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Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion. Show all posts
Thursday, 23 February 2017
Tuesday, 21 February 2017
Want to reach humanity? Be open to God's grace, Pope says
The Christian mission today means facing new challenges with simplicity, holiness, and openness to God, Pope Francis told an audience with the Marian Fathers on Saturday.
“Many still await knowledge of Jesus, the sole Redeemer of man, and many situations of injustice and moral and material hardship challenge believers,” the Pope said Feb. 18. “Such an urgent mission requires conversion at personal and community levels. Only hearts that are fully open to the action of grace are able to interpret the signs of the times and to hear the calls of humanity in need of hope and peace.”
The Pope told the Marian Fathers that their apostolate is a “vast field” constituted by “the urgent need” to bear witness to the gospel before everyone without distinctions.
The Pope received members of the Congregation of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception on Saturday morning in the Vatican’s Consistory Hall. The congregation, present in 20 countries, is holding its general chapter in Rome from Feb. 5-25.
The Pope encouraged their reflections to be done in fidelity with their founder’s charism and their spiritual heritage while also having “a heart and mind open to the new needs of the people.”
“It is true, we must go ahead towards the new needs, the new challenges, but remember: we cannot go ahead without memory,” Pope Francis said. “It is a continual tension. If I want to go ahead without memory of the past, of the history of the founders, the great figures and also the sins of the congregation, I cannot do so.”
The Marian Fathers was founded by St. Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary in Poland in 1673. He was canonized in 2016.
Pope Francis told the congregation’s members that their service to God’s word is “witness to the Risen Christ, whom you have met on your journey and whom, with your style of life, you are called to take wherever the Church sends you.”
“Christian witness also requires commitment to and with the poor, a commitment that has characterized your Institute since the beginning,” the Pope continued. “I encourage you to keep alive this tradition of service to the poor and humble, through the proclamation of the Gospel with language understandable to them, with works of mercy and prayer for the souls of the departed.”
The Pope stressed the importance of simplicity as a spiritual foundation.
“We are not princes, sons of princes or counts or barons: we are simple people, of the people. And for this reason we draw close with this simplicity to the simple people and those who suffer the most: the sick, children, the abandoned elderly, the poor … all of them,” he said. “And this poverty is at the heart of the Gospel: it is the poverty of Jesus, not sociological poverty, but that of Jesus.”
Pope Francis invoked the example of Blessed George Matulaitis, a member of the congregation who became Bishop of Vilnius in Lithuania. He was beatified in 1987.
The Pope praised his writings for showing “the total dedication to the Church and to man.” He praised the congregation’s initiatives to spread its charism to poor countries, especially those in Africa and Asia.
“The great challenge of enculturation requires that today you proclaim the Good News using languages and methods comprehensible to the men of our time, involved in processes of rapid social and cultural change,” the Pope said.
The pontiff asked the Marian Fathers to show courage in their service to Jesus Christ and the Church. He said that God can draw great things out of smallness and unworthiness.
“Our smallness is in fact the seed, that then germinates, grows; the Lord waters it, and in this way it goes ahead,” the Pope said. “But the sense of smallness is that first impulse towards trust in the power of God. Go, go ahead on this road.”
Pope Francis prayed for the congregation’s journey of faith and growth.
-Catholic News
Monday, 30 January 2017
Prayer Every Husband Needs to Pray over His Wife
You’ll never love your wife more than when you pray for her. Humbling yourself before an all-powerful God and asking Him to do what only He can in her life—that’s a level of intimacy beyond anything the world has to offer. Praying for her makes you realize how much of a treasure she is, the woman God gave you. You’re pouring yourself into her complete physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
Let these prayer guide you as you cry out to God for her each day.
Protect Her Joy
Thank you, Father, for the gift of my wife. You are the giver of all good and perfect blessings, and I’m amazed how You show Your love through her. Please help me to cherish such an amazing gift ( James 1:17 ).
Each day, circumstances and frustrations can easily steal the joy from ________. Please keep her from letting these challenges turn her focus from You, the author of her faith. Give her the joy that Jesus had as He accomplished the Father’s will on earth. May she consider each struggle as a reason to find hope in You ( >Hebrews 12:2 –3; >James 1:2 –3).
When she feels tired, Lord, renew her strength. Surround her with friends who love You and will bear her burdens. Give her reason to feel refreshed by their encouragement ( Isaiah 40:31 ;
Galatians 6:2 ; Philemon 1:7 ).
May she know that the joy of the Lord is the source of her strength. Protect her from growing tired of doing what You’ve called her to do each day ( Nehemiah 8:10 ; Galatians 6:9 ).
Thursday, 26 January 2017
Trusting in God means letting go of what we want, says Pope
On Wednesday Pope Francis said having total faith and trust in God means recognizing that he always knows and wants what is best for us, even if it’s hard to accept because it doesn’t align with our own plans.
Wednesday, Pope Francis talked about what it means to have total faith and trust in God, acknowledging that he knows what is best, and always wants what is best for us, even if it is often difficult to accept.
“Trusting in God means to enter into his designs without demanding anything, even accepting that his salvation and his help should come to us in a different way from our expectations,” he said Jan. 25.
The Pope’s catechesis for the general audience in the Pope Paul VI hall centered on the story of Judith in the Old Testament, a woman who was “a great heroine,” he said, and an excellent example of the virtues of faith, hope and trust.
In the story, Nebuchadnezzar's army, under the leadership of General Holofernes, is laying siege to a city in Judea, cutting off the water supply and thus “sapping the resistance of the population,” the Pope said.
“The situation is dramatic,” to the point that the people in the town are giving up, wanting to surrender to the enemy, he said. Faced with such despair, a leader of the people suggests that they wait only five more days. If God has not saved them by then, they will surrender.
But then Judith comes onto the scene, “a woman of great beauty and wisdom, she speaks to the people with the language of faith,” Francis said.
“You want to test the Lord Almighty,” the Pope said, quoting the words of Judith, who cautioned the people not to “provoke the wrath of the Lord, our God.” The Lord, she said, “has full power to defend us in the days he wants or even to destroy us by our enemies.”
Referencing the passage, Pope Francis told pilgrims that “we never put conditions on God and give up...instead hope conquers our fears.”
“He is a Father, he can save us,” he said. In this way, “a woman full of faith and courage gives new strength to his people in mortal danger and leads them on the path of hope, revealing this also to us.”
Judith shows us the path to trust, to “wait in peace, prayer and obedience,” Francis said, noting that this sort of resignation is not easy. We must do everything in our power, but “always remaining in the furrow of the Lord’s will.”
In off-the-cuff comments, the Pope said Judith was brave to trust in God as she did, adding that “this is my opinion: women are more courageous than men.”
We can and should ask the Lord for life, health, happiness, he said, but always “in the awareness that God is able to bring life even from death” and that we can experience “peace even in disease, serenity even in solitude, (and) bliss even in tears.”
“We are not the ones who can teach God what to do, what we need,” he said. “He knows better than we do, and we have to trust, because his ways and his thoughts are different from ours.”
Thursday, 19 January 2017
Again??? South African Pastor makes his followers drink engine cleaning fluid
A pastor/prophet in South Africa, has made his followers drink engine cleaning fluid, alleging that it has healing powers. He says it tastes like honey.
Theo Bongani Maseko of the Breath of Christ Ministries said the chemical attacks viruses in a person’s body and detects demons, the local eNCA news site reports.
Mr Maseko was quoted as saying that the fluid posed no health risks:
“It tastes like honey. I drank it twice." He added that five people had been "cured" by drinking the fluid: “They were all healed. They came with a testimony."
Retired Catholic priests push for an end to celibacy
A group of 11 retired high ranking Catholic priests is causing vocational drama across Germany with their request to abolish celibacy in an open letter, written in review of their fifty (50) years as clergy. They are part of a group of clerics who were anointed in 1967 in Cologne, a city considered both a Catholic stronghold and one of Germany’s most progressive and gay-friendly cities.
Speaking to DW, Franz Decker, a retired priest who for over a decade led the Catholic Relief Service in Cologne, said:
‘We believe that requiring that every man who becomes a priest to remain celibate is not acceptable. We think, every Catholic should be allowed to choose if they would rather be celibate or not, regardless of whether they want to work as priests or not – just like in the evangelical Church or the Orthodox Church, really, every church but the Catholic Church.
What moves us is the experience of loneliness, as elderly people who are unmarried because our office required this from us, we feel it vividly on some days after 50 years on the job… We agreed to this clerical life because of our jobs, but we didn’t choose it.'
Decker and his friends also noted that celibacy might make for a good way of life for priests who live in communal monasteries, like many clergies used to.
However, the Pope of the roman catholic church, Pope Francis, is yet to react to the open letter.
Sunday, 1 January 2017
Married Pastor Thoroughly Beaten After Being Caught Naked With Female Church Member
A shepherd feeds on his flock! This non-biblical philosophy aptly applies to a married pastor with the Reformed Church of Mount Zion in Mapanzure area, Zvishavane, Zimbabwe who is nursing injuries he sustained after a savage attack by villagers who allegedly caught him naked in a bedroom with a church member at his home.
The incident which is still the talk in Mapanzure area occurred on Tuesday last week. Pastor Mutupe learnt the hard way that switching Bible verses with love sonnets is 'suicidal' when he sustained serious injuries all over his body after receiving a thorough hiding from an angry mob.
However, the Pastor, speaking to Bmetro, denied that he was caught consummating with the said woman, although he confirmed that he was thoroughly bashed in his own home.
According to sources, Mai Mufundisi Mutupe, the pastor's wife, who lives in Harare, got wind that her husband allegedly had an affair with a fellow congregant only identified as Mai Tanaka and alerted her brother to keep an eye on him.
"The brother, acting as per instruction by his sister, set an ambush and waited for Mai Tanaka to sneak into the Pastor's bedroom hut and alerted other villagers who responded passionately to the hut. When the villagers arrived at the homestead, they forced open the door only to catch the two lovebirds looking lovey-dovey and Mai Tanaka immediately took to her heels. A loud noise was coming from Pastor Mutupe's homestead and as we followed it to see what was happening, we were shocked to find that it was Pastor Mutupe who was lying down bleeding profusely while villagers were taking turns to beat him up," said the source.
Villagers only left him when they realised that he was lying unconscious. When our news crew visited the 'two-faced' man of God, he was visibly in pain and confirmed that villagers gave him a thorough hiding when they suspected him of having sex with a congregant who had come to his homestead for prayers. However, he dismissed the claims that he was naked.
"The villagers misinterpreted the purpose of the visit by Mai Tanaka when they beat me up and I have forgiven them as I realised that they need deliverance. Mai Tanaka came to me because she had a problem that needed to be solved. My fellow worshippers can come anytime for prayers whenever they need and I welcome them with both hands," said man of God.
Efforts to get a comment from Mai Tanaka were futile as she is said to have fled the village following the incident.
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