Happy New Year AND Feast Day of Mary, Mother of God

First of all I want to say Happy New Year to all of the people who read this blog. I hope 2017 is your best year yet and that it brings all kinds of joy peace and happiness in your life. January 1st is celebrated as New Year's Day in most of the world but for Catholics it also marks another very special day. It is the solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. It is celebrated exactly one week after Christmas and it is especially celebrated to contemplate Mary's unique motherhood of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

 The title of  Mother of God in relation to Mary was officially adopted and defined at the First Council of Ephesus in the year 431 however even before then Mary had been called the Mother of God. It follows an unavoidable series of logic:

1. Jesus is God.
2. Mary is the mother of Jesus.
3. Therefore Mary is the mother of God.
In Greek the name is Theotokos which technically means God Bearer or She Who Gave Birth to God.

 In Canada the solemnity of Mary the Mother of God is a holy day of obligation. Every country has its own list of holy days of obligation which by definition are days on which Catholics are obliged to attend Mass but which are not Sundays. In Canada there only two such days. One is Christmas day and the other is January 1st, the solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. This particular Christmas season both of these days fall on a Sunday which means you actually do not have to attend any additional masses this year.

 So once again happy and joyful New Year and may 2017 be your best year yet!

I HAVE to see this Movie

CORRECTION: Chinese Church does NOT want to separate from Rome.

A very astute reader called attention to my misleading headline on a previous blog post. I said The Church in China wants to be separate from Rome! But that is very misleading because the Chinese CHURCH does not want to separate from Rome. In fact, it is Chinese officials. The Chinese government wants to take control of the Church and their worship. They want to make sure people have an allegiance to Beijing and no allegiance nor to the Holy See, for they fear outside influence. Despite progress, China is far from a free country. They control much of the information that enters the country and people are not free to make their own decisions in many areas. It's also worth noting that atheism is the official state belief system in China and they have cracked down forcefully on religious practice.

Members of Falon Gong have been systematically intimidated, tortured, and overall coerced into not following that religion. Other religions have been severely limited in what they can and cannot do. Many brave martyrs have died defending the Truth in China and will continue to do so until it becomes legal.

There are many faith-filled and great Chinese Catholics who want to listen to and follow the Pope in Rome but it is the Chinese Government which is preventing them. Sorry about the error and big thanks to the Facebook follower who pointed this out!

The Church in China wants to be separate from Rome!

This is absolute LUNACY. The Church in China and everywhere else must be subject to Rome!!

http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/12/30/chinese-patriotic-catholic-church-asserts-independence-vatican/

Italian Bishop DENIES Mass Intention for Slain Mafioso

Read the Article here: http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/church-mass-for-murdered-canadian-mafioso-rocco-sollecito-kiboshed-by-catholic-authorities

A notorious mafia boss, Rocco Sollecito, was killed back in May. Then just the other day, a priest in Italy wanted to celebrate a Mass where they would remember this mafia boss. But the archbishop of the area intervenes and strictly forbade the priest from doing so.

For some bizarre reason, the priest says he will appeal to the pope. I think the archbishop is right to deny a Mass intention for a known criminal thug. I applaud that BRAVE bishop for standing up to this evil and confronting it.

By the way, I doubt Pope Francis will do a lot. He openly said the mafia needs to repent IMMEDIATELY before it's too late.

That group needs to stop calling itself "Catholic".

Canada's Assisted Suicide Rates Spiraling out of Control

So far, over the past 6 months or so since Canada legalized assisted suicide, at least 744 people have had doctors kill them. We are now fully on a path where old age is considered a terminal condition and people will be put down like dogs we don't like anymore. This is only the beginning. But this number has shocked even the greatest supporters of this new law.

It's no surprise. People think the government has to do everything for them. They no longer feel obliged to care for their elderly parents. They think that's the government's responsibility. Then when the older person becomes too much of a burden, they toss them in an old age home and never visit. When they do visit, they talk about the older person in the third person and make it very clear how much of a burden that person is to them. Well, they will usually say they are a burden to the "family" instead of "me" because that just sounds more noble.

After hearing this over and over the older person decides to commit suicide. The children can barely contain their glee, but try to hide it a little to be a tiny bit respectful. Now, this isn't always the case. Sometimes the older person has no children or none of the children visit them anymore. Whatever the case, older people are treated really poorly.

But sometimes the old person themselves is to blame. They do not want to suffer in any way. In terms of Catholic theology, a person can receive painkillers even if they are fatal if they are required to relieve the pain. Therefore, no one has to needlessly suffer.

Some have equated choosing to end one's life as dying with dignity. They imply that having medical needs or requiring assistance from others to do normal everyday activities is somehow undignified, but nothing could be further from the truth. Dignity means living the life God has given you to the best of your ability. It doesn't mean ending the life God gave you because it doesn't fit some pre-determined standard.

The law about assisted suicide was not enacted democratically. It was legislation from the judicial bench. Somehow our brilliant supreme court justices decided that there was a right to doctor assisted suicide BECAUSE of our right to life. Even attempting to explain this inanity would prove difficult, and I suggest you look at the ruling yourself because you probably won't believe me.

To summarize it, because people have a right to life, doctor-assisted suicide must be provided and regulated by the government because this could potentially give the person some time to contemplate this decision to end their life (thus potentially extending it). No evidence of this was ever offered. Clearly this isn't the case. For the most part, if an elderly person isn't able to procure a doctor-assisted suicide, they probably won't do it on their own.

BY making suicide by doctor legal, you make it acceptable. At least that's the case in the religion-less populace of Canada that has no morals. Sadly, we rely on the government for everything, even deciding our morals.

Anyway, as mentioned, this will only continue to get worse. Much worse. But at leaset the government-worshipers will be happy. To them, human beings are expenses, a budget item, not people with dignity.

Note to People: Stop Talking Throughout the Mass

One of the things I find most annoying when I go to mass is people talking. I'm not referring to people who have a couple of words to say or a few sentences here and there because that's human nature. So that's not so bad. What I'm referring to is people who are talking on the way into the church, they talk all the way as they enter into their seat, and then they continue talking throughout the entirety of the mass. They do not hesitate even for a couple of minutes.

There have been times when I've sat at mass and there might be a couple of people, usually women I hate to say it, who will just have a long unending conversation throughout the entire Mass. Because it's sometimes impossible not to overhear them, you can catch some of the things that they're saying and I can tell you that they are not important or earth-shattering things that must be said immediately. For example they often talk about what they are going to cook for dinner what they will be doing for Christmas, or what TV shows they like, etc.

My question is "Why do you even bother coming to Mass?" Seriously. Obviously you have no idea why you are there or why the Mass has any value or importance whatsoever. You are just there to gab the entire mass and get absolutely nothing out of it. Plus, you are distracting everyone else who is there to be spiritually fed.

I would even ask a deeper, spiritual question. Does it fulfill your Sunday Obligation to attend Mass every Sunday, if, while you are there, you talk the entire time and pay absolutely no attention. If you have no interest in what is happening during the Mass and are not interested in connecting to God spiritually whatsoever. Can it really be said that you "attended the Mass" given all of this?

I think somewhere along the way people were told they had to attend Mass every Sunday, which is true. But even though they technically enter in through the church doors, they are in no real way "attending" the Mass. It's no different than staying outside in your car while the Mass is happening inside and listening to the radio and then later claiming you actually attended the Mass. It's ridiculous and inaccurate.

The priest should always, at the beginning of Mass, inform the people there that there should be absolutely no talking whatsoever unless there is an extreme emergency. The only things people should say are the responses to the prayers that are designated to the people.

By the way, it's also worth noting that this includes the rosary. Sometimes people will go to Mass and just recite the rosary the entire time that they are there. They again don't have any interest in the Mass. They are only there to say the rosary. Now, individually the rosary and the Mass are good. Combined, not so much. It's inappropriate to recite the Rosary throughout the Mass. You are not participating int hat case.

And in some cases, when someone does recite the rosary, they do so very loudly. Not literally talking out loud, but whispering very loudly. Some older people have a tendency to make a very high pitched S sound every time they read a word with that letter. It's very distracting.

The point is, if you go to Mass, then GO TO MASS. Don't go there to discuss your grocery list. Don't go there to say the rosary. Go there to participate in the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

Fourth Sunday of Advent - December 18th, 2016

Today, Sunday, December 18th, 2016 is

The Fourth Sunday of Advent in Christianity

Today, Sunday, December 18th, 2016, is the fourth week of Advent which means that next week is Christmas Day! Jesus Christ out Lord will be born in 1 week. The fourth week is a time of great preparation, not just for material things, but mostly for spiritual things. Think of others who are needy both materially and spiritually. Pray to God and place your trust in him.

Third Sunday of Advent: December 11, 2016

Today, Sunday, December 11th, 2016 is

The Third Sunday of Advent in Christianity

Today is the Third Sunday of Advent in the Catholic and Christian Calendar. That means it is two weeks before Christmas Day. Today is called Gaudete Sunday ("Gaudete" means Rejoice in Latin). The official colour is rose and we always light that candle. As noted earlier, this is the earliest possible date for the third Sunday of Advent.

DIARY of a Catholic: I'm Not Really Feeling It...

Hey guys, just wanted to write a very personal entry today about how I'm feeling. As I've mentioned before, I sometimes feel angry. I think this stems from frustration which comes from various sources. I think I get frustrated from my workplace and just feeling like I can't make a good go at things. I would say that overall my enjoyment for my job is at about 20%. Sometimes it's okay, but sometimes it seems very boring and also annoying.

I work in customer service. I don't need to get into the exact details, but basically I deal with people in a serious area. They depend on the service we proide. I spend much of my time telling these people they do not qualify or they have not filled out the proper application or that the thing they need immediately will take a couple of weeks to receive by mail. I deal with a lot of upset and angry people.

On top of that, most of the calls I take are in French. Although I studied French in school from kindergarten to graduation, I had not spoken it for many years before I took this job. It was about 15 years since I had really spoken any French in school when I took this job. But I still indicated on the application that I was bilingual in French. I don't mind speaking to people in another language especially since I've been doing this job for almost 2 years now. But after a long day it becomes more and more difficult to speak in a foreign language in a continuous basis. On top of that, management is continually training me in new material. I do not have a deep interest in the material that they teach us and the subjects can be very tedious and boring. Then I am obliged to be an expert on these topics in French. In many cases I've never even heard most of the words that I am being asked to explain.

On top of my job I am also struggling very hard to have my own business which I find very difficult and I have not yet attained very much success in at all. In fact, very little.

Furthermore, I sometimes feel like there's no time in the day to work on the things I want to and then I'm always overwhelmed with so many things to do. I feel stressed out, overwhelmed and like I sometimes cannot cope. And that's the point of my diary entry today is to say that I'm feeling very frustrated and I would like for you to pray for me on this subject.

Sometimes I feel like things can be helpless because I feel like ultimately we do not have a lot of control over things that are happening to us. I sometimes wonder about the nature of God and how we do not have a lot of power and don't get a say on what happens to us or the world. I see a lot of people suffering in various ways and it's difficult to cope with it.

Anyway, I'm just being very real about some of the struggles that are happening and I wanted to throw it out there. Please feel free to write your own experiences in the comments section below and I look forward to hearing what people have to say. In the meantime, I'm going to say my daily Rosary now. So have a great day and God bless.

Jesus is NOT the Immaculate Conception!

Today is the feast day of the Immaculate Conception, but a common misconception is that this refers to the conception of Jesus Christ but it doesn't. It refers to the Virgin Mary's Immaculate Conception in the womb of her mother St. Anne. Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception so that she would be a fitting woman from which to be born the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

In some places, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is a Holy Day of Obligation meaning you have to go to Mass as a Catholic just as if it were a Sunday. However, this is not the case in some places such as Canada.

To summarize: Happy Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception!

Happy feast day of St. Nicholas!!

Is Pope Francis Married?

Pope Francis is not and has never been married.

Pope Francis who was previously known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio before taking his papal name was never married. In fact, had he been, it is almost certain he would not have become pope. The Roman Catholic Church doesn't select priests from married men. There are exceptions from priests in Eastern rites or priests that are converts from other religions such as Anglicanism and Lutheranism.

It is said that Pope Francis had brief relationships with young ladies in his younger years. One came forth a couple of years ago named Amalia Damonte. From the looks of it, none of these relationships lasted very long and Pope Francis diligently prepared for the priesthood.

More info here.

Happy Second Sunday of Advent

Today, Sunday, December 4th, 2016 is

The Second Sunday of Advent in Christianity

Today is the Second Sunday of Advent in the Christian Calendar which is celebrated by Catholics and Protestants alike. This year is the earliest possible Advent season because Christmas Day falls on a Sunday this year. If it falls on a Monday, it would be the latest possible Advent season.

The colour this week is again purple.

Article about Pope Francis I discovered is SHOCKING

I was looking up some information about Pope Francis and I came across this article that was written just after he became Pope. I wasn't even looking  for anything controversial just certain basic statistics about the current pontiff such as the day he became the Pope and things of that nature. That's when I came across this shocking article about the pope while he was still a cardinal known as Jorge Bergoglio. It basically talks about how the current pontiff doesn't really care much at all about Doctrine or rules or anything of that nature but instead speaks and very ambiguous terms so as to cause great confusion. This is how he was as Bishop, Archbishop, then Cardinal and how he continues to act even to this day. A real eye-opener I suggest you take a look at it:

View it here.

"I'm greatly concerned for a lot of the older people"

I came across a clip of Colonel Sanders believe it or not, and in the second half of the interview he talks about how he accepted Jesus as his Savior when he was 77 years old. He says he is somewhat concerned about older people, because he said they need to accept Jesus as their Savior as soon as possible. Right before this part, he mentions Catholics and has good things to say and he accepts that they are just as good Christians as anyone else. That's refreshing to hear. A lot of time there is a lot of division among denominations, so it's nice to hear conciliatory words, even if they were many decades ago. Of course, Catholics don't share the same interpretation, but you can gain some value from what he is saying here.

Interesting input from VERY IMPORTANT Vatican official

The head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, has issued his take on the "dubia" controversy and it's encouraging in my opinion.

He USED to like Pope Francis, then this happened...

There used to be a time when faithful Catholics could depend on their Pope. The main people they had to convince of the Catholic faith were non-Christians and they knew that whatever they said, if they were in good standing, would be backed up by the pontiff in Rome. But unlike ever before, many faithful Catholics have felt somewhat abandoned by the current pope.

As can be seen in this article, a Catholic writer has struggled to listen to what Pope Francis says and to abide by and do his best to follow it. But he's finding it more and more difficult every single day. Specifically he is talking about Pope Francis's recent statements about illicitly divorced and remarried Catholics. The question of whether or not they should receive communion has been made very ambiguous by the current pope. But the problem is that anytime anybody attempts to receive clarification about this very important issue, the pope responds by saying they're too caught up with the rules and that they are not being real Christians and so on. But all throughout the history of the Church great saints have asked specific questions and sought specific answers. Of course much of the time Catholic theologians have been ridiculed and mocked for entertaining very esoteric and unimportant topics and questions such as "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?". But the question of the moral status of people in irregular marriages is not something that is abstract or that does not concern or affect anybody.

Pope St. John Paul II addressed the question of Catholics who may have been immature in their faith who decided to divorce and remarry and whether or not they can receive communion. The former Pope acknowledged that these are difficult situations in many cases. For example, if a second marriage produces children and this family has been together for many years, the pope did not feel it would be a reasonable obligation to force this illicitly married couple to split up and go their separate ways. Rather, he said, that for the sake of the children the couple could remain together and live together so long as they were not in a conjugal relationship.

The difference here is that when the question of continuing a conjugal relationship comes up, the pope tries to sidestep answering it and has gone so far as to state that each case is individual and even sexually active couples could receive communion in certain circumstances. Naturally, people want to know what the certain circumstances are. And we know from experience that whenever a small exception is granted to a general rule in many places Catholic churches have been known to go way overboard in implementing the exception. For instance there is a dispensation that allows a person to choose to do a charitable act instead of abstaining from meat on Friday. But most Catholics do not even believe that abstinence from meat on Friday is in any way even suggested anymore let alone required unless they do something to substitute that action.

Another example is receiving communion on the tongue. 95% of Catholics receive communion in the hand and then they place it in their mouth. But even today receiving communion on the tongue is considered the norm and receiving in the hand is considered an exception yet as we can see clearly 95% of Catholics follow the exception rather than the rule. The same goes for altar girls. Alter girls were allowed as a very specific exception to the rule in one particular diocese I believe in the US. However despite the fact that they were a tiny exception in the overall grand scheme of things they have now become again the norm. Yet another example is extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. Once again these are lay people who are given special permission in very finite and unusual circumstances to allow them to distribute communion instead of just the priest. However I would challenge anybody to find a single Church on any given Sunday where there are not a half-dozen or more lay people giving out communion.

My point with these multitude of examples is to show that anytime the Church grants even the tiniest of exceptions under the most specific of circumstances. in general. because of our fallen nature. people will abuse the exception to the point where it becomes the absolute norm. So it is with these teachings that are coming from Pope Francis. There are legitimate questions about what happens when a person and the couple is legitimately married contrary to the rules of the church that we believe come from Jesus Christ himself and whether they should be accepted to receive communion which presumes they are in the state of grace. This is a serious question and Pope Francis has not only not specified and clarified, he simply tells people to look elsewhere and to ask someone else and then he usually proceeds to, in some way, insult people who are even just searching for answers.

The funny part about it is that although Pope Francis is criticizing people's legalism - as he calls it - he does not hesitate to condemn in the strongest language certain pet peeves of his that he considers to be very grave. For instance he has called income inequality one of the greatest sins in the world. He has forcefully condemned people who talk about abortion and say that it is wrong. So it's not as if Pope Francis in general says don't be mean and don't say things that are harsh because he has no problem doing that himself.

I strongly recommend you read this article by a faithful Catholic who has tried and tried to the best of his possible ability to listen to Pope Francis and accept what he has to say but find it extraordinarily difficult.

Article here.