To share with the needy, Jesus the King Melkite Catholic Church in Toronto, under the leadership of Fr. Ibrahim El-Haddad and his assistant pastors, has already sponsored close to 40 persecuted families of Syrian refugees making it one of the most active of Churches in the Greater Toronto Area. For details, contact the pastor's office.
Islamic terrorism has caused much suffering and put the world on high alert (see the latest here and here). Rather than getting easily angry after watching the news of Islamic terrorism, we could listen to Bishop Robert Barron on responding to terrorism here, to his "Catholicism" series in which he shows the mystical union of Christ and the Church (beautifully presented here), or read Fr. Henri Boulad, S.J. in his lecture on Christian compassion here, In fact, in one of his most recent homilies (in French here), Fr. Boulad opens up hope due to the messianic character of Christianity and condenses salvation history, still being written, in one homily. Henri Boulad said that with Jesus Christ there is a new humanity which we call the Church that is larger than being defined by a restrictive definition. Based on Dominus Iesus, I too think that being Catholic means a universality that finds its unity in the Catholic Church, to which everyone of goodwill is linked in a mysterious way regardless of religion, yet we, the Church, must continue to attract non-Christians to know and love Christ consciously (read me here). "Since Christ laid the foundation in the soil of humanity, the Church has been growing as a tree from the ground up. Since Christ entrusted the world to us, the world is in our hands..." The tendency of religions is to look to the past - The foundation is in the past,,,scriptures are in the past and prophets are in the past, But this raises a temptation of fundamentals in which fundamentalists of narrow-minds often fall, Boulad said. Resistant to any change, they do not understand that the Gospel is a journey, a cross-over and a forward movement to the future. God is ahead-Christ is ahead. It is why we speak of Christianity as a religion of eschatology (in Greek, eschaton means the crowning in the end), he said. After the Ascension of Christ, the disciples were asked to go preach the good news and do as their master did to help humanity and build the world in the goodness and love of Christ. Thus to prepare the world for the Second Coming of Christ, Christians need to pray, engage and work for purifying humanity from sins, egoism, and violence. "The Second Coming depends on us"! Not to wait for Christ to come but to engage in building society and the Church. The more important engagement is to be transformed myself by grace and to do like Little Thérèse of Lisieux who while in the Carmel was able in her short life to engage her inner heart, transform the world and so was declared patron of missions (see her story here). There are two types of society: One lives in cyclic time and the other lives in linear time. The one in linear time is the Christian society of hope and development. The goal is Christ "The Omega Point" according to Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. Christ attracts creation into his love.The cyclic time belongs to ancient myths. In his huge work in anthropology, Mircea Eliade wrote about "The Myths of The Eternal Return". Christ is the goal of creation...He calls me and invites me to be with him. "Take courage. I have conquered the world" said Christ (John 16:33). At this point the Jesuit scholar Henri Boulad ended his homily.
Then stands Mary Immaculate in her joy - "Mary conceived God in her thoughts before she conceived him in her womb" said St. Augustine. In one of his lectures at Jesus the King Church, which he delivered every week, Fr. Georges Farah defended the veneration of the Virgin Mary above all creatures and said a virgin is translated from Batula or Batul in the ancient Hebrew which is related to Beit Il or the house of God. How could Mary be the house or the temple of God? She could not unless she was without the stain of sin: original sin and personal sin. When someone sins, he misses his goal. Your goal is to be like God. You miss the goal when you become a slave to your selfishness and desires. But this little girl Mary was dedicated to God in the temple since her early childhood. She said Yes to his angel and never sought her glory. She was always in the shadows. To be born of an immaculate virgin, Christ saved her by protecting her in her conception from original sin and his grace accompanied her throughout her suffering and joys. And today, when there is much suffering and violence in the Middle East, we call on the Virgin Mary to protect her children there. She leads all to her son and point them to him as she pointed the workers in the wedding in Cana to Christ. To this picture, Bishop Ibrahim Ibrahim adds the beauty of the soul. In his talk to Sawt el-Rabb last December (here in Arabic), he said "We cannot see the birth of Christ except through the eyes of the Virgin Mary who was chosen by God to be the mother of his Son in the flesh. She carried him in her womb, delivered him, cared for him, and was with him to the end and yet remained ever-virgin,..She is our mother... "
From feeling the beauty of Christ, which St. Peter expressed "Lord, it is good for us to be here" when he saw Christ shines in the Transfiguration, we have to come back to our troubles. Fr. Jim Reposkey, Pastor of St. Alphonsus Roman Catholic Church in Toronto, recently gave a fiery homily reflecting today's corruption in the competition to accumulate money and possess more power. "We all do it" he said referring to the "Pagan society" which Thomas Cardinal Collins described a few weeks ago. Fr. Jim Reposkey continued "Then who can be saved?" Who can be saved if Man continues to uproot nature and refabricate its components to his own selfish desires? Pope Francis eloquently wrote about it in his encyclical "Laudato Si" (here). Who can be saved if all what I care for is me? Who can be saved if, for political gain, we support the abomination of immorality? (Henri Boulad S.J. touched on this here). Fr. Reposkey concluded "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God."
And yet, global terrorism is still manifesting itself in the possible evil use of new technology. On December 8, MIT Technology Review published a news article here in which the giant American technology company Google claims it has proved that a D-Wave computer installed by Google at NASA is a quantum computer that can run at 100 million fold against a conventional computer (see here a little explanation of quantum computers). There are serious fears that NASA may usher with this technology the so-called space wars. The issue is about dominion of America over the rest of the world not only economically but also in waging military wars using high technology via satellites and unmanned space ships.Control and power could ultimately destroy the inhabited earth especially if the new American administration next year is hawkish.
In September 2015, the American "Foreign Policy" published an article that raised moral questions as researchers in neurotechnologies have been able to control the human brain and read people's thoughts. The U.S. Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been working on extensive projects with universities that would allow the coding of artificial intelligence in advanced computers which in turn could be hooked to brains, potentially directing bionic soldiers or pilot aircrafts and implanting new memories in allies and enemies alike as desired by the controlling state or group. The race of the above efforts has been going for years in Russia, the European Union, and Japan "This is your brain as a weapon" said the author.
If the above materializes, the world could shortly see a new form of what we could call global terrorism...This is not the desire of any ordinary Christian before Christmas. As Fr. Boulad said "The desire of humanity for heaven brought heaven to earth". This is what we believe Christmas is all about. Joy to the world...How long will it be is another question for wounded humanity. Johann Sebastian Bach expressed humanity's longing for Christ in his musical masterpiece "Joy of Man's Desiring" here. As we go forward I hope to start to love him with ordinary people who choose him. We will still sing: "O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant - O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem - Come and behold him born the King of angels. O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him, O come, let us adore him Christ the Lord..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1wHyMR_SCA.
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