God is himself the Gift

I have been pondering on God's love with special focus on the subject of 'gift'.
Now I have some good news to share.

God, in the most basic terms, is internal exchange of self-gift.
This is because God is love. This love is so infinite that it is personal.
So God was revealed as the Blessed Trinity to those who are grown in love.
Here is a progressing way through which I discover this great wonder.
God is:
To Be ->infinitely -> - The Father - the lover
To Love ->infinite -> - The Holy Spirit - the love
To Be Loved ->infinite -> - The Son - the beloved

Note that God is those persons from all eternity, but men take on those at Creation.
When man is created, since all things are created in the Son, he becomes son right from nothingness (or from dust if you will).
Then he is loved, he learns about love as he grows in Holiness (or in the Holy Spirit). This largely depends on his mother as the process of being loved starts at his creation/conception.
Last when he wants to love, he becomes father at an other moment of creation, that is the creation of his child.
This tells me that all human persons are ministries. Our ministry is to image God. We become ministers of what God is always. We BECOME but God IS always.

All this to teach us love which is also an other way of saying 'to teach us God'.
All this we received as gifts.
God gave us gifts to introduce himself who is the final gift.

How can you be a gift to someone who does not even exist?
You create him as a person for only a person can understand what a gift is.
But even for a person to understand it, he must be used to receiving gifts.
So you send gifts before you.
God surrounds us with gifts and through them we slowly get ready for him.

So slowly we learn to receive what God himself is for all eternity.
At the end when we are fully tuned to the template, it will be Heaven.
God is himself Heaven.
When we are perfectly in him, it will be perfectly in Heaven.

God bless!

The Glory of Jesus is the Glory of Love

"WYD pilgrims most well-behaved young people ever seen"

News.com.au is apparently an Australian popular and secular news web site. Generally all media of the concerned country do some extensive coverage of the WYD, it is doing a great job covering this one in Sydney. Here is one of the interesting articles about the remarkable well behaved catholic youth in the street of Sydney:


CATHOLIC World Youth Day pilgrims are one of the most well-behaved groups of young people police have seen.
"I've never seen a crowd like this, it's even better than an Olympic crowd," New South Wales police Commissioner Andrew Scipione said today.
"Hundreds of thousands of young people moving through the city not affected by drugs and alcohol has been such a wonderful experience.
"It just shows what can happen when you have people who aren't affected by alcohol."
Mr Scipione said he hoped local young people would follow the example set by the "joyous" Catholic pilgrims.
"There are many lessons to come out of World Youth Day, and if that's one of them then we'll be very pleased."

-Click the link for more.

Virtually in Sydney

Having failed to make it in Sydney for the WYD 2008, it looks that all arrangements were made for people like me to be there virtually.

I can watch events live on Salt+Light or EWTN, or watch recorded events on video on a site specifically created for this purpose: http://video.wyd2008.org/

To those who are joining...enjoy and God bless

Alain

Power of lies and gift of the Church

In the Bible we read that the reward of sin is death. In fact from the beginning of that book, we see that every sin goes with a curse. This is a fact that if we pay attention we can see in every aspect of life. I remember reading these sermons about Jesus healing people. I noticed that even when he healed people from physical illness, often he will tell them to go and to 'sin no more'. Which means that their physical condition had something to do with sins they committed. But it is not only about our physical conditions, our spiritual ones as well. In some of those sermons it is well explained how the stories of blind men healed by Jesus and the Pharisees were not just about physical blindness but spiritual as well. It is a awful experience to realise how I used to be blind in a particular aspect and what a blessing that 'now I see'...

We see problem in the world, in the Church, in our lives and sometimes we wonder why??? The fact is we can almost trace the reason of some problems to some original sins, either ours, or our fathers,...our societies...

I was reading this testimony about a woman turning from pro-choice atheist to pro-life catholic. She does a good description of our society's world-view and how her conversion was when she slowly discovered truth. She says: "I realized in that moment that perfectly good, well-meaning people—people like me—can support gravely evil things because of the power of lies. "

This woman gives an idea of how current issues about life and sexuality are taken at a terribly wrong angle, how the Church is so unfortunately wrongly understood. She does a good job of describing the structure of those lies. I am sad about what is happening in the Anglican Communion. I feel like, how can the Church teachings on all these issues be explained clearly? What a grace to be in the Church, and not just to follow authority but to understand the logic of the teachings. It makes me wonder where we are as the Church. How can people be in so much darkness while in the same world we have the splendor of truth! How am I helping out? what should I do? This is really serious business, we are holding the truth to ourselves while so many people believe lies right in our faces and are seriously hurting.

I think we should be as creative as possible in sharing and living the truth we have been given. I myself feel many times that I have converted, they are so many things I had wrong that I came to see clearly as I dig deeper in the Church teachings. We must do something. We shouldn't really stay calm as people consider the Church their enemies while she is their doctor. Can you imagine how it feels when you discover that the one you thought to be your enemies turned out to be your hope of salvation. Saul was persecuting the Church, when Jesus arrested him, he did not say why are you persecuting my Church, he said why are you persecuting me?

Soul turned Paul look at the Church with such a great awe and fear. We can measure how seriously Paul took this by looking at his works in the Church after his conversion. The Church that Jesus identifies with himself has his power. He gave her all his powers to lead, free, and heal man. The Lord Jesus is in the Church as he was in his physical body, ...by the same power of the same Holy Spirit.

We have many problems because of curses that are upon us because of our sins. We need the Catholic Church for our healing and recovery.

God bless

Rebroadcast of the 49th International Eucharistic Congress

If you missed parts of the Congress last month it is being rebroadcasted daily for few days on Salt+Light TV. I just watched the beautiful Byzantine liturgy, and got an idea to share this reminder here in case someone might be interested. Great opportunity to learn more about our Faith.

God bless

My new desktop background

I though I would share my new great desktop background image(s):)

The 'back/blank' area is the live S+L, it is probably black because it could not catch a moving image... To watch full screen I just double click in the small (now black) screen!

The little green screen is a holy reminder of psalm 138

Happy Feast of Saints Peter and Paul.
Happy beginning of the Pauline year to all.

God bless

Salt + Live now live on internet!

For few days now, I have a quite different desktop background. Half of my desktop is now occupied by a screen of live S+L. So as long as my computer is running, I can be watching or listening to S+L. It just look so great.

S+L also reminded me that I am bilingual...and something about my being canadian as it keeps switching from one language to an other. English, French, Italian,and Chinese...this is so Canadian and this is so Catholic :)

This is really wonderful, I just realise that I can slowly learn a language just by getting familiar to listening to it. For few days of watching, I am catching some key latin words already. And I am also feeling that I just got a special way of keeping up with french. Now I don't really need to switch from channel to channel to get french on tv.

Plus, this way of broadcasting is somehow revealing the universality of the church. As I watch I see both the unity and diversity of the Church at the same time. With think like the liturgy and other tradition I see one language of the Church. And by some cultural differance of the people I see diversity.

Wow, I didn't know I was going to write so much:) Well, I have also to add some more. Like mentioning the fact that this station is so youthful that one feel the livelyness of the Church. As JP the great used to say, the Church is young.

Now what else was I going to say last? yeah, that i got to volunteer for S+L. Since we don't have it on standard channels here in BC, not even in our tv providers listing yet, we can only watch it online. So I will be helping promoting on my parish, and hopefully one day after many of us give enough pressure on our provider, it will also be available in regular channel listings.

Pray help the wide spread of the good news. And try it out yourself.

God bless

WYD Social Network launched in Sydney.

"Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat! "


WYD 2002 left Canada with a new catholic television, Salt+Light.
WYD 2005 must have come with new great initiatives, one of them being the schoenstattyouth web site.
WYD 2008 brings XT3 already even before the official start date of WYD which is on July 15.

XT3 stands for 'Christ in the Third Millenium'. And it is a social network for WYD2008 and beyond as it states on its website. Here are descriptive videos.

God bless

'Ecological 10 Commandments' around the corner ?

Mexican media predict release of "Ecological 10 Commandments"

Mexico City,
Jun. 6, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, the secretary of the
Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, will present a talk on Catholic social
teaching and the environment in Milan next week.
The scheduled talk by
Bishop Crepaldi will argue that Christians must recognize creation as a gift
from God, to be respected and preserve, knowledgable sources predict. At the
same time, the Vatican official will make it clear that concern for the
environment should not supersede respect for the dignity of the human person.
In Mexico, media reports looking forward to the speech by Bishop Crepaldi
have already predicted that the talk will present the "Ecological Ten
Commandments." That speculation was apparently prompted by a March interview in
L'Osservatore Romano with Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the regent of the
Apostolic Penitentiary, who spoke to the Vatican newspaper about "new forms of
social sin" including environmental degradation. Archbishop Girotti's list of
modern transgressions provoked a spate of reports suggesting, absurdly, that the
Church was revising the Ten Commandments.

A Zenit article adds:

The secretary told Vatican Radio today that the document is an attempt "to
explain in 10 points the most important aspects of the chapter on the
environment in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church."

He added that is an effort to enlighten Christian communities, groups and movements on "the very rich social magisterium of the Church on the specific question of the environment and its protection."

I added the link in the quote. I would recommend to anyone to keep it around and take a look in it when time is available. If you ever wondered where the Church gets its interesting ideas on issues like war, sex, abortion, eutanasia, freedom of speech/expression/religion, etc, that's the perfect document for you. It helps a lot to make sens of who we are in society and give a more understanding of the Christian worldview of society explaining more clearly many points of the Bible like in Genesis man creation story, Babel, etc....

I would like to remind that, few months ago, the Church released a set of 'Ten commandments for Drivers'. For more see the Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road by the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Care and Itinerant People.

Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Happy Feast of the Sacred Heart to everyone!
Or I hope everyone had a great one!

Ever since I was a child there was the well known picture of the Sacred Heart around. But I never really stopped and think about it until recently.

Have you ever stopped and looked closer?

We see the fire he has come to set on earth.
We see the thorns and blood of his suffering...

I think it was this 'hurting' aspect which had caused me unconsciously for a long time not to set my eyes on it for a long time. The picture looked odd.

Yet we feel it often or causes others to feel it without realising it. How many time we hear or see people 'hurt'. I find that it can help us to realise that every hurt is represented by at least one of those thorns. Didn't Jesus say that whatever we do to one of our neighbor we do it to him?

It also help to remember this picture when we are hurt ourselves. And suffer in communion with the Lord.

I find that whenever I unite my heart with Jesus I share in the real Reality. The reality of God's love for us. Remembering that our heart is a sacred Temple where the Lord reside. And that he is in us since we received him in the Holy Eucharist. Is good to remember that whenever they have been a Eucharistic miracle when the Lord shows his flesh to his people, he often show a 'beating heart' or a tissue of flesh of a human heart.

So if you lower your head into your heart, and see yourself as in a little Temple, you are not imagining things. It is real. That's how we are fully the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Temple of God. Tabernacles of the living God. As we stay in grace, we share the heart of Jesus, so we can share in that sacred fire of love which endure all things, believe all things, last forever...

Someone asked about the meaning on this site of 'civilization of love'. I would say that it is the civilization that springs from this fire that the Lord has come to set on Earth. A fire which has been burning on Earth for 2000+ years and is still being spread around the globe. But we often quench it when we sin.

Let's us love one another, and pray for one another that "we may keep his commandments and so be able to abide in his love" in his heart.

God bless

Feast of the Most Holy Trinity: God is love.

I can't believe it has been more than a month since my last post!
Many things distracted me which includes participating in some interfaith forums. It can be good for evangelising but it is not that good when one start to forget home. So I am trying to take a break for them. My friends knows that I take this kinds of break often, well, this is an other one:)

Few days ago, Christians from other denominations were discussing the Holy Trinity. As you are aware of this, many have different views which include a view that Jesus is the Holy Spirit :(.... All this started in a topic which was about trying to prove that our Holy Mother Mary is not the Mother of God.
I think I have to ask prayers for our Faith, for us, and for the separate brothers.
Below is a copy of my contribution. For me as I indicated at the beginning this blog, my basis of understanding the mystery of the Holy Trinity is the basic idea that God is love.

Few hours ago it was the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. Hope every one got relevant blessings

[8] He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.

A deep meditation on this fundamental christian belief lead us to see that God is not lonely. And for a Christian Jesus has revealed that God is not lonely but a unity of three divine persons.
And men have been themselves called into this unity in Christ by following his commandment of love.

Love is incompatible with loneliness. A non-Christian may say, that well, that's why God created...so he does not be lonely. But this is a false notion of God. Because God is completely satisfied with himself. So he did not create out of necessity, but out of love.

Jesus revealed to us the deeper mystery when he invited us in the household of God.
Paul put it beautifully:

Eph.2
[19] So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
1Tim.3
[15] if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.

We enter the Church through baptism and the formula of valid baptism as indicated by the Lord Jesus is:
"in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit".

To me this look like a person inviting you into his house, and introducing you to his family. And telling us (as we are adopted children) how from now on, as long as we live in this household we have to live according to their lifestyle.

John 14:
15] "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, [17] even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. [18] "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. [19] Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. [20] In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. [21] He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." [22] Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" [23] Jesus answered him, "If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.





(Columbia.edu)
The only distinction between the persons of the Trinity is their mutual relations. None of the persons exists in respect to himself alone, but each exists relatively to the other two:
...the ``three persons'' who exist in God are the reality of word and love in their attachment to each other. They are not substances, personalities in the modern sense, but the relatedness whose pure actuality... does not impair unity of the highest being but fills it out. St Augustine once enshrined this idea in the following formula: ``He is not called Father with reference to himself but only in relation to the Son; seen by himself he is simply God.'' Here the decisive point comes beautifully to light. ``Father'' is purely a concept of relationship. Only in being-for the other is he Father; in his own being-in-himself he is simply God. Person is the pure relation of being related, nothing else. Relationship is not something extra added to the person, as it is with us; it only exists at all as relatedness.
....the First Person [the Father] does not beget the Son in the sense of the act of begetting coming on top of the finished Person; it is the act of begetting, of giving oneself, of streaming forth. It is identical with the act of giving. (Joseph Ratzinger Introduction to Christianity, pp. 131-132; cf. Augustine, Enarationes in Psalmos 68; De Trinitate VII, 1, 2.)
Each of the persons of the Trinity lives completely for the others; each is a complete gift of self to the others. The complete self-giving not only constitutes the individual persons of the Trinity, but also their inseparable oneness.
Thus, for Christians the very basis of all reality is the loving communion of persons that is the Holy Trinity.

This is the how I understand the oneness in the Trinity, and also the oneness that Jesus prayed for. By living as Jesus commanded us, we achieve, we also, the oneness the Lord prayed for. If we live the way of of the Trinity, the way Jesus commanded us to live:

John.15:
[12]"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. [13] Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
1John.3
[16] By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

Happy Covenant Day to Schoenstatters

Today Schoenstatt celebrates Covenant Day. Many schoenstatters remembers their covenant of love in a special way. I have been reading the CCC recently and meditating on some readings: I/we believe, the ten commandments, and others. I was a little troubled to found out how little I knew about the commandments and the Profession of Faith. But when I am reading it I have at the same time a happy feeling of doing something great for my soul/spiritual life. I had neglected it for a long time simply because I thought it was for converts, you know people who never read it (thought is was not much different form the kids one) before.

I remember how I hated to have low marks in my quiz and exams at school. When I was studying I used to tremble at the idea of not having studied enough. I think our Mother used to give me some hint about spiritual readings as well. This is what the fear of the Lord is also about. Fear of failing the quiz of daily life and the great exam of our lives. I used to console myself by the fact that I was occasionally listening to EWTN, reading some spiritual writings. But reading the Catechism is really instructing to oneself. If feels like studying for ones life.

The CCC is the basic, in fact I think before reading the Bible one should read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This would really avoid so many mistakes people makes in interpreting the Bible. The CCC is so well and simply organized that we see the entire Christian Faith as simple as the Creed and the two great commandments. Everything to me now seem to be in there well explained in great details and at everyone satisfaction.

Well, I am sure from today the new 'schoenstatt year' will be different. My contribution to the capital of grace will have a new perfume thanks to our MTA. Here in Vancouver our work schedules are creating conflict at the point of almost preventing us to celebrate this precious day for us. So all schoenstatters united in the covenant pray for us. And to all my schoenstatt brothers and sisters. Happy Covenant Day!

Thanks for those who prayed for the last intentions I posted. Half the people we prayed for are doing fine. The schoenstatter grandma's conditions remain unchanged, and I haven't had about the little boy yet.

In all cases. Blessed be the Lord! We know he has everything under his loving care; not a hair of our head falls down without his permission. And he would never allow any bad thing to happen unless he can get a greater good out of it.


Under and with our Mother Thrice Admirable in the covenant of love let BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD.

I have been very busy lately...I looks like I will be posting less for a while...

Edited Oct 21 2007-

More on InterFaith dialogue

I used to be obsessed to reading the news from my country. I think I had arrived at the point when I knew enough of any politician and political party to be a sort of political advisor for citizen while voting. As about my Faith, I though I knew just enough to keep me sane. But I come to realize that I can't really know enough. One realize this fact when confronted with different situation in life when more and more faith need to be applied. We can't really say 'I believe' if our lives are not a reflection of what we believe. May be we should let our lives speak the credo for us. As a catholic I realize I have to seat down and read not only the Bible regularly but also the Catechism, the Social Doctrine of the Church, Encyclicals,... In few words I should be able feel that I 'live by Faith'. It is a shame how we can say that we are Christians while we don't even know what a christian really is. If we don't know our Faith, we can't even begin to understand other Faiths. Interreligious dialogues aim at bringing peace in the world. We can help them by living our Faith. Living our own Faith is the first step toward peace in the world.

Around the world:
- The Pope opened an interreligious meeting. Theme: "Toward a World Without Violence: Religions and Cultures in Dialogue."
- "Faith Needs Reason, But Also Love, Says Expert". An interesting article. Few quotes:

1. "Nihilism and fundamentalism agree in their scorn for God and man: the former because it denies the truth, the latter because it wants to impose the truth."
2. "You will not be brothers until you love each other."
3. "there are no fanatical religions only fanatical people."

Feast of Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Today I thought about the fact that Jesus suffered so that we may be happy, joyful, that we may have life abundantly. So today I think we should celebrate God's Mercy. Sr. Patricia Proctor likes to say that we should celebrate God's mercy. We should not be like the 'big brother' who seem to have had a bad rest of the day when everybody else was rejoicing celebrating reconciliation. Well, she has a blog about this and if you subscribe to her Joy Notes you can get them every day freely.

Again about this day, 'Civilization of Love' has good posts relevant for today. I also read 'A Beggar for Love', where I found good quotes from the message of the Pope to the youth in Lorreto (in the meeting they had earlier this moth). Here are some of them to remind us that we are on the Winner's side. We should not be afraid...


Let me tell you again this evening: if you stay united with Christ, each one of
you will be able to do great things. This is why, dear friends, you must not be
afraid to dream with your eyes open of important projects of good and you must
not let yourselves be discouraged by difficulties. Christ has confidence in you
and wants you to be able to realize all your most noble and lofty dreams of
genuine happiness. Nothing is impossible for those who trust in God and entrust
themselves to him.
-Prayer Vigil with Young People, 1 September 2007



With love and conviction, I repeat to you young people present here, and through you to your
peers throughout the world: Do not be afraid, Christ can fill your heart's
deepest aspirations! Are there dreams that cannot come true when it is God's
Spirit who inspires and nourishes them in your heart? Can anything block our
enthusiasm when we are united with Christ? Nothing and no one, the Apostle Paul
would say, will ever separate us from God's love, in Christ Jesus Our Lord (cf.
Rom 8: 35-39).
-Prayer Vigil with Young People, 1 September 2007

The price of Divine Love is not to be appreciated; for it suffices to obtain the Kingdom of Heaven, and the love of Him who has loved us so much merits the highest degree of our love.
-- St. Francis of Assisi.

"Mother Teresa Dark Night of the Soul"

That's a document by Dinesh D'Souza. Apparently atheists seem to think that they have a new card against believers. D'Souza reminds us that what happened to Mother Teresa is normal to Christians, and especially to saints.

But Mother Teresa's heart-wrenching self-examination is entirely familiar to
thoughtful Christians. For instance, her insistent theme that she is being
forsaken by God recalls Christ's plaintive cry on the cross, "Why have You
forsaken me?" From Augustine to Luther to John of the Cross, there is a
whole body of Christian literature that sounds exactly like Mother Teresa.
In John's Dark Night of the Soul, for instance, the initial exhilaration of
conversion is followed by a "dark night of the senses" that is "bitter and
terrible to taste." Even so, this suffering is nothing compared to what
follows, the "dark night of the soul" in which "the soul feels itself to be
perishing and melting away, in the presence and sight of its miseries, in a
cruel spiritual death, even as if it had been swallowed by a beast and felt
itself being devoured." John interprets these travails as the purification
of the sinful part of man, so that he is ready for the holy eternal embrace of
God.

Bl. Teresa Of Calcutta pray for us.

Salt + Light TV

That's the Canadian Catholic TV Network - Salt + Light. Unfortunately, we don't have it on cable. But the good thing is we can watch separate shows on Internet. It is one of many fruits of WYD2002 in Toronto. You can tell by its name. And it seems to have more young journalists!
Here is one of the show(In Your Faith).

"Tales from the confessional"

Two days ago I discovered the Franciscan E-cards web site. A great site for free christian e-cards, I don't know how I had not discovered it earlier. All my friends knows that I like to send e-cards. I looked around, and it seems perfect, so I decided to subscribe for their 'JoyNotes' and I have received the first ones already. They seem perfect to read and fwd to friends.

The JoyNotes first part talk about Confession. For some time now, I have been thinking about penances priests give me. I once read a good story of a woman who was confessing 'talking too much' (medisance in French - don't know the word in English). The priest asked her to go to the market, buy a freshly killed chicken, go around cutting off all wings, and go back the same way picking the wings up, collect them and report to the confessor. She almost collapsed when she heard the last part of penance - with a bold chicken in her hands-, but she learned her lesson: - How difficult if not impossible to get back some bad words we say about others-



Sometimes I am surprised when the priest asks me to say just one Our Father and/or one Hail Mary. For a long time I seem to hear a voice asking to me to get a spiritual director. For scrupulous people like me, I think it is mandatory. On one side I think he should give me something to challenge me like the woman, or may be I don't understand the power of the Our Father or the Hail Mary.

Well, I am not the only one; there is an interesting topic in CAF about this: Tales from the confessional.

One Bread One Body

Just like our bodies, our souls seem to need some sort of daily bread. Devotees of any religion have different kinds of spiritual maintenance. But sometimes it is amazingly similar. While Christians constantly meditate on the Bible, Muslims on the Coran, etc, astrology readings seem to be a new kind of spiritual food for some 'no-religious' spirituality.

Today we see astrology readings in almost all news papers. Since when did they become standard? An alien would think that they come from some common 'spiritual' institution to which every body belong to. It is said that they are from the New Age Movement. I once read that this movement is not an organization as such, however it is amazing how it manages to convince everybody about its ideas. Astrology readings are all clear signs of spiritual hunger in our society. We all need something to rely on in order to spend the day with some hope and reason for joy.

I think I unconsciously manufactured my own superstitious beliefs for sometime out of a misunderstanding of how Divine Providence works. I would think that God time is when all things matches perfectly right. That Love rides on a perfectly smooth, gentle kind of curve. So part of my life existed in this 'waiting' mode until I learned what it means that God's name is I AM. Actually what had happened is: I had contaminated a virus called Pride. The terrible virus which attacked the 'First Intellectual': (Lucifer turned Satan) and made him heavy for Heaven.

Pride makes us think that we are in control of situations, events, even our lives. All we need is to input some information in our brain and we can almost predict what we will be tomorrow. It can attack any person who think they know 'enough' or much. Despite learning all this earlier, and knowing that the only way to defeat it is through love, I contaminated it. Why? I neglected constant prayer. I always talk about prayer on this forum because this failure hurt me so much. I naturally hate to fail in anything. So every time I fail I tried to make sure it does not happen again. Prayer is our only weapon against evil forces. It was by prayer full of love that St. Michael defeated demons.

In our society we seem to be slaves to the intellect. The only way we can explain how people accept astrology readings is because they think those things have something scientific therefore logical in/with them. It is all about the "intellect". And people are willing to be bound to some 'hard' statement even if it tells you that today you are guaranteed to have a bad day! It is sad that some people actually pay for their readings.

The good news for Christians is that we are freed from those cosmic laws and forces. Instead of being to some laws of nature, those laws obey us if we are in Christ. Saints have an habit of constantly overriding the laws of nature just like Jesus-Christ. Simple Christians who don't read astrology or who don't go by what everybody thinks, also, in those small ways they override common laws.

I have been reflection on daily Mass readings proposed by the Church and it is amazing on how liberating and confirming they are. While astrology tells you (which is mostly lies by the way) how your day will be, the Holy Spirit through the Church tells you how you will make your day. Year after year, we are fine tuned to the life of Christ from his birth to his resurrection.

As Jesus said, we should not worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will take care of itself. We should worry about the Kingdom and its righteousness, we should worry about NOW and act NOW.

This way of living can free us from superstition and making crazy engagements like Herod in today's Readings. Pride made Herod make such a promise, and soon after the same pride prevented him from doing the right thing because he was concerned about his future. How he would be seen as a King who changed his word. But who said that kings shouldn't change their word at least for the sake of Righteousness and Justice?

Humility and allegiance to Christ and his Church allow us to have our true daily bread. Everyday we are assured of blessings and the Joy of Christ. In Him we have our being. And as St. Augustine said, as long as we truly love, we can do what we want. We are free.

Power of testimonies

Today is the Memorial of the great saint and doctor of the Church St. Augustine. He is most known for his 'Confessions'. I have not yet read much of his writings. I tried to start "The City of God" but I have only ready few paragraphs so far.

Testimonies are great tools of conversions. The Confessions of St. Augustine are responsible for countless conversions. Not only we can convert others by our testimony but we continuasly convert ourselves. I know that my blogging is not perfect, but I know that it can provide useful information to a person in a particular stage/state of search of truth. Plus, it keeps me in touch with God and his people. So, I am myself continually converting myself as I think about what I write, or read my friends' blogs and all related sites.

Testimonies can be a great remedies for past sins. But they are not only about sins. They are also about truth of faithful life. They expose the Devil and his lies. So many times in life we go by assumptions. We assume what others think, the reasons they do what they do, etc. But a simple communication sometimes can bring light of truth. Humility is a must in any true testimony; St. Augustine writtings are so great because they were clearly written with great humility. I remember the first pages on his comments on Genesis, I witnessed his humility as he explains how hard it is to know what 'day' and 'night' means in that first book of the Bible.

Testimonies also get us together. They show us how life experiences can be similar. We undestand each other better, and become more and more One Body. It can be terrifying to testify. Specially when we don't pray unceasingly as the Lord commands us to do. The devil trouble us in millions of ways to prevent us from testifying for Christ and his Truth. We can only overcome by the power of prayer.

As the Gospel tells us, in God there is peace which is beyond all understanding. This peace protects us from sin, and keep us faithfull. Being faithfull is itself a testimony. Somehow a faithfull christian is always testifying.

It is also great that in the Church we can pray for each other and even pray together. Isn't it wonderful to know that we celebrate the same Mass around the World everyday. Sharing the Journey and becoming more and more One Body everyday. Sharing joy with those who are happy, and sorrow with those who are struggling, trying everyday to stay in the One heart of the Family of God.

In this spirit, I have just discovered an other blog with a similar name as this one: Civilization of Love:). It belong to the same Katerina who made the famous "Why Am I Catholic" YouTube video. This blog expresses the journey to God with a special focus on the 'little ways'. And it has a great prayer of St. Augustine for today.

It is great to see more people on this journey. You are probably already familiar with Lisa's blog (expression of a perfect Schoenstatt spirit), and others also linked to this blog. More testimonies to support each other in this great eternal battle. With great humility, testifying can free us from being like the pharisies who swallow the camel.