Friday, August 30, 2013

Defensores Fidei Apologetics Seminar 2013



This Year of Faith, we are given the opportunity to deepen our knowledge of the Catholic Faith through a series of apologetics seminar given by Defensores Fidei. The talks are scheduled every Saturday morning in Greehnills, San Juan (please refer to above poster for exact venue). This is your chance to meet and interact with highly competent Catholic apologists, priests and speakers for FREE.

For inquiries, please call Totus Bookstore at 723-4326 and +639178260047.

Be defenders of the faith!

Monday, August 26, 2013

The Book of Truth


With all the bad things that are going on around us such as the unprecedented rise in natural calamities, strife, wars, etc., have you ever wondered if we are indeed living in the end times? If yes, what are you doing to prepare yourself spiritually?

If you believe in the Second Coming of Christ, I urge you to visit this website:

www.thewarningsecondcoming.com

The messages contained there are a series of divine revelations from the Holy Trinity and Our Lady given to a visionary known by the name Maria Divine Mercy and I have read some of these myself. They are mostly prophecies, teachings, and warnings of events that will come about in the lead up to the Second Coming. It is important to note that according to theologians these messages reinforce Catholic teachings which I personally believe as well. These messages are being revealed to the world for our own good and that God wishes to save everyone by warning us of what lies ahead so that we are not caught unprepared when the time comes.

In the Gospel, Our Lord has constantly preached about the value of always being prepared at all times. The Parable of the Ten Virgins and the Parable of the Faithful Servant best exemplify this. Christ teaches us to be prepared because we neither know the day nor the hour and that He Himself said that He will come in an hour that we least expect Him. In summary, these divine messages should spur all of us to repentance and conversion, a rekindling of our faith and prayer life, and trust and hope in God's mercy which are really the best means to prepare ourselves.

Whether these things are officially approved by the Church or not, Catholics are not morally obliged to espouse the messages emanating from private revelation; however, in light of faith and the written Word of God, we can easily discern whether or not revelations such as these are of divine origin or not.

You can also like their Facebook page in order to receive the messages directly on your wall. I suggest that you say a short prayer to the Holy Spirit to enlighten you and guide you before reading the contents of the website. In that way, you can fully understand and appreciate the messages being conveyed. 

www.facebook.com/JesusToMankind

Share this to everyone you know. I have done my small part. I hope and pray that through this many people will come to experience the depth of God's mercy and love for each one of us, that indeed He will never leave us nor forsake us in these very difficult times that we live in.



(P.S.  These end-time messages given to Maria Divine Mercy are not without controversies. To fairly represent both sides, I am posting below two reviews - one in favor and the other against these messages.


I will leave it up to you, the reader, to discern the truth. Please pray to the Holy Spirit for enlightenment and true discernment.)


Review in favor - http://www.all-about-the-virgin-mary.com/response-to-mark-miravalle.html


Review against http://www.ncregister.com/blog/jimmy-akin/9-things-you-need-to-know-about-maria-divine-mercy



"Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour." - Luke 12:37-40


Friday, August 16, 2013

Chris Tiu on Chastity and True Love





Nowadays it is extremely rare to find a local celebrity who can talk about things such as chastity and true love that is why I admire Chris Tiu a lot. You won't find this guy endorsing products such as cigars or alcohol or posing half naked on giant billboards along EDSA wearing some skimpy underwear...ever. If you want to know more about the virtue of chastity and true love, I encourage you to attend Real Love Revolution 2013. You can find the details here. Live pure!

Saturday, August 10, 2013

'Real Life' My Husband's Lover


Guest post by Bro. A.  This is perhaps the closest you can get to a real-life MHL-type story.


My Husband’s Lover is a strange story, but it is a story that is familiar to me.

She was a pretty woman from the province newly married to a man she found in the city. She was pretty -- no, beautiful. A long line of suitors must have hounded her in her youth. The couple had a child, a son.

One day, what would she find inside her bedroom, but her husband and another man in an X-rated position, one that left nothing to doubt as to the two men’s sexuality/sex orientation/sexual preference? Shocked by the graphic scene, the woman left the marriage. The family would not hear of the husband for a long, long time.

After several years, the woman found another love, an old, gaunt but still good-looking mestizo who was well-traveled and talked smoothly. She was smitten. This time, she was sure he was a he. They lived happily ever after, we could say, shacking up in one corner of the city. They had a daughter. With this complex arrangement, the family fell into hard times but survived by dint of hard work.

When the old man got sick, he fell down hard and fast, leaving his family with almost nothing. By this time, the children were all grownup fending for themselves. One has left home, while the other stayed, with his own family in tow.

One day, who would reappear at the scene but the husband, who was seriously ill? He had no one and nothing but the shirt on his back. Where he came from no one knew, no one bothered to know. He desired to be taken in again, just like the old times. With much trepidation, his ex-wife decided to accept him in her humble abode, but on one condition: he would not talk to her nor she would take care of him. She had her son, his son, do the part she’d rather not do.

The son, to his credit, took good care of his dad, even though he was abandoned almost at birth. Where he got the grace to forgive no one knows up to this day, no one bothered to know. Soon the old man deteriorated until he got fatally ill from a major stroke. He would die a lonely death, although he was not entirely alone. He was with his son and his family.

His former wife could only look on, without any emotion. She was doing it only for the sake of her son, only for charity. But it would not be too soon before she exited this life as well. One day, she suddenly was struck down by the same illness. The two major players are now all gone, virtually ending the story in silence.

As to the husband’s lover, no one knew him, no one knows who and where he is right now, no one bothered to know.

But the child of the original husband and wife remains, with his wife, his five children, and ten grandchildren. Life has to go on.

My Husband’s Lover-type of stories are stories you will never hear the protagonist and other main characters to tell. They are stories mostly filtered through second-hand sources. It is because they are stories of trauma, and tremendous pain, or the most unspeakable shame possible. You just don’t publish these stories for mass consumption. You don’t tell the story with a megaphone, during primetime, when innocent viewers can get easily confused. You prefer more proper venues.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Philippine Conference On New Evangelization



A conference on the New Evangelization will be held from October 16-18, 2013 at the University of Santo Tomas. You can find all the details of this event on their website including online registration. Don't forget to like their Facebook account to stay updated. Register ASAP and avail of their early bird promo.


The changed social, cultural, economic, civil and religious scenarios call us to something new: to live our communitarian experience of faith in a renewed way and to proclaim it through an evangelization that is “new in its ardor, in its methods, in its expressions”, as John Paul II said (Discourse to the XIX Assembly of CELAM, Port-au-Prince, 9 March 1983, n. 3).

This is the call of the Church through the XIII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization for the Transmission of Faith.

Twenty-two years ago, the Second Plenary Council of the Philippines (PCP II) envisioned a renewed integral evangelization in the Church in the Philippines. Today, this Church in South East Asia, in particular the Archdiocese of Manila, joins the journey of the universal Church towards new evangelization. This Philippine Conference on the New Evangelization (PCNE) is a milestone in the Church’s journey and a concrete response to her call as well as a reawakening to PCP II’s vision of renewed integral evangelization.

The Synod Fathers recognize that in heeding the call for new evangelization, “we cannot remain indifferent to the process of secularization.” Moreover, “ the proclamation of the good news in different contexts of the world – marked by the processes of globalization and secularism – places different challenges before the Church: at times in an outright religious persecution, at other times in a widespread indifference, interference, restriction or harassment.”

Today, we Filipino Catholics find our country and the Church not far from the contexts described by the Synod Fathers as PCP II already observed. Urbanization, globalization and communication technologies are bringing changes in Philippine society. We are still challenged by pluralism, burdened by much graft and corruption in politics and governance, saddled in economics with “inequalities of the grossest kind” and widespread poverty resulting in the poor becoming poorer and the rich becoming richer, and confronted with increasing imbalances in the educational sector. We cannot ignore the emergent powerful culture developed by developments in information technologies, new media and social networking that influence our way of thinking, feeling and relating with others.

However, one with the Synod Fathers’ optimism and trust in the Lord, we still strive to preserve the culture and faith of our ancestors; many of us still anchor ourselves on basic faith and trust in God’s mercy. Our religiosity is even more heightened among overseas workers who have migrated in Europe and America.

Thus, for us Filipino Catholics, the call for new evangelization is both “entering into the long path of proclaiming the Gospel with the apostolic courage of Paul who would go so far as to say ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!’ (1 Corinthians 9:16)” and making the spirit of PCP II come alive and rekindle this in the hearts of the clergy, those in the consecrated life and the lay faithful to move forward.

The Synod Fathers declared: “We need not invent new strategies as if the Gospel were a product to be placed in the market of religions. We need to rediscover the ways in which Jesus approached persons and called them, in order to put these approaches into practice in today’s circumstances.” Applying this basic approach in new evangelization, three events in the life of Jesus serve as inspiration and framework in organizing the PCNE. These three events point to the phases of the conference.


Phase One: "Come and See" - A Personal Encounter with Jesus: The Beginning of All Evangelization

Phase Two: "Stay With Us" - We Encounter Jesus in The Church Through The Word and The Eucharist

Phase Three: "Duc In Altum" - Go and Preach The Gospel to The Whole Creation (Mission and Spirituality)


(Reposted from the PCNE website)



"Behold, I make all things new." - Rev 21:5