Weird indeed, but Christianity is weird after all... God Himself becoming flesh to die for us. Giving His Body and Blood for us to eat. Asking Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test. What else is not weird?

For your good, just ignore de1929.

Consecrating Sorrow by Fr. Chad Ripperger



This post has been edited by yeeck: Apr 18 2015, 12:49 AM

Sweet Sacrament Divine


Sweet Sacrament divine,
hid in thine earthly home;
lo! round thy lowly shrine,
with suppliant hearts we come;
Jesus, to thee our voice we raise
In songs of love and heartfelt praise
sweet Sacrament divine. x2

Sweet Sacrament of peace,
dear home of every heart,
where restless yearnings cease,
and sorrows all depart.
there in thine ear, all trustfully,
we tell our tale of misery,
sweet Sacrament of peace. x2

Sweet Sacrament of rest,
ark from the ocean's roar,
within thy shelter blest
soon may we reach the shore;
save us, for still the tempest raves,
save, lest we sink beneath the waves:
sweet Sacrament of rest. x2

Sweet Sacrament divine,
earth's light and jubilee,
in thy far depths doth shine
the Godhead's majesty;
sweet light, so shine on us, we pray
that earthly joys may fade away:
sweet Sacrament divine. x2

Ten Things Every Catholic Should Know About Marriage
April 15, 2015 by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

There is so much confusion about love and marriage in our church.
So here are ten things every Catholic should know about marriage.

1. Marriage is something given by God - Marriage is not a social construct or a romantic idea. Marriage is not a sentimental occasion or the chance for a great party. Marriage is not something we made up either as individuals, a tribe or a society. Marriage is given by God. The beginning of the Bible shows man and woman together by God’s design. This was affirmed by Jesus Christ, human society, common sense and the universal experience of the human race. Marriage might have taken slightly different forms in different societies, but the essence of marriage–a man and woman together to complete one another and be united for life is a universal given.

2. A Valid Marriage is Between one Man and one Woman - Marriage is forged from the natural order. Men and women fit together. They fit together to make love and make babies. Two men or two women can love each other and that love can be a good and beautiful thing, but this is called friendship. It’s not marriage. Friends do not have sex together. That’s something husbands and wives–men and women do. Therefore, even if society makes laws that contradict this obvious truth, a marriage cannot take place between two people of the same sex.

3. Marriage is a lifetime commitment - For Catholics, marriage is for life. If you are validly married to a person you are married to that person until one of you dies. If you separate from that person you are still married to him or her. If you obtain a civil divorce, in the church’s eyes, you are still married to that person. If the marriage is valid you are married for life. If you are separated or divorced you cannot marry another person because that would be adultery which is a serious sin. You also cannot make love to another person because that too would be adultery.

4. For a marriage to be valid the man and woman must both be free to marry - You can’t marry someone who is already married.

5. For the marriage to be valid the man and woman must understand the nature of marriage and make their vows with full and willing consent - For all sorts of reasons people get married, but they either do not truly understand what they are doing or they have not made full and willing consent. If there are any circumstances or intentions which limit their ability to make full, mature and willing consent the marriage could be invalid.

6. For a marriage to be valid for a Catholic some other obligations must be fulfilled - A Catholic also has to be married according to the proper “form”. The proper form is that they must marry another Catholic in a Catholic church according to a Catholic ritual and officiated by a Catholic priest or deacon. If you’re a Catholic you can’t be married in a Las Vegas wedding chapel or on the beach or the mountaintop chapel at your local Baptist camp. You can’t be married by the Lutheran pastor or the Episcopal priest. You can’t choose a church according to which is prettiest. However, if there is good reason for a Catholic to be married to a non-Catholic or in some other place by another minister it is possible to ask the bishop for permission to dispense from the proper form. If you are a Catholic and you have not been married according to proper form then the marriage is probably invalid and you could probably receive a decree of nullity.

7. A decree of nullity is not a “Catholic divorce” - A marriage can be declared null or non existent by the competent church authority. After due investigation the authority may decide that a marriage never existed. This could be because of lack of form–the Catholic was not married in a Catholic Church to another Catholic by a Catholic official according to a Catholic rite. It could also be because one of the partners was not free to marry or because for complicated reasons, one of the persons was not able to make a valid marriage.

8. A decree of nullity has nothing to do with the quality of the relationship - You can’t apply for a decree of nullity because your husband has turned out to be a stinker or your wife is unfaithful. You said “for better or for worse” remember? A decree of nullity doesn’t have anything to do with what is happening in the marriage itself. Instead it is a decision based on whether or not a marriage was validly contracted in the first place. The reasons for the problems within a marriage might have existed at the point of marriage and may mean the marriage is invalid, but the actual fact of difficulties within a marriage–even if they are severe–are not the basis on which a nullity is decided.

9. For Catholics Marriage is a Sacrament – Marriage is not just a fairytale romance in which a man and woman fall in love and live happily ever after. In addition to the romance and erotic love, marriage is a sacrament. What is a sacrament? It is a sacred mystery in which the physical aspect of life becomes a channel of divine grace. In other words, through the physical aspects of married life–everything from making love to making breakfast, making money or fighting and making up–can be a connector to the divine life. That’s why we say marriage is given by God and we can’t tinker with the basics of what marriage actually is.

10. Marriage is part of the mystery of Christ and his church - In the Old Testament God said he would come and be the bridegroom of his people. Jesus used nuptial imagery many times in his teaching. He called himself “the bridegroom” and his followers “the bride.” St Paul said husbands should love their wives “as Christ loved the church”. He uses nuptial imagery repeatedly to talk about the church which is “the bride of Christ.” This means that our human marriages connect us with the mystery of Christ and his church. It is through the sacrament of marriage that we learn what God’s love is like. It is through the mystery of marriage that we experience the unity a believer is to have with Jesus Christ himself.

This is why the Catholic Church cannot tinker with marriage, because when we change the definition of marriage we change our understanding of our salvation. When we change the definition of marriage we change our understanding of Christ and his church. When we change marriage we therefore change our relationship with God.

This is also why the Catholic Church is opposed to anything which hurts or breaks marriage. This is why we are down on adultery, fornication, co habitation, homosexuality, masturbation, prostitution, pornography, divorce, re-marriage, bigamy, sexual abuse, rape, artificial contraception, artificial conception and anything else that breaks the precious and eternal sacrament of marriage.

I'm not talking about those similarities. I'm talking about differences between R.C. and other denominations.

Oh nevermind...

Can you give some examples? If you are referring to things like Marian devotion, the Eastern Churches (Orthodox and Oriental) are also similar in that matter.

Hmmm.. TS, have u seen this BBC series?

Sex and the Church?

No, but are there any questions that you have? I looked at BBC's website on this series and the description was "Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch explores how Christianity has shaped western attitudes to sex, gender and sexuality throughout history". I wonder why is Christianity being picked on, when the same attitude was inherited from Judaism...

u shud have a shot of it..

its very interesting indeed.

it also got to do with the romans

This post has been edited by yeeck: Apr 19 2015, 11:54 PM

The Catholic Church explained by Archbishop Fulton Sheen

summary pls. Uniflawww lambat. inb4 sedition because of religion

You'll have to watch it yourself....Not for muslims in Malaysia because they are too sensitive..

muslim. catholic, jewish, pagan, buddha, all same same

Is it on Youtube?

High-profile Rome exorcist: 'ISIS is Satan'

ROME, ITALY: In a recent Facebook post, well-known Roman exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth said the Islamic State (ISIS) “is Satan,” and he also questioned the lack of response from Western nations.

“ISIS is Satan. Things first happen in the spiritual realms, then they are made concrete on this earth,” he said in an April 8 post on the social media website.

Father Amorth continued, “there are only two spiritual realms: The Holy Spirit and the demonic spirit.”

He said the demonic enters in “because evil is disguised in various ways: political, religious, cultural, and it has one source of inspiration: the devil. As a Christian I fight the beast spiritually.”

“The political world, which today seems to lack a response in face of the massacre of Christians, will also have to fight ISIS and it will do it in a different way. If it advances as it seems to be doing, we ask ourselves what has the West done over the course of the last decades.”

The priest, who founded the International Association of Exorcists, explained that Satan “keeps saying that the world is in his power, and what he says is true. Biblically speaking we are in the last days and the beast is working furiously.”

ISIS took control of the largest Christian city in Iraq, Qaraqosh, in August last year, causing tens of thousands of people to flee.

The terrorist group has persecuted and murdered Christians and other religious minorities in parts of Syria and Iraq.

Fr. Amorth, age 90, has performed over 70,000 exorcisms during the past 29 years. The number is so high because carrying out an exorcism can require multiple sessions and each time the rite is administered it is counted as one instance.

Fr. Amorth has previously spoken about the danger posed by people no longer believing in the devil, as well as a shortage of exorcists.--CNA

The parish that opted for Solidarity with the Poor
Anil Netto

St Anne’s Church in Bukit Mertajam may be better known for being the major Christian pilgrimage centre in the country.

Within the parish, there is always plenty to do, the stuff the usual parish is involved in and more. But at the end of 2013, something happened.

Parish priest, Fr Henry Rajoo, raised a question during a parish pastoral council meeting, “Do you see any direction we are moving towards?”

“We were all ‘blur’,” he recalls. “We were just doing things for the sake of doing them. We were not taking the parish in any direction.”

With Pope Francis moving the Church towards the poor, and Henry’s personal conviction drawing him in that direction, the priest asked, “Why don’t we, next year (2014), move towards being in solidarity with the poor? Maybe that will change our whole parish.”

And so it came to pass: the parish adopted a theme along those lines. For the Kulim-born Henry, the journey toward this solidarity coincided with his own personal epiphany.

The eighth child among nine siblings, his father a taxi-driver and his mother a rubber tapper, Henry was no stranger to poverty. “I know how we suffered when we were young. But I never felt a lack of facilities. Though we went through a hard time, there were no days when we were without anything to eat.”

Entering the seminary at the age of 20, and now seated inside comfortable quarters, Henry has come a long way. “I am here now (at St Anne’s). It’s a nice place, isn’t it? It is like living in a bungalow. It’s a huge place...26 acres … a Security Department.” A battery of about a dozen cctv monitors with flickering images from all around the premises hangs on one side of his hall as if emphasising his point. “

I can run my life as I want. It looks like I am king of the kingdom! I realised one thing though: How am I to go on with this? Is it meaningful to live like this?”

“There are plenty of poor in BM, and I never really reached out to them.”


A visit to the home of one of the church workers, however, changed all that. Henry recalls in vivid detail his trip to the low-cost flats where the family lived. “That’s a terrible place to go. The flats were not properly maintained. These people have no money to pay the maintenance fees. The water tank is leaking because someone had stolen a bronze device that stops the water from overflowing. ”

The home was almost bare. The man of the house had run into difficulties with loan sharks after standing as a guarantor.

Yet, he also pointed Henry to another home in the next block where someone in a household had committed suicide. The grieving widow, a homemaker, had five children. What would happen to the family? The question haunted Henry.

“You see the reality? Well, something told me, what am I going to do with this? There must be a reason why all these things are coming my way.”

He decided to visit the Hindu family bringing along some red packet money, which parishoners and pilgrims had handed to him, and some provisions. “I went inside. They were very respectful. I was from St Anne’s Church, living in a bungalow. And they were living in a simple home.”

The bread-winner had used a hosepipe and hanged himself inside the bathroom. Why he died, no one seemed to know.

While Henry was there, a stranger knocked at the door. “Hari itu, paper kata ada orang mati sini, kan?” he said. “Ada orang cakap, you banyak susah? Saya boleh tengok sekejap?”

The stranger came in and looked around, and then asked the widow. “Apa you mahu? You cakap sekarang.” He jotted down what the widow said. Completing his list, he said, “Esok saya bawa.” He left and the next day, brought what she needed.

Henry was amazed. “I didn’t know who he was. And I was thinking to myself. “What is charity, man? You come to help those who are struggling. He came in, he saw the need, and he addressed the need.”

Thus began Henry’s journey, as he started helping the family. “By then I was telling stories of poor people in Mass and saying these are the real struggling people in our midst.”

The money for the poor started flowing in. I told myself, “If I am not accountable, it is dangerous.” He started preparing his own accounts.

The widow Henry helped put him in touch with another woman who had fled from domestic violence from her husband. She too had five children. They started putting him in touch with more people in need.

Soon others wanted to join in the ministry. “We started buying more and more things. I was already helping 25 families. The group was getting bigger.”

A structure was needed and a group was eventually set up, dubbed the Care and Concern Group. Henry decided to park this group within the Parish Human Development Committee headed by Dr Mary Fernandez, so there would be a layer of monitoring and accountability.

Eventually, he told those handing him cash for the poor to hand over the money to the parish office, where a clerk would issue them with official reciepts. The accounts would be tabled monthly.

The reaction of the parishioners was interesting. “Some of them, we can mould to help the poor; some of them would ask, ‘Why do we have to help the poor?’ Some of them have been ‘hit’ by the poor – perhaps a snatch thief.

“I told them we can stand aloof. You can say, ‘I don’t want to help the poor.’” There was a lot of argument in the BECs though many of them cooperated, he recalls.

“The participation from the parish is there. And I think people are seeing the difference. I find that people who resisted helping the poor in the beginning are now donating. Something must have touched them.

“I realised one thing: the whole feeling when you reach out to the poor, there’s some kind of calmness, some kind of peace inside. I don’t know how to explain this. “

People will start realising how much they have and how much others don’t have. And that itself calms people down from the competitive mentality in society.”

Henry then told those interested to bring their children along when they visit the poor. In the process of helping the poor, “have a chat with them and let your children listen. They themselves will learn how blessed they are in all that they have.”

“My life has also changed,” says Henry. These days, he feels compelled not to waste and now opts to live a life of simplicity.

The youthful-looking priest stresses the importance of personal contact with the poor, visiting their homes, and interacting with them — much like how Matthew 25:25 exhorts us. Motivating them and drawing them out of Poverty Land is key, he realises, though he concedes there are cases of high-dependence, where people are unable to work for various reasons.

A realisation dawned. “I have the power to change (things). Today I can walk on the street and see one poor man, he has no money to eat lunch. I can buy lunch for him; I can change his life. Telling him somebody cares for him. I can’t do that for the rich, they don’t need me. But I can do that with the man on the street.”

But it is not just a one-way traffic. “I realise also, spending time with (the poor man), communicating with him, it opens my mind, it challenges me to think what he is thinking and also to show him a kind of outlook of life that I want to listen to you, what’s your problem.

“I personally feel this is what Christ was doing. He was giving life to the poor, when he was talking to them, when he was relating with them, when he was spending time with them. And I think that’s what Pope Francis has gone into.

“If the Church goes into this, I tell you, it will make a big difference in the world. It is already happening...”

--------------------------------------
My comment: Overall a very touching article. There's only one thing I disagree with, "I can’t do that for the rich, they don’t need me." The rich have their own set of problems, mostly spiritual problems, while the poor have their material problems but I usually see the poor are content in their life of simplicity. As Our Lord says in Matthew 26:11, the poor you will always have with you. My takeaway of this article is, let us strive to help those who are both materially and spiritually poor.

from Catechism of the Catholic Church

PART THREE
LIFE IN CHRIST

SECTION TWO
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

CHAPTER TWO
"YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF"

ARTICLE 7
THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT

You shall not steal.186

I. THE UNIVERSAL DESTINATION AND THE PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF GOODS

CCC 2402 In the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind to take care of them, master them by labor, and enjoy their fruits.187 The goods of creation are destined for the whole human race. However, the earth is divided up among men to assure the security of their lives, endangered by poverty and threatened by violence. The appropriation of property is legitimate for guaranteeing the freedom and dignity of persons and for helping each of them to meet his basic needs and the needs of those in his charge. It should allow for a natural solidarity to develop between men.

CCC 2403 The right to private property, acquired or received in a just way, does not do away with the original gift of the earth to the whole of mankind. The universal destination of goods remains primordial, even if the promotion of the common good requires respect for the right to private property and its exercise.

CCC 2404 "In his use of things man should regard the external goods he legitimately owns not merely as exclusive to himself but common to others also, in the sense that they can benefit others as well as himself."188 The ownership of any property makes its holder a steward of Providence, with the task of making it fruitful and communicating its benefits to others, first of all his family.

CCC 2405 Goods of production - material or immaterial - such as land, factories, practical or artistic skills, oblige their possessors to employ them in ways that will benefit the greatest number. Those who hold goods for use and consumption should use them with moderation, reserving the better part for guests, for the sick and the poor.

CCC 2406 Political authority has the right and duty to regulate the legitimate exercise of the right to ownership for the sake of the common good.189

VI. LOVE FOR THE POOR

CCC 2447 The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities.242 Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving and bearing wrongs patiently. The corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead.243 Among all these, giving alms to the poor is one of the chief witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to God:244

He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none and he who has food must do likewise.245 But give for alms those things which are within; and behold, everything is clean for you.246 If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?247

CCC 2448 "In its various forms - material deprivation, unjust oppression, physical and psychological illness and death - human misery is the obvious sign of the inherited condition of frailty and need for salvation in which man finds himself as a consequence of original sin. This misery elicited the compassion of Christ the Savior, who willingly took it upon himself and identified himself with the least of his brethren. Hence, those who are oppressed by poverty are the object of a preferential love on the part of the Church which, since her origin and in spite of the failings of many of her members, has not ceased to work for their relief, defense, and liberation through numerous works of charity which remain indispensable always and everywhere."248

CCC 2449 Beginning with the Old Testament, all kinds of juridical measures (the jubilee year of forgiveness of debts, prohibition of loans at interest and the keeping of collateral, the obligation to tithe, the daily payment of the day-laborer, the right to glean vines and fields) answer the exhortation of Deuteronomy: "For the poor will never cease out of the land; therefore I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor in the land.'"249 Jesus makes these words his own: "The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me."250 In so doing he does not soften the vehemence of former oracles against "buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals . . .," but invites us to recognize his own presence in the poor who are his brethren:251

When her mother reproached her for caring for the poor and the sick at home, St. Rose of Lima said to her: "When we serve the poor and the sick, we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus.252

Source: www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a7.htm

A bit too dogmatic. Marriage is sacred but point 6 sounds like canon law rather than anything spiritual or faith based.

It's like must bow 3 times when you pass the river or it will be null. What? If one take vows in the presence of God, then it should be valid. An episcopal priest also has apostolic succession, so does an orthodox priest not in communion with Rome.

The problem with catholic church is sometimes that it has too much laws and regulation that were deduced and inferred from theological and basically neglect and lose sight of what truly matters that is faith in the Lord. This preoccupation has only given ammo to other chrstians communities and atheists to shoot down the catholic church. Why do you think Francis is doing the most simple of things like dining with the homeless than to sit and write a 100 page essay on the nature of the flesh that none of the laity can actually understand? Theology we need but for the masses, it's not theology but the faith in the saving grace of God.

This post has been edited by feynman: Apr 20 2015, 09:55 PM

For your information, in general and in principle we do not recognize Episcopal/Anglican clergy as having valid orders (see Apostolicae Curae and the recent application of Anglicanorum caetibus). Indeed point 6 does refer to canon law, so no disagreement with you there. However, I don't see any contradiction between what Pope Francis is doing versus what has been declared previously. Pope Francis is just seen as more concerned for the poor but that doesn't mean the previous popes were not concerned with the poor. Different popes have different charisma but all these are never at the expense of doctrine. Else how you explain the excommunication of dissident priests by Pope Francis himself?

For point 6 it's also because in the Church, marriage is a sacrament and in the sacrament of marriage, it's actually the closest that human beings can be to God.
In the beginning God created man in His image, but male and female He created them. In the union of a man and woman in their marital covenant, mankind displays the image of God and His creative power. It's not something taken lightly. Thus the absolute literal meaning of 'till death do us part'.

When 2 Catholics contract marriage, they are actually contracting a covenant. The understanding of marriage in the Church, as something between one man and one woman, that is sacred and covenantal, that is open to life etc has it's fullest expression in the Rite of Marriage said in Church and witnessed by a Catholic minister on behalf of the Church and of God. That's why, because of it's sacred character, it cannot simply happen anywhere and before anyone. Does the Anglican minister represent the Church? Maybe the Church founded by Henry VIII, but not the Church founded by Christ.

This post has been edited by yeeck: Apr 23 2015, 12:40 PM