Friday, 9 September 2016
Saturday, 11 June 2016
Sunday, 10 January 2016
Jesus the Saviour Secondary School resumes today@12pm, Elele, River States
Waec expo 2016, free expo, waec 2016. intellectualtalksandreligionsofterrorism.wordpress.com
Wednesday, 6 January 2016
Office of Reading
OFFICE OF READINGS
FIRST READING
From the book of the prophet Isaiah
Isaiah 63:19b-64:11
God’s people plead for his coming
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
with the mountains quaking before you,
As when brushwood is set ablaze,
or fire makes the water boil!
Thus your name would be made known to your enemies
and the nations would tremble before you,
While you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for,
such as they had not heard of from of old.
No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen,
any God but you
doing such deeds for those who wait for him.
Would that you might meet us doing right,
that we were mindful of you in our ways!
Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful;
all of us have become like unclean men,
all our good deeds are like polluted rags;
We have all withered like leaves,
and our guilt carries us away like the wind.
There is none who calls upon your name,
who rouses himself to cling to you;
For you have hidden your face from us
and have delivered us up to our guilt.
Yet, O Lord, you are our father;
we are the clay and you the potter:
we are all the work of your hands.
Be not so very angry, Lord,
keep not our guilt forever in mind;
look upon us, who are all your people.
Your holy cities have become a desert,
Zion is a desert, Jerusalem a waste.
Our holy and glorious temple
in which our fathers praised you
Has been burned with fire;
all that was dear to us is laid waste.
Can you hold back, O Lord, after all this?
Can you remain silent, and afflict us so severely?
RESPONSORY
See Isaiah 56:1; Micah 4:9; Isaiah 43:3
Jerusalem, your salvation comes quickly:
why are you consumed by sorrow?
Has your pain returned since you have no counselors?
– I will save and deliver you, have no fear.
For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Redeemer.
– I will save and deliver you, have no fear.
SECOND READING
From a commentary on the Gospel of John by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, bishop
(Lib. 5, Cap. 2: PG 73, 751-754)
The gift of the Holy Spirit to all mankind
In a plan of surpassing beauty the Creator of the universe decreed the renewal of all things in Christ. In his design for restoring human nature to its original condition, he gave a promise that he would pour out on it the Holy Spirit along with his other gifts, for otherwise our nature could not enter once more into the peaceful and secure possession of those gifts.
He therefore appointed a time for the Holy Spirit to come upon us: this was the time of Christ’s coming. He gave this promise when he said: In those days, that is, the days of the Savior, I will pour out a share of my Spirit on all mankind.
When the time came for this great act of unforced generosity, which revealed in our midst the only-begotten Son, clothed with flesh on this earth, a man born of woman, in accordance with Holy Scripture, God the Father gave the Spirit once again. Christ, as the first fruits of our restored nature, was the first to receive the Spirit. John the Baptist bore witness to this when he said: I saw the Spirit coming down from heaven, and it rested on him.
Christ “received the Spirit” in so far as he was man, and in so far as man could receive the Spirit. He did so in such a way that, though he is the Son of God the Father, begotten of his substance, even before the incarnation, indeed before all ages, yet he was not offended at hearing the Father say to him after he had become man: You are my Son; today I have begotten you.
The Father says of Christ, who was God, begotten of him before the ages, that he has been “begotten today,” for the Father is to accept us in Christ as his adopted children. The whole of our nature is present in Christ, in so far as he is man. So the Father can be said to give the Spirit again to the Son, though the Son possesses the Spirit as his own, in order that we may receive the Spirit in Christ. The Son therefore took to himself the seed of Abraham, as Scripture says, and became like his brothers in all things.
The only-begotten Son received the Spirit, but not for his own advantage, for the Spirit is his, and is given in him and through him, as we have already said. He receives it to renew our nature in its entirety and to make it whole again, for in becoming man he took our entire nature to himself. If we reason correctly, and use also the testimony of Scripture, we can see that Christ did not receive the Spirit for himself, but rather for us in him; for it is also through Christ that all gifts come down to us.
RESPONSORY
Ezekiel 37:27-28; Hebrews 8:8
I will be their God and they shall be my people.
– The nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Sanctifier of Israel,
when my holiness will be established in their midst for all eternity.
I shall bring to fulfillment my new convenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.
– The nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Sanctifier of Israel,
when my holiness will be established in their midst for all eternity.
CONCLUDING PRAYER
Let us pray.
God our Father,
through Christ your Son
the hope of eternal life dawned on our world.
Give to us the light of faith
that we may always acknowledge him as our Redeemer,
and come to the glory of his kingdom,
where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
– Amen.
Monday, 4 January 2016
Sunday, 3 January 2016
Mass Readings of Tomorrow
Monday, January 4 2016
Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious
Lectionary: 212
Reading 1 1 Jn 3:22–4:6
Beloved:
We receive from him whatever we ask,
because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
And his commandment is this:
we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ,
and love one another just as he commanded us.
Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them,
and the way we know that he remains in us
is from the Spirit whom he gave us.
Beloved, do not trust every spirit
but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God,
because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
This is how you can know the Spirit of God:
every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh
belongs to God,
and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus
does not belong to God.
This is the spirit of the antichrist
who, as you heard, is to come,
but in fact is already in the world.
You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them,
for the one who is in you
is greater than the one who is in the world.
They belong to the world;
accordingly, their teaching belongs to the world,
and the world listens to them.
We belong to God, and anyone who knows God listens to us,
while anyone who does not belong to God refuses to hear us.
This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.
Responsorial Psalm Ps 2:7bc-8, 10-12a
R. (8ab) I will give you all the nations for an inheritance.
The LORD said to me, “You are my Son;
this day I have begotten you.
Ask of me and I will give you
the nations for an inheritance
and the ends of the earth for your possession.”
R. I will give you all the nations for an inheritance.
And now, O kings, give heed;
take warning, you rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice before him;
with trembling rejoice.
R. I will give you all the nations for an inheritance.
Alleluia See Mt 4:23
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Jesus proclaimed the Gospel of the kingdom
and cured every disease among the people.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel Mt 4:12-17, 23-25
When Jesus heard that John had been arrested,
he withdrew to Galilee.
He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea,
in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali,
that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet
might be fulfilled:
Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles,
the people who sit in darkness
have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death
light has arisen.
From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say,
“Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
He went around all of Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom,
and curing every disease and illness among the people.
His fame spread to all of Syria,
and they brought to him all who were sick with various diseases
and racked with pain,
those who were possessed, lunatics, and paralytics,
and he cured them.
And great crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, and Judea,
and from beyond the Jordan followed him.
Saturday, 19 September 2015
Terrorism Of Gossip
A REVIEW OF
“TERRORISM OF GOSSIP-SPIRITUAL ALZHEIMER”
Lotus flower is beautiful. It grows in the muddy water or in a pond. But it stands out as if it is not of the water nor of the pond. The first letter of John exhorts the faithful, although the young and the old belong to the world, they should keep a different identity and stand out radiating a powerful message to the whole world that’ to be human is to be more than human’ (I John 2: 12-17). Pope Francis exhorts the faithful ‘To be fully human means to be filled with the spirit of the Lord’ in such a way that his will is parallel to the will of God who gave us life and the energy to live the life.
The world has several attractions and distractions, distorted philosophy of life, evil designs of interpreting religion and God.
As Gurudev Ravindra Nath Tagore from India has beautifully portrayed in ‘Gitanjali’, the images of God are always around us. Discover your God in your brothers and sisters who are on your left and right. “If the hunger of others is not my own, if the anguish of my neighbor in all its forms touches me not, if the nakedness of my brother doesn’t torment me, then I have no reason to go to the church and live” , says Javier Torres. Neglecting them and focusing on the crucifix in the church may not be rewarding.
The cross of Christ enables us to see suffering and death and all our struggles of day to day life in the light of resurrection. It enlightens the darkness surrounding us with the light of hope. It reminds us that we are the inheritors of the kingdom of God, even though we are still on the pilgrimage towards our final goal.
Applying the meaning of the cross into our daily life Pope John Paul II has once said that our life on earth is in the process of a continuous transformation as an artwork in the hands of the artist. He said that Christian life is creative life in which every Christian is to be turned to an artwork.
In the creation of an artwork the artist works with materials like marble, wood or paints. The artist seeks to attain the final image in the formless materials by working on them and transforming them according to the given design. In the case human life, the raw and hard experiences of day to day life, the struggles and problems, sins and failures are the materials to be transformed. The design to be realized in these life-materials is the image of Christ. The cross is the way or the method we have to adopt in sculpting our lives into beautiful artworks.
Those who do not understand the meaning of the cross may consider us as fools and despise our actions as senseless. Here we can remember the words of St. Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians: the cross is a sign of foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the sign of God’s power and wisdom for those who are saved (cf. 1 Cor 1:18ff).
As Christians we are motivated by the vision of the hidden image of Christ in all our human experiences and we proceed to realize it, like an artist with an imaginative mind. The artist can see the possibility of a beautiful image even in a rugged marble piece.
For us believers the cross is also the symbol of the infinite love of God for humanity. St. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians about this all embracing love of God revealed in Jesus Christ. He wishes that we may have the power to comprehend the breadth, height and depth of this love which surpasses our comprehension (Eph 3:18). The cross of Christ is the symbol of God’s love which is extended in all cosmic directions, without excluding anybody or anything from its embrace.
In the Christian tradition the cross is known as the Tree of Life. As the symbol of resurrection and life, it is not a static object but a dynamic experience. To carry the cross means to move with Christ, following him in discipleship and to share his destiny. Jesus has explicitly said: if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me (Mk 8:34).
Pope Francis has emphasized in his first sermon in Vatican on 14 March the nature of Christian faith as a movement. He said, we have to move with the cross in following Jesus: “When we journey without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we confess a Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord: we are worldly, we are bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, but not disciples of the Lord.”
In the cross we find salvation, life and hope. The fruit of the cross is eternal life. Let this Good Friday imprint in our hearts the sign of the cross which may always remind us of the challenges of our life in following Jesus Christ faithfully.
The Spirit of God is definitely strengthening each and every one of us from within. All the readings of today from the Old Testament, Epistle and the Gospel reveal Gods accompaniment with the faithful and continued blessings, countenance and peace. The first resolution of Pope Francis for the year 2014 was to stop gossiping. Very recently Pope has taken stern action against the bureaucracy of Vatican for indulging in gossiping rather than being the joyful men of God. Pope Francis issued a blistering critique on the men who serve him, denouncing how some people live hypocritical double lives and suffer from ‘spiritual Alzheimer’s’.
The ability to call gossip by its name in itself is the ability to bring to its end, as my brother Albert clearly brings up a different understanding of gossip, “the gossip in prayer”. Who ever thought of this? Truly at times we venture into gossips in our spiritual conversation with God. Gossip has become the greatest illness in our today’s society, it has become the “Cancer” of our society.
Gossip has torn apart strong families, has torn apart religious communities, it has torn apart believes and friendship. “A careless or wrong words out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it right from the pit of hell” (James 3:6). In itself gossip turns our attention from Christ, we tend to concentrate on lesser important matters, and we tend to place all our attention towards the worldly things forgetting that the center, the master of our Christian life is always and has to be Our Lord Jesus Christ.
This brings us to the idea of being indifferent with other people. Feeling special than other group of people. This separates us from the divine love that Christ brings to us. Loving the Lord our God, with all our hearts and all our soul, loving our neighbour as ourselves. Another aspect involves loving our enemies. This is never possible with the indifferent syndrome in us. As the author clearly indicates that, “For whenever our interior life becomes caught up in its own interest and concerns, it gives no room for others, no place for the poor and no listening to charity. God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt and the desire to do good fades”. The moment we see each other part of the greater universe, the creation of God, we will automatically live the “beatitude life”, the life of being our brother/sisters keeper.
Pope Francis talks of existential schizophrenia. What a big word, but a deeper meaning in itself…its deepness refers to the challenges of Christian life. Living as a Christian is truly a challenge, but a sweet challenge, a true life of the cross. In this Christian living, we are caught up with various challenges which include a “double life”. What I mean with double life is what the Pope explained as existential schizophrenia. This involves one being seen to the public especially in the Church circles as a very devote Christian but outside the known “area”, he or she automatically turns to be the opposite of what is required of a Christian. As Albert explains in his book, that we must do what we teach as Christians, and not remaining in our shells, while expecting others to practice what we preach. We should not in any way defend tricky plans that support double life in Christendom. Christians, let us not be thrilled by the culture of prosperity, for it is deadening to our spiritual growth and ascent to heaven. I can clearly agree with him that to get rid of this vice we can only manage by having daily renewed encounter with God’s love which blossoms into an enriching friendship with Jesus Christ.
Self-righteous people will never experience forgiveness and love, since they are blind to their sinfulness. The Pharisees and the scribes, the learned and the intellectual could not understand why Jesus was friendly with the sinners and mingled with the outcasts of society. With the parable of the prodigal and his brother Jesus explained to them that it is the realization of one’s own unworthiness and heartfelt repentance that makes one dear to God, who is a loving Father to all.
We need not be ashamed of our sins and weaknesses before God. As we read in the Book of the Prophet Micah, Israel, the people of God besought God’s forgiveness again and again without any shame. The people were not ashamed of their unfaithful past. They were convinced that God would pardon all their transgressions. He would not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.
One important point to note is Albert’s point out that, “each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully part of their societies”. This calling involves a true re-birth of Christians to Christ that is by living the Christian values to the fullness. Accepting the Jesus Christ is the Lord and Saviour of our life. Though the Author brings in another thought, his claim is that; whenever we form circles or cliques, we create an impression that threatens the whole community and its members. Our focus is redirected from Christ to that of the circles. This to my understanding is the question of priorities. What is our main focus? Is it the small groupings we form or its Christ? Circles tempt us to tend to glorify our own being, it tempt us to work on fulfilling the demands created by the human beings in charge of the respective circles thus forgetting the main purpose of life. The glorification of God. The Author sums up this with a biblical quotation that states, “How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from God?” (John 5:44). It tends to hinder s from the main goal. This will tempt us to also seek favors’ from our “bosses”, to seek higher positions in various movements or circles that we identify ourselves with respectively. We are to abandon ourselves or those who seek to be “worshipped”, and focus on Christ. What favour do we seek from humanity? The greatest blessings we should seek is from our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the two last Chapters, we are taken back to the great parable of Mary and Martha. The character of busyness and then the most contagious question of who is a Christian. First on the question of busyness. How busy are we for Christ? Like Martha, we might be tempted to make all seem right, we might be busy with projects, developments, food among other things that might bring external happiness to us, but the reality is always that we are called to be like Mary. To sit at the feet of Christ, to listen to the words of Christ, to allow the teacher to share His knowledge with us. Resting at the feet of Christ allows us not only to recognize our deeper self, but to know Christ more and more. We are not called to busy ourselves with the world, but to focus more on the Christ the Teacher. Lastly, my friend Albert talks about. “How to be a Christian”. I like criteria that Albert gives for a Christian, “we can be called Christians if and only if we follow the details of the Divine Living Word of God and bring salvation and joy to our soul and the souls of others”. This summarizes the whole book. The whole book is all about our Christian life, how we can best be Christian. He talks about baptism though important, but we still are required to install more effort. We are to work towards being true Christians. We are called to Faith, faith in Christ ad this is through action, through our day to day deeds, through our relation with others and the most important is our relation with God. This is what makes us true Christians.
By
Peter Kennedy Owino
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