Being a father

It is not for everyone, being a father. I wanted to be a father and I have been blessed with four children. My children give me a laugh almost daily. They give me joy daily, and yes they make me frustrated daily, and yes they give me stress daily, but it still is the best thing ever.

I love my kids. I love my family. I love being a dad.

Father, We pray for all families and especially Lord for all fathers. Bless us today and every day. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen

Saint Joseph, Patron saint of families and fathers, intercede for me that I may be a good example and provider for my wife and children.

Trinidad Sunday

Christopher Columbus discovered the Island of Trinidad for Spain on July 31st 1498. It was his third voyage. There are those who say that he saw three hills and named the island for the Holy Trinity. Some say that there are no "three peaks" so that he couldn't have named it because of the hills. What is clear is that it was/is named for the Holy Trinity.

This Sunday (19th June 2011) is the feast of the Holy Trinity, so in a way this is the feast day of the Island of Trinidad. So it shouldn't just be Trinity Sunday, It should be Trinidad Sunday.

Praise God for this country. Praise God for this island. Praise God for it's people.

Father Kenneth Assing - 25 years rocking Trinidad with love

Today, June 18th 2011, Father Kenneth Assing celebrates 25 years being a Priest. Father Assing is the administrator of the Minor Basilica, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Port of Spain. What a great guy. He is a true servant of Christ, and very Christ like.

Father, Bless Father Assing with long life, strength and happiness. May he continue to be a good and faithful servant to you and may you protect him from anyone or anything that may seek to hinder or hurt him. Amen

Ad Multos Annos

End of the word village

So there is a village in France and there are a bunch of New Agers who are heading to it as the only place to survive the comming end of the world on Dec 21st 2012. But if the world is ending, then NO ONE WILL SURVIVE.

The following is taken from the London daily news of June 16th 2011:

A French Government agency is preparing itself for mass suicides ahead of an Armageddon scenario predicted by a cult that the world "is to end on 21 December 2012". Miviludes the French government agency that monitors cults and suspicious spiritual activities has said that France is at risk of mass suicides by converts of prophesies of "imminent Armageddon".

The prediction that the world will end in 2012 has been made according to various cults who follow the Mayan calendar which reaches 5,000 years at the end of 2012.

The French government is particularly worried about this "apocalyptic scenario" unfolding around France, with a rush of converts travelling to Bugarach a town on a hilltop in the southwest of France, that will survive according to rumours on the internet.

Bugarach and its rocky outcrop, the Pic de Bugarach, have attracted an influx of New Age visitors in recent months, pushing up real estate values and also raising the threat of financial scams and psychological manipulation, according the French government agency Miviludes.

Bugarach, with a population of just 200, has long been considered magical, partly due to what locals claim is an "upside-down mountain" where the top layers of rock are older than the lower ones. The Internet is full rumours and myths about the place, that the mountain is surrounded by a magnetic force, that it is the site of a concealed alien base, or even that it contains an underground access to another world.

And now many have seized on it as the ultimate refuge with Doomsday rapidly approaching.

"I think we need to be careful. We shouldn't get paranoid, but when you see what happened at Waco in the United States, we know this kind of thinking can influence vulnerable people," Miviludes president Georges Fenech told Reuters.

The Apocalyptic scenario is spreading across France with a "mood of gloom" that is engulfing the French. Opinion polls in France regularly show the French as one of the most pessimistic in the world, with the latest Fondapol Foundation showing that 17 per cent of those between 16 and 29 think "the outlook is promising". In contrast in Britain 34 per cent believed the future was promising.

roll over Sarah Palin move in Michele Bachman

I like Michele Bachman. I don't know much about her, but i like what i have heard. She is putting her bid to be the Republicans choice to run against Obama in the next US Presidential elections. She will not win. I think Obama will get a second term. However, the question remains. Even if she is a great person. Can she lead.. and lead effectively.

By the grace of God and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit... SHE WILL ROCK.

For more information I have included a lifesite article of Tuesday 14th June 2011 written by Peter J Smith.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire, June 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - US. Rep. Michele Bachmann made a surprise move during the GOP’s New Hampshire presidential debate, using the format to announce that she was making an official run for the president of the United States.

Bachmann is already known to have been considering a US presidential run, and rumors began floating in March that the chairwoman of the House of Representatives’ Tea Party Caucus would form an exploratory committee in June.

In her first question at the debate, Bachmann seized the spotlight and told moderator, CNN’s John King, that she is all-in for the GOP nomination.

“I just want to make an announcement here for you, John, on CNN tonight,” said Bachmann. “I filed today my paperwork to seek the office of the presidency of the United States today. And I’ll very soon be making my formal announcement.”

Bachmann stressed her pro-life and pro-marriage credentials throughout the debate, and pledged her first priority would be to roll back “ObamaCare”, the national health care reform law known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). She stressed that “it’s senior citizens who have the most to lose in ObamaCare” because PPACA divests $500 billion from Medicare, and reallocates it “to pay for younger people”.

She also highlighted that while she favored states defining marriage on their own, that she would be supportive of a federal marriage amendment.

In contrast to her fellow Minnesotan Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Bachmann stressed that her opposition to legal abortion did not stop at “rape, incest, or the life of the mother.”

“I am 100 percent pro-life. I’ve given birth to five babies, and I’ve taken 23 foster children into my home,” said Bachmann. “I believe in the dignity of life from conception until natural death. I believe in the sanctity of human life.”

Bachmann cited the Declaration of Independence’s statement that “inalienable rights [are] given to us from God, not from government.”

“And the beauty of that is that government cannot take those rights away. Only God can give, and only God can take,” she continued.

“And the first of those rights is life. And I stand for that right. I stand for the right to life. The very few cases that deal with those exceptions are the very tiniest of fraction of cases, and yet they get all the attention,” said Bachmann. “Where all of the firepower is and where the real battle is, is on the general - genuine issue of taking an innocent human life. I stand for life from conception until natural death.”

Pro-life issues are core components of Bachmann’s principles. In her keynote address at the March for Life Rose Dinner on January 24, Bachmann explained that the “life of the unborn is not a sidebar issue … It is the issue that impacts more than any other how you view other issues.”

Bachmann is one of the leading fiscal conservative voices in Congress. During the debate, she stressed that the GOP is a three-legged stool of “peace through strength”, fiscal conservatives, and social conservatives.

“We need everybody to come together because we’re going to win. Just make no mistake about it,” said Bachmann. “I want to announce tonight: President Obama is a one-term president.”

“You’ll win,” said Bachmann, her remarks having prompted cheers and applause from the enthused audience.

The Hidden Exodus... a response

The Editorial of the Catholic Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Port of Spain for Sunday June 12th 2011 mentioned the report made by the National Catholic Reporter on April 18th entitled : The Hidden Exodus - Catholics becoming Protestant.

I wish to add my two cents to the discussion.

First off the article mentions that people leaving the church can be divided into two groups, however, three were identified. Almost half of those who leave the church become disinterested. A Similar group (???) join other christian faiths and about 10% join non christian religions.

The NCR article deals with those who join other christian groups. It is significant to note that about a quarter of these people have left the Catholic church due to our stand on Homosexuality and Abortion. Almost all the others don't feel that they are moved by the Catholic church.

So the group breakdown would read like this:
100 people born catholic
66 Still catholic
15 left the church but don't identify with any other religion
3 left the church for none christian religions
16 left the church for other christian denominations

... of those 16 people "half of those who became Protestants say they left because they stopped believing in Catholic teaching, specific questions get much lower responses. Only 23 percent said they left because of the church’s teaching on abortion and homosexuality; only 23 percent because of the church’s teaching on divorce; only 21 percent because of the rule that priests cannot marry; only 16 percent because of the church’s teaching on birth control; only 16 percent because of the way the church treats women; only 11 percent because they were unhappy with the teachings on poverty, war and the death penalty."

If the math doesn't add up, remember, there were many questions to answer. So the data is reflective of specific questions and not a dividing up of the group.

I am not sure that we can apply those figures to us in Trinidad, however, at the last Synod we had here in Trinidad we discussed this matter as it pertains to the Trinidad Church. The truth is that people go where they get fed... or that they believe that they are being fed (spiritually). The Catholic Church is not a tent revival, nor is it a Broadway production. Our Mass is a solemn event with the Eucharist "Christ the KING" being our focal point. All those who chase the feel good religions or leave the church because of our values need our prayers.

It is important to note that in hard times companies cut staff and reorganize themselves to be very effective in their core operations. Maybe this is our time to get rid of the people on the fence so that the remaining Catholics would be true lights in the darkness of this world. ... and maybe if we get rid of the dead weight, we would have enough priests to give proper guidance.

I don't know. What do you think?

What would Jesus do? Should I even ask.

1896 novel

In 1896 (yes 1896) a book was released by a Congregationalist church minister Charles Sheldon. It was titled "In His Steps" and was subtitled "What Would Jesus Do?"

Congregationalist Churches are protestant churches that form their own theology and reason. They run their own affairs and may or may not be part of an umbrella organization, but not controlled by such an organization.

The ethos of Sheldon's approach to the Christian life was expressed in this phrase "What Would Jesus Do", with Jesus being a moral example as well as a Saviour figure. In this popular novel (it had been translated into 21 languages by 1935), Rev. Henry Maxwell encounters a homeless man who challenges him to take seriously the imitation of Christ. The homeless man has difficulty understanding why, in his view, so many Christians ignore the poor.This leads to many of the novel's characters asking, "What would Jesus do?" when faced with decisions of some importance. This has the effect of making the characters embrace Christianity more seriously and to focus on what they see as its core — the life of Christ. In the novel men and women respond in different ways: in contrast to the men who vow never to act without asking what Jesus would do, the women's task is self-sacrificial; for example, a singer gives up her voice, both in the sense of yielding her singing to the cause and in the sense of silencing the individual expression of her personality (wiki)

"What would Jesus do?" presupposes that the person asking the question has an intimate knowledge of Jesus. Even Jesus says in Matthew chapter 7: 22-23

"When the day comes many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, work many miracles in your name?"
"Then I shall tell them to their faces: I have never known you; away from me, all evil doers!"

Still. it is a good question to ask.