Our Lady's Message from Medjugorje

The Message of 25th August, 2007:


"Dear children! Also today I call you to conversion. May your life, little children, be a reflection of God's goodness and not of hatred and unfaithfulness. Pray, little children, that prayer may become life for you. In this way, in your life you will discover the peace and joy which God gives to those who have an open heart to His love. And you who are far from God's mercy, convert so that God may not become deaf to your prayers and that it may not be too late for you. Therefore, in this time of grace, convert and put God in the first place in your life. Thank you for having responded to my call."


Source: Children of Medjugorge

Encountering Spiritual Dryness

I'm finally able to pick up blogging again after a period of spiritual dryness. Thank you, Lord!

For the past a month or two, that dry feeling has caused me to stop taking part in the Youth Ministry and any activities to do with church. My job wasn't that enjoyable anymore... I saw more hardships and overcoming them became my priority. God was still there, I knew He was, but He kept quiet... so quiet that I couldn't get connected to Him.

So many times when I prayed, I told the Lord: "Father, please say something. I miss you."

Complete silence.

That was why I decided to stop blogging temporarily. When there is no divine inspiration, I have totally no idea of what to write. I started to do lots of reading on the teachings of the Church and looked up for the explanations and/or criticisms by the Protestant Christians I met online as well as a colleague of mine. I had a hard time explaining to them the Truth that has been revealed to the Catholic Church through the power of the Holy Spirit and the Bible. Well, apparently, I'm not a spontaneous person when it comes to explaining the Faith.

The more I heard about these criticisms, the more I saw the beauty and richness of the Traditions and Teachings of the Catholic Church. And the more I read the various articles ranging from Our Lady to the End of the World, I realized how very much God loves the world -- besides sending His one and only begotten Son to die for us (which is the clearest proof of His tremendous love and mercy), He still continuously reaches down to the World through the Sacraments, the saints, the various devotional prayers and novenas, and last but not least, Our Blessed Lady.

I wonder... how many Catholics out there who are actually aware that, all these are God's continuous effort to draw His children back and closer to Himself? There were so many whom I've met, both young and old, who doubted the validity of the Church's teachings, and even said that they are not needed. How sad.

Right now, I'm still slowly 'recovering'. Blogging might still be a bit slow, but I hope I'll pick up the original pace soon. During these 'dormant' period, a few topics that I've decided to brush off before kept coming back to me -- family praying together, the importance of child upbringing the catholic way, the teaching on purgatory and on God's forgiveness (the local youths had a wrong idea on these), and on the Judgement Day / the End of the World / Christ's Second Coming.

If you happen to drop by this page and read this post, please say a simple prayer for me. I thank you for your generosity and you will be in my prayers too. I also want to thank those who keep coming back to this blog for updates. Thanks all...

Changes in progress

If you've noticed, I'm trying to do some up-keeping of my blog. I'm still searching for the right template so do give me some times to get everything up...

I haven't been updating my blog for a while, due to my busy schedule. I've just fallen sick lately too, so I very much appreciate your prayers.

Thanks for keep coming back for more thoughts of mine!

God bless!

Women Ordination

A fellow member in VaticanFriends*, Mathias, wrote this wonderful and simple article on the ordination of women. I recommend those who have difficulty understanding this topic to have a read. Two thumbs up, Mathias! And thank you for allowing me to share this with others.

Jesus has appointed 12 jewish men as apostles. These men represent symbolically the 12 tribes of Israel - the "new covenant in the blood of Christ" is therefore not a contradiction to the old covenant but its completion and perfection. When Saint Paul writes to the Romans that "grace and vocation that are granted by God are irrevocable", this implies a "character indelebilis": also in apostasy a baptised remains baptised, a confirmed remains confirmed, and a priest remains priest - in the same way a jew remains a jew and has therefore the continuous calling to lead the heathens to God (that is to say to their king Christ).

This calling is not stopped when jews do not acknowledge Christ as their messiah - every jew will always be called to acclaim Christ as their king in order to be able to live their vocation.

As a consequence, there is a constancy between Israel and the Church (the people of God from Israel and the peoples) in the sense that the church is the completion and perfection of Israel (with the specialty that Israel is the heart of the church, the priestly people which has put forth the Messiah, while the heathens collect around this heart (pilgrimate to Zion).

Since Israel as ecclesial structure has declined the Messiah, we are confronted to a dilemma because God has promised us this way of salvation to Abraham, and because God who is the ever faithful one will without doubt keep this vow.

Because I am deviating a bit from the topic at this point, I will summarize a bit: Israel became realised in Mary, the daughter of Zion (a real symbol). At this point I would have to show the representation of Israel as woman in the old testament and the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel, as well as the description of the Church/Mary in the apocalypse of John as being crowned with 12 stars in order to demonstrate the realisation and perfection of Israel in the Church. But at this point is shall be enough to simply postulate this here.

The 12 Apostles represent the 12 tribes of Israel (the 12 stars of the Madonna in the apocalypse). This close constancy in the sense of perfection and completion is in contrast to the protestant view of the creation of something radically new (in the sense of an anti-principle, compare the principle of justice by deed at the jews in contrast to the principle of justice by faith of Luther). Given this close constancy of old and new covenant, the answer to the question why Jesus has appointed MEN is: because the priesthood of Israel was a single-sex male priesthood.

The next question which we pose now is: "Why did Israel have a single-sex male priesthood"? The answer to this question appears to be obvious: "because Israel was a chauvinistic, patriachial society that was oppressing women!". The next question that follows is: "What kind of societies were the surrounding peoples (the Assyrians, the Egypts, the Kanaans etc.)?". You will get 100 points for the answer "chauvinistic, patriarchal societies that were oppressing women".

But why on earth did these other peoples have a FEMALE priesthood? This is evident: the religious life would not have been possible without these priests. As a consequence the prize question is: what was the difference between Israel and the heathens that both "women oppressing monsters" had such a different understanding of pristly office?

At this point one must add, that the heathens had a polytheistic heaven full of different gods that included gods with a lived sexuality while the Israelites had a asexual monotheism. At the heathen peoples, the consequence of the sexualised heaven was a sexualisation of the religious cult and of liturgy, which is always accused heavily in the Old Testament as one of the greatest evils of the surrounding peoples (next to human sacrifices) and which is therefore rejected.

To put it in a nutshell, one can say that Israel had a single-sex priesthood because their image of God was an asexual one and because the cult was always free of sexuality - which demands as last consequence naturally also celibacy. Celibacy was already founded in the Old Testament in the form of cultic pureness: the priest in charge was not allowed to sleep with his wife in the same bed during the times he was enacting his priestly functions. This foundation was only in fragments and did not yet arrive at a state of completeness, just the same as the law of Israel without Christ did not yet arrive at a state of completeness.

Israel was always aware (and this was vital in order to differentiate itself from the surrounding heathen peoples) that one cannot change the cult (which is the rite) without changing at the same time also the image one has of God and His relation to the people. As a consequence, one may not change anything substantial and anything having identifying character in the rite. It is not a coincidence that - at that time - Cardinal Ratzinger saw a direct link between the reform of liturty (the turning around of the altar) and the call for women ordination which was based in a shifted focus on human beings (anthroposcentration).

One would have to add in this context also the role of the church as emancipator of the woman and as the one who laid the basis for the idea of sexual equality (for instance, in its laws on marriage the church was the first institution to have the same law for men and women). Also, one would have to work out here that neither the church nor Israel had a fundamental problem with having women leadership: Israel had a Queen and the irish double-monasteries were under the rule of an abbess which kept her own auxiliary bishops for consecrations. But this would go beyond the topic of this essay and it would take more time than I've been allotted to here. But it is important here to see that the fundamental reservation of consecrations for men is not primarily based on the patriarchal structure of the time (which is true for the under-representation of women in offices that have no theological reservation), but that this is due to a theological differentiation from idolatry.

Other interesting links:

Literature to the constance between Israel and the Church:
Dieter Böhler SJ, Maria die Tochter Zion – die Bedeutung der Mutter Jesu in der Hl. Schrift, GuL 78/6 (2005) 401-412.
Joseph Ratzinger, Die Tochter Zion. Betrachtungen über den Marienglauben der Kirche. Einsiedeln 1977.
Werner Löser SJ, Maria, der Tochter Zion, in: A. Raffelt (Hg.), Weg und Weite (FS K. Lehmann). Freiburg-Basel-Wien 2001, 535-547.
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger/Hans Urs von Balthasar, Maria Kirche im Ursprung, Johannes Verlag Einsiedeln, Freiburg, 2005.
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Maria für heute, Johannes Verlag Einsiedeln, Freiburg 1997.

Literature to the constancy related to priesthood and sacrifice in the old and new covenant:
Dieter Böhler SJ, El sacrificio de Israel, el sacrificio de Cristo y el sacrificio de la Iglesia, Diálogos universitarios 3, León (México) 2004.

Footnotes:
[1] Compare. Mt 5,17: “denkt nicht ich bin gekommen, um das Gesetz und die Propheten aufzuheben. Ich bin nicht gekommen um aufzuheben, sondern um zu erfuellen”.

[2] Röm 11,29.

[3] Compare Denzinger 1609.

[4] Mi 4,1-3.

[5] Compare Dieter Böhler SJ, Maria die Tochter Zion – Die Bedeutung der Mutter Jesu nach der Hl. Schrift.
I have listened to his speeches and base my arguments also on private conversations with this author.

[6] Dtn 23,18f.

[7] Among others Lev 20,1-5.

[8] Compare Denzinger 185.

[9] This source will be handed in later on.

~ By: Mathias, Germany

*VaticanFriends.com is a global Catholic internet community. It provides free chat, messaging, profiles, forum, galleries. It is a network for Catholics loyal to the Pope and to all teachings as defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Contact:

Dr. Philipp Wilhelm
Rigistr. 7, 6410 Goldau, Suisse
Email: Philipp.Wilhelm[at]VaticanFriends.com

World Youth Day 2008 Theme Song

For those who are very much interested in World Youth Day 2008, which will be held in Sydney, Australia, here are some little updates.

The theme song for WYD 2008 has been produced. You can see the video clip below, or/and download it here for both English and international version. For my Malaysian friends, guess what, this song "Receive the Power" is written by Gary Pinto together with Guy Sebastian!



Also, click here to read the Message of the Holy Father for the preparation of World Youth Day 2008. If you are going to this wonderful event, it is a must read!

I hope to see you, my readers and my blogging friends in Sydney for World Youth Day. Let me know if you're confirmed going, probably we can arrange for some kind of meet up. What say you?

God bless!