The Pope Should Read This Article To Appreciate His Own Realities

The article published by news24.com  on November 30, 2017, entitled 'Who is the pope?' ask Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh  is quoted below in its entirety [1]:

Cox's Bazar - The plight of Rohingya refugees is the backdrop to Pope Francis' landmark visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh this week. But in the vast refugee camps on the border, there is puzzlement, with many asking: "Who is he?"

The head of the Catholic church has repeatedly spoken out in support of the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority who have fled to Bangladesh in their hundreds of thousands, bringing with them allegations of murders, rapes and arson committed by the Myanmar military.

This week he met Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi and army chief Min Aung Hlaing, who is accused of overseeing brutal campaign to drive out the group that the UN and US have labelled "ethnic cleansing".

With his message of hope and tolerance, supporters hope the pope's presence can tamp down the religious and ethnic hatreds that have roiled the region.

Yet in the teeming Bangladeshi camps near the border with Myanmar, mention of the pontiff drew blank faces and raised eyebrows.

Shown a photo, refugees shrugged and guessed him to be anyone from a wealthy king or a celebrity from the US to a Bangladeshi politician. Some mistook his zucchetto for an Islamic skullcap and said he could be a Muslim leader.

"I think I've seen him in the news but what does he do? Is he important?" asked 42-year-old Nurul Qadar.

Pope Francis, who arrives in Bangladesh on Thursday from mainly Buddhist Myanmar, is the first pontiff in 31 years to visit Bangladesh and has called the Rohingya his "brothers and sisters".

He is not  due to visit the camps but will meet a small group of Rohingya refugees during an interfaith meeting in Dhaka on Friday. [Emphasis  added.]

More than 620 000 Rohingya have poured into the poor, overpopulated country since the start of a violent crackdown by the army in August.

They are denied almost all basic human rights in Myanmar including the right to practise their religion, travel and marry freely.

'A very wise man'

On learning of the pope's role in the world, refugees AFP spoke to said they hoped Francis would be able to broker a deal with Myanmar that would pave the way for a safe return to their homeland.

Maybe the government in Myanmar "might actually listen to him", mused 40-year-old Mujibur Rahman.

Hassan Arraf, a Rohingya imam at Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh, and the only one out of dozens who knew of the pope, said the Argentinian pontiff with his man-of-the-people reputation had the power to change their lives.

"The way they tortured us, no religion allows it. He is a big leader of another religion but I believe he's a very wise man," he told AFP.

"I think he will be able to understand what we went through. And he can ask the Myanmar government to resolve this matter and make the place peaceful."

Caritas, the Catholic Church's humanitarian arm which is helping to feed 40 000 families in the camps, said it hoped the pope's visit would at least help lift the spirits of the community.

"He is coming... as a symbol of reconciliation. We are hoping his visit will bear a very positive impact and create a very good solution between the two countries," James Gomes, regional director of Caritas, told AFP.

When given information about this unfamiliar robed figure, many refugees said the pope should go to the squalid, overcrowded camps in southern Bangladesh to witness their suffering. [Emphasis added.]

"If his visit is about us, then he should come here to meet us and talk to us. He should see how we are living, how we barely survived," said Hami Tusang as he queued for food. [Emphasis  added.]

Another man behind him, Azim Ullah, said he wanted to "complain to the pope of the relentless torture we face in Rakhine". [Emphasis  added.]

"Being such a big leader, he must be seeing what we have been through. Every bad thing you can think of has happened to us," he said, making a cutting motion across his throat. [Emphasis  added.]

"He needs to be our bridge. He needs to demand our rights, our citizenship. Otherwise there is no point of such visits."  [Emphasis  added.]

[1] https://www.news24.com/World/News/who-is-the-pope-ask-rohingya-refugees-in-bangladesh-20171130

Deaths And A KIdnapping In Bangladesh Ahead Of Pope's Arrival On November 30, 2017

"Three suspected Islamist extremists were killed on Tuesday [November 28, 2017,] in a raid by Bangladesh police as security was stepped up before Pope [Francis'] landmark visit to the Muslim-majority nation, officials said." [1]  The very next day, November 29, 2017, a Catholic priest went missing, according to a report published by channelnewsasia.com.  Part of the article is quoted below [2]:

DHAKA: A Catholic priest has disappeared in Bangladesh, police said on Wednesday (Nov 29), as the Muslim-majority country stepped up security ahead of a landmark visit by Pope Francis that follows a rise in extremist attacks on religious minorities.

Walter William Rosario, a 40-year-old priest and headmaster of a Catholic school, went missing on Monday in a village in northern Bangladesh where suspected extremists last year hacked a Catholic grocer to death.

Gerves Rosario, bishop of the nearby city of Rajshahi, said he believed the priest had been kidnapped and that Catholics in the region were deeply worried.

"He was organising for around 300 Catholics to travel to Dhaka to see the Pope and attend his holy mass. But his disappearance has marred their joy. They don't want to go to Dhaka any more," he said. 

News of his disappearance comes as Bangladesh tightens security in the capital Dhaka ahead of the arrival Thursday of the first pontiff to visit Bangladesh in more than three decades.

Police in Natore district said they had launched a major search for Rosario after his family reported him missing.

"He has been missing since late Monday. His mobile has been switched off," local police chief Biplob Bijoy Talukder told AFP.

The family received a phone call from someone using the missing man's number to demand a ransom, but Talukder said police believed this was a hoax.

They have not ruled out the possibility he was abducted by extremists, who have carried out attacks on religious minorities in the region in the past four years.

'OUR JOY IS GONE'

Since 2015 at least three Christians, including two converts from Islam, have been hacked to death in attacks blamed on the militant Jamayetul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB).

Bikash Hubert Rebeiro, the priest in Bonpara village where Rosario grew up, described him as a "good man" whose disappearance had cast a pall over the pope's visit.

"Our joy is gone," he told AFP by phone. "Everyone in the village is shocked. His elderly mother has [been] crying non stop."

Rebeiro said Rosario's family was friendly with the relatives of Sunil Gomes, the Catholic grocer murdered outside his shop last year.

...

In July last year militants stormed a Dhaka cafe and massacred 22 hostages including 18 foreigners in an attack claimed by the Islamic State militant group. 

The government has denied the international group's involvement. Since the attack, security forces have killed more than 70 alleged militants in a crackdown condemned by rights activists and opposition parties.

This blogger's November 6, 2017, post recommended that Bergoglio "save everybody some trouble by staying in Vatican City and donate all his traveling expenses that he would otherwise incur to Kamal Hossain to continue his saintly work in helping Rohingya children locate their parents." [3]  Perhaps he should have done just that.  Who knows if any more bad things will happen during his visit in Bangladesh and before, during and after the Mass he is planning to hold there.

On the bright side, bdnews24.com  has this headline: "Bangladesh ready to welcome Pope Francis with ceremonial fanfare" that was published on "2017-11-30 02:05:17.0 BdST." [4]  Will the pope even mention the kidnapping of his priest and console the priest's heart-broken mother?  Should he consider possibly saying a funeral mass should there be a confirmation that the priest was killed?  Soon the world would know.

What pains the soul is that Bergoglio's appearance in Bangladesh will be largely symbolic--he has not been scheduled to go to the Rohingya refugee camp and walk among the refugees.  This will be his itinerary [5]:

The 80-year old pontiff will be the first pope to set foot here in 30 years with Pope John Paul II being the last one to pay a visit in 1986.

Francis, who is now in Myanmar, will fly to Dhaka on Thursday and land at the Shahjalal International Airport at 3pm to begin his three-day official visit.

President Md Abdul Hamid will welcome the 266th and current pope. A guard of honour along with a 21-gun salute will be given to the pope.

Pope Francis will head to the National Memorial in Savar to pay tributes to the 1971 Liberation War martyrs.  He will then visit the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman museum in Dhanmondi. 

He will have a private meeting with President Abdul Hamid at the Bangabhaban.

Francis is scheduled to meet Cabinet members and diplomats at the Darbar Hall inside Bangabhaban. He will stay at the Vatican embassy in Baridhara overnight.

On the second day of his official tour, Francis will lead a mass at a rally at Suhrawardy Udyan. After that, he will meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the Vatican embassy.

Later in the day, he will hold a meeting with bishops at Ramna Cathedral in Kakrail and attend sessions there to preach communal harmony.

On Saturday, he will visit the Mother Teresa Homes in Tejgaon. The visit will be followed by meetings with priests and religious leaders at the Holy Rosary Church. Pope Francis will visit the graveyard there afterwards. 

In the afternoon, he will attend a session to exchange views with the youths at the Notre Dame College.

He will leave Dhaka at 5pm Saturday after being seen off by Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali at the airport.

What a pitiful itinerary for someone whose purpose for his present existence is to act like Christ, to be among those who are suffering, if not to heal them but at least to embrace and love them.



[1] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/three-alleged-islamists-killed-in-bangladesh-before-popes-visit/articleshow/61833312.cms, quoted without hyperlinks.
[2] http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/bangladesh-priest-disappearance-casts-pall-over-pope-visit-9451900
[3] http://lemomentdepaix.blogspot.com/2017/11/rohingya-refugees-stateless-but-not.html
[4] https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2017/11/30/bangladesh-ready-to-welcome-pope-francis-with-ceremonial-fanfare

The Latin Mass

This entry quotes an article written by Father Carota who " passed away in July of 2016." [1]  May he remain in God's loving presence forever.

The article is entitled A Priest’s View Of Latin Mass Vs. New Mass, published by Father Carota on January 25, 2015, is quoted below in its entirety without photographs or bullet points [2], [3] and without comment:

Constantly I hear from people that they do not go to the Latin Mass because they do not understand Latin.  (Some even think that the homily is in Latin.)  So please, just for now, let us put aside the argument of the language; Latin or English and go to the prayers and actions that are part of the rubrics of the two masses.  Let us also look at who is the center of focus and the way the people participate, dress and receive God in Holy Communion at the two masses.

As a priest, I want to re-clarify what are the differences on how Jesus is treated in the two masses.   This will be from my own stand point as a priest who has for years celebrated the New Mass in English and Spanish, and now, for the last 7 years offered the Ancient Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Most Catholics judge the two masses from their own subjective perspective and preferences.  They are not priests.  They are not offering the two masses and have no idea what it is like from the experience of the priest who offers the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass.

From my view up on the altar, the difference between the Ancient Mass and the New Mass is like day and night.  Archbishop Sample, from Portland Oregon, put it well when he said at the Sacra Liturgia Conference in Rome, that he wants all of his priests to learn and offer the Latin Mass because of the effect it has on them understanding their role as priests.  He said that offering the Holy Latin Mass has changed him completely and now he finally  understands the sacrificial aspect of his priesthood.

I know, for the average Catholic who has had very little to no experience with the Latin Mass, the New Mass is just fine because it is all they have ever known or at which they feel comfortable and “at home with”.  All over the world, the New Mass is all any Catholic is able to go to.  That is all they know and that is all the knowledge they have to judge with.

The orthodox Neo-Cats who are not traditional Catholics, are constantly complaining about the grave liturgical abuses by priests who do not follow the essential rubrics found in the New Roman Missal.  Like when the celebrant changes the words of consecration, does not say the Creed at Sunday Mass, will not genuflect when required, gives communion to everyone, including non Catholics, who comes up at funerals or wedding, and all the other grave abuses they experience at the New Mass.

But in essence, and for the most part, they are satisfied with the New Mass.  Some Neo-Cats would prefer the New Mass in Latin or maybe said “ad orientam”.

Here is a list of observations I have made while offering the Ancient Mass and the New Mass together. 

The whole focus of the Holy Latin Mass is on;

adoring God,
being at Calvary at the real un-bloody Sacrifice of Jesus being re-made present on the Cross,
the priest asking Jesus to intercede to God His Father for the forgiveness of our sins,
humbly praying that at this Sacrifice we may receive His salvation and graces.

At the Sacrifice of the Holy Latin Mass, it is obvious that;

God the Father is acting through Jesus His Son,
Jesus is acting through the priest, in Persona Christi,
There is hierarchy in Latin Mass, bishop, priest, religious, altar boys, lay people, like what is found in God’s Kingdom and the Catholic Church.
The priest has the special role in praying to God.
The priest prays in secret and in a low voice the sacred part of the Canon and the words of consecration.
People accompany Mary and the Apostle St. John in contemplation at the foot of the cross, while Jesus is offering His life in sacrifice to the Father for our salvation.
The people are assisting at Jesus’ Sacrifice on the cross for them.
People humbly and passively receive God’s graces through interior prayer.
People humbly receive Jesus in Holy Communion kneeling and on the tongue.
People pray and absorb the effects the Divine Mystery of the Holy Mass in silence.
The Choir is up in the Choir loft accompanying the people in sacred songs.
The choir sings anonymously for the glory of God and not to show off for the crowd.
The Choir sings acapella or are accompanied by organ music.
Gregorian Chant is sung to lift up people’s souls to God.

There is only one way to offer the Holy Latin Mass and the rubrics must be obeyed.
There are way more genuflections, bows and blessing to God done by the priest.
No one, except the priest, can touch the Holy Chalice or Paten because they are consecrated to be only used to hold God’s Body and Blood.
Once the priest has said the words of consecration, he never separates the thumbs and index fingers so that if by any chance there are tiny fragments of the Body of Jesus, they do not fall on the Altar or floor.
The priest only drinks the Precious Blood of Jesus from one side of the Chalice so that when he will purify it, he can be sure he purifies where the Blood ran.
When receiving the Body of Christ, the priest puts the paten under his chin incase any particles may fall on the altar.
He scrapes the corporal with the paten to be sure if at any time a particle of the Body of Christ ended on the corporal, he can put it into the chalice and be consumed with the Blood of Christ.
Every time after the consecration, when the priest uncovers the chalice, he puts his fingers on the chalice so that it may never fall over and spill the Precious Blood of Jesus.
The Body of Christ is only given with the assistance of the altar boy holding the paten so that no crumbs of Jesus may fall on the floor.
No one ever touches God in Holy Communion, other than the priest.
All people are obliged to kneel and receive Jesus on the tongue.
After Holy Communion, the priest purifies the Chalice twice, once with wine and again with wine and water to be sure that he gets every drop of Jesus Precious Blood purified.
The priest purifies the thumbs and index fingers with water and wine into the chalice to get any tiny particle of host into the chalice and consumed.
People kneel in adoration and thanksgiving after Holy Communion.
People pray and do not speak inside the church.
Women cover their heads with veils.
People dress in there Sunday best, very respectfully and modestly.

The New Mass is focused on God, but at the same time, very much focused on the people.

Instead of the focus of the Celebrant being in Persona Christi, his focus is on representing and presiding in the name of the congregation.
The Celebrant faces the people, not God.
In all reality, the Celebrant is the center of the “show”.  Often he will make jokes.
Little in the words of the New Mass are there much about the Sacrificial aspect of the mass.
The new mass is centered much more on the “Remembering at the Last Supper”.
There is no altar for a priestly sacrifice, just a wooden table.
The presider always prays out loud so that people can hear him.
The focus is on the people being very active by responding, hugging, standing, sitting, kneeling, singing and walking in procession to receive Holy Communion.
There are many people envolved in the New Mass, like the Lectors and Extraordinary Eucharistic ministers.
Many people are in or walk around the Sanctuary, like the Rock Band or other Choir members.
Every kind of music and singing is allowed.
The choir and musicians perform for the people and face them.
The music played and sung are to make people feel happy, good, warm, and excited.
Clapping is encouraged to congratulate people or while singing songs.
Children and other people are often invited up around the altar to pray with the presider.
Everyone loves it because the focus is on the cute children and the people.
The celebrant sits at the presiders chair facing the people, not God.
Everything is very external and not contemplative.
Very little silence.
Very little kneeling in adoration of God.
The New Roman Missal has so many “pastoral” options in how to celebrate the mass.
Many women come to mass dressed in sexy clothes, low necks, tight pants and shorts.
Men come dressed in shorts.
Lectors and Extraordinary ministers sometimes go up on the altar in sexy or inappropriate clothing.
Before and after mass, people and priests talk and visit loudly in church.

At the New Mass,

Most people receive Holy Communion.
They receive standing.
They receive Jesus in the hand.
Everyone has to stand until everyone has gone up together in procession to receive Holy Communion.
There is very little time allowed after Holy Communion to meditate and thank God for coming into their souls.
People usually sit and do not kneel after receiving Holy Communion.
Large host are used to show that we are all one body, and when they are broken, large particles shoot all over the corporal, altar and floor.  It has happened to me.
Very rarely are patens used to catch the falling Body of Christ or crumbs.
The floors of Catholic churches are full of particles of the Body of Christ that fall on the ground from the hands of people who receive in the hand and are being walked on by all the people.
Everyone takes hold of the chalice given to them by the minister to receive the Blood of Christ.
Many times the Precious Blood of Christ is spilled on people or the floor.
Only priests are to purify the sacred vessels at mass, but often they are left for others to purify.
The purification of the chalice is with water only.
It is impossible for the priest to purify where all the people received from the upper most parts of the chalice that is rotated while administrating the Precious Blood by the Extraordinary Ministers.

The final question (and the answer should make everyone who reads this article want to only go to the Holy Latin Mass) is:  Do we truly believe that God/Jesus is in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar?  If so God deserves adoration, respect and protection.

As a priest who says the New Mass and the Latin Mass, the Latin Mass has by far more rubrics built right into the Latin Mass to protect the Body and Blood of Jesus from being desecrated in any manner.  It clearly has the strong sacrificial component of the Holy Mass and priesthood.  It does not have the protestant emphasis on the Last Supper and “doing this in remembrance of Me” like the Luther advocated.  It also has prayers and gestures that facilitate more easily the adoration that Jesus deserves from us His creatures.  And because of this, the Latin Mass pleases God way more than the New Mass.

[1] http://www.traditionalcatholicpriest.com/2015/01/29/priests-view-latin-mass-vs-new-mass/
[2] Ibid.
[3] As an aside, this article was copied and pasted while listening to "Confiteor" and "Kyrie eleison" being chanted in Latin on You Tube.  This is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBgjhseP_fs.  For those who do not already know, it can be set on "loop" by right-clicking.

Pope In Myanmar

The news headlines of the world seem to focus on the pope's reluctance to identify the refugees fleeing Myanmar during his visit to the country.  From BBC News: "Pope's Myanmar speech avoids reference to Rohingya" [1]; from economictimes.indiatimes.com: "Pope's Myanmar visit: Will he talk about the Rohingya issue?" [2]; from The New York Times: "In Myanmar, Pope Francis Calls for Peace Without Saying ‘Rohingya’" [3], and so on.

The headlines ought to be "Pope did not once mention Christ in his speech," since without Christ, there would be no Vatican, and the head of state of Vatican City State would not exist, and Bergoglio could not assume his favorite identity, that of a savvy politician.  But then one ought not be surprised since the media is objective, and does not favor any one religion over another and if that is to be believed, why are there hardly any news articles written about the Japanese Shinto religion, is it because "Shintoists do not have a central leader"? [4]  Is this even general knowledge?

Returning to the subject of Rohingya, Harvard Divinity School stated that "[t]he Rohingya is a Sunni Muslim ethnic minority in Myanmar and Bangladesh." [5]  Another source stated that "The Rohingya people practice Sunni Islam with elements of Sufi worship." [6]  Since this could be considered a different religion from Sunni Islam, has the media published reports on it as often as it reports on the activities of a Catholic pope?

The pope ought to be given credit since he has put the spotlight on the Rohingya refugees by traveling to Myanmar and soon to Bangladesh.  Without him there would not be this many headlines focusing of the plight of the refugees.  When they are out of sight of the media, they will be out of the collective mind of the world at large, even when there are Rohingha people with love in their hearts, love that God does not ignore.



[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42152146
[2] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/popes-myanmar-visit-will-he-talk-about-the-rohingya-issue/articleshow/61816473.cms
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/28/world/asia/pope-francis-myanmar-rohingya.html
[4] https://www.reference.com/world-view/leaders-shinto-religion-fa769870b19c392b#
[5] https://rlp.hds.harvard.edu/faq/rohingya
[6] http://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5d/entry-3057.html

Confession

For someone who has not entered a confessional for quite some time, confession is a very difficult topic.  The need to confess sins and for absolution are important, as is true repentance.

If one sins habitually, is there true repentance?  If there is no true repentance, can a confession be genuine?  If true repentance is not possible for a sinner, then does one who goes to confession make a mockery of it?

"Msgr. Richard Lavalley [is a] pastor of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Winooski, [Vermont, USA]." [1], [2]  An article entitled Priests offer tips for Catholics long absent from the confessional  dated February 16, 2013, published by Catholic News Agency, referring to Msgr. Lavalley, inspired this entry.  It is quoted in part [3]:

Lavalley, ordained in 1964, still remembers a confession from his first year as a priest. He was hearing confessions from students at the parish grade school, and one boy was among the last to be brought in.

"This kid's behind the screen. He's not talking to me. He's just breathing. 'Do you want to go to confession?' (No response.) 'Do you want to tell me what your sins are?' 'No.' 'Why?' 'Because you know what my sins are.' 'How?' 'Because I did them before.' "

Just like that boy, Lavalley told CNS, penitents are habitual sinners.

"Everyone's a habitual sinner, and so am I," he said. "It's not about sin, it's about mercy and about God's love."

Lavalley remembers himself as a grade-schooler making comparisons among the priests in his parish about which ones handed out sterner or lighter penances.

But he recalled one experience with a priest that "made me the confessor that I am. He was so kind and so wonderful, and I never forgot the penance he gave me. He said, 'Can you say the name of Jesus once? I'll say it for you.' And he did it without sarcasm.

"That changed my life."

What troubles this blogger is the habitual sinning.  If one is unable to repent one's sins for good, then what is the point of confessing the same sins over and over, just like the boy, who probably was truly regretful for having committed sins, but sat in silence in the confessional, and felt that it was redundant to confess the same things he had done before, and that he knew he would do again?

On the flip side, how often and how long does a priest actually occupy the confessional, especially on Sunday when one Mass seem to be scheduled soon after another has ended?  How can all penitents attending Mass who wish to confess before receiving Holy Communion can actually confess within the time after one Mass has ended and before the next one begins?

There are priests on You Tube who speak of confession, citing the Bible, but they do not tell people that a priest would be available to hear confession at any time that is reasonable from anyone wishing to confess.  Perhaps saying the Confiteor [4], [5] at Mass ought to be enough, but it is not said at all Masses.  Saying the Confiteor ought to be mandatory at all Masses, but if this is enough, it would circumvent the need for an individual confession and a personal absolution of the penitent.

This may be harsh, but for any priest to find himself good enough to lecture Catholics on You Tube on the need to go to confession, he ought to learn first from the one true confessor, the Curé d'Ars, St. Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney, who "spent ordinarily from sixteen to eighteen hours daily in the confessional, in winter with his feet on an unheated stone floor; and the rest of his time in preaching, prayer, and teaching catechism in the church." [6]

In other words, Catholics who do not go to confession are not the only ones to blame, the priest himself ought to bear half the responsibility, at least.  Returning to the saint, Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney, Curé d'Ars, the following is quoted in part from a website cited under footnote [7]:

From the year 1827, there began the famous stream of pilgrims to Ars.  People went to Ars from all parts of France, from Belgium, from England and even from America.  The principal motive which led all these crowds of pilgrims to the priest of Ars was purely the desire for him to hear their confession and to receive spiritual counsel from him.  They were driven to his thronged confessional by the longing to meet once and for all the priest who knew all about the reality of the soul.  The priest of Ars possessed the ability to see the human soul in its nakedness, freed of its body.  This grace is only rarely bestowed on men.  He never put his nose into the spiritual affairs of other people.  He was entirely free from inquisitiveness.  Like St. Francis de Sales, he had the gift of "seeing everything and not looking at anyone."  In confessing people this holy man, who had a fundamental knowledge of sin, strove after one thing only – to save souls.  This was his ardent desire, and for the sake of it he suffered all the tortures of his daylong confinement in the confessional.  This great saint heard confessions from 13 to 17 hours a day, and could tell a penitent's sins even when they were withheld.  In order to save souls one must be possessed of that holy love of men which consumed the priest of Ars.  He would often weep in the confessional and when he was asked why he wept, he would reply:  "My friend, I weep because you do not weep."

Where is today's equivalent of the Curé d'Ars?



[1] https://www.ncronline.org/news/spirituality/priests-offer-tips-catholics-long-absent-confessional
[2] http://www.sfxvt.org/faculty-staff/monsignorlavalley
[3] https://www.ncronline.org/news/spirituality/priests-offer-tips-catholics-long-absent-confessional
[4] http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Basics/Confiteor.html
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlt98XPa5Po; and https://youtu.be/6g6fbGZOgW4?t=63
[6] http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_john_vianney.html
[7] https://olrl.org/lives/vianney.shtml

Renunciation

Dictionary.com  defines renunciation as "an act or instance of relinquishing, abandoning, repudiating, or sacrificing something" [1], quoting in part.  Renunciation is defined here to include the surrender of one's ability to obtain, acquire, possess or choose.

In this fast-changing technological world, when new things arrive at the marketplace before warranties have run out on the old, when people build up excitement over something still in production or development, is renunciation even a concept?  Has the word disappeared from one's vocabulary, buried under layers upon layers of desires that are material and temporal, that have no redemptive value?

The need to realize these desires by making acquisitions seems to be both a prerequisite and proof of a privileged life that nearly everyone wants.  Whether one actually lives or pretends to live such a life, the desires are the same.  To separate material and temporal desires from one's life is to cut oneself off from society, one that is not only unmindful of God but also frowns upon, if not ostracize those who speak of God.

In light of such intense peer and societal pressure, God is relegated to the background by many.  Waiting with love and in humble silence, God suffers through the pierced sacred heart of Christ, wondering if they would at some point choose to turn around and acknowledge God's love and omnipresence, and take bold outward strides toward God without embarrassment, guilt or fear.

To get close to God, one ought to live one's life in detachment from all things material and temporal, using them only as a necessity of modern living without chasing after the latest and the best.  To do better, one must renounce not only worldly desires and possessions but also choice by abandoning oneself completely to God, not something easily accomplished.


[1] http://www.dictionary.com/browse/renunciation

A Reflection Of One's Goodness

To what extent does one consider oneself to be good?  To a large extent, of course.  Moving from a relativistic world where a permissive society has warped the meaning of decency to a self-centered world where everyone else is to blame but oneself, people have become blinder and blinder to their own iniquities.  This loss of insight is aggravated by those who lead people to error, by preaching that mercy is matched up with sin, presumably measure for measure, canceling it out.  With mercy at the ready awaiting every sin that will be committed, there is no need for a an examination of conscience [1], no need to be sorry and no need for atonement.  Therefore, one ought to be able to claim that one is always good and living with a clean conscience, having just come out of a shower of mercy.

Can one whose sins have just been hosed down by the brand of easy mercy promoted by this papacy claim to be good in the way that God is good, that the new Adam is good and the new Eve is good?  If so, then is one still a sinner?  If one remains a sinner, then how good and bad is a person at any point in time?  Without an answer to the question, another has come up: What is good?

Since love comes from God and God is without a doubt good, therefore love is good.  Since nobody can love like God, can any one be truly good?  No, but can a "no" answer be always right?  Do people not go through lives helping other people and doing good things for others?  Are they not good?

The secular-minded people of the world would prefer that good not be defined relative to God but relative to Satan, the nameless, faceless and invisible force that drive them without them knowing it.  If on Judgment Day, every soul is judged relative to Satan, then all souls will enter Heaven because when compared to Satan, every soul can be deemed saintly.  This is fantasy.  Hell exists for a purpose.  It is a place for those who erred knowingly and irrevocably and who have deliberately or heretically led others to error.

There are all kinds of errors, too numerous to list.  As an example, overestimating oneself as good is an error, but a correctable error.

Knowing the truth can lead to the correction of errors.  It is therefore best to have honest, periodic, if not frequent, examinations of conscience to allow oneself to see interiorly, without resorting to rationalization and denial because sooner or later, one will have no choice but to face up to the truth.

When it comes to the truth, man and Satan are partners: man wants to hide from it and Satan wants to lie about it.  This blog postulates that there are two truths.  One is spelled with a small "t" and these truths belong to the person and are particular to the person.  These truths often change as they are being manipulated to fit the occasion to benefit the self.  They then become new, sad truths.  The other truth is spelled with a capital "T".  This Truth is God's Truth.  It never changes and lasts forever.

When Christ said, "'I am the way and the truth and the life'" [2]  and when speaking to "the Jews who believed in him" [3] said, "'If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free[,]'" [4] they are truths that fall under Truth with a capital "T".  To avoid and deny the Truth is to be enslaved by the chain of suffering and the chain of death.  Adam and Eve knew this well [5], and so should their descendants be mindful that they are the recipients of their first parents' twin fates which would have been eternal but for the Son of God, Who became man to save man from eternal suffering and eternal death.

The salvation of man's soul is contingent upon man following the way of Christ, which is the way of the Truth, which speaks of love, and only then will man have eternal life.  To be able to live in God's Truth through Christ, one must first confront one's own unvarnished truths, since one cannot see God's Truth clearly without first coming to terms with one's own.

It is never easy to look into oneself in order to discover one's own truths, because they can be very ugly and not too many people are ready to admit to themselves that they are just as ugly as Satan is.  Some people are so enveloped by the Satanic forces that dominate the world that they do not even know that they are the slaves of the one true Enemy.  Christ has shown to all the path away from Satan by the words He spoke, by the life He led and by the death He suffered, but His path is very difficult to embark upon, even more so to stay on it because Satan is unremitting in seeking the ruin of souls.

Before one even begins to think about taking a first step onto Christ's path, one has to peel off the different layers that makes up one's character and touch figuratively the rotten core inside.  Imagine this core feeding all kinds of sins with each sin being represented by a different serpent, some larger, some smaller.  The more susceptible one is to a particular sin, the bigger is the serpent; the less susceptible, the smaller.

Is it possible that they will all go away?  Yes ought to be the answer, but that will come with suffering.  Tribulations in life will drive away the serpents when accepted with humility, faith and love.  Rare is the person who looks forward to, welcomes and receives gladly sufferings of the mind, body and spirit.  Perhaps one can reduce the intensity and the time that would be necessary to purge one's sins by recognizing them presently, by being humble and by praying for strength in overcoming one's weaknesses.

Some sins are easier to identify than others.  Of the seven deadly ones [2], lust is probably the easiest to recognize and probably the most difficult to resist.  Wrath, too, is also fairly easy to recognize and perhaps just as easy to overcome, depending on the person.  Sloth and gluttony can be fairly common, especially in societies where there are wealthy people who do not have much to do and where there are poor people who are able to depend on a secular government's handout; with all that is available for the rich and the poor, sloth and gluttony are not easily eliminated.  Greed and envy can be seen as both sides of the same coin, and because they are both addictive, they take turns driving one another to its extreme and because of this interaction, they reinforce one another and tend to last.  Pride is definitely the most subtle to recognize of all.  It disguises itself and assumes all kinds of identities that on the surface are innocuous, even wise.  In whatever form or manner it surfaces, pride takes away one's capacity to love.  In order to see how well it has confined one's capacity to love, one has to look to one's target, the person who is subjected to one's judgments, in order to get a feel for the damage one's pride has caused.

Sometimes upon hearing another speak one immediately draws conclusions based on assumptions which sometimes can be unfounded.  The person concluding is often unaware that the conclusions reached could be wrong and hurtful by diminishing goodness in the other person and reduce a motive that originates from kindness to one that is from selfishness.

This happens because the judgment is often based on what one is most familiar with, and that is the person judging.  One would place oneself in the other person's shoes and assumes that the other person would have the same ulterior motives as one would have in a similar situation.  It would generally not occur for one to think that there could be a completely different perspective, one that is selfless and untainted, that originates from love from within the heart.

Pride blinds a person, and disallows one to admit to oneself that others may have an abundance of goodness so much greater than the goodness within oneself.  The lack of faith in the goodness of others is a reflection of the shallowness of goodness in oneself.  By subtracting from the amount of goodness in others, one equates the amount of goodness within oneself.

This is not an incurable disease.  Similar to one's built-in immunity that can restore one to health, one's innate ability to love can wipe out one's blindness and return one's sight to see genuine unselfishness in others rather than a reflection of the goodness diminished by pride in oneself.  Sadly, no medication will activate this love.  Humility and prayer, however, can restore faith in the goodness of souls.

From the receiver's perspective, hearing someone say things that are hurtful reveals much more about the speaker's character than the character of the person who has to listen them.  It is of no use to be upset or angry, nor is it all that useful to tell the other person that he or she is wrong.  Those who are presumptuous and skeptical and judge incorrectly tend to continue to be presumptuous and skeptical and judge incorrectly.  They have lost every bit of innocence and in its place, they have chosen to rely entirely on their intellect that is devoid of compassion.  By being proud of one's intellect, one overlooks his or her personal deficiencies.  While overlooking one's own deficiencies, one overlooks one's own imperfections, in particular, pride.  There is little one can do to heal such blindness in others.  It is therefore best to be accepting and forgiving of this blindness, just as one ought to be kind to another who is physically or mentally impaired by a disease.  Just as Christ is able to forgive one's trespasses, one must forgive another's so that every time, innocence is renewed without prejudgment.

A reflection of perfect goodness is also a reflection of God, for God has full faith in the goodness of souls, for God loves each and everyone.  How accurately one is able to see one's own goodness will depend on how often one examines one conscience and how honest one is when performing the examination.



[1] http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/sacraments-and-sacramentals/penance/examinations-of-conscience.cfm
[2] http://www.usccb.org/bible/john/14, 6, quoted without footnote.
[3] http://www.usccb.org/bible/jn/8:4747, 31, quoted with paragraph number and footnote.
[4] http://www.usccb.org/bible/jn/8:4747, 31-2, quoted with paragraph number and footnote.
[5] http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/3, 1-19.
[6] http://www.deadlysins.com/