Chuang Yen Buddhist Monastery, Carmel NY

St. Gregory on Persecution of the Church

Moralia in Job 19.9.16:

For from her adversaries the Church suffers persecution in two ways, viz. either by words or by swords. Now when she bears persecution by words, her wisdom is put in exercise, when by swords, her patience. For now as well as daily we undergo persecutions of words at the hands of heretics, when heretics themselves flatter us with crafty tongues and with feigned humility. But persecutions of swords are destined to follow towards the end of the world, that the grains to be stored up in the heavenly granaries may be the more genuinely cleared of the chaff of sins, the more straitly they are bruised with affliction. Then all the Elect who are caught in that tribulation shall call to mind these times when the Church now secures the peace of the faith, as she sugjugates the proud necks of heretics, not by the potency of her highness, but by the yoke of reason. They shall call to mind us who are passing quiet times of faith, who, though we be straitened in the wars [St. Gregory was alluding to the hostilities of the non-Catholic Lombards.] of the nations, yet are not driven to extremity in the sayings of Fathers.

Obama the Abortion Fanatic

Obama Will Remove Abortion Funding Ban From Health Care Bill, Advisor Says
by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com Editor
November 15, 2009
Washington, DC
(Orginal: Lifesite; Comments from: wdtprs)

Top Obama advisor David Axelrod on Sunday confirmed what pro-life advocates already suspected would happen. He said President Barack Obama will work with congressional Democrats to remove the abortion funding ban the House approved in its version of the government-run health care bill. [Does anyone believe that the most aggressively pro-abortion President in the history of the USA will allow this bill to avoid funding abortion? Really?]

Axelrod says that, because the Stupak amendment allegedly goes beyond the status quo under the Hyde amendment (which bans abortion funding under Medicaid), Obama will make sure the amendment is yanked during the conference committee. [Isn’t it true that Hyde must be reaffirmed each year:?]

That’s the part of the legislative process that will occur if and when the Senate approves its own health care bill, which will likely start debate with abortion funding."The president has said repeatedly, and he said in his speech to Congress, that he doesn’t believe that this bill should change the status quo as it relates to the issue of abortion," Axelrod said today on CNN’s State of the Union program. [I think that is disingenuous. I suspect the President wants an increase in abortion, despite his rhetoric. That is the only explanation for his actions.]

"This shouldn’t be a debate about abortion. [?] And he’s going to work with Senate and the House to try and ensure that at the end of the day, the status quo is not changed," he added. "I believe that there are discussions ongoing to how to adjust it accordingly." [Okay… he is repeating "status quo". That must be the administration’s strong talking point now.]

Axelrod said that an agreement with ruling Democrats in Congress to remove the ban on taxpayer funding of abortions "can and will be worked through before it reaches his desk."Axelrod’s comments come after Obama’s own remarks which made it appear he would favor removing or weakening the Stupak amendment.

"I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill," Obama told ABC News last week. "And we’re not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions."

Obama appeared to side with abortion advocates who claim the Stupak amendment in the health care bill somehow changes the current status quo on government abortion funding.

“There needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we’re not changing the status quo” on abortion, Obama added. “And that’s the goal.”Obama also sided with pro-abortion groups in saying he wanted to make sure “we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices,” because he had promised that “if you’re happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, it’s not going to change.”Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, chided Obama for his comments.

"The only thing that will prevent the health care bill from being ‘an abortion bill’ is precisely the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, as the House of Representatives recognized by a 46-vote margin," he said."

The phoniness of Obama’s claim that he has been trying to preserve the ‘status quo’ on abortion policy should be evident to any observer by now. In reality, the White House and top Democratic congressional leaders have been working hard to create a national federal government health plan that would fund abortion on demand, just as Obama promised Planned Parenthood," Johnson added.

Catholic University Conference: Francis Cardinal George and Charles Taylor

Invitation to

A Colloquium of Francis Cardinal George and Professor Charles Taylor

launching the research project “Faith in a Secular Age”



A Pew Foundation report indicates that typical of the exodus of people in their 20s and 30s from Church identification are young persons who seem not to have abandoned their basic beliefs or concern for the spiritual dimension of their lives, but to reflect these in an attitude of search rather than of commitment.

In response, the overall character of this research project points beyond collecting and inventorying what is presently known. Its focus is rather on unfolding the meaning of the heritage of the faith for the new dimensions and needs of our evolving human awareness, its challenges and opportunities. In this sense the goal is to make “belief more believable,” both for Professor Taylor’s contemporary “seeker” and indeed for all the faithful, and thereby to render all of personal and social life more fully human and thereby more theonomous or expressive of the divine.

This set of task forces or research teams will work for a 15 month period, alternating team meetings for planning and critical discussion with four month periods for personal research, reflection, and writing. This gives founded hope that light can be shed on this crucial issue of our day. Thus far two teams have been formed to focus respectively on:


(1) the interior spiritual search, led by John Haughey, S.J. of Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, and

(2) the role of the spirit in the socio-political order of our global world, led by William Barbieri of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America.

The teams will consist of leading religious scholars from across the country and beyond.

The project aims: (a) to identify a new and deeper research focus appropriate for life in our secular age, (b) to build teams for effective exploration of new paths, and (c) to relate the findings to the Church’s pastoral heritage and present mission.

The effort will be launched by a public conversation of Francis Cardinal George of Chicago and Professor Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age, on November 19, 2009 (4.00pm-8.00pm) in the Great Room of the Pryzbyla Center of The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. Leaders of the participating research teams will join them. All interested parties are invited to contribute their suggestions.

For registration which is free and open to the public, please RSVP to: http://www.crvp.org/.

For further information contact: cua-rvp@cua.edu; 202/319-6089.

St. Gregory the Great on the Natural Law

Moralia in Job, lib. IV

XXXII.63. Or like a still-born child hidden away, I would not
survive, or like the ones who were conceived but did not see the
light. (Job 3.16)

Because a still-born child has come before its time and perished,
it is hidden straightaway. The still-born whom the holy man
thinks of as companions for the rest he could have had must be
the elect who came into being from the first times of the world
before our redemption and still sought to render themselves dead
to this world. The ones who did not have the tablets of the
written law are like the ones who came forth dead from the womb,
because they feared their creator out of obedience to the natural
law; and since they believed in the Mediator to come they put
their pleasures to death and so sought energetically to obey even
the commands they had not received in writing. So the time that
brought forth our ancient fathers, dead to this world already at
the beginning of time, is the womb of the still-born.

For example, there was Abel who is reported not to have resisted
the brother who killed him. There was Enoch who proved himself
to be such a man that he was carried off to walk with the Lord.
There was Noe who outlived the world in the world because he had
been found pleasing to the Lord's scrutiny. There was Abraham
who was a pilgrim in this world, but a friend to God. There was
Isaac, whose eyes were misted over with age and who could not see
the present, but who saw as if by a great light things of future
ages through the prophetic power of the spirit. There was
Jacob, who fled the wrath of his brother in all humility, and
gently mastered it. He was blessed with great progeny, but he
was still more fertile in the abundance of the spirit, and bound
his offspring with chains of his prophecy. So this still-born
child is well spoken of as hidden away, because the great part of
the human race from the beginning of the world is hidden away
from us, while Moses wrote of a few we know about. Neither
should we believe that there were only so many just men down to
the time of the acceptance of the law as Moses wrote about so
briefly. Because therefore from the foundation of the world a
multitude of good men had come forth but are for the most part
hidden from our knowledge, this still-born child is called
hidden. It is said not to have survived, because the lives of a
few only are narrated in scripture and the greater part of them
survive for our memory in no record whatever.

64. But it is rightly added, "Or like the ones who were
conceived but did not see the light."

For those who were born into the world after the acceptance of
the law were conceived for their creator under the admonishment
of that same law. But the ones who were conceived did not see
the light because they could not survive to see the coming of the
Lord's incarnation, though they believed in it faithfully. For
the incarnate Lord says, "I am the light of the world," and
that light says, "Many prophets and just men longed to see what
you see and they did not see it." "The ones who were
conceived," therefore, "did not see the light," because they were
stirred to the hope in the coming Mediator by the plain words of
the prophets, but they could not actually see his incarnation.
The man conceived in their midst possessed the pattern of faith
within, but did not bring it forth to behold openly the divine
presence, for death intervened and took them from the world
before the Truth made manifest could enlighten the world.

65. So the holy man, filled with the spirit of eternity, bound
all these things to his memory as they slipped away, controlling
them with the hand of the heart. And because every creature is a
tiny thing next to its creator, Job sees past and future through
the same spirit that sees nothing except what always exists. He
lifts and lowers the eyes of the mind, looking to the past and
future, burning for eternity with all his heart, saying, "For now
would I be sleeping silently." ("Now" is of the present time.)
To seek the repose that stays constantly present is only to sigh
for the joy of eternity, to which there is no past or present.
Truth hints to us that this eternity is always his to pour out to
us, as Moses records, where it says, "I Am Who Am. And you will
say to the sons of Israel, The One Who Is sent me to you."

But because Job here sees the things that pass away, because he
seeks the ever-present joy, because he thinks of the coming
light, because he counts over the ranks of the elect--in this way
he is shows to us clearly the calm at the center of this light
and then using even clearer words shows what happens in that calm
to the ways of the wicked.

XXXIII.66. There the pitiless have left off from their uproar
and there is rest for all those wearied of their strength."
(Job 3.17)

A little earlier we said that the hearts of sinners are hemmed in
by a crowd of nagging ideas pressing in on them, for they are
held in the grip of clamorous desire. But the pitiless are said
to leave off from their rage in the light they could not see when
they were conceived, for the pagan peoples have found the coming
of that Mediator for whom the fathers who lived under the law had
long been waiting, who would bring tranquility to their lives, as
Paul attests: "What Israel has sought, this it has not achieved,
but the elect have achieved it." In this light the pitiless
leave off from their rage when the minds of the perverse learn
the truth and abandon the wearying desires of the world to find
rest in the tranquility of the love that lies within. Is not
that light summoning them to let go when it says, "Come to me all
you who labor and are burdened and I will refresh you. Take my
yoke upon you and learn from me that I am gentle and humble at
heart, and you will find repose for your souls. For my yoke is
sweet and my burden is light"? What burden is placed on the
mind by one who teaches that every troubling desire be shunned?
What burden does he command for his subjects when he urges us to
turn aside from the wearying ways of this world? But as Paul
says, "Christ died for the pitiless."

But it was for this that the Light deigned to die for the
pitiless, that the pitiless might not have to remain in the
uproar of their darkness. So let the holy man think about the
way the Light snatched the pitiless from their terrible labors by
the mystery of his incarnation, cleansing the desires of
wickedness from their hearts. Let him see how all those who have
turned from the world can taste here and now in peace of mind a
little of the repose which they long to have for eternity, and
let him thus say, "There the pitiless have left off from their
uproar and there is rest for those wearied of their strength."

67. For all the and mighty of this world are like the strong,
not worn out from strength. But whoever is strengthened by love
of his creator grows stronger in the longed-for strength of God
and grows proportionately weaker in his own strength. He desires
eternal things more vigorously and so grows weary and
lackadaisacal in the presence of temporal things--and rightly so.
Thus the psalmist was wearied of the strength of self-love when
he said, "My soul has grown weak in your salvation." By
advancing in the salvation that is of God he had grown weak
because in his yearning for the light of eternity he was
breathless and broken as far as trusting in his body was
concerned. So again he says, "My soul has desired and grown weak
for the courts of the Lord." No wonder that when he says, "has
desired," he adds rightly, "and grown weak," because a desire for
divinity must be small indeed if it is not soon followed by a
weakening of the self. Whoever is fired with desire for the
courts of eternity deserves to grow weak in love of temporal
things, becoming colder in his enthusiasms for the world, the
more warmly he rises in the love of God. If he should seize hold
of this love in fulness, he has left the world behind altogether.

And he dies entirely to earthly things by stirring with the
spirit of eternity in the heavenly life on high. Was not the man
who said, "My soul has turned to water when he spoke," telling
us that he had found himself wearied of his own strength? When
the mind is touched by the breath of hidden speech it grows weak
in the strength that comes from itself, and turns to water at the
touch of the desire that absorbs it. And so it finds itself
wearied when it sees a strength beyond itself to which it
aspires. So the prophet said he saw a vision of God and then
added, "I grew weak and sickened for many days." When the mind
is bound to the power of God, the flesh is weakened of its own
strength. So Jacob, when he had held the angel, soon began to
limp with one foot, because the man who sees lofty things with
true love has already forgotten how to walk the ways of this
world with its double desires. The man who is strengthened by
the love of God alone is relying on one foot alone; the other
foot must wither away because as the mind's power grows surely
the power of the flesh must wane.

Our Lady of China Mission, Washington, D.C.

歷史 History
THE BACKGROUND OF OUR LADY OF CHINA PASTORAL MISSION

Our Lady of China Pastoral Mission was established by the Archdiocese of Washington and Father Aloysius Tou was appointed as the mission director since 1982. The Mission primarily serves native Chinese people and members of their families who are not affiliated with a territorial parish in the Washington metropolitan area. The Mission started up with a small group of prayer meeting and occasional family mass with a few enthusiastic families in the suburban area of Washington. Until 1983 the regular Chinese Sunday mass began at the Old St. Mary's chapel of Rockville since the increase of Chinese immigrants and students. In response to the growing needs of newly arrived Chinese immigrants and various Chinese ethnic groups, the Cantonese group of our pastoral mission moved to Chinatown in 1987 and added another Sunday mass in Chinese at St. Mary's Church, 5th street and H street NW of Washington DC.

Based on the most recent census estimates, there are about 80,000 Chinese in the Washington Area, and the number of new Chinese immigrants have been increasing substantially in the recent years. One reason for this increase is the imminent political and social changes in Hong Kong and consequent increase in immigration quotas. In addition, the immigrants from mainland China are also increasing rapidly that they include another 20,000 quotas each year and 40,000 Chinese students who are currently studying in local universities across the country.

THE RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CHINATOWN GROUP

There are more than 140 family members and near 85 regularly attend Sunday Mass in Chinese. Growth is steady but there is still much to be done.

The group currently has an eleven-member parish council which meets once a month. Several ongoing programs for parishioners are organized by members of the laity: a prayer group of 6-10 families that meets at least once a month in Virginia; two Bible study groups of 8-12 families that meets once a month in Maryland; a youth prayer group with 7-10 members that meets once month; a RCIA program; three classes of CCD for preschoolers, young children and youths that are offered twice a month; a choir; a team of ten Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion to visit the sick; homeless shelter service once a month; at least one annual retreat; a liturgy committee; a bi-weekly luncheon program; a weekly newsletter and a bi-monthly newsletter; an annual picnic. In addition, more than 10 apostolates have completed EPS program in the local diocese.

Despite these many activities, our mission still has many needs that remain unfulfilled and many suggestions that cannot be implemented, such as providing family counseling, offering leadership training, developing a Chinese resource center, caring for the needs of the aged and the sick and participating in issues of social concerns.

Our most important task will be to bring faith and hope back to the church and to seek ways to strengthen, deepen, and propagate spiritual life among our people through our reliance on the teachings of the Gospel.

http://www.ourladyofchina.net/

Fabulous Website! Godbye Bad Bishops

...

Click HERE!!!


There is hope for their beleaguered dioceses.
And the tune is catchy!

Stop Pelosi and Abortion Lovers

From wdtprs:

From the NRLC: CONDITION RED

The US Bishops asked Catholics to act. Will you?
Condition Red

CALL CONGRESS TODAY!

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on Friday, November 6, or Saturday, November 7, on Speaker Pelosi’s "rule" that would establish a federal government program that would pay for elective abortions with federal funds.

***Click here for guidance on how you can help stop her!***

To learn more about this critical issue, click here.

Updated short factsheet here!

Judicial Activism and the European Union's Hate for Christ

I hope that Italy will spit in the face of the tyrannous anti-God European Union. This is the Union which in declaring it's historical roots jumped from pagan Rome to the deist "Enlightenment" so as to avoid any mention of the important role of Christianity in European history. I look forward to Pope Benedict's comment on this.

Meanwhile, Manuela Mesco sums it up:

"Italy defends its culture and traditions, which includes Christianity and, in the specific case, a symbol which is not considered to jeopardise the separation between church and state. Europe, on the contrary, looks at general guidelines to be imposed across the board. This is struggle with many ramifications."

No Crosses in School, Europe Court
(ANSA) - Strasbourg, November 3 - In a legal landmark that sparked a storm in Italy, the European Court of Human Rights [More aptly named the anti-God pro-sodomy and baby-murder commission] on Tuesday ruled that crucifixes in Italian classrooms were a violation of parents' rights to educate their kids according to their principles.

Upholding a plea from a Finnish immigrant [Here's an idea, she can return to her own God-hating country!] to Italy, the Strasbourg-based court also said the crosses ran counter to a child's own rights to freedom of religious choice.

The Finnish woman, Soile Lautsi, had vainly sued in various Italian courts to have crosses removed from her children's classroom near Padua before she turned to the European court.

The Italian government was ordered to pay Lautsi, an Italian citizen, 5,000 euros in ''moral damages''.

The ruling sparked an immediate outcry from conservative Catholic politicians, with Agriculture Minister Luca Zaia of the Northern League calling it ''shameful'' and a member of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom Party, Antonio Mazzocchi, saying that Europe was forgetting its Christian heritage. [Exactly! Fortunately, Italians have a sense of history and tradition, unlike their neighbors to the north. Italians need to throw around their cultural weight. After all, the idea of European unity comes from Italy. And much of Europe was Christianized from Italy.]

Pier Ferdinando Casini of the centrist Catholic UDC said the ruling was a sign of ''cowardice'' in today's politically correct world but the diehard Communist Party praised the court for upholding secular values.

Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini stressed that crosses were ''a symbol of Italian tradition'' and not a mark of membership of the Catholic Church. The Vatican said it would have to see the wording of the ruling before making a formal statement.

''I believe reflection is needed before commenting,'' said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.

Crucifixes are common in Italian public buildings despite the postwar Constitution's mandated separation of Church and State.

There has been controversy over their presence in recent years.

A Muslim parent, Adel Smith, and a Jewish Italian judge, Luigi Tosti, have tried to have them removed. [Perhaps hypocrite Tosti should leave for Israel and fight against open displays of Judaism there!] Smith, the head of the small Union of Italian Muslims, succeeded in getting a court order in 2003 to have crosses removed from the school his children attended.

But the order was later reversed after a nationwide protest. Tosti has received suspended jail terms and bans from public office for refusing to enter courtrooms unless crucifixes are removed. [Why suspended? He broke the law, lock him up just as he would lock up anyone who did not show him respect when he was presiding as judge!]

NOT MANDATORY BUT CUSTOMARY.

Crucifixes are not mandatory but customary in Italy's public buildings, while the separation of Church and State is set down by the postwar Constitution and mandated by a 1984 Concordat that ended most of the Catholic Church's privileges.

In practice, with Catholicism being such a part of Italy's cultural identity, local bodies decide whether they want crosses in schools and courthouses, and the majority of them do.

In 2004 Italy's Constitutional Court ruled that crosses should stay in courts and classrooms but did not give a juridical explanation for its ruling.

Many felt it had washed its hands of a political hot potato.

If it had upheld the separation of Church and State, the high court would have sparked outraged reactions from conservatives who were already incensed when some schools dropped Christmas plays and creches to avoid hurting the feelings of Muslim children.

The European Court of Human Rights upholds the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights to which the 47 countries in the Council of Europe adhere.

St. Augustine of the Blessed Virgin Mary

De Natura et Gratia

Chapter 42 [XXXVI.]— The Blessed Virgin Mary Was Without Sin. None of the Saints Besides Her Without Sin

He then enumerates those who not only lived without sin, but are described as having led holy lives—Abel, Enoch, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua the son of Nun, Phinehas, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, Joseph, Elisha, Micaiah, Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael, Mordecai, Simeon, Joseph to whom the Virgin Mary was espoused, John. And he adds the names of some women—Deborah, Anna the mother of Samuel, Judith, Esther, the other Anna, daughter of Phanuel, Elisabeth, and also the Mother of our Lord and Saviour, for of her, he says, we must needs allow that her piety had no sin in it. We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom I wish to raise no question when it touches the subject of sins, out of honour to the Lord; for from Him we know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin. 1 John 3:5 Well, then, if, with this exception of the Virgin, we could only assemble together all the forementioned holy men and women, and ask them whether they lived without sin while they were in this life, what can we suppose would be their answer? Would it be in the language of our author, or in the words of the Apostle John? I put it to you, whether, on having such a question submitted to them, however excellent might have been their sanctity in this body, they would not have exclaimed with one voice: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us? 1 John 1:8 But perhaps this their answer would have been more humble than true! Well, but our author has already determined, and rightly determined, not to place the praise of humility on the side of falsehood. If, therefore, they spoke the truth in giving such an answer, they would have sin, and since they humbly acknowledged it, the truth would be in them; but if they lied in their answer, they would still have sin, because the truth would not be in them.