Boinkie's Blog

Stuff on the web

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:09:00 +0000

mainly book marked for reading later

Meditation by Benedict XVI on the Holy Family:
the Word of God is the foundation of everything, it is the true reality. And to be realistic, we must rely upon this reality. We must change our idea that matter, solid things, things we can touch, are the more solid, the more certain reality. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord speaks to us about the two possible foundations for building the house of one's life: sand and rock. The one who builds on sand builds only on visible and tangible things, on success, on career, on money. Apparently these are the true realities. But all this one day will pass away. We can see this now with the fall of large banks: this money disappears, it is nothing. And thus all things, which seem to be the true realities we can count on, are only realities of a secondary order. The one who builds his life on these realities, on matter, on success, on appearances, builds upon sand. Only the Word of God is the foundation of all reality, it is as stable as the heavens and more than the heavens, it is reality. Therefore, we must change our concept of realism. The realist is the one who recognizes the Word of God, in this apparently weak reality, as the foundation of all things.

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City journal on the rewriting of the history of the crusades.

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In the war against the family, the result will be fragmented lonely people and the huge nanny state, with no true freedom...

Insight press quotes an article about GK Chesterton on family.

Chesterton recognizes a triune attack on the family: divorce, feminism and sexual immorality. Divorce is the most obvious attack, but ironically because it is so obvious it has become the most ignored. We have resigned ourselves to accept divorce almost nonchalantly, as if it were something normal. Marriage has lost its meaning because the vow has lost its meaning. Divorce is only half the problem of divorce. The other half of it is re-marriage. Chesterton points out that if the marriage vow can be conveniently broken and then made again with someone else, it sort of takes the romantic element out of the vow, emptying the vow of its importance. This is what Chesterton calls the "superstition" of divorce: the notion that vows suddenly mean something in a second marriage when they evidently did not mean anything in a first marriage. "The most obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage."
Read the rest

and the importance of the small community:
"
InsightPressBlog reminds us GKChesterton wrote about small communities, where you live with everyone, and larger ones where you chose who you live with...

The Nun's Story

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 06:17:00 +0000

the film is now on YOutube in ten minute segments...
watch it before the copyright guys find they posted it.

Panimatha: Apparition Hill

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:17:00 +0000

from SpiritDaily, a reports on a little known Apparition of MamaMary...

fromPanimatha

On 29th March 1939, evening around 6.30 pm, Mary appeared on a hill near to the church. She appeared in the middle of bright white light. She wore a veil and looked towards the church and worshiped with folded hands. A water fall was falling down from her feet. Six young people (Gnana Athikkam, S.P.John, M.G.Thomas, D.Thasan, R.Thasan, M.A.Thasan) saw that apparition. They saw that apparition for few seconds and after that it disappeared. Next day morning they went to the apparition hill and found a pair of human foot print on the rock at the apparition site. They marked the foot print and informed that apparition to parish priest Rev. Father Marianoos, school head master Laxmana Iyer and the village people. Rev. Father Marianoos and the people were uncertain about that apparition.

It was a drought time and for 13 years there was no rain in the arid zone Kallikulam.

The school head master told them that he would believe that apparition only if he saw the waterfall on the hill. That day after noon around 3 pm there was a heavy rainfall for one and half an hour time in and around of Kallikulam.

A waterfall formed on the hill top at the apparition site. After that signs, they believed the apparition, and setup a Pandal (temporary structure) with coconut leaves on the apparition site....

but many years earlier, dreams of a woman with a child resulted in a local church being built...

Sister Faustina

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:56:00 +0000

the entire movie, in 9 minute segments, is on you tube.

Sister Faustina

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:56:00 +0000

the entire movie, in 9 minute segments, is on you tube.

Would you risk death for the Eucharist?

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 03:17:00 +0000

We just watched the old film "The Cardinal", made in the days when priests were still allowed to be shown as men who love God and strive to do the right thing.

A lot of the struggles are out of date: chosing a Caesarian section instead of dismemberment when his sister has obstructed labor (she died from the operation, as doctors predicted); the session in which he confronts the KKK; and the naivity of an Austrian bishop in confronting the Nazis (until the Nazis show their real colours).

Supposedly, some of the incidents were about Cardinal Spellman, who was the NY Archbishop at that time...and some people ridiculed him for his strict "anti communist" stance that made him support the troops in Viet Nam. (Opposing that war is considered a mark of goodness by the elites in the US, yet considering the genocides that followed the communist take over, the part of the movie about the Nazis is eerily predictive of how naivity in politics can allow evil to triumph)

When the Nazis finally attack the bishop, who after learning that the Nazis plan to close all church schools etc. and stages a peaceful protest, the brownshirts enter his residence; the Austrian bishop and the hero (who at this point is in the Vatican diplomatic corps) delay their escape long enough to consume the Eucharist in the chapel...

This action is understandable to Catholics, because we know that the bread is Jesus, present under the appearances of bread (and wine) after the concentration.

No wonder the modernist catholics hate Eurcharistic adoration: Jesus among us.

The Eucharist and Mama Mary: The edge that separates those who believe and those who have their own agenda in the Catholic church.

Philosophical musing

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:46:00 +0000

In China, the fear is of anarchy, not loss of freedom...

sounds like Hobbe's Leviathon, that argues the same thing.

Another blog (no link) points out Michael Moore's tirade against Capitalism uses religious images that associate socialism with Christianity.

Actually, Catholicism is neither: it posits something like the old "Holy Roman Empire" where small areas governed themselves, and small farmers and shop keepers were the norm, and minorities could govern themselves, under a king whose power was limited by intermediate institutions (e.g. the church, the guilds) and the high king (the Holy Roman emperor).

The Hapsburgs blew it by extending the idea too far, and by the Protestant reformation, that blew up the idea of hierarchy in authority, placing the individual as the most important part of society.

Many of this was good (for example, Calvinism was behind the idea that one could make money in business and still serve God). But like all ideas, it is getting to the end of it's usefulness by it's faults being exaggerated.

"the old order changes, giving place to new, lest one good custom should corrupt the world"...

The idea of subsidarity and communitarian idealism didn't work too well, so the Holy Roman Empire was replaced in the modern world with a more efficient central government: thanks to Napoleon, it evolved into the Prussian idea of the state doing everything, or the socialist idea of the same (except the leaders were "elected", and religion was subordinated to the state).

So where does this lead us?

"Coast to Coast AM" had a report of the Virgin's statue crying in Ireland, which just voted yes for the European Union.

Developing a NWO where religion is frowned upon? Or, will the Muslims rise up and essentially destroy the atheism in Europe?

developing...

The persecution slowly starts

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:54:00 +0000

Let's see.
First, cut out the conscience claus.
Then send money to fund abortions overseas, destroying the HIV program that has saved ten million lives in the name of promoting sexual hedonism.
Then pass a "health care bill" that doesn't promote abortion, but has a clause in it that allows the HHS secretary (the notorious Sibelius, who vetoed twice bills to stop half born babies from being killed) to decide what "procedures" are mandated by all insurance companies.

The latest: They are laying the groundwork to stop religious charities from "discriminating"

Sigh. I'm glad I'm in the rural Philippines

sigh

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:38:00 +0000

Obama's plan to destroy Bush's successful HIV medicine
Remember when he asked the head of the program to resign for supporting abstinence programs in conservative areas?
Well, now it will push the sexual liberation agenda along with population control.
He's saving the earth... you know...

-----------------
Heh. Most people stay married to one person: 76% marry just once.

And 85% of Americans have a religion...and half of the "other" 15% believe in God but just don't join a church...highest number are in young men.

Padre Pio

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:41:00 +0000

St Pio's feast is the 23rd of September.

And OnTheWingsOfMyDream blog posts this video, and if you go to you tube, you can see the entire movie.

I don't have any devotion to Padre Pio.

But one of my friends tells this story.

She was visiting Italy with one of her relatives, a missionary priest, and on the way to his mass the car had a flat tire so they knew they'd miss the service.

So she prayed to her guardian angel to tell Padre Pio's guardian angel that they were going to miss the mass, and ask if they could meet him.

And when they arrived, a priest came out and asked if they were so and so (giving their name) and when they said, surprised, yes, he said: Oh good. Padre Pio's angel said you'd be coming later.

I'm not sure if they met him or he just sent a message out, but he did know they were coming.

Thanks Mom

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:51:00 +0000

Heh...someone needs to tell Noynoy...

Headsup CoffeeCatholic

Why the powerful hate brown kids

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:36:00 +0000

One of the first thing that President Obama did was to remove the "gag rule" from US foreign aid.

By using the word "gag rule", it made a lot of people support it's removal, since freedom of speech is popular in the US.

But this is a ruse: the "gag rule" has little to do with "freedom of speech" and everything to do with promoting abortion with taxpayer money.

From IPPF:

provide counselling and referral for abortion, even in countries where abortion is legal

that's what most people think the definition of the "gag rule" was.

Note two little things: "provide counselling" can mean intimidate into having an abortion, or in China, where second children are forbidden, it could mean ordering them to do so.

The second slight of hand is:"even in countries where abortion is legal "...

This means those clinics in places like the Philippines or South America that don't "do" abortions, but will send a lady to a pharmacist who will provide them with medicines that will induce abortions, or to practitioners who will abort them illegally, often by changing paperwork to claim the procedure was for a miscarriage.

But IPPF admits it the gag rule that was removed went furthur:

advocate to make abortion legal or more available in their country, even at the request of their own government

That is why the Philippines has a constant drumbeat in Congress to pass the "reproductive rights" bill.

Heaven knows there is a need for midwives and public health in the rural areas, but the dirty little secret is that this would mean more money to divert into politician's pockets, while those who want to limit population would have the ability to pressure midwives and doctors to do abortions and tubal ligations or lose their jobs.

And, of course, poor women will be pressured into using contraception or sterilization that they may or may not want...something that has happened in Peru and India, and something that I have seen done in the US...

Finally, the IPPF lamented that the gag rules prevented paying for

abortions in cases other than a threat to the life of the woman, rape, or incest

There you have it. The gag rule stopped paying for abortions, and now removing the "gag" rule means that the US taxpayer is funding abortions overseas.

And although it is denied that US taxpayers are paying for forced abortions in China, that too is a slight of hand.The IPPF funds clinics that do forced abortions. But they don't fund the abortions, only part of the clinic's operations, not the forced abortion part.

The IPPF propaganda machine condemned the anti abortion funding ban was the same as killing women and shutting down clinics:

The result was that clinics closed, medical staff were lost and family planning, sexual and reproductive health and HIV services were cut back, affecting many communities in developing countries.

Overlooking the fact that the clinics could simply have stopped doing abortions. And, of course, pretending that the funding was not immediately replaced by the European Union.

As for cutting clinics, seems to me that Bush's funding of HIV programs saved a couple million folks, but that doesn't matter, because he didn't fund condoms.

Notice the irony: The European Union is good because it funds abortion.

Bush is evil because he stopped funding abortion, and instead funded and encourage private funds to treat HIV, TB, Malaria etc. Could it be that they resent that this money saved millions of lives?

As for condoms, , the fact that other sources of funding could have supplied condoms is overlooked...not to mention the real problem is family breakdown and promiscuity, not simply HIV transmission.

But of course, the "elephant in the living room" is the dirty little secret that all of this is about population control.

Of course, many of those who work so fervantly to promote abortion are doing so because they are trying to quiet the ache in their heart because they aborted children who stood in the way of their education or careers, or because their modern boryfriends deserted them, and refused to marry them or assist them to raise the child.

Why else would Sarah Palin be so vehemently condemned? Not only didn't she abort a "change of life" baby with Down's syndrome, but she (horror of horrors) even offered to adopt her daughter's child to free her to finish school.

But underlying all of this is population control, especially of "inferior races".

A hundred years ago, these "inferior races" meant the Irish (in the UK) but in the US, it also meant the Irish, the blacks, and the Jews.

We are much more sophisticated nowadays, of course. No one would use race as a criteria to slow population growth.

In the 1970's, the emphasis was on the "population bomb" that would cause massive starvation in the 1980's...

The "Green revolution" stopped that hysteria (albeit the NGO's did their best to stop this from being implemented in Subsahara Africa, so people there still lack food).

The bad news is that the "global warming" hysteria is now being used to fight global warming.

But the real emphsis is to eliminate poor children.

In the US, since most people used to be poor, saying that is taboo. But Europe, who is facing a population collapse, is more open about these things.

Just google: need population control UK, and you find:

Mga Resulta sa Paghahanap

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Population control 'needs debate'
- [ Isalin ang pahinang ito ]
13 Nov 2007 ... A Lib Dem Euro MP warns that mankind is "swamping" the earth like a "virus" and calls for talks on population control.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7093099.stm - Naka-cache - Katulad -
UK population must fall to 30m, says Porritt - Times Online
- [ Isalin ang pahinang ito ]
22 Mar 2009 ... The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if ... Britain needs a “coherent strategy” on population growth. ...
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5950442.ece - Katulad -
Population control 'vital' to curbing climate change | Environment ...
- [ Isalin ang pahinang ito ]
Agencies; guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 January 2006 15.53 GMT. The world's booming population growth needs to be reined in before there is any hope of ...
www.guardian.co.uk/.../climatechange.climatechangeenvironment - Naka-cache - Katulad -
2. Dominic Lawson: A retort to the population control freaks ...
  - [ Isalin ang pahinang ito ]
  6 Nov 2007 ... The BBC's peerless economics correspondent, Evan Davis, points out that if the whole of the UK had the population density of Jersey then we ...
  www.independent.co.uk/.../dominic-lawson-a-retort-to-the-population-control-freaks-399128.html - Naka-cache - Katulad -

But presumably, even if too many US taxpayer refuse to stop their relatives freom being seen as a human virus, there are other ways to do it.

from the (London) Times (May 2009):

SOME of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly to consider how their wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population and speed up improvements in health and education.

The philanthropists who attended a summit convened on the initiative of Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, discussed joining forces to overcome political and religious obstacles to change.

Obama pulling a "fast one" on Abortion in the US health care bill

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 22:35:00 +0000

Fact check on abortion in the health care bill:
The problem: it's the Capp amendment...
The LATimes insists it's a "reasonable compromise" but the US Bishops say it's a ruse, and at least one bluedog Democrat agrees....

ah, but now the Messiah has spoken, and behold,

Zenit News notes:

'Richard Doerflinger, the associate director of the Pro-Life Activities committee, said the president's stated commitment to exclude federal funding for abortion was particularly welcomed, as was his promise to protect conscience rights."
The article goes on with a bishop's spokeswoman insisting that the bishops back health care legislation, essentially backing the President's plan.

and just to emphasize things, their headline reads:

Obama Promise Welcomed: No Tax-Funded Abortion

presumably US taxpayer money going to fund abortions overseas doesn't count...

as for "conscience rights", I seem to remember it was Obama who removed the regulations to protect health care workers...and hasn't gotten around to replacing them nine months later.

But the "Spokeswoman's statement" gives them cover.

HHS secretary Sibeleus (who vetoed bills in Kansas that would ban late term abortion on babies who could live outside the womb) insists:

“In fact recently the Catholic bishops came out, after the President’s statement saying that his statement about what he intends in the plan that no public fund would go to fund abortion and the fact that he has come out firmly for insuring all Americans and saying that it’s a moral issue as well as an economic issue and they endorsed moving forward. I think the legislative language will reflect what the President has just said.”

This again is a Clintonesque spin.

Read it quickly, and you get the idea that the bishops are backing the President (take that, prolife movement).

But her actual words were:

. “In fact recently the Catholic bishops came out, after the President’s statement saying that his statement about what he intends in the plan that no public fund would go to fund abortion and the fact that he has come out firmly for insuring all Americans and saying that it’s a moral issue as well as an economic issue and they endorsed moving forward...

Let's parse that one.

The bishops were approving Obama's statement that no public funding would go to abortion.

The problem?

The word "public".

How would that work with Health care?
Well, the government would put most of the money into the pot, but if you wanted abortion coverage, you would have to add your own money. (say, five dollars a month).

Maybe.

Or else they could argue that since the same insurance plan (which covers abortion) has lots of normal payees, that the abortion part would be paid for by the non government premiums.

From the NYTimes:

The Capps amendment tried to satisfy the current ban on direct federal financing of abortions by requiring that government contributions to either the public plan or the private plans be kept in separate accounts from premiums paid by individuals. Payments for abortions (beyond the current exceptions) would be attributed to the premium pool.

Groups like Planned Parenthood and Naral Pro-Choice America insist that this segregation of money means that abortion would be paid for with “private dollars,” not federal ones. Abortion opponents call this bookkeeping legerdemain.

Taxpayer subsidies and personal premiums, they argue, would be completely commingled in the public plan; a surcharge on premiums to pay for abortions would be billed equally to those wanting abortion coverage and those opposed to it; and federal checks would go directly to abortion providers.

The National Right to LIfe committee is even more blunt:

The latest statements by Mr. Obama and Ms. Sebelius are most likely a continuation of their strategy of denial, evasion, and distortion. We say, watch what they do, not what they say." Full NRLC Release HERE and a letter from Johnson to me HERE.

Also overlooked is this provision. From the Heritage Foundation website:

LINK

Under the House bill, the federal government is authorized to determine what health benefits must be included in Americans’ health insurance plans and federal officials will determine the health plans that would be considered “acceptable” coverage under the law.

In other words, once the bill is passed, the HHS secretary could mandate abortion coverage by fiat as part of "acceptable coverage".

Or, more likely, this would be done via lawsuits before sympathetic judges.

But of course, US Taxpayer money is already funding abortions overseas, but this was called "Removing the gag rule", not paying for and promoting abortion.

And I will cover that in the next essay.

Our Lady of Las Lajas

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Shrines to Mama Mary are all over the world.

This one at Las Lajas, on the Colombia/Ecuador border, and commemorates a vision to poor Indian woman and her deaf mute child

The story of the cathedral's creation is that in 1754 an Amerindian named Maria Mueces and her deaf-mute daughter Rosa were caught in a very strong storm. They found refuge between the gigantic Lajas, and to Maria Mueces's surprise, Rosa exclaimed "the mestiza is calling me..." and pointed to the lightning-illuminated painting over the laja. The oldest account was recorded in the accounts of Fray Juan de Santa Gertrudis's voyage through the southern region of the New Kingdom of Granada between 1756 and 1762

A longer version of the story can be found HERE.

We visited by taking two buses down the Pan American hiway to Ipialis, then took a smaller bus and then a taxi to about a mile from the shrine, at which point we had to walk across the bridge.

There were many pilgrims there, some from Colombia, as we were, and many from Ecuador.

You could tell those from Ecuador, because usually they wore a poncho and were smaller and more "indigneous" than the metziso Colombianos.

We prayed in the shrine, and went to light a candle in the outside house for candles (a seperate chapel across the bridge. Presumably to keep the fire hazard down).

Then I rested while my sons risked the walk down the cliff to the bottom, where there is a spring in which pilgrims could wash.

I went along the road on the shrine side, which is covered with placques saying thanks to Mama Mary for her healings and answers to prayers.

Then we hiked back over the bridge, and down a dirt road into town (rather than take a taxi since the weather was nice).

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There was one other "shrine" to Our Lady that we saw during our stay.

The Airport was fogged in (you can see how dangerous the airport approach is at you tube HERE)

And while going down the Pan American highway to Cali (which is lower in altitude and less prone to fog) we saw a statue of the virgin on a hillside, surrounded by candles.

Someone had a vision of the Virgin there, and the locals had made a shrine.

We couldn't stop...This was in an isolated area, far from towns and cities, in an area where people were basic farmers or worked for richer farmers. Yet there too Mama Mary had appeared and prayers were being said and answered.

happy Birthday to Mama Mary (part one)

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:46:00 +0000

Happy Birthday, Mama Mary

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:23:00 +0000

We almost missed the holy day: September 8, the birthday of the virgin Mary.

Here in the Philippines, the rejoicing that so few lives were lost in a superferry accident lightens the daily news report of disasters, scandals, and corruption.

And I rejoice because my husband's health is good.

So why worry?

One worries about the state of belief in the world.

Our family is pious, but our children are protestants (although my step daughter is taking instructions to convert to Catholicism...her mother was a rabid anti catholic).

Yet the laxness of the church in the US is worrisome. And here in the Philippines? I can't judge: I am not fluent. But most of the "pious" middle class are Protestant: hard working, honest, and snobs, whereas the poor are Catholic, easy going, and with a deep love of Mama Mary.

Yes the piety is there, despite all the problems and corruption.

A seer from Europe once predicted that the "reign of the Immaculate heart" (i.e. the revival of faith before the end times, after the present day apostasy) would start in the Philippines.

The diaspora of Pinoys since that prediction was made suggests there might be some truth to this.

In the US, Obama has surrounded himself with those who hate "white people" but what he really means is working class people of all races who object to the demagogary of "we'll take care of you" bossy elites whose agenda is to control how people live.

The left in the US is no longer the liberal that I once believed in. They hate, they do not build up. Reverend Write gave speeches of hate whitey (not on things like don't steal, don't commit adultary or honor your father and mother) and Obama's green czar who just resigned rejoiced at the LA riots as an uprising of the oppressed, not noticing the rioters were gang members burning down the stores of the hard working Korean immigrants who knew more about poverty than any of them.

Freedom to live one's own life is important in the US, and a dictatorship of do gooders is not what the working class want, but solidarity and family.

Here in the Philippines, however, those who defend the poor against the strong are often killed. The rich have the guns, and can do what they want.

If the meek will inherit the earth, it won't be the proud leftists of America who despise the poor and working class who want to live their own lives, but those here who actually know and love ordinary folks.

if this doesn't seem to have much to do with Mama Mary, well, she did say that when God chose her, it was an example of how God exalts the lowly...

Be worried, be very worried...

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:42:00 +0000

why Afghanistan matters...to China

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:40:00 +0000

The What if question

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:20:00 +0000

The "what if" question about Teddy Kennedy is not "What if he went for help at Chappaquiddac", but it's "What if he decided to defend life?

Like most Democrats he was pro life, until the supreme court changed the law by fiat, and then he instantly changed.

This pleased the feminists, many of whom have had abortions (often because they slept with the wrong man who promptly left them when they found she had conceived; others because they wanted a career and felt great anger against their child for interfering with their desires).

But the saddest part is if he actually had even gently promoted a pro life agenda, associating it with protecting women and families, he could have made a big difference in the party's turn toward incorporating deathmaking as a right they are defending.

Yet he did insist he had lived righteously, in a letter to the Pope of all people:

“I have always tried to be a faithful Catholic, Your Holiness, and though I have fallen short through human failings, I have never failed to believe and respect the fundamental teachings,” Kennedy’s letter stated. “I continue to pray for God’s blessings on you and our Church and would be most thankful for your prayers for me.”

If this sounds familiar, it should: it is bragging.

Ironically, most people have overlooked the ironic wording of the reply from the Pope.

“His Holiness prays that in the days ahead you may be sustained in faith and hope, and granted the precious grace of joyful surrender to the will of God our merciful Father.”

Notice it asks that he be given the grace to surrender to the will of God...the implication that he has not done this (but followed his own will).

So is it wrong to give a "catholic" politician who openly opposed the church and who supporting killing children a funeral?

Well, yes.

We always give people the benefit of the doubt, and figure they may have repented their sins, and of course there is always purgatory...

Photo of the day

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:56:00 +0000

Mass facing God?

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:38:00 +0000

I read that the bishop back in my old diocese of Oklahoma is going to say mass facing God instead of the people.

His reasons strike one correct:

Unfortunately this change had a number of unforeseen and largely negative effects. First of all, it was a serious rupture with the Church’s ancient tradition. Secondly, it can give the appearance that the priest and the people were engaged in a conversation about God, rather than the worship of God. Thirdly, it places an inordinate importance on the personality of the celebrant by placing him on a kind of liturgical stage.

here in the Philippines, there is loss of Catholics to other churches, partly due to the lack of priests...

We just opened an adoration chapel in our town, so we hope that the prayers will slowly increase the Catholic piety here.

But after the readings of the first part of the mass, I wonder if facing the altar would help people to realize that they weren't "celebrating" together, but supposed to be worshipping the Lord.

Transfiguration

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:02:00 +0000

The Transfiguration is more important in the Orthodox church than in Roman Catholic culture.

I always thought it (the vision) was about confirming Jesus as God.

But in another point of view, it is a mystical experience that was meant to strengthen the faith of the apostles.

In life, often one receives an extra grace or even a spiritual renewal before times of trouble or loss.

Musical Interlude for today

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:21:00 +0000

and for other

Music downloads of the day

CosmosLiturgySex blog has a link to the Sacred Music Colloquium in Chicago, who has a lot of downloads of classic religious music in mp3 form for your listening pleasure.

The martyrs among us

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 00:16:00 +0000

I wrote a longer essay on BNN about martyrs. LINK

I'm trying to think how many people I have met who are martyrs.

Sister Rita, a nurse that worked with me, was killed a year after I left Africa by people unknown: she was walking on mission property to the dam that supplied the gardens water, and they never found who killed her.

She was chubby and cheerful, and I still have a holy card she sent to me that has a picture of Mary and the lines "He is truth in your arms, and our hope".

Another friend who was killed was a fellow physician, a German neurologist who decided to retire to Africa and ran a hospital. At our last visit, we both discussed if we should stay or leave...I left in July, and she was killed in August, when those associated with the "insurgency" decided to rob the hospital...

One priest (whose brother I knew) "disappeared" and a year later, we heard that he had witnessed a massacre and been killed by the government and his body was thrown down a mine shaft. One of those witnessing the dissposal of his body visted family in South Africa, and told his clergyman, who sent word up to us.

One of my Korean friends had a grandfather killed for being Catholic.

Then there were the Mexican sisters who had a monastery near where I grew up. They had fled the persecution in that country (which few Americans had ever heard about). Father Braun, beloved of the Mescalero Apaches (where I once worked) and later a survivor of Bataan, the Death march, and the death ships, actually was involved in smuggling to Catholic clergy in Mexico in those days.

Here in the Philippines, although my nephew was killed in the cross fire of a political murder (by a rival politician) one wonders: Was he killed because instead of running away, he leaned over to help his friend, the son of the politician?

Although the killing of those on the left get the publicity of their fellow leftists in the US, the dirty little secret is that some of the "political killings" are merely eliminating rivals, or eliminating reporters spilling the beans on corruption, and some are revenge (the army revenging against a now retired "militant" who had killed a lot of people years ago and got away with it), and some are merely about money (my nephew's death was about who gets to be mayor, which of course allows a lot of money to be skimmed into one's pockets for personal use).

So who is a martyr, and who is just a victim of political squabbles?

When Thomas Beckett is killed for opposing the king's power grab, and Edith Stein is killed merely because she was jewish, the definition seems to be a bit broad.

But as I said in my original essay, the decision is made earlier, when one decides to live for the truth, or to do one's daily work despite the danger, and one's simple fidelity to one's vocation is the cause of the hatred that takes one's life...

Sickness

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 07:18:00 +0000

Lots of sickness here in the provinces.

We have had a lot of flu among our staff: if it is H1n1 it is mild, very sick but only lasting two days...one of the local farmer's kids came in hot and dehydrated and I sent him immediately to the public hospital...

But most of the kids just have ordinary coughs or diarrhea not flu...and nothig that looks like Dengue, thank the Lord.

I usually pay for the medicines, since although they are cheap, when a farmer mainly eats their own food but has little cash, they may have trouble getting 100 pesos (2 dollars) for medicine.

I am of course a physician but no license and not in practice, but in rural areas no one cares...if anyone questioned I could just say I was writing the prescription under my husband's licence.

but ironically the poverty here is not as bad as when I was in Africa...

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