Cornelius is a Roman soldier stationed in Caesarea. He was a God fearing person strongly attracted to the Jewish teaching of Monotheism (the belief in one God) as opposed to pagan idolatry and immorality, and to the concern expressed in the law of Moses. He gave generously to Jewish causes, helping the poor and needy, and prayed constantly to God. - Acts 10:2 -

Cornelius was the first recorded Gentile convert to Christianity. He is introduced in the Book of The Acts of the Apostles as a representative of thousands in the Gentile world who were weary of paganism and who were hungry for the coming of the Messiah - the Christ who would deliver them from their sins and lead them into an abundant Spirit filled life.

God sent a heavenly vision both to Cornelius and to Simon Peter. Obeying his vision, Cornelius sent some of his men to Jaffa, to find Simon Peter. Peter, in turn, obeyed his own vision ( which he interpreted to mean that Gentiles were to be included in Christ's message ) and went to Cornelius. While Peter was still preaching to Cornelius and his household, the Holy Spirit came down on all the listeners. And Peter commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teach them to observe all God's commands.

One day at about the ninth hour he had a vision in which he distinctly saw the angel of God come into his house and call out to him, 'Cornelius!' He stared at the vision in terror and exclaimed, 'What is it, Lord?' 'Your offering of prayers and alms' the angel answered 'has been accepted by God. Now you must send someone to Jaffa and fetch a man called Simon, known as Peter, who is lodging with Simon the tanner whose house is by the sea.' When the angel who said this had gone, Cornelius called two of his slaves and a devout soldier of his staff, told them what had happened, and sent them off to Jaffa.

Next day, while they were still on their journey and had only a short distance to go before reaching Jaffa, Peter went to the housetop at about the sixth hour to pray. He felt hungry and was looking forward to his meal, but before it was ready he fell into a trance and saw heaven thrown open and something like a big sheet being let down to earth by its four corners; it contained every possible sort of animal and bird, walking, crawling or flying ones. A voice then said to him, 'Now, Peter; kill and eat!' But Peter answered, 'Certainly not, Lord; I have never yet eaten anything profane or unclean.' Again, a second time, the voice spoke to him, 'What God has made clean, you have no right to call profane.' This was repeated three times, and then suddenly the container was drawn up to heaven again.

Peter was still worrying over the meaning of the vision he had seen, when the men sent by Cornelius arrived. They asked where Simon's house was and Peter was lodging there. Peter's mind was still on the vision and the Spirit had to tell him, 'Some men have come to see you. Hurry down, and do not hesitate about going back with them; it was I who told them to come.' Peter went down and said to them, 'I am the man you are looking for; why have you come?' They said, 'The centurion Cornelius, who is an upright and God fearing man, highly regarded by the entire Jewish people, was directed by a holy angel to send for you and bring you to his house and to listen to what you have to say.' So Peter asked them in and gave them lodging.

Next day, he was ready to go off with them, accompanied by some of the brothers from Jaffa. They reached Caesarea the following day, and Cornelius was waiting for them. He had asked his relations and close friends to be there, and as Peter reached the house Cornelius went out to meet him, knelt at his feet and prostrated himself. But Peter helped him up. 'Stand up' he said 'I am only a man after all!' Talking together they went in to meet all the people assembled there, and Peter said to them, 'You know it is forbidden for Jews to mix with people of another race and visit them, but God has made it clear to me that I must not call anyone profane or unclean. That is why I made no objection to coming when I was sent for; but I should like to know exactly why you sent for me.' Cornelius replied, 'Three days ago I was praying in my house at the ninth hour, when I suddenly saw a man in front of me in shinning robes. He said, "Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been accepted as a sacrifice in the sight of God; so now you must send to Jaffa and fetch Simon known as Peter who is lodging in the house of Simon the tanner, by the sea." So I sent for you at once, and you have been kind enough to come. Here we all are, assembled in front of you to hear what message God has given you for us.'

Then Peter addressed them: 'The truth I have come to realise' he said, is that God does not have favourites, but anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him.

'It is true, God sent his word to the people of Israel, and it was to them that the good news of the peace was brought by Jesus Christ - but Jesus Christ is Lord of all men. You must have heard about the recent happenings in Judaea; about Jesus of Nazareth and how he began in Galilee, after John had been preaching baptism. God had anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and because God was with him, Jesus went about doing good and curing all who had fallen into the power of the devil. Now I, and those with me, can witness to everything he did throughout the countryside of Judaea and in Jerusalem itself; and also to the fact that they killed him by hanging him on a tree, yet three days afterwards God raised him to life and allowed him to be seen, not by the whole people but only certain witnesses God had chosen beforehand. Now we are those witnesses - we have eaten and drunk with him after his resurrection from the dead - and he has ordered us to proclaim this to his people and to tell them that God has appointed him to judge everyone, alive or dead. It is to him that all the prophets bear this witness: that all who believe in Jesus will have their sins forgiven through his name.'

While Peter was still speaking the Holy Spirit came down on all the listeners. Jewish believers who had accompanied Peter were all astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit should be poured out on the pagans too, since they could hear them speaking strange languages and proclaiming the greatness of God. Peter himself then said, 'Could anyone refuse the water of baptism to these people, now they have received the Holy Spirit just as much as we have?' He then gave orders for them to be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ. Afterwards they begged him to stay on for some days. - Acts 10:1-48 -

This incident marked the expansion of the Christian faith, and of the early Church to include Gentiles as well as Jews. Saint Peter alluded to Cornelius' conversion at the Jerusalem Council.

Peter stood up and addressed them: 'My brothers' he said, 'you know perfectly well that in the early days God made his choice among you: the pagans were to learn the Good News from me and so become believers. In fact God, who can read everyone's heart, showed his approval of them by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as he had to us. God made no distinction between them and us, since he purified their hearts by faith. It would only provoke God's anger now, if you imposed on the disciples the very burden that neither we nor our ancestors were strong enough to support? Remember, we believe that we are saved in the same way as they are: through the grace of the Lord Jesus. - Acts 15:7-11 -

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If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

Job, the name of two men in the Old Testament: The third son of Issachar, and founder of a tribal family, the Jashubites. - Gen. 46:13 - He is also called Jashub. - Num. 26:24; 1Chr. 7;1 -

The central personality of the Book of Job. He was noted for his perseverance and unwavering faith in God, hope in God, love in God, in spite of his sufferings and moments of frustration and doubt.

For your example, brothers, in submitting with patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord; remember it is those who had endurance that we say are the blessed ones. You have heard of the patience of Job, and understood the Lord's purpose, realising that the Lord is kind and compassionate. - James 5:10-11 -

Job is described as a man in the land of Uz and the greatest of all the peoples of the East. A prosperous man. Uz is probably a name for a region in Edom. - Jer. 25:20; Lam. 4:21 -

There was once a man in the land of Uz called Job: a sound and honest man who feared God and shunned evil. Seven sons and three daughters were born to him. And he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred female donkeys, and many servants besides. This man was indeed a man of mark among all the people of the East. - Job 1:1-3 -

Job is humbled by his outpouring of God's power, and he learns to trust where he cannot understand. This leads to his great affirmation of faith, hope, and love in God's. Satan was very jealous and envy of Job  righteousness, materials possessions, a man who feared God, therefore, Satan suggested to God that Job would remain righteous as long as it was financially profitable for him to do so. Then the Lord permitted Satan to try Job's faith, hope, and love in Him. Blow after blow fell upon Job: his children, his servants, and his livestock were taken from him and he was left penniless. Nevertheless,

"In all this misfortune Job did not sin nor offered any insult to God." - Job 1:22 -

Satan continued his assault by sneering, 'Touch his bone and flesh, and he surely curse You to Your face!' The Lord allowed Satan to afflict Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. In rapid fashion, Job's sons and daughters are killed and all his flocks are driven away by his enemies. Even his wife question and asked Job: Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die! But Job refused to curse God and replied: Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?

Once again the sons of God came to attend on Yahweh, and among them was Satan. So Yahweh said to Satan, 'Where have you been?' 'Round the earth' he answered 'roaming about.' So Yahweh asked him, 'Did you noticed my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth: a sound and honest man who fears God and shuns evil. His life continues blameless as ever; in vain you provoked me to ruin him.' 'Skin for skin!' Satan replied, 'A man will give away all he has to save his life. But stretch out your hand and lay a finger on his bone and flesh; I warrant you, he will curse you to your face.' 'Very well.' Yahweh said to Satan 'he is in your power. But spare his life.' So Satan left the presence of Yahweh.

He struck Job down with malignant ulcers from the sole of his foot to the top of his head. Job took a piece of pot to scrape himself, and went and sat in the ashpit. Then his wife said to him, 'Do you now still mean to persist in your blamelessness? Curse God and die.' 'That is how foolish women talk' Job replied, 'If we take happiness from God's hand, must we not take sorrow too?' And in all this misfortune Job uttered no sinful word. - Job 2:1-10 -

This is when Job's three friends - Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar - arrive to mourn with him and to offer their comfort. But instead of comforting Job, these friends launch into long lectures and philosophical debates to show Job the reason for his suffering. Their line of reasoning follows the generally accepted view of their time - that misfortune is always sent by God as punishment for sin. Job argues just as strongly that he is an upright man who has done nothing to deserve such treatment at the hand of God.

Finally, after Job and his friends have debated this question at length and have failed to arrive at a satisfactory solution, God Himself speaks from a whirlwind. He does not enter their discussion about why the righteousness suffer; He reveals Himself as the powerful, all-knowing God. God's message to Job is that He does not have to explain or justify His actions. He is sovereign, all-powerful God who always does what is right, although His ways may be beyond human being's understanding.

Job's faith, hope, and love in God eventually triumphed over all adversity, and he was finally restored to more than his former prosperity. He had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. He died at the ripe old age of 140 years. - Job 42:10-17 -

Job is a model of spiritual integrity - a person who held fast to his faith and love in God, without understanding the real reason behind his suffering. He serves as a continuing witness to the possibility of authentic faith and love in God in most troubling circumstances.

The Book of Job also teaches us that God is good, compassionate, just, and impartial in His dealings. He restored Job's fortunes and gave him more than He had ever enjoyed. Indeed, God always replaces the darkness of our existence with the light of His presence when we remain faithful to Him.

The dialogue sections of the Book of Job are written in poetry. Great truths are often expressed in such poetic language. These great truths are worth the slow, reflective reading it sometimes takes to grasp their meaning. Great art like that in this book often challenges our understanding. That is why we need to come back to it again and again.

                                                                    Page 1
 If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

God's plan is that Jews and Gentiles are justified before God by faith and action. This plan can be traced to the beginning of Israel's history, for Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

Such will be your descendants , he told him. Abram put his faith in Yahweh, who counted this as making him justified. - Gen. 15:5-6 -

If Abraham was justified as a reward for doing something, he would really have had something to boast about, though not in God's sight because scripture says: Abraham put his faith in God, and this faith was considered as justifying him. - Rom. 4:2-3 - Gal. 3:6 -

The law, which did not come until 430 years after Abraham was never intended to replace justification by faith. - Gal.3:17 - Rather, the law was to teach us of our need for Christ. Christ, therefore, is the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham.

Before faith came, we were allowed no freedom by the Law; we were being looked after till faith was revealed. The Law was to be our guardian until the Christ came and we could be justified by faith. Now that the time has come we are no longer under the guardian, and you are, all of you, sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. All baptised in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Merely by belonging to Christ you are the posterity of Abraham, the heir he was promised. - Gal.3:23-29 -

Saint Paul's teaches us that the result of justification by grace through faith is spiritual freedom and he appealed to us to stand fast in our freedom, and not get entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Christian freedom is not an excuse to gratify one's lower nature; rather, it is an opportunity to love one another. Such freedom does not insulate one from life's struggles. Indeed, it may intensify the battle between the Spirit and the flesh. Nevertheless, the flesh [the lower nature] has been crucified with Christ and, as a consequence, the Spirit will bear its fruit - such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Don't delude yourself into thinking that God can be cheated: where a man sows, there he reaps: if he sows in the field of self-indulgence he will get a harvest of corruption out of it.; if he sows in the field of the Spirit he will get from it a harvest of eternal life. - Gal. 6:7-8 -

                                                                      Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

It is a fact that generally all peoples, including primitive tribes, have had religious beliefs and cults, belief in a god or gods and various rites and rituals of worship. While some of the religions have remained in the primitive stage, others have developed philosophical and doctrinal systems. Some have so many adherents spread over a large part of the globe that they have been called 'world religion.'

It is an unfortunate fact in the history of mankind that even battles have been fought and blood has been shed in the name and for the sake of religion, and there have been hostilities and wars among the religions themselves.

Every person should have, as a fundamental right, the freedom to follow and practice the religion of his or her choice. So also the freedom to change from one religion to another. From this arises one's duty to respect the religious views and practices of others, however convinced one may be that one's religion is the true one, just as an ardent supporter of one political party must respect the views and policies of other parties or a scientist who values his theories must respect even the contrary theories of the other scientists.

It is a fact, moreover, that while some of the teachings of these various religions are identical, there is also disparity in respect of other teachings, some of which are even contradictory, so that it cannot be logically said that all religions are the same or all are equally true.

Christianity is a unique religion, because that Christianity is a religion directly revealed by God, by the Lord Jesus Christ who is God, is the belief of the Christian. This conviction has been the basis of all missionary endeavor in the history of the Universal Church. Although it is Catholic Christian belief that those of other faiths or no faith can also be saved if they do not sin and live righteously according to their conscience, the Church has never ceased from its inception till now to bring to non Believer of God and non Christian peoples a knowledge of the Christian faith. This missionary has been carried out at great cost, in the face of numerous humiliation, hardships and the sacrifice of lives of many missionaries.

In spite of Christianity being the God-revealed religion, God's presence in other religions has to be noticed too. Catholic Christian attitude to other faiths has in the past [before Vatican II] been very much a negative one. The present positive approach to them, which is a very desirable change, has come mainly from Vatican II. The Council has given an impetus to the study and appreciation of the positive values of other religions and encouraged dialogue with them.

These religions are seen as a preparation for the Gospel and playing a providential role in the Divine economy of salvation. They contain "treasures a bountiful God has distributed among the nations of the earth, but the Church has to illumine these treasures with the light of the Gospel." This is in keeping with Christ's instruction to his disciples: The mission of the world.

Meanwhile the eleven disciples set out to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had arranged to meet them. When they saw him they fell down before him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of time." - Matt. 28:16-20 -

                                                                   Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

FREEING  FREEDOM

HE is humanity's ultimate freedom.

In Him, the resurrection power,
is our capacity to be
increasingly free.

HE is FREEDOM
because HE is totally given over
to the FATHER
to be what GOD wills Him TO BE
in His plan of salvation.

We are free
when no created things,
no personal ambitions
inhibits us from BECOMING the persons
that God wants of us
in His economy of salvation.

HE is our FREEDOM.

In Him, the ULTIMATE FREEDOM,
we attain our liberation,
our true identity,
children totally given over to God.

WHEN  IT  COMES  HE  COMES

Worry not when it comes.
It comes when HE comes.

The Lord" call rings out
in the depth of the hearer's heart.

The Comer steps out
forward into the future unknown.

The Comer knows not the Lord's thoughts.
His spirit blows here there.

Yes HE reveals to the Comer
the next best step forward.

Trust in HIM. Move out. Move beyond.
For HE bids us: "Come child. Come into
the knowable unknown world of my
Trinitarian life."

To have stepped forward is to have come.

Allow then, Comer, the leading
of the gentle guiding silence of the Lord
to show you the path.

Worry not, Comer, when it comes.
Know ye.
It comes when HE comes.

POEM  BY  REV.  FR.  JOSEPH   MATTHEW   FUNG   JEE   VUI,  ( JOJO ) S.J.

                                                                 Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

In the Old Testament, God has redeemed His people [Israelites] from slavery in Egypt, though their freedom was always conditional upon their living within God's law. Bondage, however, always seemed something of an anomaly. Full freedom was the goal toward which the prophets saw Israel moving. They saw some sad experiences of captivity standing between Israel and freedom, but this seemed to deepen not only their love of freedom but their understanding of it as well.

The later prophets spoke of freedom in a more inward sense than is contained in the mere absence of external restraints. Freedom was not just a matter of liberating slaves or of achieving independence. It involved being free of every kind of oppression, being free of all that restricts and inhibits human life. Full freedom means freedom within the will of God. It is the truth that liberates. We are free to be what we truly are. It would make no sense to speak of our being free to be what we were neither made nor meant to be.

This emphasis was explicitly endorsed by the Lord Jesus Christ:

The spirit of the Lord Yahweh has been given to me,
for Yahweh has anointed me,
He has sent to bring good news to the poor,
to bind up hearts that are broken;
to proclaim liberty to captives,
freedom to those in prison;
to proclaim a year of favour from Yahweh,
a day ........ - Isaiah 61 - Luke 4:18-19 -

Freedom is, indeed, an easily misunderstood concept. It does not involve unconditional self-determination, since peoples are not free to choose just anything. For instance, they cannot choose to be all flesh, spirit, animal, or angel. That simply is not what they are. It is contrary to the truth that sets them free. But from a biblical point of view, people can be in bondage to social habits, market forces, evil influences, or mere ignorance and sloth. The condition upon which God's has given liberty to human being is eternal vigilance.

There is even a sense in which our full freedom demands that we accept some commitments and restraints. After all, it is our nature to live in community. We cannot be truly free outside it. To live in community involves some curbing of our individual right to do as we please. And "freedom under the law" can be seen as an image of a greater freedom within the rule of God.

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said:

'If you make my word your home
you will indeed be my disciples,
you will learn the truth
and the truth will make you free.' - John 8:31-32 -

They answered, "We are descended from Abraham and we have never been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean, "You will be made free?" Jesus replied:

I tell you most solemnly,
everyone who commits a sin is a slave.
Now the slave's place in the house is not assured,
but the son's place is assured.
So if the Son makes you free,
you will be free indeed. - John 8:33-36 -

When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. - Gal. 5:1 -

My brothers, you were called, as you know, to liberty; but be careful, or this liberty will provide an opening for self-indulgence. Serve one another, rather, in works of love, since the whole of the Law is summarised in a single command: Love your neighbour as yourself. - Gal. 5:13-14 -

Does the fact that we are living by grace and not by law mean that we are free to sin? Of course not. - Rom. 6:15 -

                                                                  Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

Jesus Christ alone is the true head [Godhead] of men and angels. It is a term that is a synonym for God, with an emphasis on that which makes the triune God essentially one. Saint Paul used the term to show the contrast between God's sinless nature and the corrupt character of human beings and their tendency toward idolatry. He also describe what mankind ought to see in nature as a result of God's creative handiwork - His eternal power.

You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received - Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in him and built on him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving.

Make sure that no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.

In his body lives the fullness of divinity, and in him you too find your own fulfillment, in the one who is the head of every Sovereignty and Power. - Col. 1:6-9 - Rom. 1:20 -

If it was God's wisdom that human should not know God, it was because God wanted to save those who have faith through the foolishness of the message that we preach. And so, while the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, here we are preaching a crucified Christ; to the Jews an obstacle that they cannot get over, to the pagans madness, but to those who have been called, whether they are Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the power and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. - 1Cor. 1:21-25 -

Yes, naturally stupid are all men who have not known God and who, from the good things that are seen, have not been able to discover Him-who-is, or by studying the works, have failed to recognize the Artificer. Even so, they are not to be excused: if they are capable of acquiring enough knowledge to be able to investigate the world, how have they been so slow to find its Master? - Wisdom 13:1,8-9 -

This describes how the human mind fails to understand the exalted Godhead because of its sinful rebellion and distortion of truth. Apostle Paul declared that in the Son of God who took on human form, the essential quality and character of God are wholly present. This was Paul's way of emphasizing that Jesus is not a mere 'divine man' like the heroes of the Greco-Roman world, but truly God - the Godhead or God Himself in human form.

Since the God who made the world and everything in it, is himself Lord of heaven and earth, he does not make his home in shrines made by human hands. Nor is he dependent on anything that human hands can do for him, since he can never be in need of anything; on the contrary, it is he who gives everything - including life and breath - to everyone. - Acts 17:24-25 - Isaiah 42:5 -

                                                                    Page 1
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

The Church makes none of us less than we were before. But we chiefly value freedom in order to give it away; everyone who loves surrender his or her freedom, whether his passion be the love of another person, the love of a cause, or the love of God. When a man loves a woman, he says, "I am yours," and the surrender of freedom gives him into a sweet slavery. Every person in love with God says, as Saint Paul did, "What will you have me to do?" - Acts 9:6 - and adds, as we do in the Our Father, "Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." In both instances, freedom is surrendered for the sake of a greater joy. Freedom hoarded is of little value - spent, for something we love, it brings peace and perfects one's personality in the law and love of God.

The new certitude of the convert, then, is a precious thing and very different from the abandonment of will and intellect some imagine it to be. But the full tale of the benefits from conversion is not ended. We must speak of another christening gift - peace of soul. There is a world of difference between peace of mind and peace of soul. Peace of mind is the result of bringing some ordering principle to bear on discordant human experiences; this may be achieved by tolerance, or by a gritting of one's teeth in the face of pain; by killing conscience, or denying guilt, or by finding new loves to assuage old griefs. Each of these is an integration, but on a very low level.

This kind of peace Our Lord calls false, and He likens it to living under the dominion of Satan: "When a strong man fully armed guard his palace, his possession are safe." - Luke 11:21 - It is the peace of those who have convinced themselves they are animals; the peace of the stone-deaf whom no word of truth can pierce; the peace of the blind who guarded themselves against every ray of heavenly light. It is the false peace of the slothful servant who had the same talent at the end as at the beginning because he ignored the judgment that would demand an account of his stewardship. It is the false peace of the man who built his house on the shifting road, so that it varnished with the floods and the storms. With such false peace of mind, Satan tempts his victims; he makes it seems refined to the refined, sensual to the sensual, and coarse to the coarse.

Conversion brings the soul out of either chaos or this false peace of mind to true peace of soul. "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid." - John 14;27 - The true peace is born of the tranquility of order, wherein the senses are subject to the reason, the reason to faith, and the whole personality to the Will of God. The true peace that follows conversions is deepened, not disturbed, by the crosses, checks, and disquietude of the world, for they are all welcomed as coming from the hands of the Loving Father. The true peace can never come from adjustment to the world, for if the world is wicked, adjustments to wickedness make us worse. It comes only from identification of one's own will with the Will of God.

The peaceful soul does not seek, now, to live morally, but to live for God; morality is only a by-product of the union with Him. This peace unites the soul with his neighbor, prompting him to visit the sick, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked; for by loving another soul one gives to God.

The only real pain the convert now has is his inability to do more for the love of God. It is easy to fulfill the claims of lesser ideals, such as Humanism, and their disciples quickly become complacent; there are already as virtuous as their code asks them to be. It is very easy to be a good Humanist, but it is very hard to be a true follower of Jesus Christ. Yet it is not the memory of past sins that creates this pain amid the peace, but present shortcomings: Because the convert loves so much, he feels as if he had done nothing. What gift can ever be an expression of this new love? If he could give God the universe, even that would not be enough.

All energy that was previously wasted in conflict - either in trying to find the purpose of life or in trying alone and futilely to conquer his vices - can now be released to serve a single purpose. Regret, remorse, fears, and the anxieties that flowed from sin now completely vanish in repentance. The convert no longer regrets what he might have been; the Holy Spirit fills his soul with a constant presentiment of what he can become through grace. This spiritual recuperation is accompanied by hope, at no matter what age the change occurs - although the convert always regrets that he waited so long. As Saint Augustine of Hippo said, "Too late, O ancient beauty, have I loved thee." But since grace rejuvenates, it quickens even the old to consecrate service.

And there are many other ways in which peace of soul will manifest itself after conversion. It makes somebody out of nobody by giving them a service of Divine Sonship; it roots out anger, resentments, and hate by overcoming sin; it gives the convert faith in other people, whom he now sees as potential children of God; it improves his health by curing the ills that sprang from a disordered, unhappy, and restless mind; for trails and difficulties, it gives him the aid of Divine power; it brings him at all times a sense of harmony with the universe; it sublimates his passions; it makes him fret less about the spiritual shortcomings of the world because he is engrossed in seeking his own spirituality; it enables the soul to live in a constant consciousness of God's presence, as the earth, in its flight about the sun, carries its own atmosphere with it.

In business, in the home, in household duties, in the factory, all actions are done in the sight of God, all thoughts revolve about His Truths. The unreasoning blame, the false accusations, the jealousies and bitterness of others are borne patiently, as our Lord bore them, so that love might reign and that God might be glorified in the bitter as in the sweet. Dependence on Him becomes strength; one no longer fears to undertake good works, knowing He will supply the means. But above all else, with this deep sense of peace, there is the gift of perseverance, which inspires us never to let down our guard, or to shrink from difficulties, or to be depressed as the soul presses on to its supernal vocation in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.

A final effect of complete conversion is less pleasant: One becomes the target of opposition and hate. A person can join any other movement, group, or cult without provoking hostile comment from his neighbors and friends; he can even found some esoteric sun cult of his own and be tolerated as a citizen exercising his legitimate freedom and satisfying his own religion needs. But as soon as anyone joins the Church, hatred and opposition appear. This is because his friends intuitively know that he no longer shares the spirit of the world, that he is now governed by Spirit, is lifted into a truly supernatural order, is united with Divinity in a special way, which is a challenge and reproach to those who would make the best of two worlds.

This reaction is not difficult to understand. Forget, for a moment, that the Church exists; and suppose there should suddenly appear on earth an institution equally Divine, which claimed to teach Truth as unerringly as God teaches it; which summoned children every morning to schools where they would begin and end their lessons with prayer; which forbade its married members to dishonor their marriage ties; which taught purity in a carnal environment; which, in all its decisions on society, on human rights, on politics and economics, started with the principle that nothing really matters except the salvation of a soul.

How would the world receive it? With defiance, hatred, vilification, persecution, and unremitting attacks. Whenever the Voice is heard, the Presence felt, there is such violent opposition as had been promised: "But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." - John 15:19 -

As a consequence of this opposition to Christ, those who know a convert invoke a thousand far-fetched explanations to avoid the true reason - namely, the appeal of Divinity. The conversion of the young is explained as a phenomenon of adolescence; in the slightly older, it is blamed on a disappointment in love; the mature are called guilty of a mental aberration due to change of life; the old are accused of senility; in the unlearned, it is due to ignorance; in the learned, it causes raised eyebrows and the reflection, "Surprising! I thought he was too intelligent for that sort of thing."

It is this fear of provoking the enmity of the world that discourages many from becoming converts. Of this Our Lord Himself warned: How else could heaven be known but by the enmity it would provoke among the worldly? "For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against the mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." - Matt. 10:35 - In this sense, Our Lord, indeed, brought a sword, causing division among human beings; but the peace He also brought recompenses those who, apparently giving up everything and find all that is.

Who are the prospects for conversion? How are the men and women set apart who will, in a year or two, seek out the Church? What kind of people need conversion? There is no special temperament, no unique mood that marks the next year's convert. Everyone in the world is looking for certitude, peace of soul, and freedom of spirit. In the quest of every pleasure, even in the pursuit of the unlawful, all people pursue their ceaseless quest of the Infinite. Where they look for God is the only question on which they differ. In this they are divided, as music lovers are: The music we love is the music we already have in our souls. The disordered soul likes discordant music; the unregulated will enjoys unregulated dissonances and rejects the finer, better orchestrated symphonies. It might take considerable education and self-discipline to make jive-loving minds appreciate the "Leonore" No.3, overture, or any work of Handel, Mozart, or Beethoven. Yet the love of some kind of music is in everyone; it is in the kind of music one loves that the difference lies, and no one enjoys good music without training and discipline.

Everyone wants the things that only a love of God will bring, but most people today seek them in a wrong places. That is why no one comes to God without a revolution of the spirit; a person must stop seeking his good in Godlessness. "And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil. For everyone that does evil hates the light, and comes not to the light, that his works may not be reproved." - John 3:19-20 - Anyone who turns his face toward the light will be converted; but the turning must be done of his or her own free will. One can bribe tyrants, coax Quislings, flatter dictators, but there is no way to win God's love except by love. To each soul, He is forever saying, "Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock." - Apoc. 3:20 - Shall we refuse to open it? To each mind, he reiterates, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life." - John 14:6 -

Are we ashamed to receive the truth, lest it expose our ignorance and perversity - even though that exposure bring us to glory and peace? To every heart, Our Lord says, "I am the Good Shepherd." - John 10:11 - Shall the frightened lambs lost in the brambles and thickets of modern life refuse His saving Hand? There is one simple way of beginning a conversion: Cease asking what God will give you if you come to Him, and begin to ask what you will give God. It is not the sacrifice it sounds, for, in having God, you will have everything besides.

BY ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN  ( 1895 to 1979 )

                                                                    Page 4
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

The new moral life is not austere or arduous, because there is no longer a feeling that one has to live up to a hated contract; instead, the convert is motivated by a feeling that he or she can never do enough for Him Whom he loves. The nagging reminder that one ought to avoid sin has been replaced by the desire that nothing must hinder us from drawing nearer to God. From this new orientation come the passion and zeal of a Saint, Paul's: "For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Rom. 8:38-39 -

But even this does not end the list of the convert's new benefits. He also receives certitude. Philosophy gives a proof for the existence of God; the science of apologetic gives the motives for believing in Christ, the Son of God; but all the incontrovertible proofs they offer fall short of the certitude that actually comes to a convert through the gift of Faith. Imagine a young man whose father has been lost for years. A friend, returned from a trip, assures him that he has certain evidence that his father really exists on another continent. But the young man is not fully satisfied with the evidence, however convincing it is; until he is restored to his father's actual presence, he will not have peace.

So it is with conversion: Before, one knows about God; afterward, one knows God. The first knowledge the mind has is notional and abstract; the second is real, concrete, and it becomes bound up with all one's sentiments, emotions, passions, and habits. Before conversion, the truths seemed true but far off; they did not touch one personally. After conversion, they become so personalized that the mind knows that it is through with the search for a place to live; it can now settle down to the making of a home. The convert's certitude is so great that his mind does not feel that an answer has been given, but the answer - the absolute, final solution, which one would die for rather than surrender.

As a result, all the doubts and despair of the intellectual vanish - and here the Church differs from all other world religions. In other religions, doubts increase with the development of reason, but in the Church faith intensifies as reason develops. This is because our reason and our faith in Christ and His Mystical Body both derive from the same God of Light, whereas reason and belief in a pagan teacher often have different sources. Reason is from God, but a belief in pagan teaching comes merely from the external environment or through propaganda.

It is historically true that an age of the Summa of the thirteenth-century Thomas Aquinas is an example. This relation is a logical one: Just as reason is the perfection of the senses, so faith is the perfection of reason. A person neither sees nor walks as well when he is drunk as when he is sober; his senses lack the perfecting power of reason. In the same way, a mind reasoning without faith does not function as well as reasoning with faith.

Those who have never gone through the experience of a complete conversion imagine that reason must be completely abdicated for such a step. We hear them make such remarks as, "I cannot understand it; he seemed like an intelligent man." But those who have gone through the experience of conversion see that just as the eye winks, closing itself to the light for an instant that it may reopen and see better, so, too, one winks his reason for that brief instant in which he admits that it may not know all the answers. Then, when faith comes, the reason is found to be intact and clearer sighted than before. Both reason and faith are now seen as deriving from God Himself; they can never, therefore, be in opposition. Knowing this, the convert loses all his doubts. His certitude in his faith becomes unshakable - indeed, is his old notions are now apt to be shaken by the earthquake of his faith.

Now the certitude in the Divinity and infallibility of Christ, in all that implies, surpasses even the evidence and the arguments for it, for the certitude is derived from God Himself. "Flesh and blood has not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven." - Matt. 16:17 - Now the convert understands that there are three lights to guide humanity to happiness: there is the light of the sun for our senses, the light of reason for our sciences, theology and the light of faith for our religion and salvation. Those who lack the gift of faith and those who have it are like two persons looking at a rainbow: One of them is blind, and the other is blessed with eyesight. There are little children in our parochial schools who could never answer the objections of learned professors who might attack their faith; yet such objections would no more shake their faith than if they attempted to prove that their eyes could not see color nor their ears hear sounds.

This absence of confusion, this absolute conviction of Divine and Absolute Truth, is one of the greatest consolations of the faithful. The converted soul sees itself as the man born blind - now restored to vision and to light. As a result the soul becomes bolder in his judgments; the blinkers are now removed, and he has a Divine standard by which to judge not only his own actions but world events about him. Only a person of faith can understand the present world situation; such a person alone appreciates that it is not the clash of conflicting political systems, but a moral judgment on the way people think and live. Even in the midst of such tribulations as today's, his faith begets patience and productivity; thanks to the magnet of faith, all his scattered fragments of ideas are like iron filings, made of one piece and suffused with one energy.

But some will surely ask, "Don't conversion and the acceptance of the authority of the Church as the authority of Christ destroy human freedom? Doesn't the acceptance of the absolute of the Church imply authoritarianism?" The answer is negative. To myopic eyes, there may, indeed, seem to be a superficial resemblance between accepting the authority of the Church and accepting the authoritarianism of a Stalin. But there are three profound differences between the two.

First, the authoritarianism of modern politics is external; the authority of the Church is internal. The dictator's rule is imposed from without, is pressed on one as insistently as a dog barking at the heels of the sheep, and it is accepted coweringly and under pressure. Submission to arbitrary rules that do not coincide with our own best judgment leads to the complete destruction of personality. But the authority of the Church is never arbitrary, never communicated entirely from without; it coincides with the Truth of Christ, which is already in the soul and which has been accepted on evidence our reason approves. Here the authority accords with our conscience, and it completes the personality that submits to it.

The relationship of the Christian and the Church is very much like that of a student and a professor, the more the student learns, and the smaller the gap dividing them becomes; one day the student may himself become an associate of that teacher. It was such submission to this spiritual authority of which Our Lord spoke to His Apostle: "I will not now call you servants: for the servant knows not what his lord does. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you." - John 15:15 -

There is a second difference: The totalitarian state, to make its whimsical rulings accepted, must always aim at suppressing freedom of choice. For example, it will tell a citizen that he is not free to work at what he likes, to live where he pleases. But the authority of the Church tries, through training her children in the proper use of freedom of choice, to develop the freedom of perfection. Far from discouraging individuals from following their own preferences, the Church devotes much of her energy to teaching them how to choose, and to choose wisely.

An instructor in aviation teaches a candidate the laws of flight, the principles of gravitation and navigation. Then the student is given full freedom of choice; he can either obey the laws of flight or disobey them. If he uses his freedom to disobey, he will crash; if he uses his freedom to obey the laws he has learned, he will enjoy flying. The Church, likewise, teaches us the laws that govern reality and the consequences of breaking them. This is what Our Lord meant when He said, "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." - John 8:32 -

For moral freedom - like every other freedom - is limited by the order of the universe. You are free to draw a triangle (provided that you give it three sides instead of thirty); you are free to draw giraffe (provided that you respect its nature, giving it a long neck and not a short one); you are free to teach chemistry (provided that you tell the students that water is H2O and not H2So4). So with the Church: We are free to reject the teachings of Christ in His Church, just as we are free to ignore or disobey the laws of engineering; but we find that the rejection of her laws never leads us to the perfection of our personality, as we foolishly hoped. It results, instead, in a morbid affirmation of the ego, which can even lead to self-destruction.

Life may likened to children playing. The totalitarian would build them a playground where all their movements are supervised, where they are ordered to play only those games that the state dictates - games that the children nearly all detest. The result is that freedom of choice is, of course, taken away. Moreover, all hope and spontaneity are lost to the children. But the playground established by the Church might be a rock in the sea, surrounded by great walls; inside of those walls the children may dance and sing and play as they please. Liberals would ask the Church to tear down the walls on the grounds that they are a restraining influence; but if this were done, you would find all the children huddled in the center of the island, afraid to play, afraid to sing, afraid to dance, afraid of falling into the sea. Spiritual authority is like those beneficent walls. Or, again, it is like a levee that prevents the river of thought from becoming riotous and destroying the countryside of sanity.

The third difference between the discipline of the authoritarian state and the Church concerns their authority has on the subject. Totalitarianism begets fear in the hearts of its subjects, because it habitually enforces its will by the whip, the chain, the concentration camp, and the false charge, which slanders a person; it thus develops hostility within the hearts of its subjects. Church authority, since it is internal, uses absolutely no threat or fear or compulsion; it relies, rather, on the echo each of its rulings raises in the heart and mind of the individual. Anyone of its subjects is as free to reject the Church as Judas Iscariot, as his moment of departure he is asked to return with the kindly word "Friend." One submits to the authority of the Church as a child submits to the authority of his parents - because he loves them - and from this love flows an ardent admiration and gratitude.

In the light of these differences, it is evident that the real choice offered today is not between freedom from authority and submission to authority; it is rather a matter of choosing which kind of authority we will accept.

The modern person is so confused that, for all his talk about freedom, he is often eager to renounce this gift in favor of security. Even when no greater security is offered him in exchange, he is eager to give up his freedom of choice; he cannot bear the burden of its responsibility. Weary of being alone and afraid and isolated in a hostile world, he wants to surrender himself to something or to somebody - to commit a kind of mayhem of the will. Will he surrender to the anonymous authority of a collective state, or will he accept a spiritual authority that restores his freedom with the acceptance of truth?

                                                                    Page 3
If you wish to donate. Thank You. God bless.

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -

The Church is the Totus Christus, the Whole Christ, and it complements the individual Christ. In its physical aspect Christ's Body is perfect, but in its mystical aspect it is merely growing to perfection, for now it includes not only Him but us, with our imperfections. The prayers, sacrifices, and liturgy of the Church are offered not by the members alone - not by Christ, the Head alone - but by the Head and members together to the glory of God, the Everlasting Father. A new cell is added to the Mystical Body of Christ at every Baptism.

So much for the two most conspicuous effects of conversion in theological terms. But the psychological effects of conversions and incorporation into the Whole Christ are those of which the convert and his circle are sometimes more sensibly aware.

There is, first, a recentering of life and a revolution of all its values. This fresh, intellectual readjustment of thought to make room for God is one proof that conversion is not an emotional matter, for the emotions do not normally control the judgments. Before conversion, life is a confused and unintelligible blur, like the figures on a flattened Japanese lantern; afterward, it resembles that same lantern opened to its full height, with a candle to reveal the unity of the pattern and design.

Faith not only puts the candle into the lantern of life - it also lights it. A highly educated person before conversion may have had a vast knowledge of history, literature, science, anthropology, and philosophy, but these branches of his knowledge were divided into watertight compartments with no live correlation of one to the others; they were only isolated tidbits of information, a vast hors d'oeuvre of detail. After conversion the same facts are gathered into a unity, ordered in a hierarchy of knowledge that reveals an overwhelming evidence of Providence in history and also confers a new unity on one's personal life. What was before information has now become wisdom.

The unconverted soul was often exhausted, fatigued from having used up all its energies trying to find a purpose in life. It was tired in its mind and then tired in its body. A mind that cannot decide where it is going next soon exhausts itself by indecisiveness. Anxieties and fears possess the mind and fritter away the strength of the body. But once the goal of life is discovered, one does not need to waste his energy trying to discover it; the energy can now be spent in making the journey. The travel circulars are thrown away as one plunges into the joy of a voyage of discovery.

Many a young student in college is confused because he is without a philosophy of life or a pattern of existence. His education is but a substitution of this theory for that, a jettisoning of one relative point of view for another. The statistics he studied in his senior year are obsolete the year after graduation. His professors, who used the philosophy of Spencer as their inspiration twenty year ago, are now using Marx or Freud - withing another ten years they will have found another substitute. Education has become little more than the mechanical replacing of one point of view by another, as the automobile displaced the horse and buggy. The mind is constantly solicited by contrary and contradictory points of views; it becomes more harassed than a body in constant oscillation between chill and fever. With conversion, education becomes an orderly progression from one truth that need never be discarded to the next. The student is given reasons and motives of credibility for an ordered philosophy of life; his education is now a growing penetration into a central mystery, a sounding of new depths of truth. His knowledge and understanding accrue, as life expands from cell to cell in the development of every living body.

Associated with the convert's sense of intellectual growth is a consciousness of being newly possessed of the  intellectual heritage of the past, of having joined a living tradition of sound thinking. A past one respects is an essential for physical life. As an individual cannot think without a memory, neither can a society think without tradition. No longer uprooted from the past, but made the heir of its wealth, the convert ceases to visit the past as a mere antiquarian; he brings the past and the present into happy conjunction as the stepping stone toward progress and enrichment in the future.

The convert's judgment of values in his personal life is no less radically transformed. Things that before seemed precious are now considered trivial, and things that before seemed inconsequential have now become the essence of real life. Without the Divine sense of values that conversion brings, the soul is like a department store where the wrong price tags are on everything; hairpins sell for a thousand dollars, and diamond rings for a nickel. Conversion hangs the price tags on the right things and restores a true sense of values.

That is why the outlook of a convert is entirely changed on such subjects as marriage, death, education, wealth, pain, and suffering. As a stained glass window looks different from the inside of the Church than it does from the outside, so all the great problem of life take on anew meaning and significance when one stands inside the Faith. Such a person now sees why religious education is essential - for unless the soul is saved, nothing is saved. Marriage is sacred to him because because it is a symbol of the union of Christ and the Church. Suffering becomes bearable as a gift of God, to be offered in reparation for sin and for filling up the sufferings that are wanting to the Body of Christ; sickness is accepted in the knowledge that God is more concerned with what I am for Him than what I get done. The old eagerness for economic security gives way to a serenity that does not worry about tomorrow before it comes and that trusts in God at all times. Peace is no longer understood to mean an escape from the crosses of life, but as the victory won over them by faith.

A second perceptible result of conversion is a definite change in behavior and conduct of life. Not only does conversion change one's values; it also reverses the tendencies and energies of life, directing them to another end. If the convert before conversion was already leading a good moral life, there is now less emphasis on keeping a law and more emphasis on maintaining a relationship of love. If the convert has been a sinner, his spiritual life frees him from habits and excesses that before weighed down the soul. He no longer need resort to alcohol or sleeping tablets. He often finds that these practices were not so much appetites as attempts to flee responsibility or to ensure, by plunging into unconsciousness, that he could avoid the necessity of choice. Before conversion, it was behavior that to a large extent determined belief; after conversion, it is belief that determines behavior.

There is no longer a tendency to find scapegoats to blame for the faults of self, but rather a consciousness that the reformation of the world must begin with the reformation self. There is still a fear of God, but it is not the servile fear a subject has for a dictator, but a filial fear, such as children have a good parent whom they would never wish to hurt. From such a Love one does not ever need to run away, and the previous acts of dissipation, which were disguised forms of flight, are now renounced.

Once the soul has turned to God, there is no longer a struggle to give up these habits; they are not so much defeated, as crowded out by new interests. There is no longer a need of escape - for one is no longer in flight from oneself. The person who once did his own will now seeks to do God's will; the one who once served sin now hates it; the person who once found thoughts of God dry or even unpleasant now hopes above all else one day to behold the God Whom he loves. The transition the soul has undergone is as unmistakable as the passage from death to life; there has been, not mere giving up a sin, but such a surrender to Divine Love as makes him shrink from sin because he would not wound the Divine Beloved.

Conscience, thus, transformed in a convert, undergoes a paradoxical change: It is not nearly so harsh a master as before, in spite of the reform in conduct. It is true that behavior is changed - but that is only a surface proof of the fact that conscience is changed. Before conversion, conscience seemed to be a restraining, coercive power; God was a hostile and exacting judge; the commandments were prohibitions; and the Church was an inhibition. Responsibilities were identifies with obligation; duty was seen as opposed to desire; the morally right was identified with the physically unpleasant; and love was opposed to morality. But after conversion the conscience no longer accuses; it never seems to command, or order, or inhibit, because there are no longer two wills in opposition. The will of the convert is the will of God. There is no need for a conscience to tell him what "ought to be done." Conscience is swallowed up in love, and there is no duty or "must" between lovers.

Duty, to the sinful mind, was the unwilling fulfillment of a command. Now, desiring only what God desires, the convert needs no restraint on his wishes; he is beyond good and evil, in the realm where there is no duty "to behave" but only the joy of living. What was previously a compulsory task is now a spontaneous pleasure. Converts who have had the habit of sleeping late are fearful at first that they will not be able to rise early enough for Sunday mass - and certainly not, they tell you, early enough for daily Mass. But once possessed of Divine Love, they find that early rising is a joy, for nothing is hard to one who loves.

Before, life was based on self-determination, and the will always worked to safeguard self-interest and selfishness. Afterwards, life is Christ-determined; the convert wants no other mind than that of Christ, no other will than Christ's will. Behavior has changed at its source; now it issues from a relationship of love. Generosity is easy; sharing apples will not make people brothers and sisters, but if they are conscious of their relationship, they will gladly share an apple.

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -