“They didn’t know who they were.” This is how Hilary summed up the problem with the Arian heretics of the fourth century.

Hilary, on the other hand, knew very well who he was — a child of a loving God who had inherited eternal life through belief in the Son of God. He hadn’t been raised as a Christian but he had felt a wonder at the gift of life and a desire to find out the meaning of that gift. He first discarded the approach of many people who around him, who believed the purpose of life was only to satisfy desires. He knew he wasn’t a beast grazing in a pasture. The philosophers agreed with him. Human beings should rise above desires and live a life of virtue, they said. But Hilary could see in his own heart that humans were meant for even more than living a good life.

If he didn’t lead a virtuous life, he would suffer from guilt and be unhappy. His soul seemed to cry out that wasn’t enough to justify the enormous gift of life. So Hilary went looking for the giftgiver. He was told many things about the divine — many that we still hear today: that there were many Gods, that God didn’t exist but all creation was the result of random acts of nature, that God existed but didn’t really care for his creation, that God was in creatures or images. One look in his own soul told him these images of the divine were wrong. God had to be one because no creation could be as great as God. God had to be concerned with God’s creation — otherwise why create it?

At that point, Hilary tells us, he “chanced upon” the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. When he read the verse where God tells Moses “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14), Hilary said, “I was frankly amazed at such a clear definition of God, which expressed the incomprehensible knowledge of the divine nature in words most suited to human intelligence.” In the Psalms and the Prophets he found descriptions of God’s power, concern, and beauty. For example in Psalm 139, “Where shall I go from your spirit?”, he found confirmation that God was everywhere and omnipotent.

But still he was troubled. He knew the giftgiver now, but what was he, the recipient of the gift? Was he just created for the moment to disappear at death? It only made sense to him that God’s purpose in creation should be “that what did not exist began to exist, not that what had begun to exist would cease to exist.” Then he found the Gospels and read John’s words including “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God…” (John 1:1-2). From John he learned of the Son of God and how Jesus had been sent to bring eternal life to those who believed. Finally his soul was at rest. “No longer did it look upon the life of this body as troublesome or wearisome, but believed it to be what the alphabet is to children… namely, as the patient endurance of the present trials of life in order to gain a blissful eternity.” He had found who he was in discovering God and God’s Son Jesus Christ.More……

What you have long suspected is true… I am a secret mystic. Look at my stigmata!
I probably shouldn’t admit that I got it from a panicked and over-enthusiastic use of a toilet plunger, should I?

Over the Christmas break, I was given some insights but little joy in my spiritual reading. The emotions we experience in prayer and spiritual reading are, of course, incidental; it is the insights (and the transformations occasioned by them) that are important. And when I say I was given little joy, I mean that my greatest insights so far during this Christmas Season have been insights into the nature of sin-including, above all, my own sins.

The first and most telling of these leapt out at me when reading the last chapters of St. Matthew’s Gospel. You may well take me for an idiot; surely I should have been reading the early chapters of the gospels at this time of year. But I am content to leave this to Providence; for whatever reason, that’s where I was in my reading and rereading of Scripture. Therefore, I call your attention to chapter 26, verses 14 and 15: “Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, ‘What will you give me if I deliver him to you?'”

How many times have I heard or read this passage? And yet on this occasion the nature of all temptation suddenly became crystal clear to me. For each temptation represents the possibility of gain in return for a betrayal. And each time we entertain a temptation, we ask the same question as Judas: What will you give me if I deliver him to you?

This is not just a matter of money, though it can be about money. Perhaps I have an opportunity to ridicule someone else to make myself appear superior. As I look at this possibility, I ask in effect, “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?” Or maybe, without being detected, I can shirk some responsibility in favor of enjoying some recreation. “What will you give me,” I ask of this situation, “if I deliver him to you?” In exactly the same way, when I entertain a temptation against purity, I am really asking the question once again: “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?”

For Judas, “you” stood for the group of chief priests, who were a temptation to him; but we can take “you” to refer to any temptation. The nature of temptation is always personal, exciting our wayward desires. There is always something we hope to gain from it. And the requirement to obtain this gain is always the same: The betrayal of our Creator and Lord.

A Second Insight for the Righteous

Since this insight brought me so little joy, I sought relief in a little book with a highly encouraging title, A Little Garden of Roses by Thomas à Kempis, the famous fifteenth-century author of The Imitation of Christ. It seems that in addition to the Imitation, Thomas wrote two small collections of meditations on virtue for the monks of his community. A Little Garden of Roses was followed by a similar work entitled The Valley of Lilies. Both have been published anew in a single volume from Ignatius Press, Bountiful Goodness: Spiritual Meditations for a Deeper Union with Christ. You can see from the titles why I turned here for encouragement.More……

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Together, Muslims and Christians constitute over 95 percent of Indonesia’s population. If they do not live in harmony then the country is in huge trouble.

Despite the media hyperbole, the overwhelming majority of Indonesian Muslims and Christians do live in peace, but the increasingly visible cases of discrimination, including the sealing of several churches, is indeed alarming.

The warning from our law enforcers of attacks during the Christmas season is another grim reminder that our longing for religious tolerance remains divorced from reality.

The bias against the religious minority is indisputably repugnant, based on the tenets of democracy, liberalism and secularism. But for those behind the discrimination, it barely matters as they believe that their one and only mission in life is to pursue God’s blessings. The lecture on the creeds of John Locke, Montesquieu or even Pancasila, will fall on deaf ears among those who venerate the words of God and the instruction of His prophet above everything else.

So the big question then is whether Islam really preaches hostility against those who espouse different faiths, especially Christians? If that is the case then those who claim to defend the faith by repressing others would be vindicated.

There are ample commandments in the Koran exhorting peaceful coexistence with non-Muslims. The Koran calls for Muslims to spread the message of Islam but the scripture also stipulates that there is no compulsion in religion (Al-Baqarah/2:256), for you is your religion and for me is mine (109:6), the Prophet is only a reminder not a controller over others (88:21-22).

There are some verses that can be misconstrued as promoting violence, “Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of your religion and do not expel you from your homes – from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly” (60:8).

The aversion that some Muslims harbor against Christians is strikingly peculiar not only because of the Koran aforementioned general injunctions for religious tolerance but especially because Muslims and Christians share a myriad of things in common.

It would be disingenuous to claim that Christianity and Islam are identical considering they do have some fundamental differences. Nevertheless, it would also be misleading to argue that Islam and Christianity are antithetical.

Apart from Christianity, Islam is the only world’s main religion that recognizes Jesus or Isa as more than just an ordinary human being. While Islam does not accept him as the son of God, Islam still holds Isa in a high esteem as one of God’s prophets who delivered His words, a messenger who performed many miracles, including his birth from a virgin, someone that those who declare to be Muslims are compelled to revere.

Full Story: Is paying respects to Christmas 
un-Islamic?

Source: Jakarta Post

St. John, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of St. James the Great, was called to be an Apostle by our Lord in the first year of His public ministry. He became the “beloved disciple” and the only one of the Twelve who did not forsake the Savior in the hour of His Passion. He stood faithfully at the cross when the Savior made him the guardian of His Mother. His later life was passed chiefly in Jerusalem and at Ephesus. He founded many churches in Asia Minor. He wrote the fourth Gospel, and three Epistles, and the Book of Revelation is also attributed to him. Brought to Rome, tradition relates that he was by order of Emperor Dometian cast into a cauldron of boiling oil but came forth unhurt and was banished to the island of Pathmos for a year. He lived to an extreme old age, surviving all his fellow apostles, and died at Ephesus about the year 100.

St. John is called the Apostle of Charity, a virtue he had learned from his Divine Master, and which he constantly inculcated by word and example. The “beloved disciple” died at Ephesus, where a stately church was erected over his tomb. It was afterwards converted into a Mohammedan mosque.

John is credited with the authorship of three epistles and one Gospel, although many scholars believe that the final editing of the Gospel was done by others shortly after his death. He is also supposed by many to be the author of the book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse, although this identification is less certain.

Pope Francis made a Christmas visit to Pope Emeritus Benedict yesterday (Dec 23) and said he found his 86-year-old predecessor looking well, according to television footage released by the Vatican.

Pope Francis, who was elected in March, spent about 30 minutes with Pope Emeritus Benedict in an ex-convent on the Vatican grounds where the former pope has been living in near isolation.

“It’s a pleasure to see you looking so well,” Pope Francis told Pope Emeritus Benedict, who in February became the first pope in 600 years to step down instead of ruling for life.

Television footage released by the Vatican – only the fourth time Benedict has been filmed since his resignation – showed him looking alert and in better health than on previous occasions.

He greeted Francis, 77, at the door of the residence, standing with an ivory-handled wooden cane. They walked to a chapel where they stood and prayed before speaking privately in another room.

When Pope Francis left Pope Emeritus Benedict, he said, “Merry Christmas, pray for me.” Pope Emeritus Benedict responded, “Always, always, always”.

Pope Emeritus Benedict resigned on Feb 28, saying he no longer had the physical and spiritual strength to lead the 1.2 billion member Roman Catholic Church. REUTERS

He was born in 1521 in Nijmegen in the Duchy of Guelders, which, until 1549, was part of the Habsburg Netherlands within the Holy Roman Empire and is now the Netherlands. His father was the wealthy burgermeister, Jacob Kanis; his mother, Ægidia van Houweningen, who died shortly after Peter’s birth. He was sent to study at the University of Cologne, he earned a Master’s degree in 1540, at the age of 19. While there, he met Peter Faber, one of the founders of the Society of Jesus. Through him, Canisius became the first Dutchman to join the newly founded Society of Jesus in 1543.

Through his preaching and writings, Peter Canisius became one of the most influential Catholics of his time. He supervised the founding and maintenance of the first German-speaking Jesuit colleges, often with little resources at hand. Because of his frequent travels between the colleges, a tedious and dangerous occupation at the time, he became known as the Second Apostle of Germany.

Canisius also exerted a strong influence on the Emperor Ferdinand I; he ceaselessly reminded Ferdinand of the imminent danger to his soul should he concede more rights to Protestants in return for their military support. When Canisius perceived a very real danger of Ferdinand’s son and heir, Maximilian, openly declaring himself a Protestant, Canisius threatened Maximilian with disinheritance should he desert the Catholic Faith.

Canisius was an influential teacher and preacher, especially through his “German Catechism”, a book which defined the basic principles of Catholicism in the German language and made them more accessible to readers in German-speaking countries. He was offered the post of Bishop of Vienna in 1554, but declined in order to continue his traveling and teachings. He did, however, serve as administrator of the Diocese of Vienna for one year, until a new bishop was appointed for it.

He moved to Germany, where he was one of the main Catholic theologians at the Colloquy of Worms in 1557, and later served as the main preacher in the cathedral of Augsburg from 1559 to 1568, where he strongly witnessed to his faith on three or four occasions each week. His preaching was said to have been so convincing that it attracted hundreds of Protestants back to the old faith.

By the time he left Germany, the Society of Jesus in Germany had evolved from a small band of priests into a powerful tool of the Counter Reformation. Canisius spent the last 20 years of his life in Fribourg, Switzerland, where he founded the Jesuit preparatory school, the College of Saint Michael, which trained generations of young men for careers and future university studies.

In 1591, at the age of 70, Canisius suffered a stroke which left him partially paralyzed, but he continued to preach and write with the aid of a secretary until his death in Fribourg. He was initially buried at the Church of St. Nicholas. His remains were later transferred to the church of the Jesuit College, which he had founded and where he spent the last year of his life They were interred in front of the main altar of the church, and the room he occupied during those last months is now a chapel which is open to the veneration of the faithful.