Religion inborn

One of the lessons to be learnt from the situation in the world today is that, like it or not, believe it or not, for better and/or for worst, religion plays a major role at all times. Belief of one kind or another seems inborn in everyone. Even those who say that they are atheist have to admit that atheism is a belief, a conviction. It can be used for or against people of other persuasions, not necessarily for armed conflicts or other physical violence but as influence in conduct that can lead to that.

On cultural coexistence

At the Inaugural Summit of the “In Defense of Christians” Association held in Washington, D.C. on 9 September, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches , said that one of the most detestable forms of violence by the militants of the self-styled Caliphate  is “the barbaric indoctrination of children of about ten years old, forced to sing out against the presumed enemies and to carry weapons at an age when they should be able to play and to go to primary school with their peers”.

Other interesting comments by the the Cardinal, reported in the English version of L’Osservatore  Romano: “In these months certain people are unfortunately intending to destroy not so much a ‘foreign’ Christian culture in comparison with a native Islamic Arabic culture as, rather, the clear reality of a respectful and useful cultural coexistence”.

 In Syria and Iraq, after the great Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires, he observed, the Christian presence in all its manifestations has been a constitutive element “for two thousand years, just as the Muslim culture has developed after six centuries, likewise in accordance with different denominational divisions. The same applies to the [Jewish] religious presence that preceded Christianity and continues to exist to our day, in certain Middle Eastern contexts, in such consistent and obvious terms”.

The Cardinal cautioned that the West often “falls into the trap of viewing the Arab culture as entirely Muslim — forgetting that most Islamic believers do not speak Arabic and do not belong to the Arab culture”. Moreover, he said, in text books, the arrival of Aristotelianism in the West, “thanks to the mediation of Arab and Islamic philosophy, is often mentioned but almost nothing is said of the preceding indispensable work carried out by Syriac-speaking Christian monks who translated the works of the giants of Hellenistic thought from Greek into Arabic”.

Unbelievable!!!

If you haven't, read my previous post.  And then this report today by CNSNews.
(CNSNews.com) – Rev. Franklin Graham, head of the international Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse and son of world-renowned preacher Billy Graham, said that given all the “bad news” about the killing of Christians by Muslims in some countries, and attacks on Christians by the media and the government even in America, he cannot “help but wonder if we are in the last hours before our Lord Jesus Christ returns.”
“As I read the news, I can’t help but wonder if we are in the last hours before our Lord Jesus Christ returns to rescue His church and God pours out His wrath on the world for the rejection of His Son,” said Rev. Graham in a post on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) website.
“I don’t know if we have hours, days, months, or years—but as Christians, God calls us to take the truth of the Gospel to the ends of the earth,” said Graham.  “Our job is to warn sinners of the consequences of sin and show them that God is loving and gracious, willing to forgive if we come to Him in repentance and faith.”

Youth as a state of mind

Youth as a state of mind

Looking among her old photo albums,  my wife, Christiane de Bièvre, found in one of them the following thoughts about youth which her uncle Clément, who was at times economic adviser to the King of Belgium, had sent to her. Author unknown. If you have read these thoughts elsewhere and know the name of the author, I will be delighted to receive it.

Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.

Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years; people grow old by deserting their ideals.

Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm, wrinkles the soul.

Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair : these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.

Whether seventy or sixteen, there is in every being’s heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and the starlike things and toughts,  the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy and the game of life.

You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt ; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear ; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.

So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from men and from the Infinite, so long you are young.

Oh, my God!

Oh, myGod!

Are the times we are living those described as the future in the Apocalypse, also known as The Book of Revelation?

Here is a clipping I made when reading The Book of Revelation Unveiled (United Church of God)
back in 1912: ( Read, stop and think)

“The book of Revelation describes an incredibly deceptive alliance of internationally powerful political and religious entities attempting to prevent Jesus' reign from ever being established. Their opposition to Him and His saints will result in a time of international turmoil and suffering unlike anything the world has ever seen. The terrifying weapons developed and manufactured using modern technology are an indication that the terrible time of trouble may be much nearer than we think. Nations have already stockpiled more than enough weapons to annihilate all human life from the face of the earth. Rogue nations increasingly gain the ability to produce and use horrifying weapons of mass destruction. Even more frightful are terrorist groups, unable to attain their goals by conventional arms or diplomacy, that now have access to such deadly weapons.”

Try this on an atheist

A quote from a book I am reading and find fascinating: My life with the Saints by James Martin SJ:

“My favourite cosmological question: Why is there something rather than nothing at all? That is, where did the untapped tapper come from? (Try that on your favourite atheist.)”

Purpose of the universe

Of course there is a purpose to the universe  - the alpha and omega of  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin S.J.

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Life is a step up a ladder, probably one of many ladders. With each step, if correctly taken, we get up to a higher life – more pure, more spiritual, closer to God.

With every wrong step – that is, step against nature, against conscience in intelligent beings,- we go down the ladder, lower in the order of the universe, further from the omega, the final end of creation, of our existence.