A Link Worth Visiting,..

I don't usually update twice in a week, but recently came across a site that all men and all women should visit called the Porn Effect.  You can access this site here.  I've blogged about the dangers of pornography before and its a subject that is all too often avoided by priests, pastors or any religious figure for that matter.  You want a thesis,..well here's a thesis,.."PORNOGRAPHY DESTROYS PEOPLE, TURNS WOMEN INTO PLAYTHINGS AND EMASCULATES MEN!"  I will be putting it into my 'Links' section as well.  We all struggle with it, and right now its an epidemic.  Back in the eighties you could throw it away but with the internet,..a whole other story. 

St Maria Goretti,...Ora Pro Nobis.

Liberal Openness,..and Other Things that Make me Throw up...

Over the last week, I have followed the latest in the Vatican/SSPX talks in hopes for a mutual reconciliation and finally a normalizing of this priestly fraternity.  A couple of years ago, the Holy See lifted the excommunications on the Society, (some would even argue if they were really even excommunicated...) and thus started the process back to reunification.  Most in the Church are praying,..because well schism is not good.   But as always,.there are some that aren't praying for this reunification, cause well, it would imply a certain 'mindset' in the Vatican.  That mindset of course is a Catholic one!!!

Yup,..so I guess you've guessed that the ones opposed to this reunification are the same people who would love to see a unification of hmmm, let's see Catholics and Hindus,.we could call them 'Hindolicsim!'  (The Pope could say he was reincarnated upward from being a snow owl in a previous life in order to bring the Eucharistic 'meal' to the various caste systems!)  Or maybe they'd like to see a Catholic Muslim hybrid?  'Cathslam'  The only religion whereby metaphysics completely goes out the window!  C'mon liberals get into the 'spirit!'  See how open minded I'm becoming?  Aren't you proud?  Then why is it you only desire tolerance and open mindedness to everybody except the CATHOLIC FAITHFUL!!!  You retrograde 1960s throwaways are the most absurd bunch of burnouts I've ever come into contact with!!!  You'll tolerate a dude wanting to blow himself up in the name of God, claiming that culturally we don't understand him,..yet at the same time, you won't tolerate Marian piety especially among seminarians giving them the code word,.'rigid.'  I've got another codeword,..I call them 'Catholic!'  You know the authentic Christian Faith that was passed down to them from the Apostles who were ordained at the Last Supper???  

Our Lord prayed that his Church may be one as He and the Father are One.  That being said,.reunification with the SSPX is something that all Catholics can pray for.  Perhaps offering a Rosary or even a Mass.  Our Holy Father Benedict XVI has been working overtime under the direction of the Holy Spirit trying to undo false notions and theories that had absolutely NOTHING to do with Vatican II.  Let us pray that the SSPX who consecrated four Bishops without approval of the Holy See (Which is wrong!) and the Vatican (which has presented its terms in form of a document, contents unknown,..) can reach an agreement and relations can be normalized.  As far as the freakos and creepos still running the 'Liturgy Commitee' (Wtf is that anyway?)  the heterodox nuns or woman religious or faithful hermaphrodites or whatever they want to call themselves teaching Yoga, Reiki and even Kama Sutra,..they can all go and,...(won't finish the sentence...;))

I am asking everybody to pray for me as I discern priesthood.  The more I study and even as an external student, the more I find my soul at peace.  Does this mean my writing style will change?  At first I thought it would,..(see a few posts down 'Coffee Break or Crescent Kick?) whereby I say it.  I have since prayed about it.  If God is calling me to priesthood,..He is calling me not to change my approach.  I'm still the Catholic, MMA, Transformers, Social Conservative Dude with big arms, and guess what?  Our Lord and Our Lady must have one great sense of humour!   The call to Holiness is universal,..but as has been said before,..'meekness is NOT weakness!

St Padre Pio,...........Ora pro nobis!

The Apex of Catholic Awesomeness

Well its official!!!!  Last Saturday night, Fr Tom Dowd was officially installed as auxiliary Bishop of Montreal along with Bishop Christian Lepine.  Since then I've been feeling like that scene from 'Goodfellas' when Jimmy Conway tells Henry Hill about Tommy getting made was like all of us getting made.  (Of course in the movie,..Tommy gets killed because of the Billy Batz thing..) Nevertheless,.I digress,.but am very happy for Bishop Dowd.  Can you smell it?,..The wind of change is upon us and solid men, guys who were inspired by John Paul II's invitation to discern Christ's will for their lives are now beginning to take their place in the Church hierarchy.  Fr Donald Calloway MIC remarked that Our Lady's Blue army is on the way,.and if there is one thing that these men have in common,..is that they are all orthodox!!!

So a shout out to Bishop Tom,..your a Bishop now, and thus in charge of shepherding souls home to Heaven.  There is a lot of work to be done,..no doubt about it, but with God's grace you'll do fine.  Montreal with God's help will once again return to her Catholic roots,.or 'Ville Marie' as she was known...

Bishop Tom,.........shepherd us!

A Coffee break,..or a Crescant Kick?

Some little techniques that I do while training.  What I'm demonstrating in this video is an outside crescant kick,..it comes from Shaolin Gong Fu or Kung Fu...As we get older, our bodies tend to tighten up, so it becomes necessary for our well being and training that we remain flexible...Enjoy!

Working out the Math,..the 'Why' of Catholicism.

Well yesterday was my first day of school since graduating Concordia University in 2004.  What to make of it?  Well,.for one, I am what you call an external student at L'Institution de Formation Theologique de Montreal or by its more common name Le Grand Seminaire.  The courses in question are the Philosophy of Man and Greek Philosophy.  Why philosophy?  Well in order to properly understand theology, we need to first of all rationally understand ourselves, our very 'being.'  Although I've only had one class,..I can see that this is truly where I belong and thus Spiritual Direction and the will of God be done, should He decide that I should be called to 'ontological' change!  lol!!!!

Last night upon my return to the gym,..I was met with a very honest question from a protestant adherent,..the 'born-again' kind,..not the 'Everything in the Bible is symbolic kind.'  This person was a former Catholic,.(way to go social justice catechists,..you lost another one!) and was curious as to why I was taking Philosophy instead of not just studying the BiiiiBULL!  Indeed a fair question and one that needs to be reflected upon with some critical thinking.  Philosophy is a metaphysical science studying things that are not necessarily perceptible to the sense, none the less we can 'know' of their existence by rationalizing backwards.  St Thomas Aquinas noted in his arguments, that God can be seen through the lens of reason by working 'a posteriori.'  (Studying a series of 'effects' back to its 'cause.')  The Bible is the product of the Church and thus to begin with an absolute premise that the Bible is automatically to be accepted would not bear much fruit in speaking with a non-believer!  So what do we do?  We start by establishing universal absolutes that can be known by the faculty of reason alone. 

The atheist as well as the protestant must believe that everything in motion has been put into motion by something already in motion.  (We don't stop at train tracks and watch a box car go by,..it has to be pulled by a locomotive.)  Now this can't go on forever,..so it would necessitate an unmoved 'mover.'  Using Aristototle, we have already stimulated the atheist into thinking that this makes sense.  Their arguments based on 'chance' simply do not hold water!  Why?  Because not only are we in motion, but we are also 'rightly ordered.'  When a man's sperm meets a woman's egg, she can become pregnant.  As rational persons,.it is safe to assume that a human being will be born.  By the atheists' logic,..it might as well be a giraffe, or maybe even a mailbox?  (There's a visual for ya!)  So now we can safely declare to the atheist,..that it requires more blind faith to actually be an atheist!  Chaos theory simply doesn't work,.it must be a reorganization of matter.  Simply put, something cannot come from nothing,..something MUST come from something.

Next up,..the followers of Eastern Religions or Philosophies. Before we begin, it must be noted that as Catholics, we reject nothing which is Holy and True in these religions.  Our atheist friend has now become a Hindu.  Once again, we are asked why we don't believe Hinduism is true.  Well, we can once again go back to our metaphysical reasoning,..that an unmoved mover must exist pressing 'play' on the eternal DVD player setting us in motion.  Hinduism,.(as well as Buddhism, of which sprang out of Hinduism) has a particular cosmology whereby their 'gods' Brahman, Vishnu, and Shiva spring forth or are 'created' out of the Brahma (which can be compared to an impersonal 'force.')   Thus their 'gods' themselves are created,..so they can't be infinite and are subject to potential,..ie 'change.'

Islam.  Please see my archives,.as I did a small series on Islam which can be found here .  This was part two, a brief explanation on the Muslim concept of God.

Judaism.  In Judaism,.we have the first of the Abrahamic Faith Traditions with a great intellectual anchor.  Maimonides, the great Jewish thinker for instance, of whom Aquinas was also influenced.   Traditional Judaism stresses the monotheistic absolute that God is One and that He is Truth!  They also knew of what philosophers called the human condition, or a conflict between the intellect and the will.  God,.reveals Himself to Moses in the Old Testament and pretty much validates what the rational mind conceives of God.  That is One and Truth with no creator.  Thus revealing His name,.'I AM WHO AM' becomes significant as we can confidently say that God is the very same as His essence (substance.)  Test it,..I can ask you two questions, who are you and what are you?  Inevitably, unless you have serious psychological deficiencies, you should answer I am Sally or John or whatever proper name you have,..to the second question you would answer that you are human.  Now ask the same two questions to God,.."I AM WHO AM."  Awesome isn't it? ;)  The rest becomes a series of questions and ways to atone for God by offering sacrifices and observing a prescribed Divine Law,.(10 commandments.)  The issue of  who Jesus is what divides us.  (I will be writing some posts on the Trinity in the very near future...)

Jesus.  Two summers ago,..as I was getting into my thinking,.a person got into my car and noticed a rosary hanging from the rear view mirror.  'For me,..Jesus was an incredible person, an ethical man..'  That line for whatever reason would haunt me as I was unable to turn off my philosophical 'Thomistic' brain sense that he may as well have told me that Jesus disturbed man!  You can't have it both ways.  (CS Lewis, used that line of thinking..)  Now,..along with the historical stuff (of which I haven't even really touched upon..) we have ample evidence!  An empty tomb,.Pontius Pilate, the testimony of Flavius Josephus, Lucian the Greek, not to mention the martyrdom of nearly all of Jesus's Apostles!  Had the story not been true, it would be highly unlikely that people would freely let themselves be eaten by lions instead of recanting.

So now we have come full circle into Christianity!  We have already 'proven' Christianity true,.so why Catholicism?  I am currently working on a post whereby I'll be examining all the different denominations, sects, schisms and movements.  But for argument's sake,.I'll use reason to prove my point.  The Bible which is revered by all baptized, acts as point of supreme authority within protestantism.  Two movements have since been birthed.  The liberal movement, which taken to its natural conclusion will empty Christianity out of its Divinity.  It will be a Christless Christianity.  Not only the mainstream protestant communities, but also some of the so-called social justice liberation theologian type 'catholikkk' stuff can begin to have that appearance.  The other extreme is the crowd which literalistically interprets Scripture!  They subscribe to Fideism (a suspicion of reason) and tend to shun higher education.  These are usually the 'I don't believe in dinosaurs' crowd.   They keep schism(ing) and splintering with each 'pastor' claiming his interpretation is right!  The right interpretation belongs to the Catholic Magisterium,..it alone through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit discerned the books of the Bible and later ratifyed them.  See the Councils of Hippo and Carthage.

To conclude,..Why I am Catholic?  Well because it is true.  All other faiths are related to the Church in 'potencia' which means potential or degrees.  The degrees we speak about show how much truth these other faiths contain.  The goal of interfaith dialogue and ecumenism is that one day,..all people come home to the Eucharist!

St Thomas Aquinas,.........Ora pro nobis.