Mass for Family on Sunday April 17

I requested Fr. Ibrahim El-Haddad, Pastor of Jesus the King Melkite Catholic Church in Toronto, to offer the noon Mass on Sunday April 17 for the living and the dead of the Farahat family. Far from being a show-off, there are many reasons for such a request. In my mind, I pray almost every night for my immediate family (my wife, children and myself); the extended family (brothers; in-laws; cousins and relatives: All with their children and their families too); and friends (that we knew or know) including their children and families. As for the departed ones, I pray for our parents, grandparents and every person we know who recently departed to God. Two persons in the extended family departed recently to God: one in Canada and one in Lebanon. I also mention the sick and old that I know, and in general the persecuted; women and kids raped or sold by extremists; people facing injustice; and the poor.

But why pray?  For who? Why in the Mass?
Prayer is first of all to help us seek God; ask for his forgiveness; love God and our families and everyone we know as much as possible. Prayer allows us to align ourselves with the good will of God for each one of us. But I believe that Christ wants us to enjoy this life too within reason. Here too we can find God. The natural world is full of beauty that reflects the beauty of its maker. We pray for ourselves, our families and parents, our children, and people we meet. We pray for their happiness and joy here and in eternal life.
And the community prayer allows us to share our thoughts and love. In the Mass, the community is the family celebrating together the self-sacrifice of God on the cross and his resurrection. The Mass is a re-presentation of the one self-abandonment of Christ for our sake to attract all humanity to his beloved Father in the Holy Spirit. Every good is accomplished through the Spirit of Christ who helps you and me and everyone else to be Christ-like...
May the Lord Jesus Christ the King our God and Savior, bless the entire world.through the prayers of Mary the Mother of God and all the angels and saints.

Today's Dilemmas of Materialism

On Sunday April 3 at Holy Rosary Church near my home, Monsignor Robert Nusca spoke about the doubts of St. Thomas the Apostle (John 20: 19-31) in today's world. It was Divine Mercy Sunday inspired by St. Faustina Kowalska, O.L.M, a mystic of  Poland who received apparitions of the Lord, died in 1938,   was beatified by St. John Paul II in 1993 and canonized by him in 2000. From St. Thomas doubts, Monsignor Nusca reminded the parishioners of the recent doubts about the moral issues that the Liberal Government of Canada has raised in legalizing |"Assisted Suicide" by June, and the letter issued by Thomas Cardinal Collins and read in all local Churches in which he objects on the basis of freedom of conscience to such act. Since then the Catholic Church in Canada has managed to defend the medical ethics of healthcare providers and ill individuals affected by imposing the legislation. Support for the Christian stand has increased in recent weeks with 5,000 doctors and other partners who are committed to protecting conscience rights. Every Christian in Canada is encouraged to defend their faith and the freedom of conscience by visiting the website of the Coalition for HealthCARE and Conscience here: http://www.canadiansforconscience.ca and taking action or writing directly to your Member of Parliament here: http://www.canadiansforconscience.ca/#takeaction At Holy Rosary, we signed letters that will go to the MPs.


On the same Sunday, Jesus the King Melkite Catholic Church celebrated the Sunday of St. Thomas. You may wish to read about it here:http://todayquestions.blogspot.ca/2008/06/thomas-doubt-leads-to-faith.html

But the crisis goes much deeper:
This is the great desolation of  civilization. If I have to explain it in detail it will take me a full week. Just briefly: It started with the Reformation in the 16th century. Martin Luther thought that every individual Christian is free to interpret Scriptures according to what he feels the Holy Spirit is telling him. This idea created "individualism." Individualism is rampant today, thanks to other modern philosophers such as the existentialist Sartre. Only me counts. "The other is my hell." It is interesting to note how this has been applied successfully in contemporary thought and technology too. Nothing is done in a vacuum. One thing you must understand is that we are all related in this cosmos. Following Luther in interpreting St.Paul, Calvin thought that God predestined people as he willed to heaven or hell so if they were destined to heaven they will also be blessed here on earth. John Courtney Murray, S.J. who was the main contributor to Vatican II's "Declaration on Freedom of Religion" wrote how Calvinism re-emerged in North-America. Calvinism was brought by the early Europeans to America.  Soon enough the idea of individualism combined with the idea of blessedness on earth and produced the idea of Capitalism long before Adam Smith thought of it in economic terms. In simple terms, if I am blessed here as a Christian, I would rather use all the resources available to me to realize this blessing on earth as much and as wide as possible. This is greed in the form of Capitalism. Sure I will help the needy but I will also help myself much more from what they have. The earth is mine and I will explore its richness to the end! Today, Capitalism rules the earth. Free market enslaves people. Recall the political and economic pressure by the IMF on the underdeveloped countries to free their economy in the 1980s and 1990s. What is the global crisis but the result of that greed globally? Why is the globe in economic recession today but because of the powerful wanting more power and meanwhile robbing the nations of Africa and Asia from their resources? It is part of the nationalist movements' claims in the underdeveloped world. The entire U.N. charter is only ink on paper...Along with Capitalism a twin ideology was born: materialism.

Since the Enlightenment in the 19th century West, philosophers and scientists have been asking whether there is indeed any reality beyond matter. Some great materialist/atheist philosophers include Hume, Voltaire, Marx, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Michel Foucault and many others. The "New Atheists" of today such as Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss are scientists who devote much time attacking religion because they constrain their research to what is observable in the cosmos. In schools today, our children learn mostly what constitutes physics but very little, if any, about metaphysics (i.e. beyond physics).

Today we see how our consumerist society has invested in this ideology. Businesses flourish based on selling products to consumers. The more we consume the more business flourishes. This is the child of materialism married to capitalism. With globalization in the 1980s-1990s and beyond, large businesses and huge investors were able to reach the entire globe. Europe and the Far East imitated America and did the same. Who paid the price? Small business, and ordinary people like you and me. Materialism also bore the ideology of Communism which was carried out in Russia and persecuted religion from 1917 to 1989 in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Today Communism still lives in political pockets in Europe and is widely known under a more moderate name as socialism. Communism robbed people of their rights to private property. People became enslaved to the government of their land. It engulfed a whole generation of thinkers, even within the Church particularly in Latin America where people remain quite poor. Capitalist America supported dictatorial regimes in Latin America in order to suppress these movements.

Another twist of the moral order took place in the two World Wars. Because many men were sent to the battlefield women were forced to work in order to support their families. The radical feminist ideology was born  in the early 1920s and grew quickly in the 1940s and 1950s. Women started building their own career like men. Equality with men, not in dignity as known in traditional Christianity, but in all aspects of roles in business as well as at home was furiously demanded. This started the collapse of the family as we know it. Today we know many men and women who are, contrary to the moral Law, legally divorced. The feminist movement also produced legalization of abortion as the right of woman according to the land's law has a priority over the existence of the fetus in her womb. The Western civilization lost millions of unborn babies in this genocide. By the 1960s the sexual revolution was in the making, this time freeing people from the sex complex as defined by Freud. Soon afterwards, it became common that young people practice their intimate sexual "love" in the public with no shame. Today we know of couples who live together a life of sexual promiscuity and adultery without marriage or within marriage by prior agreement.

The last evil came under the influence of the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (died 1900). The ideology is known as Moral Relativism: Nietzsche sees the slave-morality as a social illness that has overtaken Europe — a derivative and resentful value which can only work by condemning others as evil. In Nietzsche's eyes, Christianity exists in a hypocritical state wherein people preach love and kindness but find their joy in condemning and punishing others for pursuing those ends which the slave-morality does not allow them to act upon publicly. Nietzsche calls for the strong in the world to break their self-imposed chains and assert their own power, health, and vitality upon the world. In Relativism (called also Postmodernism), everyone is right. There is no absolute right and absolute wrong. This helps political correctness in the pluralistic world of today.

In my humble opinion, we need to pay attention to the present, learn lessons from the past, and pray for the future. We seem to have lost our way between the False Prophet (Radical Islam) and the Beast (Civilization).

There is a tremendous thirst in the young generations for spiritual nourishment that gives meaning to their lives. Let us focus on those ones for their deprivation of spiritual nourishment leads them to emptiness and depression which in turn cause suicide or worse they could join the extremist Jihadists (as we already see in Europe and North America) and we end up having a crazy army of terrorists killing themselves and us in the name of God as prophesied "children will rise against parents and have them put to death"(Matthew 10:21). Churches are "not museums" according to Saint Pope John XXIII. They must be the light for nourishment of Christians, notably the young and (almost) lost generations, in everything that they need to learn to live spiritually and survive materially i.e. to develop in their knowledge and love of God and of others.Virtual websites for Church activities and online social networking need to be developed for those who are far.

The world needs a lot of prayer and intelligent collaboration in good faith to avoid a clash of civilizations and a third World War, something that Pope Francis warned about. Christians need to respect and love their fellow Muslims who worship the same God - The crimes of extremists cannot be counted against the vast majority of Muslims. We hope that the warnings of Fatima will be avoided. Mary is the mother of both Christians and Muslims, and as Bishop Fulton sheen said, Mary will bring them all to her Son.

But more prayers are needed to save the civilization from destroying itself internally. This is the harder one. We believe in what the Saviour said 'Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age' (Matthew 28:20).

Eternal Life

Last Tuesday, a two-year old toddler "Chase Martens" went missing from his family's farm in Manitoba, Canada. When the parents could not find him they asked for help. Immediately, hundreds of Canadians went on the search for the little one. RCMP and search-and-rescue crews combed a four-kilometer radius in the fields around the family's home near Austin including air and land search.  On Easter Saturday, the body of the toddler was found dead in a creek half-a-kilometer from home. We hope Chase is with God, but why have so many Canadians spent their efforts for a single toddler?  How important was his life for Canadians?

Life is important...It is important because society itself cannot survive without respect for every life and cooperation which could ultimately lead to love. The clear message is found in the development of civilization rooted in the death and resurrection of Christ. Before Christ, only kings and governors mattered, but with the humanism initiated by him, emperors and kings gave way to the culture of life for every human person. The early Church developed among peasants and soldiers in the base before the proclamation arrived to the palaces. Christian faith defends the vulnerable, the poor, the weak, and yes the Church prays for those who commit suicide. God always works through his Spirit in every soul on earth to help the seekers of goodness and truth repent and find God in Christ. "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock" says Christ (Revelation 3: 20). He wants to give life - eternal life and joy!

This is also why the Church does not agree with any measures or laws that are anti-life such as abortion of children in the wombs of their mothers, and assisted suicide.  Not only life here, but joy in eternal life that humanity seeks.

In scripture "Love is strong as death". What is stronger than death? Love of God that emerges from God. It is the other that can carry me not as a shadow but in reality when I die. This is only a small excerpt from Joseph Ratzinger's thought on the truth of the Resurrection of Christ here:
Joseph Ratzinger: The Truth of the Resurrection
http://todayquestions.blogspot.ca/2012/04/joseph-ratzinger-truth-of-resurrection.html

O Sacred Head Surrounded

In this Holy Week, victims fell to terrorism in Belgium and many more fell in the Middle East too. European and North American politicians were quick to condemn the terrorist attack in Brussels. On the same night of the Brussels incident, the commentator Amr Adeeb in Cairo Egypt reflected on the image of Islam in the world after so many terrorist attacks by the so-called Islamic State. He said that the world today is different from the world before the Arab Spring which may very well turn against Arabs.
We can probably link this week's sufferings and death to Christ's passion and death. He was a victim and they too are victims. The difference is his acceptance to suffer and die according to the will of his Father.
[Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, and put it on his head, and arrayed him in a purple robe; they came up to him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!" and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again, and said to them, "See, I am bringing him out to you, that you may know that I find no crime in him." So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, "Behold the man!" When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, "Crucify him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no crime in him" The Jews answered him, "We have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God." When Pilate heard these words, he was the more afraid; he entered the praetorium again and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" But Jesus gave no answer. Pilate therefore said to him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you, and power to crucify you?" Jesus answered him, "You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above; therefore he who delivered me to you has the greater sin." Upon this Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, "If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend; every one who makes himself a king sets himself against Caesar."When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, and in Hebrew, Gab'batha. Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold your King!" They cried out, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which is called in Hebrew Gol'gotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote a title and put it on the cross; it read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." Many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. The chief priests of the Jews then said to Pilate, "Do not write, `The King of the Jews,' but, `This man said, I am King of the Jews.'" Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written." When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and made four parts, one for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was without seam, woven from top to bottom; so they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be." This was to fulfil the scripture, "They parted my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots."So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), "I thirst." A bowl full of vinegar stood there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished"; and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Since it was the day of Preparation, in order to prevent the bodies from remaining on the cross on the sabbath (for that sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him; but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness -- his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth -- that you also may believe. For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, "Not a bone of him shall be broken." And again another scripture says, "They shall look on him whom they have pierced." After this Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him leave. So he came and took away his body.  Nicodemus also, who had at first come to him by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds' weight.  They took the body of Jesus, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.] (John 19).

The gospel read on Good Friday in St. Basil's Roman Catholic Church reminds us of a homily by Fr. Georges Farah at Jesus the King Church years ago...It shows the forces that stood against Christ on his way to save them: the high priests, the Jewish people, and Pilate. The crowds were singing to Jesus a week earlier and now they turned against him. The high priests thought they were not doing anything wrong. Their duty was to keep the Law and to make sure that no revolution will take place when they are occupied by a staunch enemy: the Roman empire. They thought it is better for one man to die than the whole nation to perish. Pilate was a foreign governor who had no interest in religious Jewish quarrels. His dialogue with Christ before ordering his crucifixion sheds light on us today as much as it did then. He questioned Christ at length, prompted by his wife’s request to release him. But Christ remained silent! He then asked him “So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." Pilate said to him, sarcastically, "What is truth?" as if saying to him: You have nothing. You are going to be killed for saying things. Be wise. Forget about truth-Just worry about your life and survival here.  I can release you and you can go to Rome. Live your life there as a free man…Pilate could have said that to any other person but the answer of Christ is the same. The Truth is a big thing in Christ’s way of thought and life. He must defend the Truth to the end. He is not politically correct. And he cares for everyone even when everyone is against him.

“Behold the Man” Pilate tells the Jews when he is surrendering Christ to them. Christ is said to have been  crucified on the place called Golgotha i.e. The Skull, the skull of Adam- the skull of humanity. His blood went into the skull of humanity and he went to Hades so that he could save by his death the dead humanity. Christ’s Cross is tied to his Resurrection. No life without death.

Now look at Pilate and think of us: Do what you want – Just be silent in matters of truth. Is not this how we think today? Do not we crucify Christ everyday? Here Fr. Georges Farah ended his reflection. 

But the same question can be asked again in view of the surrender of Christ to his Father's will - He loved his Father from eternity but here he joined his human nature to that eternal love and cried out "It is finished" when he tasted to the full the darkness and spoke about  his imminent death; a death of God that embodies not only the self-emptiness of the Son but also the suffering of the Father with the Son on the cross according to Jurgen Moltmann in his book "The Crucified God". Who is king? Who is God? In the same gospel, let us view the  saints that accompanied Christ to his death and witnessed to his resurrection, notably the immaculate Virgin Mary Mother of Jesus, John the Apostle, Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus. 

Let us sing "O Sacred Head Surrounded":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XppXi_jZKWk

Fr. Mardini on the Cross

Yes. Fr. Paul Mardini was at Jesus the King Melkite Catholic Church in Toronto today.The popular spiritual master, whose talks are published on Lebanon's Télélumière, gave a homily on the cross at the noon Mass.
Fr. Mardini spoke first about the preaching of the Church. He gave the example of the Apostle Philip as reported in the Acts of the Apostles: [So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" And he said, "How can I, unless some one guides me?" And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him..... And the eunuch said to Philip, "About whom, pray, does the prophet say this, about himself or about some one else?" Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture he told him the good news of Jesus. .] (Acts 8: 30-35).  It is indeed the mission of the Church to speak the "Word of God". A great example that comes to mind is St. Thérèse of Lisieux proclaimed patron of missions although she never left her convent in her short life.

The Cross: Fr. Mardini reminds his audience by Jesus words that once he is on the cross offering himself as a sacrifice for humanity, he will draw all to him. His blood purifies the earth that drank Abel's blood and sanctifies those who respond to his call...["And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.”] (John 12: 32). However, Mardini said, he knows of the wife that complains "My husband is my cross"; the children that complain "Our parents are our cross"; or the father who interrogates his daughter and calls her "his cross". But the cross for Christians is the instrument that the Lord used to crush death and darkness. Jesus brought the resurrection and joy by his death.What kind of joy? Scripture gives the key "Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." (John 13:1). "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13).

The example he gives is the love of every mother for her children. The shining example is the Blessed Virgin Mary whom Jesus blessed  [...a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked!" But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"]. Yes. Mary heard the word of God. She delivered the Word of God to the world. We, therefore, proclaim with Elizabeth "Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord." (Luke 1: 42-45).

Having learned the joy of the resurrection of Christ, we too should carry our crosses with joy until we meet our beloved Lord in the everlasting life that he prepared for us. [And he who sat upon the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."] (Revelation 21: 5)

Let us close with this wonderful hymn "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9eCUqz_x5A