road, Saul heard Christ ask,"'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?'" [2]  But Christ was not simply asking this question of Saul of Tarsus, He was asking all the Sauls of the world the same question.  And when Christ referred to the persecuted as Himself, He was in the eternal present and referring to all who are persecuted, for He is the Savior of all, not just a few, and not only Christians.  In a separate passage, Christ said, "'Let the little children come to me, and stop keeping them away, because the kingdom from heaven belongs to people like these.'" [3]  These were children of all peoples; Christ did not discriminate one against another.  He saw them as one, in the same way He sees all of us, as one, for we all were children once and are still children of God. [4]

When the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Special Envoy Angelina Jolie said, "'What is happening to the children of Syria is sickening. Thousands of innocent young boys and girls have lost their lives in horrific circumstances, including in recent attacks near Damascus. And now one million Syrian children are struggling to survive as refugees in heart-breaking conditions. Each one of these child refugees is an innocent victim of a senseless conflict. These vulnerable children need shelter, food and assistance. But above all, they need security. The international community must not look away from Syria, they must renew the search for peace with urgency and determination,'" I am certain that she would make a similar statement whether the children of war are from Syria or anywhere else in the world.  She continued to say, "'I appeal to the world leaders - please, set aside your differences, unite to end the violence, and make diplomacy succeed.'" [5]  Let us hope that if my words on this blog urging supplication would fall on blind eyes, that Angelina Jolie's call for sensibilities would not fall on deaf ears, and that peace would be achieved through diplomacy, in the entire Mideast and everywhere else.


[1] See http://www.usccb.org/bible/acts/9/ and http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestorysummaries/a/Conversion-Of-Paul.htm
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://biblehub.com/matthew/19-14.htm
[4] The righteous, acting as lawmaker, fact finder, judge, jury and executioner, would argue that some of these "children" are truly evil, killing "innocents" with any and all means necessary, including the use of chemical and biological weapons, not to mention torture of all kinds imaginable, and therefore these evil "children" of God must be punished.  On the issue of judging and of innocence, Christ answered with His Divine authority, respectively, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged" and "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." See http://biblehub.com/matthew/7-1.htm and http://biblehub.com/john/8-7.htm, respectively.
The next question that would be asked is whether one ought to stand by and watch the "innocents" suffer and die?  My answer is no.  What is needed is humanitarian aid on the one hand and a peaceful settlement on the other, even if the arm that is attached to the hand of settlement on all sides had been lost from bombing each other.  How far should the humanitarian aid go?  If one is capable of killing, then one is capable of opening the door of one's home to welcome and serve those in need. 
[5] http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/08/23/angelina-jolie-tragedy-in-syria-is-sickening/2694023/