Happy Easter Week!



This post has been edited by khool: Mar 28 2021, 09:46 PM

Days of Grace

WE ARE in the Sacred Triduum and therefore have entered into the very “holy of holies” of the Church’s liturgical cycle. Please know that all our generous supporters, tertiaries, readers, and friends are remembered in our prayers in this holiest time of the year. I speak for all my Brothers and Sisters when I say that.

If the following little morsel of Catholic erudition is known to my readers — as it will be to at least some of you — I ask your forbearance as I relate a cornerstone of the spiritual doctrine of Blessed Columba Marmion, the famed Benedictine abbot and spiritual writer. According to Blessed Columba, the Mysteries of Our Lord Jesus Christ are also “our mysteries,” and that by a triple title: first, because Jesus carried them out for us (“for us men and for our salvation” as the Creed says); second, because He effected each of them as our Exemplar (our Model); and third — this is the deepest, most “mystical” of the three — because He forms but one with us in doing them.

Because Holy Week and Easter represent the dramatic high point of Our Lord’s saving mission, there is a sense in which this triple claim the baptized have to Our Lord’s Mysteries is also at its zenith this time of year.

That Jesus Christ did all He did for us is obvious; as I mentioned, this is a truth enshrined in the sacrosanct Creed of Nicea. First, of course, all the Mysteries of Jesus, from His Incarnation to His glorious Ascension and sending of the Holy Ghost with the Father, were done because it was the will of the Eternal Father. Our Lord affirms this truth at least twice in the Gospel of Saint John:

“Because I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me.” (John 6:38)
“And he that sent me, is with me, and he hath not left me alone: for I do always the things that please him.” (John 8:29)
But the fact that the joys, sorrows, and glories of the Incarnate Logos were done to please the Father who willed that they be accomplished does not contradict the fact that they are also ours because Jesus carried them out for us. It should make our love to grow all the more when we consider that Jesus Christ came to save us in complete agreement with the eternal will of the Three Persons, who do, after all, share one Will in common.

That Jesus Christ is our Exemplar is the truth brought out by that rather corny and awkward rhetorical question, “What would Jesus do?” — which serves as one of the manifold proofs of something I once heard Gary Potter say, namely, that the religion suffers when we attempt to reduce it to a bumper sticker. Something cheap and plastic-sounding inevitably results when Jerusalem meets Madison Avenue. However, for all its defects, the question does convey the truth that the Master came on earth not only to save us by His atoning Death, but also to show those whom the Father adopts in Him by Baptism just how to be good children of the Eternal Father. This touches upon that profound question of why it was the Second of the Three Divine Persons who became Man: It is because He is the only One of the Three who, in eternity, is and remains a Child, for He is, in truth, the only begotten of the Father. Yet by grace we become what He is, so He is also the “firstborn amongst many brethren” (Rom. 8:29).

Our Elder Brother is our Exemplar, so let us look at Him in His afflictions during these days and “learn from [Him] because [He] is meek and humble of heart” (Matt 11:29). The promised reward for so doing is too good to miss: “and you shall find rest to your souls.” We can all use a bit of that.

To look at Jesus as our Exemplar is to make practical use of that third of the four senses of Holy Scripture, the tropological sense.

It is the third of Abbot Marmion’s three reasons that is the deepest and most mystical. Being members of His Mystical Body, we are joined to Jesus Christ as to our Head, and therefore have some participation in these Mysteries — which are no ordinary historical events, but acts of a Divine Person that have an eternal weight to them. Our Mass, our Christmas, our Holy Week, and the rest are no mere historical reenactments. In the case of the Holy Mass, it is none other than the dread and unbloody re-presentation of the selfsame sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross on that first Good Friday. For all the other Mysteries of Our Lord’s life, the various feasts that bring them to our attention are as many occasions for us to benefit, here and now, from the action performed by Our Lord over two millennia ago. When these Mysteries reach their climax in Holy Week, we see the summit of what Saint Paul wrote concerning our divine adoption, for we are children of God and joint heirs with Christ “if we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17).

As we assist at the Rites of Holy Mother Church over these coming days, we would do well to recall that we do so as no mere passive audience; recipients of divine grace and gifts, yes, but we are also active participants in the drama of our own salvation, who are challenged to be those for whose salvation these things were done, for whom they stand as examples, and who actually participate in them (mystically but really) by being joined to Jesus Christ in faith and Baptism. Let us attend to the sacred Mysteries in this spirit and thereby render glory to God and avail ourselves of the overflowing fonts of divine grace.

I would like to take leave of my readers with the very uplifting words of Saint Augustine of Hippo, from today’s Matins lessons. He is commenting on Psalm fifty-four as it applies to Jesus our Head and to us, His members. Certainly there are not wanting hateful and wicked men both in the temporal society of the State and, sadly, in the spiritual society of the Church. Let us learn from the Psalmist and Saint Augustine how to bear with such people as the children of God should.

A blessed Triduum and a glorious Pasch to all! (And don’t forget your Easter Duty!)

From the Treatise of St. Augustine, Bishop
upon the Psalms (on Psalm liv, 1)

Give ear to my prayer, O God, and despise not my supplication: attend unto me and hear me. These are the words of a man travailing, anxious, and troubled. He prayeth in the midst of much suffering, longing to be rid of his affliction. Our part is to see what that his affliction was, and when he hath told us, to acknowledge that we also suffer therefrom; that so, partaking in his trouble, we may take part also in his exercise, and am troubled. Wherein mourned he? Wherein was he troubled? He saith: In my exercise. In the next words he giveth us to know that his affliction was the oppression of the wicked, because of the voice of the enemy, and because of the oppression of the wicked, and this suffering which came upon him at the hands of wicked men, he hath called his exercise. Think not that wicked men are in this world for nothing, or that God doth no good with them. Every wicked man liveth, either to repent, or to exercise the righteous.

Would to God that they which now exercise us were converted and exercised with us! Yet, while they are as they are, and exercise us, we will not hate them: for we know not of any one of them whether he will endure to the end in his sin. Yea, oftentimes, when thou deemest that thou hatest thine enemy, he whom thou hatest is thy brother, and thou knowest it not. The Holy Scriptures show us that the devil and his angels are already damned unto everlasting fire, and therefore of their repentance it behoveth us to despair; but of theirs only. These are they against whom we wrestle within; to the which wrestling the Apostle stirreth us up where he saith: We wrestle not against flesh and blood, (that is, not against men whom we see,) but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Eph. vi. 12. He saith not the rulers of this world, lest perchance thou shouldest deem that devils are the lords of heaven and earth; what he doth say is, rulers of the darkness of this world, of that world which they love who love the world, of that world wherein the ungodly and unrighteous do prosper, of that world, in fine, of which the Gospel saith: And the world knew Him not.

We have seen iniquity and strife in the city. v. 10. Behold, the glory of the Cross. That Cross which was the object of the insults of God's enemies, is established now above the brows of kings. The end hath shown the measure of its power: it hath conquered the world, not by the sword, but by its wood. The enemies of God thought the Cross a meet object of insult and ridicule, yea, they stood before it, wagging their heads and saying: If He be the Son of God, let Him come down from the Cross! Matth. xxvii. 39, 40. And He stretched forth His Hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. Rom. x. 21. If he is just which liveth by faith, Rom. i. 17; Hab. ii. 4, he is unjust that hath not faith. Therefore where is written iniquity we may understand unbelief. The Lord therefore saith that He saw iniquity and strife in the city, and that He stretched forth His Hands unto that disobedient and gainsaying people, and, disobedient and gainsaying as they were, He was hungry for their salvation, and said: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Luke xxiii. 34.



Most devotedly yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M.

and the from the east....

المسيح قام من بين الأموات
و وطئ الموت بالموت
و وهب الحياة
للذين في القبور

Al-Masīh qām min baīni’l-amwāt  Wa wati’ al-mawt bi’l-mawt Wa wahab al-hayāt Lil-ladhīna fī’l-qubūr!

Χριστός Ανέστη εκ νεκρών, θανάτω θάνατον πατήσας και τοις εν τοις μνήμασιν, ζωήν χαρισάμενος.

Christos Anesti ek nekron thanato thanaton patisas ke tis en tis mnimasi, zoin kharisamenos.

Christ is risen from the dead,
Trampling down death by death,
And upon those in the tombs
Bestowing life.

In the resurrection icon, look at how Christ grabs the hands of Adam and Eve, pulling them out from the grave, with him standing on the cross and, death in chains.

can't wait for Mel Gibson's sequel, where he would depict with some artistic licence what Christ would have done once he pass on and before he was resurrected. The body was resting, but His spirit was busy at work, setting free all who have died before Him but cannot enter into union with the Father.







This post has been edited by feynman: Apr 4 2021, 09:21 AM

EPISTLE (I Cor. 5:7-8)
Brethren: Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened. For Christ our pasch is sacrificed. Therefore, let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness: but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.



INTROIT (Ps. 138:18, 5-6)
I arose, and am still with you, alleluia! You have laid your hand upon me, alleluia! your knowledge has proven wonderful, alleluia, alleluia!
Ps. 138:1-2. O Lord, You have proved me and You know me; You know when I sit and when I stand.
V. Glory be . . .

GRADUAL (Ps. 117:24, 1)
This is the day the Lord has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it.
V. Praise the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.

Alleluia, alleluia! V. (I Cor. 5:7)
For Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed.

SEQUENCE
May you praise the Paschal Victim,
immolated for Christians.
The Lamb redeemed the sheep:
Christ, the innocent one,
has reconciled sinners to the Father.

A wonderful duel to behold,
as death and life struggle:
The Prince of life dead,
now reigns alive.
Tell us, Mary,
what did you see in the way?

"I saw the sepulchre of the living Christ,
and I saw the glory of the Resurrected one:
The Angelic witnesses,
the winding cloth, and His garments.
The risen Christ is my hope:
He will go before His own into Galilee."
We know Christ to have risen
truly from the dead:
And thou, victorious King,
have mercy on us.
Amen. Alleluia.

OFFERTORY ANTIPHON (Ps. 75:9-10)
The earth was fearful and silent when God arose in judgment, alleluia!

COMMUNION ANTIPHON (I Cor. 5:7-8)
Christ, our passover, has been sacrificed, alleluia! Therefore let us keep festival with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!

This post has been edited by yeeck: Apr 5 2021, 02:13 PM

so sad, not active.

But commendable, keep it up! Surrexit Dominus!

The Progress of Salvation

“ARE YOU saved, brother?” That question, often asked by a certain kind of “reformed” Protestant, can be answered in different ways, depending on the precise meaning given to the word “saved.”

We might answer, “No, I’m not dead yet,” or, “Yes, inasmuch as Christ has already merited my salvation, which awaits the grace of final perseverance and my cooperation with it,” or the more subtle, “Yes, but my salvation is not yet complete, so it is better to say that I am being saved.”

While the kind of street apologetics that often accompany such discussions leaves little room for grammatical argumentation, we should say that the use of the past participle “saved” implies a finished or perfected work. Now, Christ’s part as the meritorious cause of all salvation is most certainly finished. Yet, even on Christ’s part, and on the part of the Father and the Holy Ghost, the completion of salvation for any one of us who is not yet in beatitude remains unfinished because we remain dependent on God’s grace for our perseverance: “But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved” (Matt. 24:13). As for my part, or the part of any one of us who remains on this side of the grave, the necessary cooperation has not been finished. Given all that, I repeat that it is more proper for those of us living the life of grace in the Church Militant — who are still working out our salvation with fear and trembling (cf. Phil. 2:12) — to use the present participle in the passive voice by saying, “I am being saved.”

The work of salvation is the work of God in us, one He begins in us and perfects over time: “[H]e, who hath begun a good work in you, will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). Moreover, the perfection of that salvation is something explicitly spoken of by the Apostle in terms of becoming nearer: “And that, knowing the season, that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed” (Rom. 13:11).

We can look at salvation in at least three distinct senses: First, as merely potential, such that it can be said that even the unbeliever is saved in potency because the price of his salvation has been paid, though it has not yet been applied to that particular unbeliever subjectively. If he dies in that sad state, he will not have that potency made actual. Second, we can understand salvation as incipient and progressing in this life, as in the case of the Catholic in the state of sanctifying grace, who is building up treasures in Heaven (cf. Matt. 6:20); using the language of Philippians 1, already cited, this is that good work begun in us by God. Third, we can consider salvation as complete, which only happens when the person in question enters celestial beatitude, when God Himself has perfected that good work “unto the day of Christ Jesus.”

It would be a problem for a Catholic to say that in no sense can someone claim to be “saved” in this life. Our Lady was still in the wayfaring state in Nazareth when she called God “my Savior” in her Magnificat (Luke 1:47), and the New Testament is teeming with references to God and Christ as “our Savior.” How can we call the Trinity or Jesus Christ “our Savior” if we are in no sense saved? In Saint Francis Xavier’s “Prayer for Unbelievers,” featured in the once very popular Novena of Grace, reference is made to “Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, Who is our health, life, and resurrection … through Whom we have been redeemed and saved….” The word “saved” is found in every translation of that prayer I could find. Saint Francis Xavier was perfectly orthodox, and it may be safely assumed that he was not under the influence of John Calvin when he composed the prayer. He evidently meant “saved” in the first or second sense I gave it above.

Jesus Christ’s work on the Cross is most certainly complete, as has already been stated: “Knowing that Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion over him” (Rom. 6:9). But Our Lord’s work in me is not finished in this vale of tears — for I am not yet finished, in the sense of complete, or perfected. We Catholics regularly speak in terms of progress in the spiritual life, which, like the lives of our bodies and our minds, is something dynamic, admitting of progress and setback, growth, and even termination. If, God willing (and my will seconding His Will), I go to Heaven, I am finished at that point; my salvation is complete. Then and only then can I say that “I am saved” in the third, full, and final sense of those words.

This economy of salvation is intimately bound up with the notion of Purgatory, for if we exit this life not yet “perfected” and ready for Heaven, where nothing “defiled” or “impure” can enter (cf. Apoc. 21:27), how then, can we be saved? Similarly, this economy is also bound up with the Catholic doctrine of merit and the clear Biblical teaching that we are saved by both faith and good works, which Saint Paul and Saint James respectively state with reference to our father Abraham as the model of the just man.

There is a very trite and popular saying to the effect that “God’s not done with me yet.” Search the phrase on the Internet and you will find a great variety of books, songs, sermons, and the rest. For all its triteness, the phrase is something that any member of the Church Militant (or Suffering) can say. The “once saved always saved” Calvinist, who believes himself incapable of falling away or losing his salvation, would be compelled to say that God is indeed done with him, for he needs nothing more to enter immediately into heavenly beatitude — nothing, that is, except bodily death.


* * * * * * * * * * * *


Beyond the realm of the merely apologetic, we faithful Catholics ought to cherish and cling to the words, “salvation,” “saved,” and all other forms of the word (e.g., my personal favorite, the adjective “salvific”). Why? Because these are our concepts, for there is no salvation outside the Church. And though we readily grant that our salvation is not yet fully accomplished, if we are living the life of grace, complete with the observance of God’s moral law, the reception of the sacraments, prayer, and good works, we are indeed being saved. At its height, such a life is one of the Beatitudes, which Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us are an anticipation of the happiness of Heaven.

All during Eastertide, the Apostle admonishes us that “Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead; and your life is hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:1-3). As long as we are in this vale of tears, we must fight, for the world, the flesh, and the devil are ever at us, but we must with some frequency draw our attention away from our immediate surroundings and initiate an “up periscope” from our terrestrial submarine, like the monk of old who frequently stopped amid his toils to look up and “take aim” at Heaven. Something is missing if we do not make those upward glances and pine away for our Homeland, painfully nostalgic for the Undying Lands that are our inheritance as the baptized.

However much we ought to build up the Kingdom of God on earth — as per Jesus’ last command immediately before He ascended — so much the more ought we to strive for our own personal participation in that Ascension, which will take us, through “the progress of salvation,” to the very perfection of the Kingdom of God in Heaven.

And I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men: and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people: and God himself with them shall be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more. Nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away. And he that sat on the throne, said: Behold, I make all things new. —Apoc. 21:2-5

Most devotedly yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M.

Well Done USCCB, finally!!!

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248...s-the-eucharist

The Gospel against Heretics
Dickson Leong September 20, 2021

You are the Christ, the son of the living God (Mt. 16:16).

Scripture also has many references to the importance of confessing the name of Christ. For example, in Romans 10:9, if thou confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Heretics have misinterpreted verses such as these to spread the pernicious error that merely accepting Christ as your “personal Lord and Saviour,” and superficially confessing that He is Lord, would by that fact, number you among the “saved”.

The truth however, is far deeper than that heresy. The very fact that the Scriptures teach us the need of confessing Jesus as Lord points to the necessity of good works in order to be saved. This does not in any way reflect the neo-Pelagian heresy that we are somehow saved by our own initiative by reaching out to God, who in turn gives us grace, for Scripture also teaches us no man can say ‘Jesus is Lord’, but by the Holy Ghost (1 Cor 12:3). However, this is contrasted with the other extreme of thinking that the human will is so damaged due to sin that it loses its autonomy and God has to move it like how we move an inanimate object. This latter extreme of the loss of free will due to original sin, a doctrine of the Calvinists, is unbiblical (cf. Mt. 23:37, Acts 7:51) as well as solemnly condemned by the Council of Trent.


The truth is that it is God through the Holy Spirit Who draws sinners to Himself by first giving them actual grace. Then they, assisted by that actual grace, are called to cooperate with it freely and conceive faith when Christ is preached to them. By believing what God has revealed to be true, especially in the truth of the Redemption, they are thereby moved to hope in His promises and then to love of Him. Lastly, out of love for Him and out of hatred for sin, the sinner is drawn to Baptism, where sanctifying grace is conferred by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in their souls.

Therefore, it is faith working through charity that saves (Gal. 5:6). However, since we are called to be doers of the word, and not hearers only (Js. 1:22), we are also called to actualize our faith and confess that Jesus is Lord. This professing of faith in Christ in turn, draws others to Him, as God uses us as His instruments in drawing others to Him. However, faith working through charity is not only actualized in preaching Christ by word, but also in deed, for Scripture teaches let us not love in word, nor in tongue, but in deed (1 Jn. 3:18). And God has taught us how to love Him in deed, which is by keeping His commandments, as Scripture teaches: by this we know that we have known him, if we keep his commandments. He who saith that he knoweth him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him (1 Jn. 2:3-4).

Lastly, one of the greatest signs of a true follower of Christ is by the love we show for others. A Christian who shows no love for others in a concrete way undermines his own faith that he claims to profess in, for Scripture teaches: If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother; he is a liar (1 Jn. 4:20), and

If any man think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but deceiving his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father, is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation: and to keep one’s self unspotted from this world (Js. 1:26-27).

So great is this importance of loving our neighbour that Our Lord Himself taught it with the greatest solemnity on the night of the Last Supper: A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you, that you also love one another (Jn. 13:34). The Church, drawing from the Gospel, gives us a list of concrete examples on how we may practice charity, and this list is called the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

Sadly, there are some who still take this in a merely superficial way, practicing the minimalism of the Pharisees. Obeying the letter of the law by abstaining from committing murder, yet they murder their neighbour in their hearts by the hatred they bear towards them. It is for this reason that Our Lord taught us:

For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire (Mt. 5:20-22).

Therefore, may we practice an authentic Christianity by remaining united to the mystical rock on which Christ founded His Church and by faith working through charity, keeping ourselves undefiled by sin and repenting whenever we fall through the Sacrament of Penance. By this, we will like Peter, truly be able to confess authentically to Our Lord that You are the Christ, the son of the living God.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us!

Hi All, anyone know budget nursing home / care givers at PJ and Kota Damansara area or Klang Valley? My mom (75 yrs old) fell down recently and need someone to take care her. Prefer someone able to communicate in Chinese.

This post has been edited by babychai: Dec 5 2021, 12:02 AM

This yahoo must be smokin' some very strong weed ...