Hong Kong Protest Ends (For Now)

The pro-democracy occupation in Hong Kong is over [1].  Attached is a photo from Google Images showing Joshua Wong (center) and Victor Shum (left), two of the original faces and voices that led the protests in Hong Kong (zoom in to view or enlarge) :

Do they have angelic looks and teeth?  Would one's soul be delighted to see them as greeters that show the way to eternity?

Had the demonstrators acted like Christ?  Would Christ in a largely Godless society resort to civil disobedience in order to impose His will on others?  Is civil disobedience an indication of humility?

Were the demonstrators being treated like Christ was, starved, scourged, tortured and crucified by their government?  Were they denied the right to worship?  The answers are no, and no.  In fact, Hong Kong has quite a few Catholic churches [2].

One wonders if any of the demonstrators is Catholic and follows the teachings of Christ.  Assuming that the demonstrators had prevailed and they had been given the democracy they desired, does anyone believe they can usher in an utopian society?  What would they do with the dissenters?  (These demonstrators were in fact in the minority since a majority of people in Hong Kong disagreed with them.)  Why do the demonstrators think that their Godless government is superior to any other Godless government [3]?

Without God at the center in a person's life, within a family unit and in a society, Satan will enter and create havoc.  Satan does not want any side to win.  It just wants everyone to be against everyone so they can destroy each other and go to Hell.
 

[1] http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1662891/hong-kong-police-set-dismantle-occupys-last-remaining-pro-democracy
[2] http://www.catholic.org.hk/v2/en/a06church.html
[3] Godless governments include those hypocritical governments around the world that uses the name "God" and calls on God but are in fact Godless.

Alone For "The Holidays"

Around the world the sights and sounds of Christmas can be seen and heard as people busy themselves with shopping and Christmas parties.  Then there are those who are alone [1] walking among the shoppers, the revelers, the well-dressed party crowd, families on vacation and groups of friends.   As one who is comfortable on my own, I find weaving in and out of the "partiers" far more often and more fun than being at a party.  However, I am keenly aware of those who feel left out at this time of year.  This entry is for them.

I had gone through a period of not fitting in, of being left behind, left out and left alone, a painfully depressing time.  I focused on myself, pitied myself and thought only of myself: it was me, me and me.  That self-centeredness deepened and lengthened my depression.  The Rx is not a drug prescription but a prayer reflection on the true meaning of Christmas, a sharp contrast to the secularized and commercialized version of the "holiday season."

As I have recently learned at Mass, this is the season of Advent, a season that looks toward the Second  Coming of Christ, a season of penance to prepare for the Second Coming.  Thus, this is not supposed to be a time for shopping, gifting, drinking and feasting.  When one internalizes the Advent season, then one who is alone no longer needs to feel lonely or depressed, for spending time away  from the holiday sales, away  from the gatherings where God is not invited and is unwanted is actually good for the soul, when one is no longer centered on oneself, on all kinds of consumption that feeds the ego and its self-image but on the firm belief that the One Who was born to the Blessed Virgin Mary on Christmas Day will again come to judge the living and the dead in light of the Truth from which nobody can hide or escape.  Hopefully, God will take into consideration the time one has spent honoring God relative to the time spent pampering and pitying oneself and grant mercy before the final judgment.

Therefore, to those who are alone during Advent, Christmas and New Years, "the holiday season,"  feel good about having the luxury of time away from the hustle and bustle of a Godless consumerist society to spend with God, alone, to reconcile oneself to the Truth, to pray for forgiveness, and for guidance to choose and follow the path that leads to Christ, and ultimately to Heaven.


[1] One who is alone does not mean one is lonely, but those who are alone can at times have feelings of loneliness.  Time spent in loneliness is a difficult time but those who experience loneliness while sharing a life with another tend to have a far more difficult time relative to that of a single person who experiences loneliness alone.  To those who feel alone among others, go see God Who is waiting, Who is everywhere, Who will be The  most wonderful companion, always.

Third Gift Of God

Previous entries in this blog had identified the first two gifts of God, namely, the gift of flesh [1] followed by the gift of Free Will.  The third is the gift of creativity [2].


[1] The gift of flesh is only possible when Free Will is exercised in accordance with the "thou shall not kill (abort)" commandment since abortion kills the chance for a spirit to experience incarnation outside of a mother's womb.
[2] God is the Supreme Creator.  Man is created in the image of God.  Therefore man is also able to create.  For those who think that they cannot create but wish to, they should simply flip on the creative switch inside and turn up the intensity, but must guard with vigilance against the gift from being hijacked by evil.  Sadly, good intentions are often thwarted.  Gun powder is a good example: the concoction that was originally created for fireworks as a celebration had been weaponized to kill.  See the history of gunpowder at http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/war/gunpowder.htm  Humans are another: God intends for all people to be good but Satan has been able to tempt them successfully with apples of sin.

Feast Of the Immaculate Conception - Monday, December 8, 2014

On Thursday, March 25, 1858, "[t]he vision [Bernadette Soubirous saw] finally revealed her name, but the wild rose bush, on which she stood during the Apparitions, did not bloom. Bernadette recounted; 'She lifted up her eyes to heaven, joined her hands as though in prayer, that were held out and open towards the ground and said to me: Que soy era Immaculada Concepciou (I am the Immaculate Conception) .'  The young visionary left and, running all the way, repeated continuously the words that she did not understand. These words troubled the brave Parish Priest. Bernadette was ignorant of the fact that this theological expression was assigned to the Blessed Virgin.Four years earlier, in 1854, Pope Pius IX declared this a truth of the Catholic Faith (a dogma)[.]" [1]

Every apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary that had been reported had been spectacular.  Of the ones I know of, I like the apparition in Lourdes, France, the best because in a way, I was "called" to go there--not the actual Grotto but a local replica.  That evening, St. Dominic's church was showing a film of the Grotto in Lourdes and Mass was celebrated afterward.  Actual water from the Lourdes Grotto was brought to Mass during which everyone was invited to put his/her hand into the big bowl of Lourdes water.  I was a bit tentative when it was my turn and the lady holding the bowl of water asked me to swirl my hand around in the water.  I did just that and experienced something very unusual--a healing of sorts, but that could not be documented by extrinsic evidence.  It would be something I could tell but it would never be believed by anyone.

Tonight [2] I went to pray the rosary in front of the replica.  After praying the rosary, and after some spending some quiet time in thought and in prayer, there was a faint smell of lilac for a minute or so.  I smelled that fragrance before at the same place because there was lilac on the side of the "grotto" but that was during the summer.  It is now winter.  I went around to the side (both sides) to see if there was any lilac in bloom.  There was none.  In fact, I did not see any lilac plant but to be absolutely objective, it was too dark for me to tell if the plants on the side were or were not lilac.  What was certain was that those plants had no flowers, whatever species they were.  I immediately got goosebumps.  I again was wondering where the lilac fragrance came from, not unlike the kind of questioning I had when I saw the light show on Saturday, December 6, 2014, during the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in The Star of the Sea church's side chapel.  If the smell of lilac was an acknowledgement of sorts, I am grateful, however undeserving, whatever its meaning [3].


[1] http://en.lourdes-france.org/deepen/bernadette-soubirous/the-apparitions
[2] It is now past midnight so by the time I publish this, it would technically be last night.
[3] A word of caution: Wherever God is near, Satan and those under Its influence are never far away--sometimes, the evil is so near that It is already inhabited within the self.  That parasite can be challenging to recognize but it is important to recognize It and rid oneself of It.  Seeing It is the first step.  Devising a strategy to strengthen oneself and excise It is the next.  Continuous execution of the strategy to eliminate It from one's entire being is the final step.  This is not easy to do.

Adoration Of The Blessed Sacrament

Seeing a person kneeling before a monstrance with a Holy Communion inside almost looks like a still-life painting but my first experience tells me that the act of adoration is not static.  Perhaps the words "adoration of the Blessed Sacrament" do not connote much activity.  Perhaps those are not the best words to describe the time one is spending with Christ.

Spending time with the Lord is not a static event, nor is it a silent soliloquy.  To begin, one must have faith in Christ.  The next step in to believe that Christ is truly present, that He is right there, listening.  Then a dialog begins: one prays from the heart, Christ listens and  acknowledges [1].


[1] I spent time before the Blessed Sacrament this afternoon, my first time kneeling before a monstrance.  I went into the small chapel half-heartedly, thinking that I would benefit from it just from "going through the motions" without really expecting anything, but then I had hoped that I would see some kind of sign that Christ was present.  Of course, it was not realistic to expect it: it was a passing thought, a secret fantasy.  From a past experience, I should know better: there are no  secrets one can keep from Christ.   I closed my eyes.  I saw a noticeable darkness.  I did not like it.  I knew I was in a bit of trouble.  I then reconciled myself to God.  When I opened my eyes, I saw spots of colored light on the left side of the monstrance (I was kneeling on the left side of the monstrance).  I looked back to see if anyone else saw it, and wondered if they were from the sunlight shining through a stained glass window in the back of the chapel.  I turned back and looked again, the round colored spots of light were still present.  I turned my head back a second time to see where the sunlight was coming in from -- it was not evident -- the sun was not shining in from that direction.  I looked back and the colored lights were gone.  Fine.  Then I concluded it was physics but was not entirely convinced that it was.  I thought again, this time not so secretively, and said to the Lord in my mind that if what I saw was some kind of sign, I would like to see that again.  The second time the light was different.  I saw very subtle, small rays of light, again only on the left side of the monstrance, on the purple cloth that served as the background behind the monstrance, varying from lighter purple to darker purple.  I knew that this could not have been sunlight for there was no sunlight coming from the right side.  The right side was a painted wall with no windows.  I was still unconvinced.  I thought that this time my eyes were playing tricks with me and with that thought, the light show disappeared.  Finally, I thought that if Peter could deny Christ three times, I certainly could have a third try.  Nothing happened for a while.  Then I saw the monstrance casting a shadow on the purple cloth behind it.  This time, the shadow fell to the right of the monstrance.  This made scientific sense because I did see sunlight peek through the stained glass windows on the left side, causing the shadow to appear.  It was a shadow like any other, no spots of color, no gradation of purple -- it was simply a dark shadow showing the intricacies of the monstrance on a purple cloth.  It lasted for a little while longer than expected, considering the two previous light shows were both of shorter duration (actually the first light show lingered a bit longer than the second, maybe even longer than the last, considering I turned my head around twice -- how long it lasted I do not know).  So what is my conclusion?  If I was shown the presence of Christ, I am thankful.  If I was fantasizing--I do not know why I would be in the first place--it was a fantasy I did not choreograph.  Why was I not shown an even more fantastical light show the third time?  I think because someone is upset that I had so little faith and wanted to point out how dumb I was not to know the difference between what is worldly and what is other-worldly.  In order to show that the first two were other-worldly, the third one had to be worldly to show the contrast.  For me, the contrast worked: I am convinced the the first two light shows were not rooted in physics.

The World's Protests

Arab Spring began in January, 2011 [1] in North Africa and the Mideast, affecting Egypt, Syria, Libya, followed by protests in Kiev, Ukraine in November, 2013 [2], and in Hong Kong in September, 2014 [3].  Regardless of how such protests and conflicts arose, they have come to the United States in cities like Ferguson, New York, Chicago and Washington D.C. beginning circa November, 2014, after two grand jury verdicts, in Ferguson [4] and in New York [5], [6], both favoring the police.

Now that some of the most influential parts of the world have had a taste of the poison of protests and conflicts, disrupting the peace and livelihoods of people, perhaps the protestors will go away, but I am not optimistic because the fortitudinously weak but politically powerful game-changers of different stripes over the years have played the game into the hands of Satan and became Its minions, so that this is no longer a world of unity but of division, of honesty but of deceit, of light but of darkness.  In the world of Satan, there is no God but evil disguised as secularism, lawlessness [7] as victimhood, self-serving pride and greed [8] as righteousness.


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Arab_Spring
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Hong_Kong_protests
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ferguson_unrest
[5] http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/the-death-of-eric-garner-the-grand-jury-decision/
[6] http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/03/protesters-block-d-c-city-streets-after-eric-garner-decision-photos/;
[7] Lawlessness is never an excuse for perceived injustice, nor is it a remedy for true injustice.  Perceived injustice requires self-examination, corrective behavior and curative action whereas true injustice demands forgiveness.
[8] Self-serving pride and greed shocks the conscience of the good and awes those blind to the Truth.

Two Strangers Entering My Life

I call them strangers because we do not really know one another.  One of them is a young Japanese-German man who met me at the gym; another is a German lady who is one of my neighbors.  He is 24, she is 70.  I have had two conversations each with the young man and my neighbor.  Neither of them is religious [a] but both are spiritual, smart and articulate.

While it is normal for a first conversation to be light and casual, but then I am not a normal person.  Without telling them much of who I am for nothing that I am is interesting or important, I related to them some of the miracles that I encountered.  For some reason, I no longer feel uncomfortable talking to others about the miracles [1] for I am no longer ashamed of them and afraid what others might think.

Neither of them fled as a result of our talks.  Perhaps God brought us together.  If that is the case, I must have been given the courage to talk about the miracles.  Maybe they drew them out of me, or maybe I sensed that they had a need to hear them.  Rightly or wrongly, I decided that recounting my experiences would lead them to the Mother of God, so She could introduce them to Her Son, Jesus.

Perhaps this signals a new direction in my life, toward an evangelization stage, one that I have not asked for, for I am used to a semi-reclusive existence, and certainly not prepared to undertake, for my life's secular burdens continue to demand my time, exhaust my energy and create stress.  What is interesting is that my conversations did not exhaust me, stress me out and make me feel that time was wasted.  On the contrary, both strangers rejuvenated me, enriched my spirit and made me feel that my time was not wasted on things that are secular and temporal but rather invested in the holy and eternal.

If doing God's work can be so fun and rewarding, I would like to do it tirelessly -- I just need to find a way to end my secular responsibilities for good -- that will take a miracle.


[a] I found out today that the 24 year old was taken to be baptized Catholic by his maternal grandmother against his parents' wishes.  He is not practicing but is willing to attend Mass in Latin with me tomorrow, Sunday.  He actually spent a few minutes before the Blessed Sacrament today before he decided to pray before the Blessed Virgin Mary instead.  My neighbor will need a lot more time.  Only a miracle to some degree will be able to convince her.  I pray that it would happen.
[1] I am still not ready to share them on this blog.