Just a Random Thought of my Mind

Have you ever asked yourself why religion is so important?
Have you ever asked why all civilizations in this world sustain their own so called religion?
In fact religions motored most if not all early developments. Ask yourself why some important milestones of civilizations occurred when religions are reconsidered or introduced. I am not going to go deeper but it is easily observed that architecture, arts and philosophy are the fruits of religion.

Then I am to invite your imagination. A society of great number of peoples existed in a random area. You can say that the civilization is "barbaric" (donot raise an image of cannibals sort of animal but rather uncivilized people). What sort of Deus ex machina can unearth order out of them?

Well, you can say politics, laws, philosophies, ethics, cultures ,etc. But as far as things I have learned, religion is the best mean. I am not saying that it works to all of them. But consider, fear and hope are the best weapon of controlling people.

Does that answer why religions are present in every culture?
I will not say so, but rather religion is more towards a necessity of a society to proceed to be counted among great civilizations.

That once drifted me from my faith. First, religion can be forged by some immensely smart guys. Secondly, what worked for people in the past -or rather, early stage of a society- may not what works best for our age. Third, there are so many religions using miracles as their tools, why should the Israelite's be so special?

I will not share my answer for the first and the second one for the time being, this will be too lengthy a passage. But I must say that I found most of these things myself by a simple method: go somewhere quiet, sit or lie down comfortably and comtemplate about those stuffs.
Prayer can be a mean to do that (I should not write this thing, but hey, we cannot simply encourage people who has already their faith shaken to pray. Faith ultimately is a gift).

Then it brings me to the third point.
If I am working on a presumption that Jesus is only one of great founders of religion ,why do I find Catholic so special?
The answer jumped into my mind in an astonishingly simple word. Perfection.

What is so perfect?
Think and observe, what kind of religion have a better story (I am not trying to humiliate other religion, please dont get me wrong on these)
Why does Christian becomes almost one third of world's population (which means that almost half of the world worship the same God YHWH)? Simply opus homini?
Who has simple yet complex, easy yet difficult, happy yet not so happy teachings, demanding yet not demanding teaching?
Who offers a highest value or forms of morality?
Then who has a very well rounded teaching based on examples.

What do I mean by well rounded?
Ok, universality is one of the things I admire about my God. He has a way to reach people.
Men are born interested in different areas. Some like arts, some do not attracted to arts at all. Likewise, some people prefer hard examples. Some appeal to miracles and mystical or supernatural stuff. Some like sophisticated stuffs and adore train of reasoning. Some found themselves interested in prediction or even intervention of the veiled future. Some are attracted to beauty of things (like literary stuff).

Where on earth can I find all those things? Nowhere else but the gospel. People in the past liked to see miracles, that's what they had. Our Lord divulged some of his foresight in the gospel. Then, the beauty of things (I must say that bible are beautiful as a literature). And when the society grows more mature, they prefer to use their logic. That was where all great philosophers emerged and there were the place of doctors of the church. Great church mystics, prophets and even our Lord's own experience provide the answer to those who dwell in mystical domain. After grew weary with complex stuff, pragmatic way of thinking arose. Some demand proofs.
They like to ask : where are the hard facts, where are the proofs?
I will say that God Himself, saints, and prophets is the answer.

That is how great God is. In the end, ultimately it is about a love to God, Jesus Himself, no matter from whence you approach Him. Eventually, all complex analysis and philosphies converges into one, communion with Himself.

God knew this. We were in his mind before everything else. He provides for all of us. He just want us to love Him, no matter how we discover our love. You cannot blame nor discourage people for being rational and critical, likewise you cannot depreciate simple-minded and pragmatics.

Questa veritamenti opus Dei
"That really is the work of God"


(Most of things here are not elaborated, I can say each statement may cost pages to reason, sorry for that)

We Long to See You

We long to see You so,
To see the newly born,
We long for Christmas morn,
The sense of time runs slow.

O come, O come, O come,
Our Saviour dear to be.
O come, O come, O come,
We have no King but Thee.

We long to see You so,
To see the angel's glory,
To hear their midnight story
And with the Shepherds go.

We long to see You so,
To print our kisses sweet,
Upon your little feet
While tears of love shall flow.

Here's the first of my Christmas songs this season. :)

Such a simple little hymn, but it's brimming with joyful impatience and tender love isn't it? The choir sang this at the 11am Mass at St Joseph's Church (BT) today. It was my first time hearing it.

During the past few weeks there was a bit of this ennui, the joyful feeling of Christmas hadn't yet caught on. I looked at the Orchard decorations rather cynically - oh great, they're up already - they'll look so old and tired by the time it's really Christmas.

But thank God, and thanks to a couple of meditations at Opus Dei, a homily by Fr Cary, a chat with Fr Joe Lopez, some prayers and resolutions, I'm able to start Advent in anticipation and hope.

A blessed Advent to you all! May hope reign in us, and may we be agents, stars, of hope for others too this lovely, magical season.

'Let us learn from her, the Woman of Advent, how to live our daily actions with a new spirit, with the feeling of profound expectation that only the coming of God can fulfil.' (Pope Benedict, 28 November, 2010).

Refreshed!!!

I've realized that this blog hasn't been updated for a looooonggg time, so let me share a simple story of our Legion meeting last Tuesday.

Two days ago I actually felt very tired of studying (it's exam period in NUS). 7pm is our meeting time and initially I thought I wouldn't have energy to smile a lot during meeting. Hahaha. It was just so tiring to read various human rights convention on that day for my module preparation.

However, it's amazing how Mother Mary works during meeting. She works through each member in a unique way. Honestly, we haven't put FRESH flowers on the altar for a looooonngggg time. Eugene brought flowers on Tuesday and it was two stalks of yellow chrystanthemum(?). So pretty!!! You can smell the fresh aroma of the flowers (and the leaves) even during rosary. This simple thing apparently has brought different atmosphere to the meeting.

Then, the meeting goes on. Every meeting is always unique. Different members share different stories of the apostolic work that they have done for the whole week. It's always interesting and we can learn a lot from each other's report.

So yeah...after the meeting on Tuesday, I felt SUPER-REFRESHED! Hehehe.

Thank you, Mother Mary!! :):)
See you all next Tuesday and thanks for the support during exams!! Yeay:):)

Battling for souls

From the Legion Handbook:

"We must understand what the warfare is. It is being fought not simply to enlarge the Church, but to bring souls into union with Christ. It is that strangest of wars which is fought for the enemy, not against him. Even the term 'enemy' must not be allowed to mislead.

Every unbeliever is, as every Catholic is, a being with an immortal spirit, made in the image of God, for whom Christ died. However violently hostile to the Church or to Christ he may be, our aim is to convert him, not simply to defeat him. We must never forget that the devil wants his soul in hell as he wants ours, and we must fight the devil for him. We may be forced to oppose a man to prevent his endangering souls; but always we want to win him for his own soul's salvation. It is in the power of the Holy Spirit (sic) that we must fight, and he is the Love of the Father and the Son; in so far as the Church's soldiers fight in hatred, they are fighting against him."

- F. J. Sheed: Theology for Beginners

We must recover the urgent concern for souls - for each individual, priceless soul - that the saints of old display.

How to plant seeds of faith with strangers

When having a conversation with someone who is ignorant or hostile to Catholic teaching, a reasoned, gentle defense is most effective

You are sitting at your son’s soccer game, enjoying the crisp weather and your boy’s joy for the game. Then you hear someone nearby say “Catholic Church,” then “divorce”; suddenly the hair on your neck stands on end and your body tenses.

You realize that two parents next to you are criticizing the Church; they notice you looking at them and ask, “What do you think?”

Now that we live in a post-Christian world, every one of us encounters situations like this. The Catholic Church teaches certain precepts that are simply unacceptable — antithetical, even — to the modern ethos. Standing by those precepts, we open ourselves to criticism and even attack. Furthermore — and sadly — there are scandals surrounding some Church figures that open Catholics up for easy condemnation.

Be prepared

So what are Catholics to do? How do we respond? What are our obligations in these situations?
In a time of persecution in a deeply pagan culture, our first pope, St. Peter, wrote to his fellow Christians, “Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you” (1 Pt 3:15, RSV). This is an oft-quoted Scripture passage, especially among evangelists and apologists, but not quoted as frequently are St. Peter’s next words, “yet do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pt 3:15b, RSV).

Thus we have the guidelines laid out for how we are to react when our faith is challenged or defamed:
◗ Be prepared to make a defense.
◗ Do so with gentleness and reverence.

So, how do we go about following St. Peter’s command?

Read the rest here.

To be or not to be

To be or not to be , that is the question:
Whether it is nobler to lead a life of total seclusion
a shield of oneself against waves of avarice and desperation
and thence sustaining a complete ignorance and desolate action
or to take arms against an unending secular abyss
to preach, to impart, to negate and hence remnant of no debris

To be or not to be, that is the question:
Whether it is subtler a prayer of solution
to which it is conferred to single libation
a singular soul consoled to deep resolution
or to stand up shining before the tumultuous bodies
foundations to shift, believes to steer, winner of countless follies

To be or not to be, that is the question:
Whether it is more decent of a propagation
marching in a horde of splendid devotion
composing thousands of salvation tales under Her protection
or to tread in solitude, calling but to aids unseen
to bear, to grow,craving for great triumphs in between



--Inspired by W.Shakespeare's Hamlet--

More than just a group of aunties praying rosary

I went for my first curia meeting today and get very inspired. Unlike other conventional (worldly) meetings where people demand a lot of you and they just put more and more stress on your already pressure-cooker-ish life, the meeting went more like a family gathering. It embraces its members, no matter how incompetent they maybe, and gives everybody a chance to grow and learn. It does not mean that it does not demand anything. It serves a much bigger purpose than our daily worldly works: the salvation of souls and the glory of God. It demands a lot of your time, energy and efforts. But at the same time facilitates its members to be able to provide such commitment and dedication.

Some people might disappoint you, discourage you, give little meaning to what you do or serve; but we still treasure those people. Not because we lack of members, simply because they are human. We are always tempted to think like "what value does a person have if he does not do anything worthy enough?" But person's value does not come from what he/she does. No one is as bad as the worst thing he/she ever did in his/her life. Neither is someone ever as good as what he/she manage to achieve for everything is given from the mighty. We believe that everything comes out of nothing, from God's hand. With this faith, we can see that someone is precious simply because he IS. That's what I see and what I feel from being in NUS Legion of Mary. People would usually turn down other people who they think might not be able to perform as what is expected. In some occasions, they do not even give a damn about these people, ignore them as if they do not matter at all. It is very sad because those who are needy will never be able to improve and will stay crooked until the end. In legion, we are very eager to bring as many people as we could to what we believe is good. "...so that - the battle of life over - our Legion may reassemble, without the loss of any one, in the kingdom of Your love and glory..." (Legion's prayer)

And therefore we are trying our best to "be loyal; be understanding with others and demanding on ourselves" (St Josemaria Escriva) No one is left out. What you need to have is a willingness to serve, and everything will be given unto you. You could learn about the thing that matter most in your life; your faith, and you are surrounded by people with this value, ready to help you any time, sometimes even when you don't ask at all. Not saying I am an already good one, but I wish to be a good legionary and bring more people in to let them really see how this religious organization could be an answer on how we are supposed to live this life. You need to be professional, you have to be responsible of whatever mandate you are trusted to, you need to think to win people's heart and bring them closer to God; organize events, facilitate forums, public outreach, meetings to keep everyone on the right track, you have to give your best and make the best of your effort to please your ultimate CEO, God. But putting everyone into a pressure cooker is not the way we do our works. What comes out of love is always far better than something that comes out of fear.

I wish every legionary could see this value. It is okay to be inexperienced and unknowledgeable, it is okay if you make mistakes. So long as you have the desire to do better, you'll definitely reach there.

And I wish people outside the Legion could also look deeper on Legion of Mary. It is more than a stereotypical rosary praying group full with aunties, or the only CCA an incompetent people could get in cos it requires no interviews and it will have no power to boost your CV and all you have to do is just pray. We have a lot of great Legionary role model who lived heroic lives. In NUS itself, I have a number of seniors (pretty much all of them) who live with this value. They are great friends to everyone, passionate students, heroic leaders and devoted prayers.

And the secret, as my senior shared with me : "..it's not about being senior - somehow this wonderful spirit is passed to every member who joins..."

"In this life we cannot do great things.
We can only do small things with great love."
(Mother Teresa)

Operation San Lorenzo

Esteban Rojas, 18th miner rescued. (Courtesy of The Anchoress)

An amazing lesson on faith and prayer. A rescue of epic proportions on The Feast of Our Lady of Fatima. De profundis clamavi ad te domine.

Prayer Before Doing Legion Work

Holy Mother of God, Mother of us all,
Help me as I go to the front today as a soldier in your legion.
Keep my attitude towards people as one of infinite sweetness and patience.
Remind me always that I stand before people in your place, doing your work.
Remind me how much you love each of your children.
Let me disappear, and let my voice, my attitude and my thoughts be yours.
In this way, the will of God, who is your Son and my Lord, will be done.
I pray will all my heart for the conversion of the souls that I am about to meet.
Dear Mother, Queen of Peace, Queen of All Graces,
__________________________________( name of praesidium)
I am in your service, and I thank you in advance for having listened to my prayer.
Amen

From  the Senatus of Ontario

The Sportive Struggle

As of this writing, I have just finished a short self-initiated (inflicted) workout in the privacy of my room. It's actually a big accomplishment for me, embarassing it is to admit.
It has been almost two months since I started working (and consequently, my sedentary lifestyle), and I have not concerned myself with physical exercise for much longer than that. It's funny how a mere twenty minutes of stretches, push-ups, crunches, jumps, and kicks can seem like an eternity to someone who has not really exercised for a long time. My muscles were resisting, and I felt quite itchy and uncomfortable afterward.

Meanwhile, young athletes from all over the world have flocked to Singapore for the first ever Youth Olympic Games. I'm pretty sure all of these youths have spent countless hours in disciplined training and body conditioning to be able to represent their countries in their respective sports. I'm thinking they must have spent at least four hours a day training. And they're, like, at least five years younger than me.

Sigh.

Anyway, the key thing I wanted to write about is the value of sportive struggle, especially in the spiritual life. I'm no expert on this, and this is by no means an original idea (in fact I have to give credit to Opus Dei circles for most of these points), but recently I have come to see through my experiences (like physical exercise, for instance) how similar our spiritual journey can be to athletic discipline. Cliche as it may sound, it's true that there is no growth without struggle. We need to experience hardships and trials and overcome them to realize our inner potentials. Life would be stagnant, not to mention boring, if it didn't present any obstacle for us to overcome. I think there could be no true achievement without struggle.

As Christians, we strive to live out our faith and pursue the universal vocation to holiness in whatever role we have - student, professional, son/daughter, brother/sister, friend, and many others. Anyone who has been taking his/her Christian life seriously knows that it demands sacrifices and struggles many many times in the course of a day - against the lure of procrastination, against working with half-hearted effort, against the rationalization of sin, against gossiping, laziness, indifference, pride, mediocrity. This is similar to what a person who wants to lose weight and get fit has to do - he/she would need to stick firmly to an established exercise regime, not to mention a rather simplified diet, for at least several weeks to get results. It means foregoing fast food, ice cream, sweets, soft drinks, and many other good food in order to achieve his/her physical goal.

I believe this concept of self-denial is especially challenging to us who are living in today's secular and relativistic world where everything is centered on the self. However, just like how all athletes train themselves regularly and continually, so too must we struggle and prevail over these obstacles in order to grow in virtue and to strengthen our resistance against our inclination to sin. It is by no means easy to engage in continual struggle, and though we fail at times, it is even more important to be able to begin again and again. Come to think about it, the saints are people who did fall, but had been able to struggle to get up every time.

In addition, dealing with our personal struggles is a way of translating our supernatural life into action. Desiring to be good is not good enough - it must flow into our daily lives and influence our decisions, our behavior, how we treat other people.

Some of the things that can help facilitate our struggle are the examination of conscience and the acquisition of virtues. We are able to know our weak points through regular examination of conscience and thus focus on overcoming them. Meanwhile, developing good habits (by actually doing them) leads us to grow in virture and makes it more natural and easy for us to live a Christian life.

Perhaps one thing that can help sustain us in our sportive struggle is to see it positively, keeping in mind that whenever we say "no" to ourselves, we say "yes" to God, just like Mary. Also, given this outlook, we are able to face our obstacles with cheerfulness because we know that Our Lord and Our Queen are in the battle with us.