Msgr. Pope on the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ

Msgr. pope provides invaluable Scriptural support for Christ's divinity. Of course, the witness of the Catholic Church is the greatest proof.

New Advent

1. Clearly this is a dogma of the Faith (de Fide). The divinity and divine sonship of Jesus is expressed in all the creeds. This is perhaps most clearly stated in the Athanasian Creed (Quicumque):”…we believe and confess that Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is God and man. He is God begotten of the substance of the Father before all ages and man born in time of the substance of His Mother. He is Perfect God and perfect man.”

2. There are many passages in the Old Testment that express the qualities of the coming Messiah, among them are some very exalted titles:
a prophet – (Dt. 18:15,18)
a priest – (Psalm 109:4)
a shepherd – (Ez 34:23ff)
King and Lord – (Ps 2; Ps 44; Ps 109; Zach 9:9)
a suffering servant – (Is. 53)
the Son of God – (Ps 2:7; 109:3)
God with us (Emmanuel) – (Is 7:14; Is 8:8)
Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of the world to come, Prince of Peace – (Is 9:6)
Eternal King – (Dan 7:14)

3. In the New Testament the Father attests to the Divine Sonship of Jesus – (Mt 3:17; 17:5; Mk 9:7; Lk 3:22; 9:35; Jn 1:34; II Pt 1:17)

4. In the Gospels the Lord Jesus gives Testimony to His own divinity and self knowledge. He is of noble stature and knows of his own dignity and power expressing it often in the following ways

Jesus indicates that he transcends the prophets and Kings of the Old Covenant
Jonah and Solomon – (Mt 12:41ff; Lk 11:31ff)
Moses and Elijah – Matt 17:3; Mk 9:4; Lk 9:30
King David – (Mt 22:43ff Mk 12:36; Lk 20:42ff)
He says that the least born into His Kingdom will be greater than John the Baptist who, till that time was considered the greatest man born of woman – (Mt 11:11; Lk 7:28)

Jesus teaches that he is superior to the angels:
That they are his servants who minister to Him – (Mt 4:11 Mk 1:13; Lk 4:13)
That they are his army – (Mt 26:53)
That they will accompany him at his second coming and do his will -Mt 16:27; 25:31; Mk 8:38; Lk 9:26)

Jesus appropriates Divine actions unto himself and thus sets forth an assimilation unto the Lord God:
He declares it was He who sent the prophets and doctors of the Law (Mt 23:34; Lk 11:49)
He gives the promise of his assistance and Grace (Lk 21:15)
He forgives sins which power belongs to God alone (eg Mt 9:2)
He, by His own authority completes and changes some precepts of the Law. (Mt 5:21ff)
He declares Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath (Mt 12:8; Mk 2:28; Lk 6:5; Jn 5:17)
Like the Heavenly Father he makes a Covenant with His followers (Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24; Lk 22:20)

Jesus makes Divine demands upon his followers
He rebukes some for lack of faith in (Mt 8:10-12; 15:28)
He rewards faith in him (Mt 8:13; 9:2; 22:29; 15:28; Mk 10:52; Lk 7:50; 17:19)
He demands faith in his own person (Jn 14:1; 5:24; 6:40,47; 8:51; 11:25ff)
He teaches that rejection of him and his teachings will be the standard of final judgement (Lk 9:26; Mt 11:6)
Jesus demands supreme Love for him which surpasses all earthly loves (Mt 10:37,39; Lk 17:33). He accepts religious veneration by allowing the veneration of falling to the feet: this is due to God alone (Mt 15:25; 8:2; 9:18; 14:33; 28:9,17)

Jesus is well conscious of His own power – Mt 28:18

His many miracles which he works in his own Name.
He transfers this power to his disciples
Jesus knows and teaches that his own death will be an adequate atonement for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole human race. (Mt 20:28; 26:28)
Jesus appropriates to himself the office of Judge of the world which according to the OT (eg Ps 49:1-6) God would exercise (eg Mt 16:27) . And His judgement extends to every idle word (Mt 12:36), will be final and executed immediately – (Mt 25:46)

Jesus is Conscious of being the Son of God.

Jesus clearly distinguishes his claim in this regard from his disciples relationship to the Father. When he speaks of his own relationship he says, “My Father” To the disciples he calls God, “Your Father” but, He never unites himself with them in the formula “Our Father” Thus a distinction is maintained. (Jn 20:17)
Jesus revealed himself to be Son of God first in the temple when he remarked to Mary and Joseph that He must be about his Father’s business (Lk 2:49)
Jesus claims to be both messiah and Son of God in the presence of the Sanhedrin (Mk 14:62). The Sanhedrin perceive this as a blasphemy.
Jesus tells a story of himself in the Parable of the Evil Husbandmen thus confessing himself to be the only Son of God.
He is aware of being one with the Father (”The Father and I are one.” (Jn 10:30,38) They Jews respond by accusing Him of blasphemy

Jesus indicates in John’s Gospel that

He is eternal “Before Abraham was I am” (Jn 8:58)
That He has full knowledge of the Father (Jn 7:29; 8:55;10:14ff)
He has equal power and efficacy with the Father (Jn 5:17)
He can forgive sins (Jn 8:11 et sicut supra)
He is Judge of the World (Jn 5:22,27 & sicut supra)
He is rightly to be adored (Jn 5:23)
He is the light of the world (Jn 8:12)
He is the way, the truth and the light (Jn 14:6)
His disciples may and ought to pray to the Father in His name, additionally they may to Him (Jesus) (Jn 14:13ff 16:23ff)
The solemn confession of the Apostle Thomas “My Lord and my God.” is acceptable and in fact, an act of Faith (Jn 20:28)

Other Scripture Passages on the Divinity of Christ
I John 5:20 – “And we know that the Son of God is Come and has given us Understanding that we may know the true God and may be in His True Son; this is the True God and Life Eternal.”
John 1:1-14 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…..”
Phil 2:5-11 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped…and every tongue must confess to the Glory of God the Father that Jesus Chirst is Lord.
Rom 9:5 – “to them, (the Israelites) belong the patriarchs and of their race, according to the flesh is the Christ, who is God over all blessed for ever.”
Titus 2:13 “Looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Heb 1:8 – “But to the Son (God says): Your Throne, O God is for ever and ever.”

In addition Scripture attributes Divine qualities to Jesus
Omnipotence manifest in the creation and the conservation of the World – Col 1:15-17; I Cor 8:6; Heb 1:2ff
Omniscience – Col 2:3 – In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge….
Eternity – Col 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together
Immutability – Heb 1:12; 13:8
Adorability – Phil 2:10; Heb 1:6

Chris Matthews - Anti-Catholic Bigot

The shameful Chris Matthews of Hardball reported attends Mass at Blessed Sacrament at 3630 Quesada Street, NW, Washington, DC. And yet, his recent "interview" (and I use the term loosely) with Bishop Tobin of Providence he proved himself an anti-Catholic bigot. Why? Because he began by using, out of context, a speech of President Kennedy, which JFK gave percisely to smooth over the fears of anti-Catholic bigots who were reluctant to vote for a Catholic. Then, he treated the speech as if it were part of the magisterium which all Catholics must accept. Then, he attacked Bishop Tobin for standing up for Catholic doctrine. He asked assinine questions and did not give the Bishop an opportunity to answer since Matthews goal was rather to lecture the Bishop on how to be a bishop.
Anyone with a brain knows that Matthews is an radical liberal and as typical of radical liberals intolerant of any views disagree with his own. That's why CNN, if it has any decency must get rid of this man. Dcn. Fournier makes the case.

Opinion: Chris Matthews should be fired for his Offensive Interview of Bishop Tobin
By Deacon Keith Fournier
11/24/2009
Catholic Online (http://www.catholic.org/)

Matthews showed how inept he is as an interviewer, how misinformed he is as a Catholic, how rude he is as a person and how threatened he is by the Moral truth.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) – When I discovered that Chris Matthews of the program Hardball was going to interview Bishop Thomas Tobin on the continuing saga of Congressman Patrick Kennedy, I knew I had to watch. Bishop Tobin has courageously - and with a Pastor’s heart - tried to help Congressman Patrick Kennedy to see the dangerous error of his failure to defend the fundamental Right to Life. The Congressman is one of far too many unfaithful Catholics in public life who do not demonstrate moral coherence in their exercise of public office.

After sitting through several segments, I should have known from the “tease” to the segment which I was awaiting where this arrogant, self centered commentator intended to take this alleged “interview”. He repeatedly “teased” to the segment by incessantly repeating the term “Abortion rights” and indicating that he was going to interview Bishop Tobin who was "punishing" Congressman Kennedy for supporting “abortion rights”. There are no “abortion rights”, only human rights. I cannot listen to that phrase “abortion rights” without instantly responding.

The claim of a so called “right” to abort an innocent child is heinous. It is also a fallacy to couch this evil in the language of a woman’s “Right to Choose.” Some choices are always and everywhere wrong. Yet, that is the current state of the positive law in America since the horrendous decisions in Roe and Doe. Women can “choose” to take the life of our first neighbors, the ones who live where we all once lived, in the womb. That “choice” - which is always and everywhere wrong because it is the taking of innocent human life - is also currently protected by the Police Power of the State.

Abortion is the only example of taking innocent human life which is so protected by the Police Power of the State. It has a special status as some sort of "super right" in the American libertine culture and the dictatorship of relativism. Imagine if the positive law created a so called “right” to kill three week old babies because the Supreme Court said it was OK. There is no moral difference. Abortion is feticide in a new language intended to make what is evil sound acceptable.

In an Orwellian effort to change the debate and assuage their consciences its’ advocates have fashioned a “rights language” to make it somehow sound enlightened. It does not work. Science has confirmed what our conscience long ago told all of us, the child in the womb is one of us. She is our neighbor. It is always wrong to kill an innocent neighbor. This truth is written on our hearts by the Natural Law which all just positive laws should participate in and not abrogate. Intentional abortion is wrong and should be illegal in a just society.

The notion that the act of intentionally killing of an entire class of human beings should be called an “abortion right” is despicable. Only human persons can have “rights.” Governments do not create them, they can only recognize them. The act of abortion is a heinous crime. It has no "rights.”

The shorthand phrase “abortion rights” is a linguistic tool used by some journalists like Matthews to further the abortion deception. Even if the positive law of the United States has placed the Police Power behind protecting the evil “choice” to take innocent human life in the womb, one simply cannot have a “right” to do what is always wrong.

Matthews finally did have the good Bishop on his show. It quickly became clear that he intended to pummel him, browbeat him and try to persuade him to abandon the truth and excuse the error which Matthews has embraced. In his grandiosity and arrogance Matthews proceeded to talk over the Bishop, interrupt him, cut him off, and try to lecture him in a condescending manner on “the law”. He repeatedly tried to force him to answer loaded questions. He finally had the audacity to suggest that the Bishop needed to rethink his position.

MSNBC should publicly apologize to the Bishop and Matthews should be fired for his lack of professionalism. To not give this good and intelligent man, this Bishop of the Catholic Church, an opportunity to speak, after inviting him on this show, was inexcusable.

I hope Chris Matthews is reading this article. If you are Chris, here is my heartfelt personal message to you, “You should be ashamed of yourself. You need to get right with God and with your Church”.

Matthews feigned respect by repeatedly calling the Bishop “Your Excellency”, but his manner of proceeding revealed he has no respect for the Office. Matthews, a professing Catholic, also does not understand his own faith. He does not understand that his own Church’s unwavering opposition to the taking of all innocent human life at every age and stage is the ground of every social justice issue.

At several points in this frustrating interview, as the Bishop was trying to help Matthews see that the defense of the Right to Life is a "Natural Law" position and not simply "religious", Matthews simply cut him off and continued his ill mannered browbeating.

Yet, in spite of Matthews asinine effort to claim that morality has nothing to do with the law, the Bishop at least succeeded in showing that morality is the foundation of much of the positive law. He used a few salient examples such as our prohibiting in the law the killing of our neighbor, stealing his property or beating him up. Matthews would hear none of it.

Chris Matthews was not interested in interviewing Bishop Thomas Tobin. In this embarrassing excuse for a program he showed how inept he is as an interviewer, how misinformed he is as a Catholic, how rude he is as a person and how threatened he is by the Moral truth as taught with conviction and courage by his own Church.

Chris Matthews should be fired for his offensive and impolite Interview of Bishop Thomas Tobin. Then, he should sign up for the Right of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) and learn the Catholic faith all over again.

Chuang Yen Buddhist Monastery, Carmel NY

St. Gregory on Persecution of the Church

Moralia in Job 19.9.16:

For from her adversaries the Church suffers persecution in two ways, viz. either by words or by swords. Now when she bears persecution by words, her wisdom is put in exercise, when by swords, her patience. For now as well as daily we undergo persecutions of words at the hands of heretics, when heretics themselves flatter us with crafty tongues and with feigned humility. But persecutions of swords are destined to follow towards the end of the world, that the grains to be stored up in the heavenly granaries may be the more genuinely cleared of the chaff of sins, the more straitly they are bruised with affliction. Then all the Elect who are caught in that tribulation shall call to mind these times when the Church now secures the peace of the faith, as she sugjugates the proud necks of heretics, not by the potency of her highness, but by the yoke of reason. They shall call to mind us who are passing quiet times of faith, who, though we be straitened in the wars [St. Gregory was alluding to the hostilities of the non-Catholic Lombards.] of the nations, yet are not driven to extremity in the sayings of Fathers.

Obama the Abortion Fanatic

Obama Will Remove Abortion Funding Ban From Health Care Bill, Advisor Says
by Steven ErteltLifeNews.com Editor
November 15, 2009
Washington, DC
(Orginal: Lifesite; Comments from: wdtprs)

Top Obama advisor David Axelrod on Sunday confirmed what pro-life advocates already suspected would happen. He said President Barack Obama will work with congressional Democrats to remove the abortion funding ban the House approved in its version of the government-run health care bill. [Does anyone believe that the most aggressively pro-abortion President in the history of the USA will allow this bill to avoid funding abortion? Really?]

Axelrod says that, because the Stupak amendment allegedly goes beyond the status quo under the Hyde amendment (which bans abortion funding under Medicaid), Obama will make sure the amendment is yanked during the conference committee. [Isn’t it true that Hyde must be reaffirmed each year:?]

That’s the part of the legislative process that will occur if and when the Senate approves its own health care bill, which will likely start debate with abortion funding."The president has said repeatedly, and he said in his speech to Congress, that he doesn’t believe that this bill should change the status quo as it relates to the issue of abortion," Axelrod said today on CNN’s State of the Union program. [I think that is disingenuous. I suspect the President wants an increase in abortion, despite his rhetoric. That is the only explanation for his actions.]

"This shouldn’t be a debate about abortion. [?] And he’s going to work with Senate and the House to try and ensure that at the end of the day, the status quo is not changed," he added. "I believe that there are discussions ongoing to how to adjust it accordingly." [Okay… he is repeating "status quo". That must be the administration’s strong talking point now.]

Axelrod said that an agreement with ruling Democrats in Congress to remove the ban on taxpayer funding of abortions "can and will be worked through before it reaches his desk."Axelrod’s comments come after Obama’s own remarks which made it appear he would favor removing or weakening the Stupak amendment.

"I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill," Obama told ABC News last week. "And we’re not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions."

Obama appeared to side with abortion advocates who claim the Stupak amendment in the health care bill somehow changes the current status quo on government abortion funding.

“There needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we’re not changing the status quo” on abortion, Obama added. “And that’s the goal.”Obama also sided with pro-abortion groups in saying he wanted to make sure “we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices,” because he had promised that “if you’re happy and satisfied with the insurance that you have, it’s not going to change.”Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, chided Obama for his comments.

"The only thing that will prevent the health care bill from being ‘an abortion bill’ is precisely the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, as the House of Representatives recognized by a 46-vote margin," he said."

The phoniness of Obama’s claim that he has been trying to preserve the ‘status quo’ on abortion policy should be evident to any observer by now. In reality, the White House and top Democratic congressional leaders have been working hard to create a national federal government health plan that would fund abortion on demand, just as Obama promised Planned Parenthood," Johnson added.

Catholic University Conference: Francis Cardinal George and Charles Taylor

Invitation to

A Colloquium of Francis Cardinal George and Professor Charles Taylor

launching the research project “Faith in a Secular Age”



A Pew Foundation report indicates that typical of the exodus of people in their 20s and 30s from Church identification are young persons who seem not to have abandoned their basic beliefs or concern for the spiritual dimension of their lives, but to reflect these in an attitude of search rather than of commitment.

In response, the overall character of this research project points beyond collecting and inventorying what is presently known. Its focus is rather on unfolding the meaning of the heritage of the faith for the new dimensions and needs of our evolving human awareness, its challenges and opportunities. In this sense the goal is to make “belief more believable,” both for Professor Taylor’s contemporary “seeker” and indeed for all the faithful, and thereby to render all of personal and social life more fully human and thereby more theonomous or expressive of the divine.

This set of task forces or research teams will work for a 15 month period, alternating team meetings for planning and critical discussion with four month periods for personal research, reflection, and writing. This gives founded hope that light can be shed on this crucial issue of our day. Thus far two teams have been formed to focus respectively on:


(1) the interior spiritual search, led by John Haughey, S.J. of Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University, and

(2) the role of the spirit in the socio-political order of our global world, led by William Barbieri of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at The Catholic University of America.

The teams will consist of leading religious scholars from across the country and beyond.

The project aims: (a) to identify a new and deeper research focus appropriate for life in our secular age, (b) to build teams for effective exploration of new paths, and (c) to relate the findings to the Church’s pastoral heritage and present mission.

The effort will be launched by a public conversation of Francis Cardinal George of Chicago and Professor Charles Taylor, author of A Secular Age, on November 19, 2009 (4.00pm-8.00pm) in the Great Room of the Pryzbyla Center of The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. Leaders of the participating research teams will join them. All interested parties are invited to contribute their suggestions.

For registration which is free and open to the public, please RSVP to: http://www.crvp.org/.

For further information contact: cua-rvp@cua.edu; 202/319-6089.

St. Gregory the Great on the Natural Law

Moralia in Job, lib. IV

XXXII.63. Or like a still-born child hidden away, I would not
survive, or like the ones who were conceived but did not see the
light. (Job 3.16)

Because a still-born child has come before its time and perished,
it is hidden straightaway. The still-born whom the holy man
thinks of as companions for the rest he could have had must be
the elect who came into being from the first times of the world
before our redemption and still sought to render themselves dead
to this world. The ones who did not have the tablets of the
written law are like the ones who came forth dead from the womb,
because they feared their creator out of obedience to the natural
law; and since they believed in the Mediator to come they put
their pleasures to death and so sought energetically to obey even
the commands they had not received in writing. So the time that
brought forth our ancient fathers, dead to this world already at
the beginning of time, is the womb of the still-born.

For example, there was Abel who is reported not to have resisted
the brother who killed him. There was Enoch who proved himself
to be such a man that he was carried off to walk with the Lord.
There was Noe who outlived the world in the world because he had
been found pleasing to the Lord's scrutiny. There was Abraham
who was a pilgrim in this world, but a friend to God. There was
Isaac, whose eyes were misted over with age and who could not see
the present, but who saw as if by a great light things of future
ages through the prophetic power of the spirit. There was
Jacob, who fled the wrath of his brother in all humility, and
gently mastered it. He was blessed with great progeny, but he
was still more fertile in the abundance of the spirit, and bound
his offspring with chains of his prophecy. So this still-born
child is well spoken of as hidden away, because the great part of
the human race from the beginning of the world is hidden away
from us, while Moses wrote of a few we know about. Neither
should we believe that there were only so many just men down to
the time of the acceptance of the law as Moses wrote about so
briefly. Because therefore from the foundation of the world a
multitude of good men had come forth but are for the most part
hidden from our knowledge, this still-born child is called
hidden. It is said not to have survived, because the lives of a
few only are narrated in scripture and the greater part of them
survive for our memory in no record whatever.

64. But it is rightly added, "Or like the ones who were
conceived but did not see the light."

For those who were born into the world after the acceptance of
the law were conceived for their creator under the admonishment
of that same law. But the ones who were conceived did not see
the light because they could not survive to see the coming of the
Lord's incarnation, though they believed in it faithfully. For
the incarnate Lord says, "I am the light of the world," and
that light says, "Many prophets and just men longed to see what
you see and they did not see it." "The ones who were
conceived," therefore, "did not see the light," because they were
stirred to the hope in the coming Mediator by the plain words of
the prophets, but they could not actually see his incarnation.
The man conceived in their midst possessed the pattern of faith
within, but did not bring it forth to behold openly the divine
presence, for death intervened and took them from the world
before the Truth made manifest could enlighten the world.

65. So the holy man, filled with the spirit of eternity, bound
all these things to his memory as they slipped away, controlling
them with the hand of the heart. And because every creature is a
tiny thing next to its creator, Job sees past and future through
the same spirit that sees nothing except what always exists. He
lifts and lowers the eyes of the mind, looking to the past and
future, burning for eternity with all his heart, saying, "For now
would I be sleeping silently." ("Now" is of the present time.)
To seek the repose that stays constantly present is only to sigh
for the joy of eternity, to which there is no past or present.
Truth hints to us that this eternity is always his to pour out to
us, as Moses records, where it says, "I Am Who Am. And you will
say to the sons of Israel, The One Who Is sent me to you."

But because Job here sees the things that pass away, because he
seeks the ever-present joy, because he thinks of the coming
light, because he counts over the ranks of the elect--in this way
he is shows to us clearly the calm at the center of this light
and then using even clearer words shows what happens in that calm
to the ways of the wicked.

XXXIII.66. There the pitiless have left off from their uproar
and there is rest for all those wearied of their strength."
(Job 3.17)

A little earlier we said that the hearts of sinners are hemmed in
by a crowd of nagging ideas pressing in on them, for they are
held in the grip of clamorous desire. But the pitiless are said
to leave off from their rage in the light they could not see when
they were conceived, for the pagan peoples have found the coming
of that Mediator for whom the fathers who lived under the law had
long been waiting, who would bring tranquility to their lives, as
Paul attests: "What Israel has sought, this it has not achieved,
but the elect have achieved it." In this light the pitiless
leave off from their rage when the minds of the perverse learn
the truth and abandon the wearying desires of the world to find
rest in the tranquility of the love that lies within. Is not
that light summoning them to let go when it says, "Come to me all
you who labor and are burdened and I will refresh you. Take my
yoke upon you and learn from me that I am gentle and humble at
heart, and you will find repose for your souls. For my yoke is
sweet and my burden is light"? What burden is placed on the
mind by one who teaches that every troubling desire be shunned?
What burden does he command for his subjects when he urges us to
turn aside from the wearying ways of this world? But as Paul
says, "Christ died for the pitiless."

But it was for this that the Light deigned to die for the
pitiless, that the pitiless might not have to remain in the
uproar of their darkness. So let the holy man think about the
way the Light snatched the pitiless from their terrible labors by
the mystery of his incarnation, cleansing the desires of
wickedness from their hearts. Let him see how all those who have
turned from the world can taste here and now in peace of mind a
little of the repose which they long to have for eternity, and
let him thus say, "There the pitiless have left off from their
uproar and there is rest for those wearied of their strength."

67. For all the and mighty of this world are like the strong,
not worn out from strength. But whoever is strengthened by love
of his creator grows stronger in the longed-for strength of God
and grows proportionately weaker in his own strength. He desires
eternal things more vigorously and so grows weary and
lackadaisacal in the presence of temporal things--and rightly so.
Thus the psalmist was wearied of the strength of self-love when
he said, "My soul has grown weak in your salvation." By
advancing in the salvation that is of God he had grown weak
because in his yearning for the light of eternity he was
breathless and broken as far as trusting in his body was
concerned. So again he says, "My soul has desired and grown weak
for the courts of the Lord." No wonder that when he says, "has
desired," he adds rightly, "and grown weak," because a desire for
divinity must be small indeed if it is not soon followed by a
weakening of the self. Whoever is fired with desire for the
courts of eternity deserves to grow weak in love of temporal
things, becoming colder in his enthusiasms for the world, the
more warmly he rises in the love of God. If he should seize hold
of this love in fulness, he has left the world behind altogether.

And he dies entirely to earthly things by stirring with the
spirit of eternity in the heavenly life on high. Was not the man
who said, "My soul has turned to water when he spoke," telling
us that he had found himself wearied of his own strength? When
the mind is touched by the breath of hidden speech it grows weak
in the strength that comes from itself, and turns to water at the
touch of the desire that absorbs it. And so it finds itself
wearied when it sees a strength beyond itself to which it
aspires. So the prophet said he saw a vision of God and then
added, "I grew weak and sickened for many days." When the mind
is bound to the power of God, the flesh is weakened of its own
strength. So Jacob, when he had held the angel, soon began to
limp with one foot, because the man who sees lofty things with
true love has already forgotten how to walk the ways of this
world with its double desires. The man who is strengthened by
the love of God alone is relying on one foot alone; the other
foot must wither away because as the mind's power grows surely
the power of the flesh must wane.

Our Lady of China Mission, Washington, D.C.

歷史 History
THE BACKGROUND OF OUR LADY OF CHINA PASTORAL MISSION

Our Lady of China Pastoral Mission was established by the Archdiocese of Washington and Father Aloysius Tou was appointed as the mission director since 1982. The Mission primarily serves native Chinese people and members of their families who are not affiliated with a territorial parish in the Washington metropolitan area. The Mission started up with a small group of prayer meeting and occasional family mass with a few enthusiastic families in the suburban area of Washington. Until 1983 the regular Chinese Sunday mass began at the Old St. Mary's chapel of Rockville since the increase of Chinese immigrants and students. In response to the growing needs of newly arrived Chinese immigrants and various Chinese ethnic groups, the Cantonese group of our pastoral mission moved to Chinatown in 1987 and added another Sunday mass in Chinese at St. Mary's Church, 5th street and H street NW of Washington DC.

Based on the most recent census estimates, there are about 80,000 Chinese in the Washington Area, and the number of new Chinese immigrants have been increasing substantially in the recent years. One reason for this increase is the imminent political and social changes in Hong Kong and consequent increase in immigration quotas. In addition, the immigrants from mainland China are also increasing rapidly that they include another 20,000 quotas each year and 40,000 Chinese students who are currently studying in local universities across the country.

THE RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CHINATOWN GROUP

There are more than 140 family members and near 85 regularly attend Sunday Mass in Chinese. Growth is steady but there is still much to be done.

The group currently has an eleven-member parish council which meets once a month. Several ongoing programs for parishioners are organized by members of the laity: a prayer group of 6-10 families that meets at least once a month in Virginia; two Bible study groups of 8-12 families that meets once a month in Maryland; a youth prayer group with 7-10 members that meets once month; a RCIA program; three classes of CCD for preschoolers, young children and youths that are offered twice a month; a choir; a team of ten Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion to visit the sick; homeless shelter service once a month; at least one annual retreat; a liturgy committee; a bi-weekly luncheon program; a weekly newsletter and a bi-monthly newsletter; an annual picnic. In addition, more than 10 apostolates have completed EPS program in the local diocese.

Despite these many activities, our mission still has many needs that remain unfulfilled and many suggestions that cannot be implemented, such as providing family counseling, offering leadership training, developing a Chinese resource center, caring for the needs of the aged and the sick and participating in issues of social concerns.

Our most important task will be to bring faith and hope back to the church and to seek ways to strengthen, deepen, and propagate spiritual life among our people through our reliance on the teachings of the Gospel.

http://www.ourladyofchina.net/

Fabulous Website! Godbye Bad Bishops

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There is hope for their beleaguered dioceses.
And the tune is catchy!

Stop Pelosi and Abortion Lovers

From wdtprs:

From the NRLC: CONDITION RED

The US Bishops asked Catholics to act. Will you?
Condition Red

CALL CONGRESS TODAY!

The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on Friday, November 6, or Saturday, November 7, on Speaker Pelosi’s "rule" that would establish a federal government program that would pay for elective abortions with federal funds.

***Click here for guidance on how you can help stop her!***

To learn more about this critical issue, click here.

Updated short factsheet here!