Boinkie's Blog

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:01:00 +0000

Lectio Divina

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:08:00 +0000

One method of bible reading is the Lectio Divina, where http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifyou read a short selection and then think deeply about what it means.

It sounds a bit obvious to me, but if you want to have an example of what it is and how to do it, check out this site.

calender HERE.

Sheilaism

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 01:27:00 +0000

Robert Bellah's book on modern man has a part about the religion of Sheilaism, where a woman named shiela talks about her own private religion.

So this is the guide to the latest "sheilaism" vocabulary, (from Ignatius blog)

Since many Catholics—and perhaps a few non-Catholics—aren't familiar with "un-churches" and their lingo, I thought I'd provide a short, but hopefully helpful, lexicon of "un-church-ese." Here we go….
"A sign from God" I have a good feeling about this un-church. Plus, the refreshments after the worship service were tasty.

"Anointing" I cried during the worship service for no reason.

"Communion" Crackers or pizza. Add soda or juice. Read John 6:63. Celebrate at the end of the service, taking no more than seven minutes.

"Contemporary" Lots of lights, loud music, t-shirts, and a sixteen-year-old pastor

"Dynamic" Killer bass and guitar riffs during the "Mosh With the Messiah!" worship service.

"Freedom" The pastor doesn't wear a tie, and he doesn't use notes or a pulpit when he shares the special word that God has laid on his heart.

"Authentic" I don't feel compelled to wear nice clothes.

"God told me…" I'm more spiritual than you.

"No structure" Nobody appears to be in charge or know what's going on. Ain't that great!?

"Non-conventional" My parents don't attend with me. Ain't that even greater?!

"Non-denominational" My un-church was established three years ago. We're just like the first Christians.

"Minister" (n.) The sixteen-year-old up front.

"minister" (v.) I talk one-on-one about myself, my feelings, my needs, etc.

"Personal lord and savior" You know, Jesus. Sheez, are you Catholic?

"Religion" The evil attempt of man to reach God. Invented by the Vatican in 325 A.D.

"Spiritual" Good. I'm very spiritual, by the way.

"Testimony" I talk in front of the entire group about myself, my feelings, my needs, etc.

"Theology" Boring. Invented by sadistic monks during the Dark Ages, which was a long time ago, even before MTV.

"Tradition" Very, very bad. Invented by a Pope in 666 A.D.

"Word of God The Bible. I read it and the Left Behind books every day.

"Worship" Jesus meets rock n' roll.

Quote of the day

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:03:00 +0000

comes from the anchoress

God has all the essential characteristics of what we mean by a “person,” in particular conscious awareness, the ability to recognize and the ability to love. In that sense he is someone who can speak and who can listen. That, I think, is what is essential about God. Nature can be marvelous. The starry heaven is stupendous. But my reaction to that remains no more than an impersonal wonder, because that, in the end, means that I am myself no more than a tiny part of an enormous machine. The real God, however, is more than that. He is not just nature, but the One who came before it and who sustains it. And the whole of God, so faith tells us, is the act of relating. That is what we mean when we say that he is a Trinity, that he is threefold. Because he is in himself a complex of relationships, he can also make other beings who are grounded in relationships and who may relate to him, because he has related them to himself.
– Pope Benedict XVI, (from God and the World)

she then goes on to quote someone writing boring things abhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifout "we baby boomers"...

when I read stuff like that I am reminded of the old joke: What do you mean "we", white man?

and then they quote Merton.

Yeah, make a hero of a pacifist who wouldn't get his hands dirty fighting Hitler.

True, maybe he wouldn't want to shoot anyone, but he didn't even bother to work with refugees or other civilian jobs like other pacifists did.
and to make it worse, his Merton quote (about fearing heaven)might be meaningful to the upper west side elites he ran around with, but not with the working class who were actually fighting Hitler.

discernment

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:27:00 +0000

good essay about discernment, when even the wise disagree

:LINK

the Black Nazarene

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 02:59:00 +0000

they are closing the streets in central Manila tomorrow for the Black Nazarene procession.

Here is one reporter's essay on his experience there LINK

a photo from the Manila Bulletin: (Photo by JACQUELINE HERNDANDEZ)

wikipedia article HERE

The religious veneration of the Black Nazarene is rooted among Filipinos for the Passion of Jesus Christ. Many devotees of the Black Nazarene identify their poverty and daily struggles to the wounds and tribulations experienced by Jesus, as represented by the image. Although the patron saint of the basilica itself is Saint John the Baptist, the Black Nazarene ranks first in popularity due to its mass appeal.

the devotion is a way to identify with the suffering Christ, and to invoke his help in our sorrows.
and here in the Philippines, there are constant sorrows, but also faith and hope.

Quick: Who do you believe?

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:13:00 +0000

The new bishop of Mostar defends his predecessor against charges of collaboration with the communist secret police.

bishop ratko peric mostar medjugorje

Ratko Peric, Bishop of Mostar

Bishop Peric’s article comes in response to the book “Medjugorje Misterij”, published in June 2011, and later coverage by Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli. In the book, four Croatian journalists documented how the Yugoslav secret police (UDBA) repressed Medjugorje in the 1980s, through papers unearthed from UDBA’s archives.

Leaving the issue open to interpretation, the authors left a collaboration between Bishop Zanic and UDBA as one possible way of understanding a certain document. In his article Bishop Ratko Peric denies this option, and further points to factual errors in UDBA documents. Early on, the Bishop clarifies his motives for writing:

“Since the late Bishop Pavao Zanic is mentioned in numerous pages of the book, and not in a complimentary way, it is our duty, for the love of truth and out of respect for Bishop Pavao, who was a bishop in Herzegovina for 23 years, to respond to such arbitrary claims and insinuations” Bishop Ratko Peric writes.

It says a lot about the sad state of bishops that I would believe the now released secret police archives over a bishop trying to whitewash his predecessor's actions.

Of course, I'm prejudiced: When the Croats were bombing the secular Muslims in Mostar, and many churches had been ruined or desecrated by communist Serbs, thousands had been killed, and hundreds of thousands fled the country, one reporter asked one of the Yugoslavian bishops what was the main problem the church in the then war torn country, and he answered Medjugorje.

more from another journalist who reviewed the book making the accusations:

Vatican journalist/commentator Andrea Tornielli took up the issue in Vatican Insider. From the original documents translated into Italian, Tornielli derived four conclusions:

1) The secret police used Bishop Zanic as a “main tool” in compromising Franciscan priests associated with Medjugorje.
2) Bishop Zanic’s hostility to Medjugorje was “fed by a series of documents put together by the men of the secret police, which were circulated among Mostar, the Vatican and some European countries.”
3) As “the second part” of the secret police plan, Tornielli cites “using the ancient conflict that exists in Herzegovina between the secular clergy and Franciscans, foreseen to create chaos in the local Church by turning everyone against everyone.”
4) A secret police report of November 17th 1987 “shows how Bishop Zanic was willing to accept any document against the Franciscans and against the apparitions, even if of dubious origin.”

The "Hell Freezes over" post of the day

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:02:00 +0000

a positive article about Rick Santorum....in the NYTimes.

copied for later readings

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 23:13:00 +0000

A lot of the "wominpriest" stuff is by those rejecting any difference between the sexes, ignoring of course the nasty reality that women carry and nurture babies.

Ignatius press has this on Mary Daly

The decisive impulse to theological feminism's critique of Mariology came in 1973, from Mary Daly's Beyond God the Father. Already in 1968, Daly published a book on the theme of women, its title and basic content closely tied to Simone de Beauvoir: The Church and the Second Sex. For Daly, too, one does not arrive in the world as a woman, but one becomes a woman. In view of the theory of evolution, we can no longer speak of an "essence" of man or of woman or, likewise, of an immutable God who grounds immutable orders of things. Hence, there are no longer any creation-imposed presuppositions to serve as standards for the transformation of society and the Church, but only the ideal of "equality."

In her 1973 critique, Daly has been inspired once again by Simone de Beauvoir, who had pointed out the contrast between the ancient goddesses and Mary as early as 1949; whereas the goddesses commanded autonomous power and utilized men for their own purposes, Mary is wholly the servant of God: "'I am the handmaid of the Lord.' For the first time in the history of mankind," writes Beauvoir, "a mother kneels before her son and acknowledges, of her own free will, her inferiority. The supreme victory of masculinity is consummated in Mariolatry: it signifies the rehabilitation of woman through the completeness of her defeat."

Daly now sharpens this critique and puts it in a wider systematic context: Mary is "a remnant of the ancient image of the Mother Goddess, enchained and subordinated in Christianity, as the 'Mother of God'." To this attempt to "domesticate" the mother goddess, Daly opposes a striving to bring together the divine and the feminine.

In the later work Gyn/Ecology (1978), Daly abandons the ideal of "androgyny" that she had previously still advocated and becomes the most important representative of the gynocentric "goddess feminism." Mary is a "pale derivative symbol disguising the conquered Goddess," a "flaunting of the tamed Goddess." Her role as servant in the Incarnation of God amounts to nothing other than a "rape." For Daly, the subordination of man to God is something negative, especially when this state of affairs is expressed in a feminine symbol such as Mary.

Belief in nothing is a religious, not a scientific idea

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 23:08:00 +0000

Uncle Orson writes:

The problem with Greenblatt's book is that he is a true believer in the non-existence of God. It is one thing to say that Lucretius's attitude opened the door to serious scientific endeavor, and quite another to say that Lucretius's godless worldview is true.
Yet that is what Greenblatt says. This immediately transforms The Swerve from a book of historical biography (or biographical history) into hagiography, a life of a saint: a book written by a true believer to celebrate those who contributed to the triumph of the faith.
In fact, The Swerve, while it celebrates Lucretius, is the opposite of On the Nature of Things, in that it purports to know -- by faith alone, since science cannot address the question -- that there is no possibility of divine purpose in creation.

And you know, I had to read the stupid book that Greenblatt's book is rewriting, in college, but the only thing I remembered from it was that it "proved" that no god was needed because after all, because life appeared by scientific "spontaneous creation": Mud produced frogs, and bad food produced flies.

This last thing was why Pasteur's experiment proving that fly eggs produced maggots was a defense of religion...

Gay Caswell

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 06:28:00 +0000

I often read Ms. Caswell's blog because a lot of the things she complains about are similar to those on northern (chippewa and Sioux) reservations in the USA where I have worked.

She is now suffering from an infected foot. Keep her in your prayers.

sad Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 03:10:00 +0000

I once worked in a poor area where the priest would start the ceremony to baptise each child with the words: The angels rejoiced at your birth, and now we welcome you in the family of the church.

In today's world, the lesson of Christmas, that when we find "belief" weak, we show our reverence by seeing God in our family, in our neighbors, and in the least of our brethren.

with all the fancy decor and choirs singing, one needs to remember that it is about a child born in a stable, with only his loving family, shepherds and angels to greet his birth, not about fancy presents, parties, and self.

AFP Photo of the Mindanao destruction.

Conspiracy theory

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 03:06:00 +0000

Malachi Martin mentioned a priest killed by "luciferians".

FYI: They have a wikipedia page about the case.

I am just putting it here to read later when I have more time.

Going where no blog has gone before

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 02:56:00 +0000

Catholic bloggers and the Borgs...

yes, and the bad news about Patheos is that they blog only about religion...and of course they are diluted by the non Catholics there, who will be checked out as fellow bloggers.

I prefer mixing my religion with life, as Jesus did.

headsup PPapist

New age religion and computer central

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 23:27:00 +0000

LINK

Yes certainly. In fact, I believe it is this liberal aspect through which computer culture and New Age are related. The emphasis on ‘freedom’ and particularly on ‘liberation’, as well as on the expressive self and the self-evolving and self-realizing human individual, are themes that account in large part for the sympathies between the ‘hippies’ and ‘hackers’ of the Bay Area. These notions translate, for instance, into the celebration of technology as art, of technology creators as artists and into rituals that seek to ‘decondition’ human beings (as well as technology).

you might want to read the whole thing.

False accusations

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:11:00 +0000

A story about a priest accused of impregnating a young girl who was crucified in the media, who never retracted or apologized when the DNA tests came back positive.

LINK

The other pertainent part of the article is this:

The key question, of course, is why RTE went ahead with the broadcast without taking up Reynolds on his offer of a paternity test.

Although nobody's issued any official answer, most observers believe the program reflected a general climate in Ireland in which priests are now seen as fair game. A recent national survey found that only 28 percent of the Irish can correctly identify the share of Irish priests who have actually been found guilty of child abuse, which stands at roughly 4 percent. Seventy percent of the Irish believe the figure is higher, with almost 50 percent believing that more than 20 percent of priests have been found guilty.

Ah, but anyone who knows about Ireland knows that the "establishment" has seen the church as an obstacle to Ireland's "Progress" (i.e. abortion, divorce, population control, etc).

This scandal was a godsend to them, just as it was to the US press.

Yet to put it into perspective is never done. No reports on public schools, or other institutions.

nor reports linking pornography and gay rights which ignore that the implies approval of the vast promiscuity of some people, including males who seduce young girls and boys.

LINK

is a survey on teenagers in the US that includes sex behavior along with things like if they drink soda pop.

Notice the high rate of sexual abuse, not just "intercourse" under age 13 but also sexual/date related violence and unwanted sexual intercourse.

Rich folks telling the Pinoys to stop having children

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 00:56:00 +0000

Yes, Bill Gates and other big powerful groups are behind the push for the RH bill here.

Ironically, if instead they funded "pill ladies" who were not associated with the government, and funded midwives in poor areas (one third of Filipino women give birth without a trained attendent) and maybe if they gave grants to government midwives in isolated rural ares (so they didn't expect an expensive "gift" for doing their job) you could do the same thing for less money.

This money is going to the rich politicians to bribe them...and the next step is to vilify the catholic church that stands in the way of the progressive agenda.

They tried to do this by a publicity campaign implying that the bishops were driving expensive SUV's from the government charity fund, but the bishops pointed out that the SUV's were mainly used pickup trucks etc. used to help rural parishes, and they openly gave them back.

Presumably tne next step to demonize the Catholic church is to find pedophiles, like the terrible but exaggerated reports in Ireland (the numbers were huge only if you didn't figure out the percentages and compare them to secular schools etc. in the UK),

Actually here they'd have better luck in finding mistresses but since a lot of families trace their Spanish blood to a priest, that won't do much.

The Way

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:52:00 +0000

A good review for The Way on Manolo for the big girl blog.

Ebook downloads

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 21:26:00 +0000

The CurtJester has links for Father Aumann's book on Spiritual theology. and includes epub download at his site.

I checked it out: It's a bit heavy reading.

And he also has a link from Jimmy Akins for Benedict's talks. They are more poetic, but until I get an ebook reader I'll hold off. I can read light reading on the computer but after a page or two I give up, and I can't contemplate on it. Usually I switch to audiobooks for that.

When the encyclical on hope came out, I started reading it to my computer and was astonished. But then I gave up: as I age, it's hard to concentrate.

Father Slavko anniversary

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:00:00 +0000

DaMihiAnimas remembers Father Slavko on the 11th anniversary of his death.

headsup Spiritdaily

I have been to Medjugorje, and there is grace there. Those on the left want to get rid of it because it is bringing people back to Christ.

The disturbing part is those on the right who "nitpick" small problems (which were no worse than those in other apparitions such as Knock or Fatima) to be a sign that it is diabolic.

Yes, the local bishop hates the place, but you know, in the middle of the Yugoslavian civil war, where over 100 thousand people were killed, and Communist Serbs were destroying Catholic churches and Catholic Croats were bombing Mostar, some reporter asked the bishop what was the most serious challenge to the Catholic church in Yugoslavia, and he replied "medjugorje".

Yes, religious hatred, no problem. People being killed, no problem. The seige of Sarejevo, no problem.

A couple million pilgrims going to a Franciscan run church in Yugoslavia to pray: Big problem.

Thanksgiving supper sigh

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 22:47:00 +0000

My husband is fond of Chinese restaurants, so with the arrival of the cool season, has wanted for the last few weeks to go into Manila for a feast.

Usually we find one of the larger restaurants and go in and order all sorts of food and he chooses most of them and presides over the feast, a joyful family celebration.

So he has been asking to do this for several weeks, and wanted to go last Sunday.

But it is also pre christmas season and there are a lot of trade fairs so Chano and Joy are busy. Then we are having to process the rice for Christmas gifts, which we pack in a decorative package as a gift. Since we now have our own ricemill, that means checking the mill (some of the rollers broke down, so we had to replace them) and also planting rice in the dry season (We lost part of the last harvest from typhoon related flooding).

So Lolo asked to go on Wednesday or Thursday (Thanksgiving, not celebrated here) but they decided to take us on Friday for evening supper.

Big mistake: No, not because of shoppping but because the traffic is worse Friday with everyone going to visit relatives outside Manila.

It took us two hours to get to the mall in Bulacan (and it would be another hour by freeway to Manila and then going through the bad 5 pm traffic to find a busy restaurant on Friday evening). By this time, I was feeling lousy, Ruby had car sickness, and so we stopped at the mall, not for the food court but to go to the Chinese sit down restaurant there.

The place was clean and the menu good.

But the food was poorly cooked. Tasteless. The chicken and fish was supposed to be batter fried, but was frozen stuff they merely heated or microwaved so it was tough and the coating was like paper. Then they used a canned a sweet and sour sauce on top, instead of a freshly made sauce.

The fried veggie dish was also tasteless. Even the lechee nuts were canned with cool aide type cherry juice to flavor it.

The only thing good was the fried rice dishes. But even these lacked the garlic and onions that one expects, and the "special" fried rice merely had canned gravy and veggies over it: tasted okay but it wasn't fresh, and for the prices we paid, it should have been better.

I am now heart broken. What we should have had was a joyful meal, but Chano and Joy were busy talking and fighting over the orders that needed to be prepared, Ruby was bored and busy texting all over, and I was bored too: the food would have been better from the food court. Indeed, there was a Pizza hut and a barbecue restaurant next to where we ate, and I was tempted to go there for take out.

Lolo seemed to enjoy it, but it breaks my heart to know what we were looking forward to, and what we actually did.

So should I have backed Lolo and gone to Manila? No, because with the heavy traffic, we would all have been exhausted by the time we reached there.

Sigh.

Ethiopian Orthodox bible

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 07:11:00 +0000

linked for later reading.

Original link

Free Republic link

stuff

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:12:00 +0000

Bishop Flattery of Tulsa is interviewed...podcast on EWTN.

Eugenics and philanthropy. Yes, they are still doing this to the Philippines, and Hillary is coming here to push western birth control on poor people in the Philippines.

Omelas

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:32:00 +0000

This is the best post on the Penn State scandal.

the name refers to an Ursula LeGuin short story, where a city is wonderful and beautiful but only can exist that way by torturing a child.

Many pro life people see the story as an allegory on Abortion, where a girl chooses a good education, wealth, freedom, and all she has to do is abort her child. If the story is an allegory, one has to wonder, since I had always understood LeGuin was pro choice...or maybe she is prochoice but her conscience came out in the story, recognizing how women who abort often have done so under duress, and often have to deaden their consciences on that painful " choice", which often haunts them for their entire life.

the other interesting part is that no one bothers to worry about the victim. Much of what is termed "abuse" is touching or mastrubation, but Sodomy, as in this case, in a child causes physical harm, even when it is "consensual"...(ditto for vaginal harm to a pre pubescent girl).

Did no one think to take the kid to a doctor?

As for the "coverup": one suspects that the horror is there because few of us see such things. Yet maybe the lack of horror is because it was gay sex, and gay sex was tolorated and approved of. Yes, a normal guy seeing a child being sodomized would grab the guy, beat him up and call the cops, but a guy who was used to seeing gay sex in a shower might just call the father to take the kid home, seeing a normal activity but trying to get the father to protect the kid.

Another point is in the comments: That reporting such things puts the victim and the witnesses through hell. Several of the adult women who had gone through abuse and a court case said that giving testimony when the abuser was looking at you, and then being "called a liar" by his cross examining lawyer was worse than the abuse itself.

So often the authorities try to get the guy to plea bargain, figuring a lesser charge will punish him but save the child from the horror of a court case.

I remember one case (where the exam showed extensive intercourse in the past) where a father was abusing his older daughter, and then started on the younger one. The older daughter at this point (at age 13) reported him, to protect her sister. We caught him in a lie, and he plea bargained, but for six months the girl was in terror of thinking of the court case.

Finally, no one seems to be reading this report,Sexual Identity, Sex of Sexual Contacts, and Health-Risk Behaviors Among Students in Grades 9--12 --- Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, Selected Sites, United States, 2001--2009 including the part which says 3 to 10 percent of teenagers claim intercourse below age 12, and 10 to 30 percent of gay teenagers claim the same thing.

One of my friends, a nurse, on the Indian reservation said her AA meeting was full of men who had suffered abuse as children, including sexual abuse in boarding schools or by relatives/ friends of the family.

abortion of girls spreads to Europe

noreply@blogger.com (boinky) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:03:00 +0000

to Albania and other SE European nations.

Ultrasounds worsen Asia women shortage: UN Oct 06, 2011 | not rated yet | 0
Millions of girls lost to selective abortion in India: study May 24, 2011 | not rated yet | 0
Where have all the young girls gone? Feb 10, 2011 | not rated yet | 0
The impact of sex selection and abortion in China, India and South Korea Mar 14, 2011 | not rated yet | 0
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