Happy Mothers Day

The full cost of love is... No charge!

Cathedrals oldest piece of furniture

The oldest piece of Furniture at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Port of Spain is the pulpit. In days before amplified sound the priest or Bishop would climb the pulpit to deliver his homily. Nowadays it just adds character to the old building.

The images decorating the outside of the Pulpit are of an Angel, Lion, Eagle and ox. These represent the four writers of the Gospels.






Matthew the Angel


Mark the Lion


Luke the ox


John the Eagle

This is the secret

I recently received this via email. I think it is really great, so I want to share it with you. I do not know who it originated from. God Bless them.


THE TONGUE CAN BE YOUR WORST ENEMY

Your words, your dreams, and your thoughts have power to create conditions in your life.
What you speak about, you can bring about.
If you keep saying you can't stand your job, you might lose your job.
If you keep saying you can't stand your body, your body can become sick.
If you keep saying that you are sick or ill, guess what you will stay -sick or ill.
If you keep saying you can't stand your car, your car could be stolen or just stop operating.
If you keep saying you're broke, guess what? You'll always be broke.
If you keep saying you can't trust a man or trust a woman, you will always find someone in your life to hurt and betray you.
If you keep saying you can't find a job, you will remain unemployed.
If you keep saying you can't find someone to love you or believe in you. Your very thought will attract more experiences to confirm your beliefs.
If you keep talking about a divorce or break up in a relationship, then you might end up with it.

Turn your thoughts and conversations around to be more positive and power packed with faith, hope, love and action.
Don't be afraid to believe that you can have what you want and deserve.

Watch your Thoughts, they become words.
Watch your Words, they become actions.
Watch your Actions, they become habits.
Watch your Habits, they become character
Watch your Character, for it becomes your Destiny.
The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settle for.

In the search for Me, I discovered Truth.
In the search for Truth, I discovered Love.
In the search for Love, I discovered GOD.
And in God, I have found Everything.

Watch how your circumstances and situations begin to change when you change the way you speak.
Faith makes all things Possible.
Hope makes all things Work.
Love makes all things Beautiful

"Life is like melted butter. . .once things cool down, it can be reshaped!"

Buy the Catholic News for the Archdiocese of Port of Spain

Some time ago I stopped buying the Catholic news. I was a bit upset over the editor not wanting to publish a letter of mine. I had a Sunday Missal and so I did not need to follow the Sunday scripture readings which were published weekly.

Also I have the internet and between the vatican website, Catholic News Agency, Catholic League news releases and the Lifesite website I get a ton load of info about what goes on in the Catholic world. Info that inspires me to not lie down and play dead but be responsive, not just as a human being, but as a catholic.

The Catholic news does give local, regional, and international news. But other than the Editorial we don't really see opinion pieces that reflect the news and put it into a context that we can understand better.

That is not to say that we as catholics are not intelligent. On the contrary, catholic education has produced some brilliant minds. If there is one problem I have with Catholic (secular) education it is that in some ways it has been the churches downfall, with many catholics becoming quite educated, to the point where their lives have become too busy (6 long days per week working careers) to be actively involved in the church, or even go to mass... or even carry their children to mass.

From where I stand there is a lot of activity in the local church. Those who are dedicated and active, labour hard in the vinyard of their Master. Including those in the Catholic News.

Many people who I know do not read the catholic News because they say that it does not have any real news. There is the woman in Central Trinidad who has flowers coming out of her mouth and oil out of the palm of her hand. Many in the church know of this. This should be put in the Catholic news and lively discussion should be had on the topic. So that Catholics understand the churches stand on this. Controversy is good. it causes discussion - some not so intelligent, but some very intelligent. It would be a crying shame for us to read about it in the secular news. I would never forget reading on the issue of child molestation in the secular news, where a Catholic Priest was interviewed on the issue. I have on occasion been called hypocrite (for ashes on ash Wednesday) child molester (for news from the US of Child Molesting) and murderer (for the inquisitions) - All because I proudly proclaim that I am Catholic. While the secular world needs to be informed on the truth of these issues, this truth must come from CATHOLICS who have had lively discussion on the matter.

Some Months ago, I put rest my personal feud with the Catholic News and started to purchase the paper again - In support of everything Catholic and as a sign of my forgiving those who at the time I thought were more interested in protection of Priests than protection of the faith. You really can't escape politics.

So I say to all. BUY THE CATHOLIC NEWS for the Archdiocese of Port of Spain. It is a catholic paper trying to promote catholic things... and then read my blog and Bee's Blog, and of course Catholic Seeking blog ... and you could be well informed.

national sunday law = another book to throw away

Someone passed by my house and dropped a copy of the book - National Sunday Law. According to Rational Wiki the book is distributed by the Seventh Day Adventist and written by A Jan Marcussen. The book was written in 1983. In the book they claim that the United States of America wants to pass a law declaring that Sunday is the day of rest - the Sabbath. They claim that the Pope and the Catholic church is behind this. "When this happens it will be the trigger that unleashes the coming fulfillment of the Bible prophecies in Daniel and Revelation."

According to rational Wiki:

the belief tying Sunday blue laws to Bible prophecy and the Antichrist appears to come from Ellen G. White's book The Great Controversy, specifically naming a universal Sunday law as the enforced taking of the mark of the beast that will unleash great persecution of Sabbath-keepers just before the Second Coming. The most notable attempt at passing a national blue law was in 1888, coincidentally or not the same year the third edition of The Great Controversy was released. The fourth and last edition in 1911, still containing this national Sunday law teaching, is still in circulation today. This fear of a coming national Sunday law became a conspiracy theory and something that must inevitably happen because, after all, Bible prophecy (or at least Ellen G. White's peculiar interpretation of it) says it will.

Several books cheaply printed for mass distribution continue to promote fear of a coming national Sunday law, among them National Sunday Law by A. Jan Marcussen and the anonymous National Sunday Law Crisis. Marcussen's book ties other issues into the conspiracy; for example, there is a conspiracy to bring back the death penalty so Sabbath-keepers can be executed once the national Sunday law is enacted. Marcussen's book has been mysteriously showing up since 1983 in laundromats, phone booths, rest areas, and unsolicited in the mail

So you know I am throwing away the book.

Just a note to say that I don't believe in the teaching of the Seventh Day Adventists however I do admire their work in the communities around Trinidad.

An Easter Homily by Father Joe Harris

Sunday Gospel & Homily Notes by Fr. Joe Harris, C.S.Sp.
Easter Sunday (A)
24th April 2011
Gospel: Jn 20: 1-9
taken from the Antilles Episcopal Conference website: http://www.aecrc.org/joomla/

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.” So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in. When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place. Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed. For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

Homily

This year we will celebrate Easter again, as we did last year and God willing as we will do next year and the following. Yes the parish may try something new as we did last year and we wonder if it will have the same impact as what we tried last year did. Parishioners remember our celebration from last year and no doubt lives were impacted in some ways, on the individual level perhaps but was there any real impact on the societal level so that it could be said that the celebration of Easter brought about some change. Do we as a people or as a Church really understand Easter?

Easter came after the most devastating experience the disciples had ever experienced. They had been enthused by Jesus whose words had moved their hearts in so many ways. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you; love those who persecute you!” The disciples had believed that it was possible and then it had all come crashing down. The master had been arrested, had been whipped scoured and crucified. He had been true to his teaching to be sure for when the ear of the servant of the high priest had been cut off, he had healed the man. Yet in the face of that continuing kindness and love he had still been executed. To them it must have seemed to have been a waste of time. There was nothing left for them except the ridicule of persons whom they knew of fishing colleagues they had left behind to follow Jesus and of course the possibility of persecution by the chief priests and the Pharisees. And then the news comes to them, brought by the women. He is alive. He is not dead. He is Risen.

If as I told you last week, the cross is the opening through which we see, and experience and come to understand, as far as mystery can be understood, the life of God, the Resurrection also tells us that LOVE never dies. Easter reminds us that LOVE lives through rejection, pain, suffering and death. We are reminded the God is Love and that Love conquers all even the certainty of death.

The Gospel account of the “third day” shows us two people who did not believe and a third who believed because he loved. Of all the male disciples he was the only one who stood firm at the foot of the cross with Mary, the mother of Jesus and the other women.

What is interesting is that shortly before this they had seen another resurrection. They had seen Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus through the power of the Father. Yet now they were loath to believe “for they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” After having witnessed the raising to life of Lazarus, they must have admitted the possibility of resurrection, yet they would not admit the possibility of resurrection for Jesus.

It must have been that their disappointment was too great. The only one who believed, loved so much that he stood by Jesus to the bitter end, and because he stood there to the bitter end, he could accept with gratitude that his master and friend had risen from the dead. He believed in the possibility of life, in spite of apparent and real death.

That is the experience of love; True love makes us stand with the other to the very end and when that happens we are often privileged to see transformation.

While for all of us the final resurrection will come on the last day when the Lord will change our mortal bodies into glorious bodies like his own, there are other resurrections taking place daily around us. People do change and change radically. We witness these changes and in fact often generate these changes through our unconditional love which makes us stand to the bitter end with those who are on the path of destruction, just as the unconditional love of the Father raised Jesus to life again.

Today as we celebrate and thank God for the resurrection of Jesus, we also remember and thank God for those who show us that unconditional love can in fact bring about earthly resurrection even now. We thank God for parents whose unconditional love for an errant daughter or son has brought about radical change and gives the lie to the expression, “People do not change!”

We thank God for saints like John Bosco, whose unconditional love for street children turned them from raging wolves into gentle lambs and for Mother Teresa and her sisters who unconditional love has transformed the lives and deaths of so many living and dying destitute on the streets of our great cities. We thank God for organizations like Servol in Trinidad which have transformed the lives of so many young people who were otherwise destined for lives of crime.

They all show us that belief in the Resurrection, that belief in the power of unconditional love can indeed transform death into life.

Prayer

All powerful and ever-loving God, after the apparent defeat of the cross, Easter tells us that Love can never be defeated, that Love can never die because You are Love itself. Your love changes apparent defeat into triumph and New Life. Help us to love so that what appears to be death around us may be changed into Life. Many believe that change and transformation is impossible in our land, that we are too far gone. Help us to believe in the power of Love so that transformation may come and our Land begin to live again in new and better ways. We ask this through the intercession of Mary and St. John who stood at the foot of the cross to the bitter end and through Jesus who rose from the dead. Amen

Good Friday and turning into a fish

Holy Good friday to all.

This morning I walked up Calvery Hill in Diego Martin with my kids. We did not stop at each station, instead we all went in procession to the top. It is a good way to start the day and did the stations of the cross ontop the hill.

Usually for good friday my mother would boil some provisions: Sweet Patato, Casava, Dasheen, and Yam. She was not a lover of cush-cush, tanya, and eddoes, other west indian roots. This with some steam fish, coo-coo, plantain and beans and you have a meal that I would run a mile NOT to eat.

There was another thing about Good Friday that I would not follow. The old people would say that if you bathe in the river or in the the sea on Good friday that you would turn into a fish. In fact 70 years ago when my mother was a littel girl her neighbour and her went into the Blue Basin River to bathe and while she escaped a good "cut-tail" her neighbour "Telly" could not escape the guava whip her mother beat her with.

I used to swim in the river all the time. Even on Good Fridays. Despite being told the story of the flying dutchman and it's captain who decided to set sail on good friday so that he could make his destination at the quickest pace and who's ship disappeared at sea because he chose the love of water on such a Holy Day. The ship is now beleived to be only legend. They say no such ship existed, only stories

Well, I am no fish today, but I understand that as a Good Catholic even on Good Friday I must put my love for pleasure away in favour of sacrifice. What Jesus went through for me... what is a little time away from cold river water on a scorching hot day.

Also I have grown to love a meal of "provions" or roots.