God’s love

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Pope Benedict XVI’s retirement and what the world thinks of it : Why we should not fear and worry

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2013/03/01/every-snarky-comment-about-the-pope-is-an-insult-to-me/

Indeed, as we all should know, the world does not like us, it does not like the Pope who leads the Church, just as it does not like Christ, as He Himself had said that this world hated Me, and it will also hate and persecute those who believes in Me and follow My teachings and My ways.

But we should not fear, and we should neither worry, but we must be courageous and steadfast as God will guide us and He will surely protect us from harm. Let us all, rather than hating the world and hating these people and institutions which had made so many attacks on the Pope and the Church, let us forgive them, and pray for them. That they all too will learn the truth of Christ, and be enlightened. Let us show them what is the Church and our faith all about, not by attacking back viciously or having any siege mentality, but let us offer ourselves in love, to embrace those who hates us, that they too will believe in God and His love.

God bless us all, and God bless His Holy Church, our Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, his successor-to-be, and bless the world with all its people. Amen.

 

Content of the article from site above :

 

Every snarky comment about the Pope is an insult to me

People outside the faith will never understand how much the Holy Father means to us

By on Friday, 1 March 2013

The See of Peter is vacant, and as a result, like so many others all over the world, I feel a little bereft as I write this. Yesterday, as in so many other parishes, we did our best to mark the end of Benedict XVI’s reign and ministry as Supreme Pastor. The children in our primary school, many of whom were not born when he was elected, had a celebration; and there was, in the evening, Vespers, Benediction and Te Deum, followed by food and drink. It was nice to be able to say goodbye to a Pope while he was still alive – a novel event – rather than to mark his death and burial; but all the time I was aware of those pictures on the television, of the helicopter flying past the dome of St Peter’s taking the Pope away from us all. It felt like a bereavement, and it felt that way because it was a bereavement.

I was born in the early months of Pope Paul VI’s reign, and so I have seen four Popes, and await my fifth. I have had a deep personal attachment to all four, even though I never met any of them in the flesh, and I only ever saw John Paul II from an immense distance. But, the Pope is our father, and we love him; he belongs to us, we are part of the same family of faith. These four pontiffs have had a great formative influence on me, and I do not think that someone who is not a Catholic can really understand this. Andrew Brown,  who writes for the Guardian, always writes well, and he has great insight into religious matters, but he stands outside the family of faith, and as a result, he does not get why this Pope, indeed any Pope, matters to us so intensely. The Church is not an organisation like the United Nations or the European Union or the Liberal Democrat Party. It is the Mystical Body of Christ. To be Catholic is to experience the joy, peace and love that belonging to the Mystical Body brings; it is to be in communion with the Pope, which is the visible sign of that Mystical unity. And that in the end is why I cannot really express to anyone just how intensely I loved Benedict XVI, John Paul II, John Paul I, and Paul VI, or how intensely I will love the Pope who is to be elected shortly.

This is the mystery of the Mystical Body. Those outside the Church need to deal with it. It is the way we are. And it is the reason why when people make snarky comments on Twitter about the Pope, any Pope, they do not really insult the Successor of the Apostles, they insult me.

How happy I am that, wherever I have been in the world, I have been with people who profess the Catholic Faith, people who follow Christ and follow Peter. Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia, ibi vita eterna. For those who need a translation: Where Peter is, there is the Church, there is eternal life!

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Thursday, 21 February 2013 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor (Scripture Reflection)

The Lord our God provides for all of us, and He cares for us. For He is our Father, the creator of all things in this universe. Therefore it is only fitting that He gives us all that we need, and no, those are not material goods and wealth, but love, His love, which fulfills us and make us whole in Him. All if we just simply ask Him, to open ourselves to Him who loves us. God is willing to give many things to us, but many times, we are simply not receptive to His approach and His outstretched hands. Even at other times we turned our back on God, and rejected His love and kindness to us, in favour of the pleasures and good things that the world has to offer us.

Indeed, the world does have many good things, and many of us are fortunate enough to have a comfortable life and enough in all things and material goods that we need to do so. However, many of us, especially those of us who are prosperous, increasingly in these recent years, are growing in their spiritual hunger, in the search of something that can satisfy their life. For material goods and wealth, although may bring joy at first, but it cannot continue to sustain our joy and happiness, not without the Lord as the centre of our life.

For life without God is ultimately empty. Men can gather as much money and wealth that they want, and then spend them as lavishly as they wish. However, as history has often told us, many of these people have no true happiness, since in dealing with their immense worldly possessions, they built for themselves the illusion of happiness, sustained by these wealth, and which blinded us not only to God, but also the plight of many among us who are indeed less fortunate.

Therefore, let us indeed aspire to become more like the Lord, who listens and who pays attention to those who come to Him, just as we are well received when we go and seek for Him in sincerity, and open the doors of His heart to us when we pray to Him in our hearts; Therefore, we too should make ourselves available and reachable to those around us, our friends, our relatives, those whom we do not know but need our help, and even those who hated us and persecuted us.

Let these people come to us, and when they ask, let us not turn them away, just as the Lord does not turn us away when we ask Him for mercy and favour. Open the door for them, and through us, let us be the channel of God’s love. Just as God’s love, grace, and blessing came to us, let us share these blessings, in whatever form, either material or even spiritual with those around us who are lacking. For as many as there are who still suffer from poverty and material deficiency, there are even more people in this world today, who suffer from the poverty of the soul, the emptiness of the soul, only curable by God Himself.

Let us endeavour to bring God to those who seek Him, and let us not deny them this chance, and therefore through us, God has made His work of redemption manifest, to bring the sacrifice of Christ on the cross into completion. Christ offered Himself for our sake that we can be saved, but there are still many who reject Him and reject His teachings.

Today, we commemorate the memorial of St. Peter Damien, was a well-known and respected Cardinal of the Church in the early medieval era, well known for his reform of the religious orders and monastic practices, and the priesthood in general. His great piety and humility, and constant acts of penitence showed his great quality in the faith, and especially important is the numerous writings attributed to him on the faith and the Church, and how these writings had considerable impacts on the later saints, which includes St. Francis of Assisi and other great medieval saints and doctors of the Church, which St. Peter Damian was one of them, a Doctor of the Church through his extensive and influential works on our Christian faith, helping to define the Church in the next centuries following his death.

Like St. Peter Damian too, we can follow in his footsteps and that of other great saints, whose great love for the Lord has made them to seek the Lord and ask Him for strength and perseverance to serve the people of God, and bring God’s love to them. We too can do so in our own ways, in our own daily lives, and among our own relatives, friends, and neighbours. Reach out and share with one another the love and faith you have in God. Remember that a light is not to be hidden, but to be put on a lampstand that all can see in its light. Let us bring light to everyone, through us, who has a share in the Light that is God, that all mankind will one day be united in Christ, in God who loves us dearly.

St. Peter Damian, pray for us, and pray for God’s holy Church in this world, for all the bishops, and for our Pope, who in his great humility as you were, gave up his position so that others who are more capable of the great ministry can help accomplish the works that he has begun. St. Peter Damian, we also ask you to pray for Monsignor William Goh, who will be ordained as a bishop tomorrow, that he will be always strong and empowered by the Holy Spirit in his ministry. Amen.

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Wednesday, 20 February 2013 : 1st Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

We heard that even the sinful people of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, who destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel, turned to the Lord, when confronted with God’s punishment and destruction as told by the prophet Jonah. In this we find that while God hates sins and evil, but God also loves us all, the mankind, and is ready to forgive us if only we are to turn ourselves fully back towards Him, and humbly ask for His forgiveness, just like the king and the people of Nineveh.

For we are told then that Jonah resisted the Lord and was even angry with Him, when He decided to spare the people of Nineveh, which the Lord then showed to Jonah, how He loves all, and that even He would spare and love a single lowly being, if that being also truly loves Him and turn towards Him, and such a great city of Nineveh, with its many inhabitants, who has yet to listen to the goodness of the words of the Lord, should not be judged, because these poor souls have no shepherd to guide them to the proper path. Jonah’s proclamation is one way to the deliverance of these people from their previous sinful path.

However, for all of us, let us not be like either Jonah or the people of Nineveh. Unlike Jonah, we should love all men and hope in them, that no one is to be condemned, no matter how bad they are or what terrible things they had done, even the most sinful mankind still has the light of God in them, and only if they would truly repent, they would be saved, and that light unveiled from the thick darkness of their hearts and souls. It is up to us, who has been saved in the Lord through our baptism, our faith, and good works in faith and love, to help our fellow brethren who are still lost.

Let us also not be like the people of Nineveh, not in the way that they turned to the Lord in repentance, as we too need to repent for our sins, but in that we should do our best not to sin and do what is evil in the beginning, and turn to the Lord in full sincerity and in full humility, and not just because we fear the anger and punishment of the Lord, or because we fear our destruction, just as the people of Nineveh who repented because Jonah announced to them the doom of Nineveh. It is not to say that such a thing is bad, as when we have already sinned, we ought to seek the Lord’s forgiveness and repent, but it is even better that we strive to live a good life, and avoid wickedness in the first place, in all things that we do.

Then, as the Lord mentioned, that faith in the present day, and even in our modern world today, is problematic, as increasingly mankind left the Lord whom they thought is nonexistent, and chose instead to believe in what they can see, what they can understand, and what they can interact with, which is none other than science. No, this is not to say that science is bad or evil. Science is good, but how it is used and interpreted is very important, as nowadays, increasingly many use Science as a tool to even attack the faith in God, and ridicule the faith publicly. For the Lord, who is God, is indeed beyond what Science can ever know, and His nature is beyond all our possible understanding, and no matter how advanced a scientific tool is, they can never determine the nature of God and limit Him to our own human understanding.

We are often in awe of our own abilities, and our own creations, that we began to lose our focus in God, and began instead to focus on ourselves, on our capacities, and rather than to trust God, we instead began to trust our own selves, and our own finite ability, and glorify ourselves. For Christ is there, and has always been there, and there is the Church, through which God made Himself available, and the spreading of the Word of God by His missionaries continues even to this day. But many chose to believe in their own selfish pride and reject that they have any need for God, this God who has sacrificed Himself for their sake no less.

But, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, let us not turn a blind eye towards them, and rather, embrace them, show them who Christ our Lord is, and what God’s love can do for them, and for everyone. Approach them, and through our actions, make God’s love manifest in our world, that they too can see what it is. God loves everyone, even those who had rejected Him, and those in the darkness, having lost their way in their journey towards Him. Let us help one another that indeed, especially for those working in the field of Science, that they do their marvelous works for the good of everyone, and to give glory to God, and not to themselves. For it is all possible because the Lord made it so. God be with all of us, forever, and ever. Amen.

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Sunday, 3 February 2013 : 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

The Lord presented to us, the greatest thing of all that exists in this world. This thing is Love. Love is the centre of all things, and indeed, love is at the very centre of the salvific mission of Christ in the world. For it may be asked, why God who is so great and so divine, would be willing to lower Himself such as to become a humble human like us. It is all because of love. Just as said in John 3 : 16, how God loves as so much that He gave us His only Son, Jesus Christ, that we can be saved and have hope for eternal life. If God has no love for us, surely He would not have done that.

Love is indeed essential for all of us, and as the Lord mentioned the most important things of all, faith, hope, and love, with love being the most important of the three. For faith is inseparable from love, since when we have faith in someone, particularly God, we must also have love, since it is impossible to believe and put all of one’s trust in someone, when in that one’s heart, there is no love at all for the other person. The Lord, who is full of love is therefore also faithful to us, and despite our constant rebellions and sinful ways, He is always ready to welcome us back if we are truly sorry of our faults and once again love Him.

Hope itself is also tied with love, as one cannot hope without love in their hearts. Since first, because all hopes are ultimately directed to God, how can one hope without first having love and faith in God? Indeed, one has to first believe in God and His power, that there is hope. It is through faith in God that we can have hope in Him, and indeed, hope in all mankind. By having faith, it means we also have love, and thus, this is why, love is at the centre, the most important thing of all that matters.

It is important to love, as without love, we are just a husk of flesh and blood without character, since our character is defined by love that is in us. Love that we have in God allows us to remain faithful to Him and keep Him always in our hearts, and always keep hope in Him, that even in the greatest darkness and times of greatest trouble, we still believe that God will help us find a way, such is the great love that He has for us, especially when we love Him too in return.

For the Lord has suffered greatly on the cross for us, all for our sake and for our liberation from sin, out of simple and pure love. It is Christ’s love for His Father that helped Him to persevere through His Passion, and allowed Him to accept willingly the chalice of suffering that He is to drink. This chalice of suffering, which then is filled with His Precious Blood, is the new covenant upon which we have our hope of eternal life. For the Lord brought with Him a new covenant in place of the old, that now through His great love for all mankind, all creation can be saved instead of just the people of Israel, God’s chosen people.

The people of Israel indeed has been God’s chosen people, and God has endured their numerous rebellions and protests with His love and patience, to still save them through the Sacrifice of His Son. However, ultimately, God’s love is such that He wants all of mankind to be saved and reunited with Him once again.

Thus, the new Covenant made by Christ covers all mankind, and no longer just cover only the people of Israel. Jesus made this clear in the Gospel today, as He mentioned how God sent His prophets to the people that do not belong to the Houses of Israel, even when there are so many others in Israel that need them as well. This is because even within Israel itself at the time, there are many who turned deaf to the word of God, shunned and even killed His prophets. Indeed, there are many examples given such as the widow of Zarephath and Naaman, the Syrian, who shows that faith and thus the love of God too existed in all peoples, even beyond Israel.

It does not mean that God hates the people of Israel and do not love them anymore. On the contrary, His love is as great as it has always been. Indeed, God sent His Son to be born into the House of David, as a fulfillment of His promise to David that his line and descendant will rule forever. This is fulfilled in Christ, who is both the Son of God, and the descendant of David, who will rule as King of all the Universe for all time. You can indeed see how faithful God is indeed to all His promises, just as how great is His love. God loves His chosen people, the first-called people of Israel, but He also love all others, all Gentiles, even more.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us has an important mission in our lives. Just like Jeremiah, who was chosen and called by God to be His prophet to all people, we too have been called, through our baptism. We all have a priestly, kingly, and prophetic role to fulfill upon our baptism, as we are called to be all these three, just as Christ who is our God, and also our High Priest, our great King, and our great Prophet of the Good News.

We have to bring the Good News to all around us, especially for those who seek the Word of God and have no chance to do so. In our daily lives too, we all should strive to put love at the centre of all our actions. In doing so, not only that we do the will of God by both loving Him with all our hearts, our minds, and our souls, but also love our neighbour as we love ourselves, just as Christ commanded us through His new commandment of love. Our faith will also grow and blossom, and bear fruits many hundredfold if we keep ourselves anchored in the love of God.

Remember, that God is Love (Deus Caritas est). Amen.