The importance of Suffering


Saint Therese of the Infant Jesus referred often to suffering, saying "if the good Lord gave us the entire universe, with all its treasures, it could not be compared to the lightest of sufferings."

And she wrote that:

"Holiness does not consist in saying beautiful things, it does not even consist in thinking them, in feeling them! It consists in suffering and in suffering everything."

Saint Therese teaches us so much about holiness and suffering, in this simple and serene manner.

And Saint Francis de Sales called suffering "the eighth sacrament."

At Fatima, Our Lady asked the three children to practice "the eighth sacrament" to save the souls of poor sinners.

"Pray, pray a great deal and make sacrifices for sinners. So many souls go to hell because there is no one to pray and sacrifice for them."

So we know we are on the right track when we suffer and offer our sufferings to Our Lady, as She requested at Fatima.

Two of the three Fatima seers, Jacinta and Francisco, died young because of the need for victim souls to give necessary fecundity to Our Lady’s plan. Their lives were proof that nothing great is done without suffering.

Indeed, suffering helps those souls who are absorbed with themselves and unwilling to open up. We should see suffering as normal for man and we should practice it with courage and daring.

Clearly, this includes not only passive suffering like, for example, allowing another to strike us. It also means active suffering that is, taking the initiative in find suffering. This can be done by confronting bad public opinion or overcoming human respect. In short, it means accepting suffering entirely, embracing it fearlessly and daringly, and taking the initiative to look for ways to sacrifice for an ideal. This is what it means to suffer par excellence and we should seek to do this.

The Hollywood myth of the “happy end” is a great obstacle to accepting suffering and sacrifice. Not all things turn out well in the end as in the movies.

Not everything is joy and success. Thus, we should not look at suffering as a kind of seven-headed monster that invades people’s lives uninvited. To the contrary, we should realize that everyone suffers and a life without crosses is worthless. Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort goes so far as to say that when a person does not suffer, he should ask for crosses. For a person to whom God gives no sufferings should be wary of his eternal salvation.

Ontario may get an openly Gay Mayor

(Gay George and his wife/husband/sin partner)

Ontario Premier McGuinty has accepted the resignation of George Smitherman, who is noticeable for being a public gay, from office to compete for mayor of Toronto, the Office of the Premier said Monday.

The openly gay Smitherman is regarded as a political attack dogand raised his municipal profile by leading a cleanup of city streets during the city workers' strike this summer.

George Smitherman and his wife/husband/sin partner Christopher Peloso were "married" on the 5th August 2007.

I wonder when Canada will have a homosexual Prime Minister. It cant be far away. I dont know if I want to live in such a place.

Democracy is classically defined as a government of, for and by the people. The people have a set of values based on which they elect representatives who form the government.The government passes laws based on the values of the people as the government shares the same values as the people.

Democracies have achieved greatness because they were based on the values of the people which they represented. However the edifice of democracy breaks down when the value system of the people changes.

Western democracy was based on Judeo-Christian values. These values laid the foundation of society and laws were based around these values. However as the people moved away from these values their elected representatives also passed laws which reflected these new values.

For example, society frowned upon adultery and laws were passed against adultery. However as people accepted adultery government had to pass laws which not only allowed divorces, but also recognized common law spouses and common law spousal benefits. Now a negative value - adultery - gets rewarded with the same benefits as monogamy and the value of monogamy is diminished.

Progressing on the same example, as adultery becomes more and more acceptable in society and loses all its stigma, fornication also becomes acceptable and soon all forms of sexuality becomes acceptable. Soon homosexuality is common and the government which is elected by people whose values now include support for a perverse sexuality passes law in support of such perversion. Homosexual unions are given the status of marriage and education systems are forced to teach sexual perversion as part of curriculum.

As the values of the people move further away from the Judeo-Christian value system each of the 10 commandments is broken and anti-values come to the fore, rights of choice (abortion and euthanasia) triumph of right to life. Government passes laws supporting abortion and euthanasia, the right to chose is taught in schools and any from of dissent is punished legally via human right tribunals.

As relativism grows a democracy fails and is replaced by a tyrannical government which makes laws to allow anti-values and punish real values. This is already seen in Canada and many parts of western Europe.

I miss Christmas as it was

I moved to a new country 5 years ago. I moved in the month of October and the first big Catholic feast was Christmas. I have to say that I have never enjoyed Christmas at my newly adopted home and country. For some reason it is not the same it feels empty something is missing. While I have a more prayerful attitude to the incarnation and the whole God almighty coming down as a human and this is something i love thinking about, I still miss something from back home.
I feel empty on Christmas day its like a holiday but not Christmas. While back home we would all wonder what a white Christmas would be like, here where I have a white Christmas I dont feel like it is Christmas.
Back home we would chop down a branch of a tree, let it dry so the leave would fall and then wrap up the tree in cotton so that it would look like the branch of the tree was covere with snow we would then decorate the snow covered tree. Here we have snow and real conifer trees and yet I dont feel like its Christmas.
I dont know the failing I will admit is mine.
I do have a special treat for all of you who read my blog as we come to the last week of advent.

Having Faith when some one is sick

For me one of the toughest times to have faith that God is in charge is when some one I care for is sick. I think this goes back to when I was a kid and my grandma was in hospital in intensive care. It was my birthday and I went to see her. I don't remember what birthday it was, what I do remember is a my nana lying on this bed connected to all sorts of machines one of them was a kind of a canister with water in it and a solitary bubble in it (some of my nurse friends care to explain to me what this was.) and the bracelet my mum made me wear that day. Soon after nana passed away. Since then I cannot bear hospitals. They smell anitiseptic and in my mind people who go there die. I rarely go to hospitals or doctors when anyone is sick and least of all when I am ill.
I cannot bear to see people who I love for sick, this is becasue there is nothing I can do for them, I am not in control of the situation. It is difficult for me to see the hand of God in such situations becasue my faith is obviusly not at that level. It is hard to watch a person struggle with a debilitating disease knowing that they may well not make it. I guess for me the lesson is to learn to see God's hand in such situations.

Democracy cannot exist without values

Democracy is classically defined as a government of, for and by the people. The people have a set of values based on which they elect representatives who form the government.The government passes laws based on the values of the people as the government shares the same values as the people.

Democracies have achieved greatness because they were based on the values of the people which they represented. However the edifice of democracy breaks down when the value system of the people changes.

Western democracy was based on Judeo-Christian values. These values laid the foundation of society and laws were based around these values. However as the people moved away from these values their elected representatives also passed laws which reflected these new values.

For example, society frowned upon adultery and laws were passed against adultery. However as people accepted adultery government had to pass laws which not only allowed divorces, but also recognized common law spouses and common law spousal benefits. Now a negative value - adultery - gets rewarded with the same benefits as monogamy and the value of monogamy is diminished.

Progressing on the same example, as adultery becomes more and more acceptable in society and loses all its stigma, fornication also becomes acceptable and soon all forms of sexuality becomes acceptable. Soon homosexuality is common and the government which is elected by people whose values now include support for a perverse sexuality passes law in support of such perversion. Homosexual unions are given the status of marriage and education systems are forced to teach sexual perversion as part of curriculum.

As the values of the people move further away from the Judeo-Christian value system each of the 10 commandments is broken and anti-values come to the fore, rights of choice (abortion and euthanasia) triumph of right to life. Government passes laws supporting abortion and euthanasia, the right to chose is taught in schools and any from of dissent is punished legally via human right tribunals.

As relativism grows a democracy fails and is replaced by a tyrannical government which makes laws to allow anti-values and punish real values. This is already seen in Canada and many parts of western Europe.

The United States of America faces this situation today. Religion and values have been pushed far into the background. As a consequence of this generations have grown up with a warped if not non-existent value system. the prevailing value is to be happy at all costs and be rich at all costs. The American democracy is at stake and if USA wishes not to become like Canada, then a return to Judeo-Christian values is essential.