Satan’s Tool Box

Satan’s Tool Box

saint is a sinner ...

Saint is a sinner, conscious of his weaknesses ...

Holy man is not a sinless person. The saint is aware of his sins, is fighting with them, is in pain because of his sins, he is struggling and when falling arises all over again, counting only on God's mercy.

"Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. (Psalm 50[51]:1-9)

Sinless and "saintly" are only the Pharisees ...

 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'" (Luck 18:10-12)

Divine Mercy Sunday - Kraków - Łagiewniki

About 100,000 pilgrims visited basilica of the Divine Mercy in Kraków - Łagiewniki during the celebrations on Divine Mercy Sunday on April 12 2015.

At 3 pm the Hour of Mercy, we run to the monumental modern basilica. Sitting next to me are Korean ladies singing Chaplet of Divine Mercy, kneeling on the cold floor in an awkward, law bow position. Costa Rican priest is praying Divine Mercy Chaplet for several minutes holding his hands up in a form of a cross. For thousands of people around the world the way to holiness is a modest life of humble Polish nun. Most of them in one breath repeats two names: Faustina and John Paul II, and adds: You, Poles, you're lucky. Such a blessing! ... "

Pope John Paul II quoted many times the puzzling sentence from the "Diary" of Sister Faustina: "Therefore from here come forth the spark that will prepare the world for My final coming" ...

The world is frightened and terrified of Divine Mercy …

"The present-day mentality, more perhaps than that of people in the past, seems opposed to a God of mercy, and in fact tends to exclude from life and to remove from the human heart the very idea of mercy. The word and the concept of "mercy" seem to cause uneasiness in man, who, thanks to the enormous development of science and technology, never before known in history, has become the master of the earth and has subdued and dominated it.14 This dominion over the earth, sometimes understood in a one - sided and superficial way, seems to have no room for mercy." (John Paul II - "Dives in Misericordia")

an interesting text but unhappily in Polish :-(

http://info.wiara.pl/doc/801818.Koronka-Made-in-Poland

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday – Last Supper Mass – the Day of the Eucharist and the Day of Priests.

Last Supper – the institution of two Sacraments: the HOLY EUCHARIST – the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ and the PRIESTHOOD, the Sacrament in service of the Eucharist.

Two Sacraments …. two mysteries of faith.

How can a piece of bread contain God, the Creator of the Universe?

How can to the ordinary man be granted such a power, to transform the bread into the Body of Christ? And yet … this is exactly what Jesus did during the Last Supper.

Lk 22:19 – “Then he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and                          gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body given for you; do this in                              remembrance of me.”

What is the primary purpose and task of a priest? What is his ultimate vocation? The answer we can find in the life and mission of Christ. So what was the primary reason of the incarnation of the second Person if the Holy Trinity?

- Was it the healing of the sick?

- Was it the feeding of the hungry?

- Was it the social justice work?

- Or was it maybe the making His disciples feel good?

I think it was none of the above!'!!

He, the High Priest was the Priest for two reasons, which finally come to the only one:

- the GLORY OF GOD and the SALVATION OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD!

John 4:34 – “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete his                               work.”

John 17:3 – “And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus                            Christ whom you have sent.”

John 18:37 – “Jesus answering Pilate said, 'It is you who say that I am a king. I was                  born for this, I came into the world for this, to bear witness to the                           truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.”

Mt 28:19 – “Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name                               of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”

So Glory of God and sanctification of the members of Christ's Church.

2Tim 4:1 nn – “Before God and before Christ Jesus who is to be judge of the living                                 and the dead, I charge you, in the name of his appearing and of his                                     kingdom, proclaim the message and, welcome or unwelcome, insist                                   on it. Refute falsehood, correct error, give encouragement -- but do                              all with patience and with care to instruct.”

It will be a betrayal to anything else. Like searching popularity, luxury, easy life, career etc.

The Founder of my Society of the Divine Saviour left us the Salvatorians the words of our vocation: “As long as there is one person in the world who doesn’t know and love Jesus Christ you cannot rest. Preach Jesus Christ with all means dictated by the love of God and love of your brothers and sisters.”

****************************************

Parish in communistic Russia, since 1918 no priest for almost 90 years …

Church turned or transformed in to kolkhoz’s storage facility …

After three generations of prayers they got a priest … and parishioners prayed for the priest …

·        Lord Jesus Christ, the only One and Eternal Priest,

we thank You for sending us Your priest;

Your servant whom You chose and appointed to be among us.

He is the minister of Your mysteries,

and the pastor for our community.

We ask You to give him faithfulness and perseverance in Your holy service

and to give us a living faith in knowing that You sent him to us

and instituted him as our pastor and spiritual guide.

Help us to understand that his first and primary obligation

is to help us to become saints.

This is the ultimate reason that You sent him to our community.

·        Give him a spirit of wisdom and good council.

Give him the strength of fatherly love.

Give him the courage to tell us the truth,

You're the Truth and we have to know the TRUTH, to be free,

Give him the courage and perseverance to teach us the ultimate TRUTH

and not to compromise Your Good News for the sake of popularity.

And give us the gift of acceptance, respect and caring,

so that we can attentively listen to his word and trust that

he is preaching Your Good News,

even if it seems sometimes awkward and challenging,

Even if our ears are itching ...

·        You chose him from among us and for us,

a man who sometimes falls down because of his own weaknesses,

but also who has to deal with our weaknesses and sins.

Give us both patience and mutual understanding.

Give him health and patience in his difficult work and responsibilities.

·        May he be for us a good Pastor,

May he be for us a good and truthful Teacher,

May he be for us a strong and courageous Prophet,

who guides us to Heaven,

where You our Eternal Pastor are waiting for us;

in the Kingdom of Your Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit one God for ever and ever. Amen.

Alternative homily

The shortest homily of Jesus - very difficult lesson of humility

“Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.
He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.
So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power
and that he had come from God and was returning to God,
he rose from supper and took off his outer garments.
He took a towel and tied it around his waist.
Then he poured water into a basin
and began to wash the disciples’ feet
and dry them with the towel around his waist.

So when he had washed their feet
and put his garments back on and reclined at table again,
he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you?
You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am.
If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow,
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

Do you realize what the very meaning of Christ’s message is?

Do you know what does it mean to love somebody to the end?

In comparison to this all other songs, poetries, and the whole “literature of love” is simple rubbish.

During the very first Mass Jesus have had the shortest and the most touching homily. He washed the feet of His disciples and gave them His body to eat and His blood to drink.

Let me repeat the same homily now …

(washing of the feet)

Palm Sunday reflections

How were we saved?

How did Jesus save us?  Was it because he suffered and died for us?  Was it because he made the ultimate sacrifice?  Was it not because, in the words of the Second Reading from Philippians, he "emptied himself" totally and in so doing became filled with the Spirit of his Father.  He clung to nothing; he let go of everything.  (That is what we find so hard.)

Jesus suffered obviously in his body and he underwent pain that we associate with the more barbaric forms of torture in our own day.  But he must also have suffered psychologically and this pain may have been even more intense.  He saw his mission collapse all around him in total failure.  His disciples had all, for the sake of their own skins, taken to their heels.  Would anyone remember anything he taught or did?  There was, at this special time of need, a terrible loneliness.  His disciples fell asleep in the garden when he especially needed their support.  They ran off as soon as people came to arrest Jesus.  Even the Father seems to be silent, the Father who could send legions of angels to rescue him - but apparently did nothing.  There is the final poignant cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

At the moment of his death, Matthew in today's Gospel reading says that Jesus "released the spirit".  It is a way of saying that he breathed his last breath and died.  But it also has the other meaning that the life, sufferings and death of Jesus, when properly understood, released a power into the world, the power of the Spirit of God, a Spirit with which Jesus himself was filled. Jesus' followers will soon become filled with that Spirit also.

Hosanna !! and Crucify him !!! …

The crying out of these words, we hear side by side in today's liturgy of the word. In fact, less than a week,

Precisely five days separates them. On Sunday He is called a King by the crowds and on Friday - probably the same crowds - call for His death. Often it is the same in our lives; after days of glory will suddenly come, days of disaster and mortification, days of difficulty and fear.

Do not forget that, after Palm Sunday with its "Hosanna" comes Good Friday with the cry "Crucify Him". But also don't forget that after Good Friday comes Sunday of the Resurrection, with its truth: "I am the Resurrection and the Life, who believes in me, even if he dies will live with me".

Fourth Sunday of Lent

The readings today are all about salvation. The extract from the Book of Chronicles gives us an account of the great exile known as the Babylonian Captivity that occurred in 586 BC.

This was a most extraordinary event. After over four hundred years of rule by the descendants of King David the Kingdom of Judah was overthrown by Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon and the majority of the population taken into captivity.

In many ways things in the Middle East haven’t changed that much, there have been power struggles going on there right down the ages to our own day. In the period we are thinking about the newly ascendant empire was that of Babylon. Their King, Nebuchadnezzar, was well aware of the riches owned by his weaker neighbour and soon decided to plunder Judah and enslave its inhabitants.

One sure way to keep a whole people in slavery is to destroy their hope. Since the hope of a nation is often expressed in its religion Nebuchadnezzar lost no time in destroying the Temple in Jerusalem. He was convinced that this would send the people into despair and they would become more easily manageable.

Nebuchadnezzar thought that the Israelites would conclude that their God was weak and powerless since he could not even defend his own Temple.

But, of course, the very opposite happened. The Prophet Jeremiah had foretold these events and the people came to understand that the destruction of the Temple and their enslavement was not a result of the weakness of God but due to their own infidelity. They interpreted the Captivity as appropriate punishment by God for disobeying him rather than demonstrating any inadequacy on his part.

The Captivity lasted seventy years and then God moved the heart of the new ruler of Babylon, the Persian King Cyrus, to release the Jews and to actually go so far as to rebuild the Temple for them.

This must have seemed quite incredible to the People of Israel. They had been lamenting their lot in Babylon as is so eloquently expressed in the Psalm given to us today. And then suddenly this new pagan king expresses his belief in their God and says that he has been instructed by him to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

This was surely a most extraordinary miracle and a profound vindication of the God of their fathers; a faith strengthened and renewed rather than extinguished by seventy years of captivity.

Just imagine their rejoicing as they returned home to freedom. This can only be described as a profound experience of salvation for them.

We should remember that this wasn’t the first time that the People of Israel had experienced captivity and exile. You will remember the Exile into Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs and how Moses led the Chosen People through the Red Sea and then through forty years in the desert until they reached the Promised Land of Canaan.

These experiences of salvation were deeply ingrained in the history and culture of Israel. You could not think of a better way of preparing a race of people for the definitive saving event of all time –the salvation won by Jesus Christ.

The only trouble with us humans is that we forget. We continually forget even the most important lessons in life. And, as a people, the Jews were no different in that they continually forgot the lessons of the deepest experiences they had collectively endured.

Jesus explains this to Nicodemus. He tells him how what Moses achieved was going to happen once again but in a greater and more definitive way.

This time there would be no exile into slavery, no journey through the desert, no glorious entry into the Promised Land. There would be no captivity in Babylon, no sudden change of heart by a pagan Emperor.

No, this time the circumstances would be almost banal. A squalid betrayal by a once loyal disciple, an arrest in a garden in the middle of the night, a trumped up trial, the exchange of his life for that of a rebel and the crucifixion by Romans on behalf of a corrupt priesthood.

We have been speaking about memory but there are different kinds of memory. We are all familiar with short-term memory. We remember where we left our car in the supermarket car park. But we don’t retain this information for long otherwise our minds would be clogged up with a lot of unnecessary data.

Then there is long-term memory. This is more difficult; we often remember scenes from our childhood or significant events. Sometimes events flood unbidden into our minds, things that we thought were long forgotten.

And there is collective memory. This is the memory of a whole nation or community. It is about the significance of their history. A modern example would be the memory of the holocaust for the Jews, and indeed also for the Germans. Keeping these events alive is important in order to maintain the identity of the community concerned.

The events of the Exodus and the Captivity have been highly significant for the Jews down through the ages. They were demonstrations of their chosenness by God which was precisely what they considered made them different from all the other nations of the earth.

These were powerful experiences of salvation which affected a whole people for many generations. They were powerful demonstrations of God’s love despite the infidelity of a considerable proportion of the nation.

And yet, by the time of Jesus, these things were being forgotten. The priests especially were caught up in a highly clerical religion which exploited the people and which ensured places of privilege from themselves. This was accompanied by highly inappropriate collusion with the Roman invaders.

Jesus tells Nicodemus what is about to happen. He reveals to this important member of the Jewish hierarchy that God is now going to intervene in a most spectacular way and is going to definitively bring about salvation not merely for the Jewish people but for the whole human race.

Memory remains important, because it is our collective memory which communicates this extraordinary intervention of God in the history of the world to future generations.

We keep this memory fresh by constantly reading the scriptures and by gathering together to celebrate the Eucharist each week. These are the means by which the Good News of the Kingdom is kept alive in the world today.

In the words of consecration Our Lord says: Do this in memory of me. It is his memory we keep alive, it is his salvation that we celebrate; it is his Kingdom that we look forward to so much.

http://www.catholicwealdstone.org/wordpress/?p=648

III Sunday of Lent - B

Ex 20:1-17 or 20:1-3, 7-8, 12-17; 1 Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25

Few days ago I got a letter from one of these corporations sending different type of advertisements, bulletins and booklets. In the letter I read:

“There is no doubt you feel the increasing encroachment of godlessness in every aspect of public life: godlessness in governments; godlessness in economics; godlessness in the universities; godlessness in the courts; godlessness in the sciences; godlessness in the news media; and even godlessness in once-Catholic families.

It is a godlessness that quickly turns into a tangible hostility to religion.

This godlessness has come about due to a loss of belief in the one true Catholic Faith. Central tenets of the faith have been undermined, ridiculed and denied, perhaps as never before in history.

The average Catholic, immersed in the worldwide media of television, radio and the internet, is constantly bombarded with direct or indirect assaults on his Faith.

And how can one live a good moral life if one’s Faith has been decimated? The collapse of the Faith is the cause of the unprecedented rise in immorality of our time.”

At first I was rather astonished and ready to rebuke this kind of negativistic vision of the world. It cannot be so bad. We have still some good examples of faith and morality. We cannot see all in these black and dark colours.

But after a day or so, I read today’s readings and I did a simple verification and comparison with the contemporary reality.

In the first reading we have the Ten Commandments, the law of God, about what one of the philosophers said, that there is no possibility of denying the ultimate value of this law.

1.     You shall not have other gods besides me.

2.     You shall not take the name of the LORD, your God, in vain.

3.     Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.

4.     Honour your father and your mother,

5.     You shall not kill.

6.     You shall not commit adultery.

7.     You shall not steal.

8.     You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

9.     You shall not covet your neighbour’s house.

10.       You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or anything else that belongs to him.

And yet if I verify these instructions with our contemporary life...?

How many people live their lives worshipping money, comfort, extravagance, pleasure, success, satisfaction, wealth? Where in all this is God the Father?

How often even among Catholics especially politicians the name of the Lord is taken only for the political and unfair ways and purposes?

How many people keep the day of rest holy?

“Honour your father and your mother” and I thought about the persistent agenda on euthanasia?

“You shall not kill” and I thought about the pro-choice lows and abortion ...

“You shall not commit adultery” – and immediately click out the pornographic industry ...

And we can continue with all ... and it will be no end. All commandments are constantly neglected, denied, rejected and contradicted in the name of human rights, in the name of human dignity, human freedom, in the name of civil liberties ...

And then I read the Gospel, where I see Jesus Christ in rage and how the “zeal for the house of God is consuming Him” and I realised that most probably He will react in the same way seeing what is going on with His Church, the Temple of God today. How often this Temple of God became only the marketplace of the personal opinions, private convictions, individualistic statements, the place of business and commerce where o more God and his worship is present but ME and MY personality?

“godlessness in governments; godlessness in economics; godlessness in the universities; godlessness in the courts; godlessness in the sciences; godlessness in the news media; and even (I will dare to say) godlessness in once-Catholic Church. Central tenets of the faith have been undermined, ridiculed and denied, perhaps as never before in history.”

Should we fell in desperation and anxiety, hopelessness and despair? Should we be depressive and sad?

Is it really so bad?

And then I read the short passage from the letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, our second reading today:

“Brothers and sisters:

when Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom

we proclaim Christ crucified,

a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

but to those who are called, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,

and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.”

“Jesus Christ crucified the power of God and the wisdom of God” will certainly take care of His Temple, and will cleanse His Church.

As long as we believe Jesus Christ crucified we don’t need to be afraid, hopeless and depressive.

VI Sunday in the Ordinary Time - B

- Leviticus 13,1-2. 45-46 ;
- 1 Corinthians 10,31-11,1 ;
- Mk 1,40-45

Lord, if you want you can heal me

Is not this the misfortune to be a leper? In the West we do not have a clue, because nobody suffering from this disease. However, there are countries in the modern world, where it is still a serious problem. Working several years as a missionary in Africa, I had the opportunity many times to see lepers, talk to them and listen to their stories. The disease begins with a small yellow spot on the skin, which in time grow, they become harder and festering. You can not deal with them. Body in these places begins to rot and fall off. Most often there are attacked the fingers, toes, arms, sometimes cheeks or eye sockets ... lepers are haunted by their appearance, people move away from them, run away. They are aware that they became an outcast that they are no longer among the healthy. The affected part of the body -usually limbs or face- become crippled, rot, stink, fester, and after some time dead fall. It is a terrible disease. Only a miracle can make a difference, to find remedy.

With sin is the same. -as it begins with leprosy- it starts from small, sometimes imperceptible changes, yellowing of the skin. And then ... faster and faster, in an irreversible way, everything starts to rot, stink and fall out ... People are moving away from you, run away, you become an outcast. It seems to you (at the beginning), that it is harmless, that you can deal with it, make a difference ... That it's treatable. And the disease progresses faster and is spreading, causing increasing destruction and desolation. You become a leper. These scabs and wounds cover more and more areas of your life, and you have to deal with it without remedy. Cry then as soon as you se your situation: " Lord, if you like, only you can make me clean! " And you will hear: " I want to! be thou clean. "because he came to the sick and the lepers, the suffering and the sinners", and not to the smug and healthy bigheads. 

There is only one basic principle ... sin just as leprosy can not be ignored !!! Unfortunately, in today's post-industrial and modernistic society, we do not want to admit that there is a leprosy of sin. And this is a disaster. The greatest sin and biggest misery of modern man is prideful belief that THERE IS NO SIN !!!

Christ is ready to show us the gesture of kindness: "Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand, touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean ." But we in our pride and arrogance are not able to come to Him and as "a leper kneel down, and ask him: If you want, you can make me clean . " We say: "I do not have leprosy, I'm not sick, I do not need cleaning. I am pretty good".

Please watch this:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sohdQ83wShk

man's ultimate destiny ...

"What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, what the mind of man cannot visualise; all that God has prepared for those who love Him …"

(1 Corinthians 2: 9)

Why? because the fullness of the EXISTENCE in God cannot be expressed, or imagine.

God created everything so that it exists. To each creature He gave something of Himself, He gave to each being "a piece" of His existence.

In a specific way it was given to the angels, in a different way to man, in other way to animals, or plants.

But every creature has received from God as the greatest gift "a little bit of existence. "For he created all things so that they might exist; the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them, and the dominion of Hades is not on earth." (Wisdom 1:14). And every creature was called to improve the existence, to connect to the EXISTENCE OF GOD ever deeper and more closely.

Unfortunately, original sin and all our personal sins put us away from this ideal, from the existence of God and in God. Actually in this life on earth, we participate only fractionally in the existence of God and were it not for God's Mercy we will go further and further from God, more and more in the direction of non-existence, in the direction of evil (and, therefore, the existence is good and its negation or privation is evil - Malum privatio bonum est). Evil is a destruction of existence in being (even only partial). So God is not the cause of evil (the depletion or weakening in existence of created beings). He cannot be, because He is the Pure Existence. Rather the rational and free beings (angels and man) destroy in themselves God's existence. And in this way they are "creating" evil, through their free and selfish choices.

God, then, to turn us back from the road to nowhere incarnated Himself and became a creature, so to heal in us the weakening existence (what we destroyed), to restore us to the fullness of His Existence. And this is our ultimate vocation, our final destination. This is what writes St. Paul in his first Letter to the Corinthians, what we cannot see, neither hear, or understand or express in human words. It is the fullness of EXISTENCE we are called to participate in.

This is exactly Heaven; eternal love, eternal happiness, eternal goodness, eternal beauty. Unum et Verbum, et bonum et pulchrum convertutntur. It is a participation in the fullness of EXISTENCE, the existence of God. This is also the reason that Christ can say, "I and the Father are one." The essence of God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is the same, i.e. EXISTENCE. And God calls us to participate in this UNITY, in God's EXISTENCE (for human unimaginable, unspeakable).

Aleksander Doba, Adventurers of the Year 2014/2015 - National Geographic

On April 19, 2014, Doba, who is now 68, paddled the final stroke of his 7,716-mile transatlantic journey, docking OLO, his 23-foot kayak, in a marina in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The Polish native had departed from Lisbon, Portugal, on October 5, 2013, with the intention of paddling 5,400 miles across the Atlantic's widest point and arriving in Florida in mid-February.

Aleksander Doba, Adventurers of the Year 2014/2015 - National Geographic