Love :)

finally, i think it's time for me to write my first post *even though most of the things in this post is copied from The Soul of Apostolate. lol*

i've been thinking on what topic should i choose for my first post, and finally.. i decided! i'll write about love :) there are many reasons why i chose this topic. because today's reading is about love, my spiritual reading's topic today was about love, my cg topic yesterday was about love, my last allocutio also about love (and apostolate actually), and soo.. yes, i think i should share about this. :)

An ardent love of Christ and true flair for saving souls will give an apostle all the daring compatible with tact and prudence. Here is a story that was told us directly by an eminent layman. On the occasion of a conversation with Pius X he chanced to let fall a few biting words against an enemy of the Church. "My Son," said the Pope, "I do not approve of the way you talk. For your penance, listen to this story. A priest I used to know very well had just arrived in his first parish. He thought it is his duty to visit every family, including Jews, Protestants, and even Freemasons. Then he announced from the pulpit that he would repeat the visits every year. His confreres got very excited at this, and complained to the Bishop, and the Bishop, in turn, sent for the culprit and reprimanded him severely. 'My Lord,' answered the priest modestly, 'Jesus orders his pastors, in the Gospel, to bring all His sheep into the fold. How are we going to do that without going out after them? Besides, I never compromise on principles, and I confine myself to expressing my interest and my charity towards all the souls entrusted to my by God, even the ones that have gone furthest astray. I have announced from the pulpit that I would make these visits; if you formally desire me to give them up, please be good enough to give me this prohibition in writing, so that everybody may know that I am simply obeying your orders.' Moved by the justice of this appeal, the Bishop did not insist. And in any case, the future proved that the priest was right, because he had the happiness to convert a few of these strays, and inspired all the others with a great respect for our holy religion. This humble parish priest, by the will of God, eventually became the Pope who is now giving you this lesson in charity, my son! Therefore, cling firmly to principles through thick and thin, but let your charity go out to all men, even the worst enemies of the Church."

humm.. dunno about you all, but for me, I think this is a very nice stories which reflect the power of love. and for me myself, after these 2 years serving in the CSS and in the Legion, it is really love that has been sustained me in doing this apostolate works. and i think, this quote from St Josemaria can conclude my very long first post :P

And what is the secret of perseverance? Love. Fall in Love, and you will not leave him.

The Present is the point at which time touches eternity

Randomly opened the Screwtape Letters by Lewis (which I borrowed from Dom long long time a go) [yes Dom, will return to you this Thursday during mtg] and apparently God wants me to read the one very applicable to me now.

So this is senior devil advising to younger one. Enemy means God, so 'our good' means the good for the devil's side. This is really good, esp. when your project is not going well even though you have invested your time and love. While the other project envies the previously mentioned project.

15

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

I had noticed, of course, that the humans were having a lull in their European war—what they naïvely call "The War"!—and am not surprised that there is a corresponding lull in the patient's anxieties. Do we want to encourage this, or to keep him worried? Tortured fear and stupid confidence are both desirable states of mind. Our choice between them raises important questions.

The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. .It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence the encouragement we have given to all those schemes of thought such as Creative Evolution, Scientific Humanism, or Communism, which fix men's affections on the Future, on the very core of temporality. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. Do not think lust an exception. When the present pleasure arrives, the sin (which alone interests us) is already over. The pleasure is just the part of the process which we regret and would exclude if we could do so without losing the sin; it is the part contributed by the Enemy, and therefore experienced in a Present. The sin, which is our contribution, looked forward.

To be sure, the Enemy wants men to think of the Future too—just so much as is necessary for now planning the acts of justice or charity which will probably be their duty tomorrow. The duty of planning the morrow's work is today's duty; though its material is borrowed from the future, the duty, like all duties, is in the Present. This is not straw splitting. He does not want men to give the Future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. His ideal is a man who, having worked all day for the good of posterity (if that is his vocation), washes his mind of the whole subject, commits the issue to Heaven, and returns at once to the patience or gratitude demanded by the moment that is passing over him. But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future—haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth—ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

It follows then, in general, and other things being equal, that it is better for your patient to be filled with anxiety or hope (it doesn't much matter which) about this war than for him to be living in the present. But the phrase "living in the present" is ambiguous. It may describe a process which is really just as much concerned with the Future as anxiety itself. Your man may be untroubled about the Future, not because he is concerned with the Present, but because he has persuaded himself that the Future is, going to be agreeable. As long as that is the real course of his tranquillity, his tranquillity will do us good, because it is only piling up more disappointment, and therefore more impatience, for him when his false hopes are dashed. If, on the other hand, he is aware that horrors may be in store for him and is praying for the virtues, wherewith to meet them, and meanwhile concerning himself with the Present because there, and there alone, all duty, all grace, all knowledge, and all pleasure dwell, his state is very undesirable and should be attacked at once. Here again, our Philological Arm has done good work; try the word "complacency" on him. But, of course, it is most likely that he is "living in the Present" for none of these reasons but simply because his health is good and he is enjoying his work. The phenomenon would then be merely natural. All the same, I should break it up if I were you. No natural phenomenon is really in our favour. And anyway, why should the creature be happy?

Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE

Let the little ones come to me...

Here's yet another funny picture from AmericanPapist.com:

And here's a very nice video about The Catholic Vote:

The Marian Papacy of Benedict XVI

By John Allen Jr

By conventional standards, Jesus’ mother is not a major figure in the New Testament. Her name appears barely a dozen times; famously, Mary is mentioned more often in the Qur’an than in the Christian Bible. Yet despite that relatively low profile, few figures in Scripture have been the subject of greater controversy.

For some Protestants, Mary has long loomed as a symbol of Catholicism’s penchant for “adding” to the gospel, in this case an almost blasphemous level of devotion to a mere human being. For some feminists, veneration of Mary as both virgin and mother sets an impossible standard for women, thereby perpetuating male dominance. For many secularists, the body of miraculous lore surrounding Mary, especially her reported apparitions in various parts of the world, strains credibility in a special way.

In part, perhaps, Mary has been a lightning rod precisely because she is such a uniquely Catholic figure. Catholics share Christ, the gospels, prayer and sacrifice, even the sacraments, with many other forms of Christianity. Yet even though other Christians treasure Mary in their own ways, she is strongly associated in the popular imagination with the Catholic church.

Mary’s centrality in Catholic tradition may help explain why the last two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have been so committed to reawakening Marian devotion in the church. For both popes, defending Catholic identity in a highly secular age has been job number one, and nothing says ‘Catholic’ quite like the Blessed Virgin Mary.

John Paul’s motto was Totus Tuus, “all yours,” a phrase from the book True Devotion to Mary by the 17th and 18th century French saint Louis de Montfort. As for Benedict XVI, so far he’s made nine foreign trips, and virtually all have pivoted on a major Marian shrine. While in Brazil, for example, Benedict went to the shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida; the heart of his trip to Austria was a stop at the sanctuary of Mariazell.

Please read the rest here

John Allen mentions five points that the Holy Father made in his recent trip to Sardinia.

• Mary points to Christ, above all to his incarnation.
• Mary is a symbol of the beauty and tenderness of God.
• Mary is a forerunner and a model for all disciples of Christ.
• Mary is a model for mothers, children and spouses, and thus a patron of the family.
• Mary is the “star of the new evangelization,” a patron for efforts to bring Christ to the world.

Via the AmericanPapist

Allocutio on 4 Sept - HOPE

In the antiphon of last Sunday’s mass, we are called as Christians to live in hope. In the First Letter from Peter: “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet. 3:15)

The Second Letter of St Paul to the Corinthians: “The God who said, “Out of darkness the light shall shine!” is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts, to bring us the knowledge of God’s glory shining in the face of Christ.”

He has called us to live with hope, to account for the hope in us and to see the hope in the midst of undesirable situations. And we do these with the knowledge of God’s glory shining in the face of Christ.

The Olympics had just ended. On the outset, with the mimicking of a little girl’s voice of joy, it was a game glorifying the more “perfect” sportspeople, a game glorifying the more “beautiful”. But beyond this superficial glorification, we are reminded about the poverty that lies within the rural areas of China. We recall the joy of the original singer in the opening ceremony and lastly, we remember the sportsman running in campaign for life. (Lopez Lomong who ran in campaign against the Darfur genocide)

We affirm hope with the knowledge of God’s glory shining in the face of Christ and we strive to be a prophetic voice speaking out to protest injustices and indignities.

“The Catholic Church strives to be a prophetic voice, speaking out to protest injustices and indignities against the human person. Catholics will continue in this work, whether our words are popular or unpopular.”

Whether our thinking is popular or unpopular, we shall continue in this thinking of hope that is in communion with the knowledge of God’s glory shining in the face of Christ. St Augustine warned against misusing the limited knowledge of biology to risk committing homicide. With firmness and clarity in the light of truth, the Church teaches us what is morally right. St Augustine rejected acts against life at every stage for he believed with hope in God having “the power to make up all human deficiencies or lack of development in the Resurrection”. (www.catholiconline.com)

Even knowing at the beginning that her Son would die, our Mother embraced and loved Christ. She did not perform euthanasia on Christ but brought him up and remained with him till the end at the foot of the Cross. Our Lord knew He would die but did not choose an easier means of doing so. His agony at the Garden was one of hope in our salvation. "If this cup cannot pass by, but I must drink it, your will be done!" It was a prayer in communion with the knowledge of the Father’s glory..

Thence, with reverence to Him and with gentleness like our Mother, we remind ourselves to be a living account of hope..

And Happie Bdae Mummy! :)

We Catholics are VERY creative :p

Watch these!

From St Augustine

Here's a beautiful message from St Augustine. When you go to meet God, bring along with you as many souls as you can!

If physical objects please you, praise God for them, but turn back your love to their Creator, lest, in those things which please you, you displease him. If souls please you, let them be loved in God; for in themselves they are mutable, but in him firmly established--without him they would simply cease to exist. In him, then, let them be loved; and bring along to him with yourself as many souls as you can, and say to them: “Let us love him, for he himself created all these, and he is not far away from them. For he did not create them, and then go away. They are of him and in him. Behold, there he is, wherever truth is known. He is within the inmost heart, yet the heart has wandered away from him. Return to your heart, O you transgressors, and hold fast to him who made you. Stand with him and you shall stand fast. Rest in him and you shall be at rest. Where do you go along these rugged paths? Where are you going? The good that you love is from him, and insofar as it is also for him, it is both good and pleasant. But it will rightly be turned to bitterness if whatever comes from him is not rightly loved and if he is deserted for the love of the creature. Why then will you wander farther and farther in these difficult and toilsome ways? There is no rest where you seek it. Seek what you seek; but remember that it is not where you seek it. You seek for a blessed life in the land of death. It is not there. For how can there be a blessed life where life itself is not?”
Confessions, Book IV, Chapter 12

How to Stay Catholic in College

Friday, August 22, 2008
By Father Mark

Dr. Christopher Kaczor was recently on the Life on the Rock discussing how to stay Catholic in college. Dr. Kaczor is a college philosophy professor and author of various books and articles. I thought he had well-reasoned insights into why many drift away from their faith during the college years. I would like to point out here a few points we discussed on the show.

To go to college is a privilege. We take it for granted now, but it is a privileged time to study and grow as person. We should approach this time with gratitude for an opportunity to develop ourselves.

Approaching college with an attitude of thankfulness and of humility for receiving this gift makes us good stewards of what we have been given. When we lose sight of college being a gift and make it just a time to follow whims and hedonism, we are wasting time and money.

Make friends in college who have good values and who will help you to stay on the right track. If we are around people who are immersed in the party scene, not serious about school work, or are of bad morals, we will be tempted to do the same. I often hear from college students that one can find what one wants on a college campus. There is a full spectrum on campus. You can find people who share your faith, and this can be a big help to you keeping yours. My first roommate in college was Catholic and he would drive me to Mass with him on Sundays. It was a big help for me.

Frequenting the sacraments and a daily prayer life are necessary for staying close to the Lord. It is good to go to confession at least once a month, and more if you are struggling with sin. Dr. Kaczor made a great point that if we are getting our hair cut more often than we are going to confession, we should probably be paying more attention to the beauty of a virtuous life.

A prayer life is necessary for a Christian. Don’t let the perfect spoil the good. Short prayers said with fervor can help us stay on track. A morning offering, examination of conscience at night, and short prayers during the day are a way of asking God for the grace to remain faithful to him.

The rosary, longer periods of meditation and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament are great sources of peace and grace in our lives. We should always be striving for a deeper prayer life, but don’t lose confidence in even a quick prayer.

We must also be aware that relativistic notions of truth and a philosophy of materialism dominate our college campuses today. Simply put, we have lost confidence in finding the truth, especially moral truth. We have made it purely subjective today. We simply define our own truth today. We have lost any sense of discovering or receiving a truth that is outside of “me,” a law that does not come from me. We have given up the search, the seeking of truth. How can we find it, if we are no longer searching?

Materialism denies a spirit world – or a spirit world of any consequence. We have reduced truth to what we can measure in the lab or experience with our senses. But philosophy and faith are real sources of knowledge and should not be discounted. Maybe we minimize these sources of truth to be free of their demands upon us, but we strip ourselves of the real drama of life where evil and goodness are possible and heroism is called for.

Frequently, in academic settings, the Church is discounted on account of her past failings. Holiness is of her essence, but we sinners find in her a home of forgiveness. We are a communion of sinners. The Catholic Church has made great contributions to civilization and she has had her failures. We acknowledge these failures and ask forgiveness. The Church has the fullness of Truth and Grace in this world. Her members are always subject to human frailty, but we do not dismiss the Church because of the errors of a few.

One final point is that the truth, found in any discipline of knowledge, can never be a threat to our faith. God is the source of all truth, and He cannot contradict himself. We are not afraid of nor do we stifle the truth.

College is a marvelous time in people’s lives to learn and grow into adulthood. Young people’s hope and idealism should be fostered at school and guided by our faith. Our faith takes nothing away from us that is true, good and beautiful. Our Catholic faith leads us to the one who is truth, goodness and beauty itself.

Priceless!

What wannabe saints can expect