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Pope Francis to canonise 802 new saints on Sunday, 12 May 2013

http://www.romereports.com/palio/meet-the-soon-to-be-saints-of-the-catholic-church-english-9981.html#.UYurAcrTc78

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Pope Francis will canonise 802 new saints in a canonisation ceremony during the Mass on Sunday, 12 May 2013 at St. Peter’s Square.

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The most notable among the 802 new saints, are 800 among the saints themselves, who are the Martyrs of Otranto, who were martyred in 1480, when the rising Ottoman Empire raided Otranto, a city in Southern Italy, in one of their numerous raids against Christendom and the Lord’s faithful ones.

The 800 martyrs were the captured peoples of Otranto, who refused to abandon their faith and therefore live. They chose death and remain in the Lord instead. For this faith, they were declared martyrs and were beatified by Pope Clement XIV in 1771.

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Today, their relics and remains can be most obviously seen in the Chapel in Otranto are placed in glass display behind the Altar, as seen in the above picture. Led by Antonio Primaldo, the local tailor who led the townspeople in the invasion times, they were martyred by the Ottomans for defending their faith. They will henceforth be known as Saints Antonio Primaldo and Companions after their canonisation.

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The other saint to be canonised with the Martyrs of Otranto is St. Laura Montoya, or also known as St. Laura of St. Catherine of Siena, who was a religious nun from Colombia, who worked hard to evangelise the local native populations, and tried her best to end prejudice and discrimination against the native Indian population. She will be Colombia’s first saint ever.

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And the other saint to be also canonised with them is Mother Lupita, who was a Mexican nun that established a new religious organisation dedicated to the service of the poor and the less fortunate in Mexico, which had to often brave danger in their missions, because of the hostile situation at the time, with Mexico teeming with anti-Church sentiments. She will become the second female saint from Mexico.

The Martyr Saints of Otranto, Saint Laura, and Saint Lupita, pray for us.

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Monday, 22 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Acts 11 : 1-18

News came to the apostles and the brothers and sisters in Judea that even foreigners had received the Word of God. So, when Peter went up to Jerusalem, these Jewish believers began to argue with him, “You went to the home of uncircumcised people and ate with them!”

So Peter began to give them the facts as they had happened, “I was at prayer in the city of Joppa when, in a trance, I saw a vision. Something like a large sheet came down from the sky and drew near to me, landing on the ground by its four corners. As I stared at it, I saw four-legged creatures of the earth, wild beasts and reptiles, and birds of the sky.”

“Then I heard a voice saying to me : ‘Get up, Peter, kill and eat!’ I replied, ‘Certainly not, Lord! No common or unclean creature has ever entered my mouth.’ A second time the voice from the heavens spoke, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.’ This happened three times, and then it was all drawn up into the sky.”

“At that moment, three men, who had been sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were staying. The Spirit instructed me to go with them without hesitation; so these six brothers came along with me and we entered into the man’s house. He told us how he had seen an angel standing in his house and telling him : ‘Send someone to Joppa and fetch Simon, also known as Peter. He will bring you a message by which you and all your household will be saved.'”

“I had begun to address them when suddenly the Holy Spirit came upon them, just as it had come upon us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said : ‘John baptised with water, but you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’ If, then, God had given them the same gift that He had given us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to resist God?”

When they heard this, they set their minds at rest and praised God saying, “Then God has granted life-giving repentance to the pagan nations as well.”

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Sunday, 21 April 2013 : 4th Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, World Day of Prayer for Vocations (50th Anniversary) (Scripture Reflection)

It is always sad when we hear about those who reject the Lord, and who refused to believe in God and His message through Christ our Lord, who had died on the cross and risen, and had shown Himself to many of the faithful, that many would have hope of eternal life in God. That was exactly what happened during the mission of St. Paul to the faithful in the pagan lands of Antioch and beyond, when the Jews, blinded in their hatred and jealousy, spread falsehood and lies in rejection of the Lord.

God is our Lord, and He is our shepherd, the Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for His sheep. He died on the cross, as our shepherd, that we, who are His sheep, may gain life through Him, and that the wolves, led by Satan, would not be able to attack us and snatch us from His hands. He as our shepherd gave Himself in sacrifice to the hands of the agents of Satan, so that we would be safe and would live.

As Christ had said to the disciples and to the people in His teaching, that His sheep would know Him, just like the sheep knows the true shepherd, and not those paid to be shepherds or the thief, He said that to show that all of us who truly believe in Him and those who belong to Him would recognise Him as their shepherd, their Lord, and God.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in our world today, there are many false shepherds who would want to deceive the faithful and lead the sheep of the Lord away from the true path and pasture of the Lord. There are many temptations and evil in this world, that shake even faithful shepherds that the Lord had chosen for His sheep, His people. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, be careful, that we will not fall into the trap of Satan that he sprang through his false agents and prophets, proclaiming falsehood instead of truth.

Today, we mark the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, and it is indeed appropriate, for the Fourth Sunday of Easter is also Good Shepherd Sunday, and priests, who we pray for today, and those aspiring to the priesthood and service of the Lord had been chosen by the Lord as shepherds for His people. Today happened to be the fiftieth anniversary of this prayer day, which was promulgated in 1963, during the Second Vatican Council.

Sadly, in recent decades, we saw the vocations to the priesthood in rapid decline, and the number of priests often no longer sufficient to serve all the needs of the faithful as it was in the past. Imagine a large flock of sheep with a single, poor shepherd to herd all of them and guide them! It is not an impossible task for them to do, but certainly many of our priests are burdened with ever greater task, both to administer to the growing number of the faithful in Christ, and on the other side, to combat the rising secularism and evils in our world today.

We need more good, holy, faithful, and dedicated priests to harvest the good harvest of the Lord, which had been bountiful in the wake of the evangelisation attempts of the past decades, especially in Asia and Africa, where our Church is rapidly growing, and with more and more people turning towards the Lord. The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the labourers are few. But the laity too can play a part in providing support to our shepherd priests in various ways and means available to us.

Parents should cultivate good faith and morale in their children, that they will grow up to be good and devoted children of God. Then in the future, these children will become good husbands and wives, caring for one another in love, and for their children. And if God wills it, some of those would be called to serve Him and the people of God either through the sacred priesthood or religious life.

We who are parents should be happy if one of our children are chosen by God to be His shepherds to guide His flock. The community too should provide care and support, ensuring that the children would grow up in a fertile soil for their faith, that would allow them later to be dedicated, faithful, and obedient shepherd of the flock of the Lord. Do not be judgmental and prevent your children from choosing the path of vocation, as if it is the Lord’s will that this happens, you will be against God yourself.

Many of us are too fixated with achievements in life, and therefore, placed too much emphasis on results and material possessions. This is one very major reason, especially in Asia, why many parents oppose, either openly or discreetly, on their children’s decisions to dedicate themselves to God. We are too fixated on the idea of our children’s success, which we often attribute to wealth and possessions, and affluence, to the point that we often dismiss priesthood as a ‘career’ that has no prospect, and therefore is not for our children to take.

There was a story of a young man who was rejected from entering the seminary, just because the decision to enter the seminary was not his own, but his own parents’, who decided that because he was rather ‘useless’ in life and unable to achieve anything of good, he should be entering the seminary and become a priest instead. While this may not be true anymore today, but I am sure, many of us whose children are aspirants to the priesthood and religious life are reluctant to ‘let them go’ because of reasons similar to the one mentioned.

Our priests and those who serve the Lord must be of good quality, well prepared and trained, and also having a good intellect and knowledge, both of the faith and the vocation which he is about to embark into, but most importantly, they must be dedicated, loving, and faithful, to God, and to His children to whom they are about to give themselves entirely to, as the bride of the Church of God.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today, as we commemorate this Good Shepherd Sunday, and the fiftieth anniversary of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, let us take a step back and reflect, that many of us are called to serve the Lord, in various ways, some of us as laity, and others as priests and servants of the Lord, through the Church.

Let us not say no to the Lord, and let us not close our hearts and our minds to His calling. Let us open ourselves fully to God’s love, and allow Him to lead us in our path, that we will be able to maximise the life that we had been granted, that in this life, we would be able to improve the life of others, through prayer and service, and through dedication into works of love, for the sake of our most beloved brethren.

Pray for one another, and pray for more vocations in the Church, pray for more good and holy priests to serve the Lord and His people, and never cease to continue our own roles and works in helping one another, physically and spiritually. When we see a growing vocation, let us support instead of chastising or badmouthing the person to the point that such a potential be wasted. Trust in the Lord, and do not worry, for God will take care of everything. He is our shepherd, and He cares for us. He will not leave us hungry nor thirsty, because by His death and resurrection, He gave us an eternal spring and bread of life. Amen.

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Wednesday, 17 April 2013 : 3rd Week of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Jesus Christ, our Bread of Life, the Lord of life, and the Saviour, has died for us, and in dying, He destroyed our death, and through His glorious resurrection from the dead, He bring us to live eternal, all those who believe in Him, will have life through Him, and in Him.

He is the Bread of Life, and indeed, on the last supper He had with His disciples, He gave them His body and blood for them to eat and drink, in the form of the bread and the wine, and through these, He gave all of us Himself, that we all may have a share in Him and in the eternal life assured through Him.

This is why we should regularly and worthily receive Christ into ourselves, through the Eucharist in the Mass, when the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, when He laid down Himself for all mankind to save them all, is once again brought to us, in a mysterious way, that the Sacrifice on the cross brought down upon us the Precious Body and Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, freely given, for our salvation.

It is not easy indeed to believe in things like this, that our Lord would give Himself up for us, and His Body and Blood for all of us to eat and drink. But indeed that was what happened, and He gave His Body and Blood for us in the bread and wine transformed by the priests, so that we may have a part in Christ’s salvation.

There were many people who even though had seen Jesus’ miracles and works, had refused to believe truly in Him when He said that those who do not eat His Body nor drink His Blood would not have eternal life. To them, the idea was just too radical, and the reason for their lack of faith was because they did not have a true faith in Christ. Their faith is human faith, believing because they see what He had done in miraculous signs, instead of true faith in God, even without all these miracles.

Blessed are all of us who did not see all these miracles attributed and done by Christ and yet truly believe that Christ is the Messiah and the Son of God, because just as He said, blessed are those who did not see and yet believe, when He mentioned the faith in Thomas, who believed only because he saw the Risen Christ. This kind of faith in Christ is true faith, not faith born just out of miracles and awe, but because we truly believe in Christ, in His works and His teachings.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us strive to receive our Lord regularly in the Mass, and ensure that we are worthy when we receive Him into ourselves, and keep ourselves holy and worthy, as the Holy Temple for God, that is our body, that we will always be ever in His grace and receive His infinite blessing and love. Amen.

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(Special) Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff / Missa pro Eligendo Pontifice (Second Reading)

Ephesians 4 : 11-16

As for God’s gifts, to some He gave to be apostles, to others prophets, or even evangelists, or pastors and teachers. So He prepared those who belong to Him for the ministry, in order to build up the Body of Christ, until we are all united in the same faith and knowledge of the Son of God. Thus, we shall become the perfect Man, upon reaching maturity and sharing the fullness of Christ.

Then no longer shall we be like children tossed about by any wave or wind of doctrine, and deceived by the cunning of people who drag them along into error. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we shall grow in every way towards Him who is the Head, Christ. From Him, comes the growth of the whole body to which a network of joints gives order and cohesion, taking into account and making use of the function of each one.

So the Body builds itself in love.

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What is our faith really about? And how to answer questions that directly address our faith (From a comment)

You see how much lies evil had planted in the heart of many in this world to lead them away from the truth in God (From my blog’s comment and my reply). Do not reject them, and do not turn them away.

Especially if they ask you about your faith in God, through the Church, stand up tall, and shielded with our faith and knowledge of that faith that we have gained through the teachings of the Church, answer confidently, in courage, in love, and of course, offer a welcoming hand for them, and teach them the truth, that they too may join us in salvation in Christ.

Let us work together to accomplish the unity of all Christians in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church! Ut Omnes Unum Sint, ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam! That they all may be One, for the greater glory of God!

The comment :

What of the pope Petrus Romanus as described by St. Malachy in 1139 to be the next and final pope? St. Malachy’s final words regarding his full listing of all future popes (which has proven to be correct to the last detail) – “Rome, the seat of the Vatican, will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people.”

Please pray to our Lord and Savior, our only Redeemer and mediator with God, Jesus Christ our one true King!
Ephesians 2:8-9; 1599 Geneva Bible (GNV)
8 For by [a]grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God,
9 [b]Not of works, lest any man should boast himself.

It is not through a church, catholic, evangelical, or other that we find our way. It is only with a relationship with Jesus, our Lord and Savior. It is not through saying rote prayers or seeking after a “favor” or “abolition” from any mere human (past or present).

It is only with our Lord Jesus. His mother Mary was highly “favored” which never meant she was to be placed higher than our Lord. Period. Seek after and follow Him and know others by the fruits of their hearts not the fruits of this world (fame or fortunes) as they are always meant to decieve.

Thank you for reading and seeking Him!

My reply :

I have no need to comment on that prophecy, which may after all be false and forgery. Even if that prophecy is true, it only showed that the Church led by the successor of blessed St. Peter the Apostle, remained faithful to the last, with that last Bishop of Rome as shepherd to feed the lambs of our Lord, through time of persecution of the Church, and even likely to suffer death at the hands of Satan and those who hated the Church and wished for its destruction, as it is the last bastion of Christ and His light in this world.

For grace and salvation is indeed through faith, but faith alone does not save one, and neither does work alone. For what you mentioned here of boasting is, work done without faith, but work done in faith serve only to affirm that faith in the Lord, and faith without works is dead. Faith needs to be alive, and nothing better to make it alive and manifest through our actions, in simple acts that we do in our daily lives, through our love for our neighbours and fellow men.

For believing solely in faith, to be frank, how do you even define faith? Faith is not mere words, and not mere ‘personal’ relationship, but it is as communal as it is personal. Nobody can have faith if they never show it through their good works following what Christ had taught us. It is a danger to believe that we are saved simply by faith, and then we can do as we like. Faith is through our love and works for our brethren, the poor, the weak, and the less fortunate, that through this living faith, we are justified by the Lord. Not enough by mere personal relations and personal dedications to God, for if that is the case, then the faith of the Pharisees would have been sufficient.

No! Christ mentioned that we are saved by faith, because this faith is not just once, and not just once and for all, and not through a single moment, but this faith is manifest throughout our entire life, and reflected through our prayers, our actions, and our concrete works for the good of others, and for the sake of God. The Church is the community through which we can make our faith manifest in this world even more.

Mary, the mother of our Lord, is never placed higher than our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That is a severe misunderstanding of the true faith of our Church, and that is what people outside the Church had been led to believe by the evil one, so that they will too take part in destroying the very one and only Church that God had established.

Mary, as the mother of our Lord, in the faith of the Church, is the mother who brought Christ into this world, and through her perfect obedience of God’s will, by her answers to the Archangel Gabriel, the salvation of this world through Christ is possible. Her faith and love is proven throughout Christ’s life on earth, even to accompany Him on the foot of the Cross.

For Mary is our closest and most direct intercessor to our God, for who else is closer to Christ in this world than His own mother? Remember the wedding at Cana, when Christ apparently refused to perform the necessary miracle because ‘it was not yet His time’, but when Mary interceded for their sake, the Lord did listen and performed the miracle of water, turning into wine.

Therefore, we venerate Mary, not as a goddess, not as equal of God, but as a being so great, and so noble, and as the first and greatest of all the saints in heaven, all of whom pray for us ceaselessly before the Lord, and no one else in ever closer to God than Mary, His mother.

If only we humble ourselves and ask God, through Mary, His mother, in great humility and repentance, our prayers will surely be heard. It is of course up to God’s will, whether He will fulfill our wishes, but that is how great indeed that God works in His own mysterious ways.

Rosary, and all that dedication to Mary? Simply our way of adoring her, who is the greatest saint and the one who made all salvation possible through her acceptance of her mission, that is to bear Christ the Saviour in her, and taking care of our Lord all the way to Calvary.

She is the pillar of support of the Lord’s mission in salvation, and it is in this spirit that we dedicate our prayers through Mary, honouring her, and in honouring Mary, we honour her Son, our God.

Do not listen to the lies of Satan and the world, and learn the truth of God’s love through the Church. The Church is not perfect, and it is led by humble and sinful men, like all of us, but through the Church, and through the authority God has granted it via the Apostles, especially through Peter, God has made His power, His redemption, and His presence manifest in this world.

Our faith is communal as it is personal. It is not enough to just have a personal relationship in Christ, but we must also have a ‘communal relationship’, that is through the Church, that is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

God bless you, dear brother, and may God guide you to the truth, and be joined as one, that I, and all my brothers and sisters in Christ and in faith, can soon call you our brethren.

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Thursday, 7 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent, Memorial of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us stand with God and declare our faith and love in Him, that we would not be like the stiff-necked people in Israel in the past, and those who spurned God’s love and even accused Him of doing evil in His divine ministry in this world. For they were blind, blinded by their human weaknesses, blinded by sin and evil that they have committed.

For they have no true love for the Lord in their hearts. They love not the Lord but the praise of men and worldly honour. For these people failed to see the works of the Holy Spirit in Jesus, in healing the disabled, and casting out demons from the possessed. They instead submitted to their human jealousy and hatred of the good deeds of the Lord. There were also those, as mentioned in the Gospel today, put the Lord to the test, to see if He is really sent by God, to test His powers by sending a sign for them to see.

In fact, the act that Jesus did in casting out demons from the possessed had been the very sign that they have sought, in order for them to believe in Him. But they still failed to see, for their eyes were veiled with a thick layer of worldly sin and filth, that prevented them from seeing the works of God that is good. Jealousy is another thing, that it was indeed possible that in the hearts of some of the people gathered there, there brewed jealousy for the powers that God had, in Christ. It was the same case in the Acts of the Apostles, where Simon the sorceror attempted to bribe the Apostles to have the same authority and power given to them. But the authority of God is not purchaseable, and God gives it only to those whom He deems worthy.

Indeed, brothers and sisters, today God wants to show us that we have to believe in God, and not to be distracted by the evil one, that we begin to accuse God’s works as evil, out of our blindness to see the truth, which eventually will cause divisions between us, and in the end, as Christ had said, we will not be able to stand united, and shall fall down.

Truly, we are One, One in Christ, one as a member of the One Body of Christ, that is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, that is our Catholic Church. We must all always remember the warning that Christ had given us today, that no house divided against itself will be able to stand and survive. The devil will not survive if he is divided against his servants and his collaborators, and therefore, so does our Church.

Throughout the millenia since the birth of the Church, there had been many dissents and divisions that led to the painful separation and destruction of unity in the Church of Christ, in parallel to the civil war of the nation as mentioned by Christ. We managed to stay together as the Catholic Church, and even managed to welcome some of our separated brethren back into unity with the One and only Church of our Lord. But even within our Church today, there are divisions, that will threaten to destroy the unity and harmony between all the faithful ones in God.

There are those who are blinded to the reason for unity, and chose to separate themselves from the Universal Church to pursue their own goals and ideas, rejecting all other ideas and anything that our Church had come through in the past 50 years since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. On the other hand, there are many who had succumbed to the world, and buoyed by the evils of the world, begin to demand for worldly changes and innovations to enter the Church.

We must learn to be courageous and say no to all these things that brought disunity and discord into the holy Church of God. We must stand firm despite all the pulls that the world and evil that tried to break up the unity of the Church. How are we to bring back our separated brethren in Christ, those who had been lost in their long journeys in the faith, into the One Church of God, if we ourselves are divided in a civil war against ourselves?

Therefore. brothers and sisters, once again let us pray for unity, both among ourselves, the faithful in Christ already united in His Church, and ourselves and our separated brethren in the myriads of ‘churches’ throughout the world, with our brethren in the Eastern Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox Churches, and that very soon, Christ’s prayer and wish that all of us may be one (That they all may be One) just as He and the Father is one and indivisible, will be fulfilled, and all faithful in God, will be One.

Today, we also commemorate the memorial of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, who were martyrs in the early days of the Church. Saint Perpetua and Saint Felicity were a noble mother and her slave respectively, who were martyred in the height days of the Roman Empire, due to their steadfastness to stand by their faith and their God, and refused all forms of persuasion for them to leave their faith and convert back into paganism. Their faith in God and solid stand had earned them martyrdom and thus eternal life and place in heaven with God who loves them and all of us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us not be divided among ourselves and instead strive for unity, beginning from those near to us, and gradually let us work for unity of all, reach out to our brother Christians who is not yet in full communion with the Holy Church of God. Pray that all will soon return and be united in Christ in the Church He had established on Peter, the Rock.

Pray for us, Saints Perpetua and Felicity, that we also can follow in your footsteps and imitate the strong and unshakeable faith both of you had in the Lord, even to giving up your life for God’s sake, out of love for Him and His children, all of us. Amen.

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(Live from Rome) Prayer for the Universal Church : Wednesday, 6 March 2013 at 5 pm CET / Rome Time

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, members of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church throughout the world. Let us all join together with the prayers for the Church that will be held today in Rome at 5 pm, and wherever we are in the world, let us spend the time for prayer for the Church, for the Cardinal-electors, and for the election of our new Pope.

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The event will be live from Rome at Vatican Player, at either http://www.vatican.va/video/ or http://player.rv.va/?language=en&visual=VaticanTic. Do join in the prayers, and if you are unable to do so, and still in the workplace or busy with other commitments, just pray in your hearts, for the sake of our Holy Church.

 

Timing :

1. Rome : Wednesday, 6 March 2013 at 5 pm (UTC+1)

2. UTC : Wednesday, 6 March 2013 at 4 pm

3. EST : Wednesday, 6 March 2013 at 11 am (UTC-5)

4. PST : Wednesday, 6 March 2013 at 8 am (UTC-8)

5. WIB : Wednesday, 6 March 2013 at 11 pm (UTC+7) (West Indonesian Time, Bangkok, etc.)

6. Singapore : Thursday, 7 March 2013 at 0.00 am (UTC+8) (Singapore, Malaysia, HK, Macau, China, etc.)

 

The Cardinals, led by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, will pray together at St. Peter’s Basilica, and also participate in Eucharistic Adoration, led by the Cardinal Dean of the College. Let us pray for them, and pray that the Conclave will begin soon, and a new Pope, and a good Pope can be soon elected.

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Why did Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI relinquished the Papacy? (My personal opinion)

In my personal opinion, why our beloved Pope Benedict XVI, now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, had decided to step down from his position and relinquish the Papacy, is because of three main factors and events that potentially play major roles in shaping his decision. All of these factors are tied to the first factor, that is his health.

 

Here are the three factors and events that in my opinion made our Pope Emeritus did what he had done :

 

1. Health : The Pope’s failing health due to his old age is likely the main reason why he had decided to relinquish the Papacy. Although indeed, he is now at 85 being much more vigorous as compared to Blessed Pope John Paul II’s last years, but as the Pope has great tasks to be done, for the sake of the Lord, and His people, Pope Benedict chose humility and step aside for someone else to take over the good works he had started.

He realised that his increasing difficulty in walking, most likely due to osteoarthritis and the problems with his vision will eventually impair him and preventing him from exercising his ministry as the Bishop of Rome. It has also been reported that Pope Benedict too suffers from Parkinson’s, although likely a mild one or one that is still at an early stage. This disease is well known for the one that debilitated Blessed Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict, being very close to the previous Pope, would really want to avoid another of many years of debilitation, where the Pope instead of leading directly the Church, had to delegate most of his works due to his disabilities. It is a matter of choice of course. Blessed John Paul II chose to persevere to show us how suffering for the sake of the Lord is like, and our beloved Benedict XVI stepped down to show us what humility and virtue is like.

 

2. WYD (World Youth Day) 2013 : The World Youth Day has been scheduled to occur in July 2013. It would have been in 2014, but because it will be held in Brazil, which will host the World Cup event in 2014, it was decided to hold the World Youth Day a year earlier. As the Pope’s health has made doctors to advise him strongly against transatlantic and difficult journeys, which would have limited him from visiting any countries outside of Europe, or even Italy in the coming years.

In 2012, his visits had been limited to Mexico, Cuba, and Lebanon, with only two major visits as opposed to the usual four or five visits per year, a clear sign that the Pope’s health is increasingly frail to travel far beyond Rome. As the World Youth Day 2013 will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, it is also possible that our beloved Benedict XVI chose to step aside that a more capable and vigorous new Pope can go instead to the event, that the new Pope can fully lead the event without the disabilities that increasingly had debilitated our beloved Benedict XVI.

 

3. Asia, the Church in Asia : Although Pope Benedict XVI had been known as someone who is particularly very attentive to the problems that the Church is facing in Europe and the West in general, which resulted in his numerous visits to the countries mostly in Europe, but he has also made several visits to countries in Latin America and Africa. Many would have criticised him for leaving out Asia, as although Middle Eastern countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Israel had been visited rather often in his short pontificate, but he had yet to visit South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, where the Church, just as in Africa, had been growing very, very rapidly.

The Pope in fact, loved the Church in Asia, particularly the Church in China, which he had tirelessly worked at, in order that the believers in Christ there can be fully reintegrated into the One Body of the Universal Church, free from any form of external and governmental interventions.

Azerbaijan in Central Asia, was the last country in Central Asia visited by a Pope in 2002. But to truly look into Asia, we should go deeper into South Asia, that is India, and further east. The last time a Pope visited India and South Asia was in 1999 or 14 years ago, and the last time a Pope visited Southeast Asia was in 1995 (World Youth Day 1995, Manila, Philippines) or 18 years ago; and for East Asia, the last Papal visit was to Korea in 1989 or 24 years ago.

Several countries in Asia such as Singapore, Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, and some other Asian countries had also been graced with Papal visits only once or twice in the entire history of the Church, also owing to the recent expansion of the Church to Asia and that only beginning with Pope Paul VI, that the Pope began to travel again outside Rome and Italy after quite some time. Therefore, due to Pope Benedict XVI’s love for the Church, both in the elder Europe and the younger Church in Asia, and already that his debilitation had made him difficult to make transatlantic visits, including the upcoming World Youth Day in Brazil, but a travel plan to Asia would have made it much more difficult.

A younger and healthier Pope therefore will be able to visit Asia (South, Southeast, East Asia) perhaps as early as this year or next year, 2014. This is however not to say that an Asian Pope will be elected, just yet. The time has not come yet in this election for an Asian Pope. Only in the next election, which hopefully will be held in about a decade from now or more, that the first Asian Pope may be possibly elected.

 

In the end, it is Pope Benedict XVI’s love for God, and God’s people in the Church that made him to decide to step aside for the good of the Church and the good of God’s mission in this world. However, this is not at all interpreted that it will be permanently so or that such a stepping down will be customary for the Popes. The Papacy is not an office, and not an institution, which for example like the Archbishop of Canterbury of the Anglicans, which is rotated after every number of years in manner akin to the secular and the worldly prime ministers and presidents. No, the Bishop of Rome’s position, as Christ’s only Vicar on this world is far beyond that. Only the Pope himself can decide when and if he will resign at all, and only in extreme cases should this be done.

Let us all pray therefore for our beloved Pope Emeritus, His Holiness Benedict XVI, that God will continue to look after him in his retirement, that through his new life dedicated in prayer, he can lead the Church with the new Pope, his successor, whom we also pray for, to fight against the evils of this world. We also pray for those who attack the Pope, the institution of our Church, and those who attack the faithful in Christ, that first we forgive them, and ask the Lord to enlighten their hearts, that they will learn the truth about His Church and its teachings, that they too will believe and be saved through the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

May God bless all of us, bless His One and Universal Church, and bless the whole world. Amen!

by

Friday, 1 March 2013 : 2nd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

We are urged today, not to have evil thoughts on our brothers and sisters today, as illustrated earlier in the story of Joseph in the first reading and the psalm, and how he was sold off in slavery to Egypt due to his brothers’ jealousy, which caused them to initially harbour evil thought of killing him. The same evil intent and plot also happened in the Gospel when the tenants disposed of the servants and the son of the landowner, in the intention of gaining the lands they have been lent with, and disobeying the owner’s wish.

We should not harbour such evil intent, but instead look upon our brothers and sisters with love. Especially, just as Christ has taught us, we should even also look upon our enemies and our persecutors with love! and pray for them too!

And then indeed, the story of the Gospel today, as many of you would know, is a parable on the life of Christ Himself, with the Pharisees and the chief priests being labeled as the evil tenants, as obviously stated in the Scripture. Jesus is the Son of the owner, who is God the Father, who sent Jesus to us, down to earth, just like the owner sent his son in the hope that he will be able to bring the tenants into line and pay up what they are supposed to pay.

But yet, the rejected ones, as we had seen, in both Jesus and Joseph, had become a great instrument of the Lord through their rejection by the people, represented by the brothers of Joseph and the tenants in the Gospel. For Joseph became the regent of Egypt through the gift of prophecy through dreams granted to him by God, which saved thousands if not many more souls from death, by the wise and ample preparation before famine ravaged Egypt for seven years. All these would not have happened without Joseph and his dreams.

Even greater is therefore the role of Christ, for in being rejected by the people, the ‘tenants’ particularly the chief priests, teachers of the Law, and the Pharisees, He has become the very instrument of salvation of all mankind. This rejection was represented by the arrest of Jesus, His trial by the Sanhedrin, leaders of the priests of Israel, and finally His condemnation to death, and His death on the cross. In this He, as the rejected stone by the builder, had become the cornerstone, the very vital part of God’s plan of salvation.

What is a cornerstone? While we do not often use the terms in daily life, architects and those dealing with infrastructure and buildings will know it very well. For cornerstone is named so, since, at the time of the Roman Empire, there is a passion for building commemorative and triumphal arches. Some of these arches can still be seen even today, and some remained in the city of Rome itself. Why are these arches so strong and so solid to be able to stand for centuries and even millenia? It is because of its structure, which is so wonderfully constructed even without modern technology to keep them intact, all just because of one single stone at the peak of the arch, which is called the cornerstone.

This cornerstone is the focal point and the most important point of the arch. For if the cornerstone is removed, the arch will immediately crumble. As long as the cornerstone remained in place, removing other stones from the arch would have minimum impact on the arch’s integrity. Similarly, cornerstone can also be found in other buildings, also known more as the foundation stone. This stone holds up the integrity of the whole building by just being there, and as long as the stone stands, the building will too.

Christ therefore, has become our cornerstone through His death and sacrifice on the cross, and later His glorious resurrection and triumph over death and evil. Why is He our cornerstone? That is because if we keep our anchor on Him, keeping faith in Him, and ensuring that our faith is anchored deeply and securely in Christ, no amount of worldly temptations, and no amount of attacks and persuasions by evil can sway us and make us to fall away from the grace of God.

Through Christ who is our cornerstone, we then can act out His love and compassion on all mankind, for only if we anchor ourselves in Christ, that we can act with love and kindness, out of our faith in God who also loves us dearly that He did not even hold back His Son to be given to us for sacrifice to liberate us from eternal damnation.

Then Christ too established His Church, our Church, as the living and concrete presence that represents Him and His mission in this world, and there was none other than Peter the Apostle, upon whom, as the Rock, Christ chose to build up His Church, making Peter the cornerstone of His Church, the Body of Christ, which is made up of all of us the faithful in Christ.

Now, that our Pope, Benedict XVI, who was the 264th successor of St. Peter, had stepped down from his position as our Pope effective today, our Church, God’s Church, has been left without that cornerstone of faith, which has been passed down since the day of Peter, the first cornerstone of the Universal Church. We still have Christ of course as our Cornerstone, on whom all hearts and minds must be directed to, but it is through the Apostle Peter and his successors, the Popes, that this is made manifest, by them being the cornerstone of God’s living presence in this world, that is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

Therefore, today, and through the sede vacante period, and beyond that, let us pray, brothers and sisters in Christ, that first, we all will remain ever faithful, and that our anchor of faith will ever be solidly planted in the cornerstone that is Christ our Lord, always remembering His rejection and sacrifice on the cross that made Him the cornerstone of our life, the cornerstone of salvation, that enabled mankind to return and be reunited with God.

And then, we also pray in particular for our Church, that God will guide the Cardinal-electors who will elect a new Pope to succeed our beloved Pope Benedict XVI, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit sent by God upon all of them. That the world will again have a tangible cornerstone that is the successor of St. Peter, who made the Cornerstone of Christ manifest and real in this world, as the cornerstone of God’s most Holy Church, and as the cornerstone and head of the Body of Christ, the Church, leading all the faithful in Christ in unity with Christ their Saviour.

In the end, the cornerstone, although important, still requires the presence of all of us, the stones surrounding the cornerstone, for the cornerstone by itself will not make a building. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us support the new Pope, whoever he will be, as all the people who believe in Christ, that the new Pope, the future cornerstone of the Church, will together build up a solid and strong Church, that is able to project God’s love and work into this world, that more and more people will be saved.

May God bless all of us, bless His Church, bless our retired Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, and his soon-to-be elected successor. Amen!