Hatched, Matched and Dispatched

A Catholic will attend Mass at least three times in his lifetime

When he is hatched (born and baptised)
When he is matched (married)
When he is dispatched (funeral)

What I Can Do During Lent

During Lent, I need to more conscious of my faith, being prayful and avoiding what will take me away from God.

I have to acknowledge though that good Lenten intentions do have a way like New Year's resolutions, of falling by the wayside.

I must realise that sometimes we just forget our promises but the important thing is not to beat ourselves up over it but to just get back on track. The best way might be to find a prayer practice that works for your and try to sustain it.

For me, it means saying a rosary, adoration or attending Mass.

I must remember that God is always present in our lives and ready to help us.

How about a little silence
Silence forces us to listen more closely, evaulate ideas more thoroughly and temper our responses.

1) I can check the parish bulletin or diocesan newspaper calendar section for upcoming opportunities for silent retreats aroudn the area. I could also make it a point to visit one of the many Eucharistic adoration chapels for an hour or even a few minutes once a week.

2) Since I enjoy the outdoors, I could take advantage of nature trails for some quiet time alone to pray and contemplate the beauty of God's creation.

3) I could spend some time at home as a family with televisions, radios, phones and computers turned off. These media - valuable as they are - can sometimes interfere with family communication.

Shut them down, share a prayer and a meal together and play a board game or enjoy another family activity.

Silencing our voices and our minds can help deepen our relationship with God and broaden our awareness of His presences in our lives. Silence coupled with attentive listening can also help us deepen our relationships with people we encounter every day of our lives in our families, workplaces and communities.

Catholics in any modern society will - and do - suffer for 'swimming against the tide'

Chicago, Ill., Sep 12, 2014 / 12:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Faithful Catholics will face increasing difficulties in American society as public life becomes more dominated by another “religion” that marginalizes the Church and imposes its own morality, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has written.

“Swimming against the tide means limiting one’s access to positions of prestige and power in society,” Cardinal George wrote in his Sept. 7 column for Catholic New World, the newspaper of his local Church.

“It means that those who choose to live by the Catholic faith will not be welcomed as political candidates to national office, will not sit on editorial boards of major newspapers, will not be at home on most university faculties, will not have successful careers as actors and entertainers.”

He continued, “Nor will their children, who will also be suspect. Since all public institutions, no matter who owns or operates them, will be agents of the government and conform their activities to the demands of the official religion, the practice of medicine and law will become more difficult for faithful Catholics.”

“It already means in some States that those who run businesses must conform their activities to the official religion or be fined, as Christians and Jews are fined for their religion in countries governed by Sharia law.”

The cardinal's column, titled “A tale of two churches”, is so impactful that Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia forewent his own Sept. 10 column, using Cardinal George's in its place.

Cardinal George “is among the most articulate Catholic voices in the United States,” Archbishop Chaput wrote. “His column … deserves a very wide audience and serious discussion. I'm happy to give my own column space this week to the words of His Eminence, and I hope Philadelphia-area Catholics read and re-read his comments in the coming months.”

The column chronicles the history of the Church in the United States: how it was long able to flourish with American society, and how that is coming to an end.

Cardinal George said this marks a departure from the past of the United States, in which the Church initially found a country “that promised to respect all religions because the State would not be confessional; it would not try to play the role of a religion.”

“The social history was often contentious,” he acknowledged, “but the State basically kept its promise to protect all religions and not become a rival to them, a fake church. Until recent years.”

The United States had never “officially told its citizens what they must personally think or what ‘values’ they must personalize in order to deserve to be part of the country. Until recent years.”

However, social and legislative approval has in recent years been given to “all types of sexual relationships that used to be considered ‘sinful’,” and the Church’s teaching is now seen as “evidence of intolerance for what the civil law upholds and even imposes.”

“What was once a request to live and let live has now become a demand for approval,” Cardinal George said. He charged that the American ruling class, with opinion makers in politics, education and entertainment, is “using the civil law to impose its own form of morality on everyone.”

He noted the increasing insistence that there is “no difference between men and women” even in marriage itself.

“Those who do not conform to the official religion, we are warned, place their citizenship in danger,” he wrote, referring to a Huffington Post columnist who voiced “concerns about the compatibility between being a Catholic and being a good citizen” following the Supreme Court decision on the Obama administration’s HHS mandate.

The cardinal said that this attitude is “more sophisticated” than past expressions of anti-Catholicism in the United State such as nativism, the Know-Nothing Party, the American Protective Association, and the Ku Klux Klan.

“This is, rather, the self-righteous voice of some members of the American establishment today who regard themselves as ‘progressive’ and 'enlightened.'”

The result of this conflict, he said, “is a crisis of belief for many Catholics.”

“Throughout history, when Catholics and other believers in revealed religion have been forced to choose between being taught by God or instructed by politicians, professors, editors of major newspapers and entertainers, many have opted to go along with the powers that be. This reduces a great tension in their lives, although it also brings with it the worship of a false god.”



“It takes no moral courage to conform to government and social pressure. It takes a deep faith to 'swim against the tide,' as Pope Francis recently encouraged young people to do.”

Continuing his narration of the Church's history in the United States, Cardinal George concluded that “we don't know” how the tale ends.

“The actual situation is, of course, far more complex than a story plot, and there are many actors and characters, even among the ruling class, who do not want their beloved country to transform itself into a fake church. It would be wrong to lose hope, since there are so many good and faithful people.”

“Catholics do know, with the certainty of faith, that, when Christ returns in glory to judge the living and the dead, the church, in some recognizable shape or form that is both Catholic and Apostolic, will be there to meet him.”

“There is no such divine guarantee for any country, culture or society of this or any age.”

Jeremy Lin's hopes and hoops

Jeremy Lin has said he struggles to play for God, not himself. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
Published on Feb 19, 2012



By David Brooks

Jeremy Lin is anomalous in all sorts of ways. He's a Harvard grad in the NBA, an Asian-American man in professional sports. But we shouldn't neglect the biggest anomaly. He's a religious person in professional sports.


We've become accustomed to the faith-driven athlete and coach, from Billy Sunday to Tim Tebow. But we shouldn't forget how problematic this is. The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim.


The moral universe of modern sport is oriented around victory and supremacy. The sports hero tries to perform great deeds in order to win glory and fame. It doesn't really matter whether he has good intentions. His job is to beat his opponents and avoid the oblivion that goes with defeat.


The modern sports hero is competitive and ambitious. (Let's say he's a man, though these traits apply to female athletes as well.) He is theatrical. He puts himself on display.


He is assertive, proud and intimidating. He makes himself the centre of attention when the game is on the line. His identity is built around his prowess. His achievement is measured by how much he can elicit the admiration of other people - the roar of the crowd and the respect of ESPN (Entertainment and Sports Programming Network).


His primary virtue is courage - the ability to withstand pain, remain calm under pressure and rise from nowhere to topple the greats.


This is what we go to sporting events to see. This sporting ethos pervades modern life and shapes how we think about business, academic and political competition.


But there's no use denying - though many do deny it - that this ethos violates the religious ethos on many levels. The religious ethos is about redemption, self-abnegation and surrender to God.


Ascent in the sports universe is a straight shot. You set your goal and you climb towards greatness. But ascent in the religious universe often proceeds by a series of inversions: You have to be willing to lose yourself in order to find yourself; to gain everything you have to be willing to give up everything; the last shall be first; it's not about you.


For many religious teachers, humility is the primary virtue. You achieve loftiness of spirit by performing the most menial services. (That's why shepherds are perpetually becoming kings in the Bible.) You achieve your identity through self- effacement.


You achieve strength by acknowledging your weaknesses. You lead most boldly when you consider yourself an instrument of a larger cause.


The most perceptive athletes have always tried to wrestle with this conflict. Sports history is littered with odd quotations from people who try to reconcile their love of sport with their religious creed - and fail.


Jeremy Lin has wrestled with this tension quite openly. In a 2010 interview with the website Patheos, he recalled: 'I wanted to do well for myself and my team. How can I possibly give that up and play selflessly for God?'


Lin says in that interview that he has learnt not to obsess about stats and championships. He continues: 'I'm not working hard and practising day in and day out so that I can please other people. My audience is God... The right way to play is not for others and not for myself, but for God. I still don't fully understand what that means; I struggle with these things every game, every day. I'm still learning to be selfless and submit myself to God and give up my game to Him.'


The odds are that Lin will never figure it out because the two moral universes are not reconcilable. Our best teacher on these matters is Joseph Soloveitchik, the great Jewish theologian. In his essays 'The Lonely Man of Faith' and 'Majesty and Humility', he argues that people have two natures. First, there is 'Adam the First', the part of us that creates, discovers, competes and is involved in building the world. Then, there is 'Adam the Second', the spiritual individual who is awed and humbled by the universe as a spectator and a worshipper.


Soloveitchik plays off the text that humans are products of God's breath and the dust of the earth, and these two natures have different moral qualities, which he calls the morality of majesty and the morality of humility. They exist in creative tension with each other and the religious person shuttles between them, feeling lonely and slightly out of place in both experiences.


Jeremy Lin is now living this creative contradiction. Much of the anger that arises when religion mixes with sport or with politics comes from people who want to deny that this contradiction exists and who want to live in a world in which there is only one morality, one set of qualities and where everything is easy, untragic and clean. Life and religion are more complicated than that.


New York Times

Significance of "40 days"

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that during Lent's 40 days. "the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert" (No. 504)

How so?

In God's mysterious ways, it seems to me, biblical deserts can be places of trouble and temptation but a journey towards new notheless proceeds in them.

The account of Jesus' 40 desert days reminded the early Christians of the Exodus and the 40 years their Israelite ancestors wandered in the desert, tempted at times to worship idols.

In the end, though, God led the Israelites to the Promised Land and to new life.

As such, Jesus' public mission, marked at its start by desert encounters with Satan, proceeded towards the life-giving events of Easter.

After All The Feasting, Let's Eat Simply

By Anne Lim,

After feasting (from Christmas to CNY), we who have been so blessed must need now to give our bodies a rest! For the sake of our health, for the sake of our planet.

Research has shown that as adults, we do not need so much protein unless we return to hunting for our meat as our ancestors did. Excess protein consumption has also been linked to cancer and many degenerative diseases.

The food not only nourishes and gives us pleasure, it connects us with the Earth. We are fed by the produce of soil, water, air, all of which make up the larger environment, our greater community.

Before this food that we choose to eat reaches our table, it would have gone through processes which involve planting, harvesting, rearing, packaging, storage, transportation, etc. - all of which require energy as well as waste disposal.

Since we can get fresh fruits and vegetables of all kinds all year round, we do not have a clear sense of the value of nature's gifts to us.

If we truly value the connection we have with Mother Earth through these gifts, we would accept without hesitation our responsibility as caretakers of the Earth. WE would pray pray hard for the grace of gratitude each time we sit down to eat.

Are we willing to make a conscious choice to make a change in some of our eating habits and to give up some of the conveniences of life that we have become so attached to?

How about reducing the need for plastic and polystyrene disposables and switching to the good old tiffin carrier for takeaways?

With the approach of Lent, it would help us to rein in that appetite for rich foood. Let us then respond with a return to simplicity. The good news is that what is good for the planet is also good for our health.

So can we live simply so that others may simply live? Each day is a new day. To live more lightly, let's eat less meat, waste not, eat more fruit and vegetables and avoid or eat less processed foods.

Time to tune out

Hooray! Companies are realising that 24/7 connectivity can cause employee burnout
Published on Jan 8, 2012
By Roger Cohen

London - Let's hear it for Volkswagen at the start of 2012. The German carmaker has responded to demands from its works council by agreeing to stop the e-mail server to its BlackBerry-using employees a half hour after their shift ends, restoring it only 30 minutes before work begins the next day.


The agreement for now affects only about 1,150 of Volkswagen's more than 190,000 workers in Germany, but it's a start in encouraging employees to switch off, curb the twitchy reflex to check e-mail every couple of minutes, and take a look at things - like family and the big wide world - without the distraction of a blinking red light.


Now I know we're all supposed to be grown-ups and switching off should be a simple enough decision, but the fact is that addictions to the BlackBerry and other hand-held devices are powerful, and nobody expects addicts to self-administer the right medicine without some help.


The Volkswagen decision reflects growing evidence of stress-related burnout tied to employees' inability to separate their working and private lives now that developed societies live in a 24/7 paroxysm of connection.


Employee burnout has become an issue in socially conscious Germany - the object of a Spiegel cover story following the resignation in September of a prominent Bundesliga soccer coach Ralf Rangnick of Schalke, who complained of exhaustion.


A Volkswagen spokesman in Wolfsburg told Bloomberg News that the company had to balance the benefits of round-the-clock access to staff with protecting their private lives.


Inside those German private lives, I'd wager, couples are experiencing the now near-universal irritation of finding conversations interrupted by a familiar glance towards the little screen, or conversations deadened by a state of near-permanent distraction from their immediate surroundings.


Device-related marital rows must now be running close to back-seat driving and how to raise children as the leading cause of domestic discord.


Connectivity aids productivity. It can also be counterproductive by generating that contemporary state of anxiety, in which focus on any activity is interrupted by the irresistible urge to check e-mail or text messages; whose absence can in turn provoke the compounded anxiety of feeling unloved or unwanted just because the inbox is empty for a nanosecond; whose onset can in turn induce the super-aggravated anxiety linked to low self-esteem and poor performance.


Inhabiting one place - that is, to be fully absorbed by and focused on one's surroundings rather than living in some diffuse cyberlocation composed of the different strands of a device-driven existence - is a fast-dwindling ability.


This, in turn, generates a paradox: People have never travelled as much but at the same time been less able to appreciate the difference between here and there.


To be permanently switched on is also to switch off to what takes time to be seen. A lot of good ideas, as well as some of life's deeper satisfactions, can get lost that way.


Companies are beginning to perceive these costs. Volkswagen is not alone in its move, which does not affect the senior management or employees' ability to make calls.


Mr Thierry Breton, the chief executive of Atos, the French information technology services giant, has said workers are wasting hours of their lives on internal messages at home and work. He plans to ban internal e-mail altogether from 2014.


A survey found Atos's 80,000 employees were receiving an average of 100 internal e-mail messages a day, of which only 15 per cent were useful.


Henkel, the manufacturer of Persil detergent, declared an e-mail 'amnesty' between Christmas and New Year, saying mail should be sent only in an emergency.


One interesting recent case of employee burn-out came at the top, with the stress-induced absence for a couple of months of Lloyds Bank chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio. The Portuguese banker, who will return to work tomorrow, had been afflicted with what Lloyds chairman Win Bischoff called an 'inability to switch off'.


Inability to switch off (ITSO) is a modern curse.


Mr Horta-Osorio has said he made the decision after not sleeping for five days in late October and realising that there was, according to his doctor, such a thing as 'getting close to the end of your battery'. He has now been pronounced fit by the Lloyds board but has said he will change his work habits, presumably in ways that will lower ITSO risks.


I've just returned to work after a few days with my 90-year-old father in Scotland. He lives without any access to e-mail or hand-held devices.


It was interesting observing the effects of this vacuum on my teenage children, suddenly unable to centre their lives on their laptops (and the screen-lowering gesture that seems to accompany the entry of an adult).


They started to read voraciously. They were communicative. They got up earlier. To be fair, they also had a dad with them who was not device distracted.


It's the start of a new year, a time for resolutions. To each his own, but I know this: Nobody will ever lie on his or her deathbed and say: 'I should have kept my device on longer.'


New York Times