God bless the President

It’s been awhile since I’ve made a post again with this blog, so here are my new viewpoints on the newly elected Philippine President Noynoy Aquino.

 I can only pray to our Father in heaven that he bless this new president that he, Ninoy, may implement with a just hand what is due to the Filipino people. I can pray, that he imlpement what is righteous and compassionate from the eyes of God. That he be true to his words which means being honest to himself, and not to turn down those who have been ever supportive of him just for his selfish reasons. 

 This is my prayer, through the Christ, our Lord and savior. Amen.

Magpaka totoo ka

Christ is true, both to other people, to his disciple and more especially to God the Father.

This is the man with not a many faces, but with only 1 single personality to show. Unlike the common community who have different traits and attitudes to one another, Christ is a man wth utmost sincerity, humility and purpose that he continually emphasizes that he is simply doing his Father’s will. And that will is only 1. Any deviating action that he may do will endanger his mission and it helped him best to having 1 face to show to the many. 

 Friends, is it not worthy for us to imitate him? He whom we call the Christ? The Christ within us is the Christ that compels us to do what he came to show us. Living an exemplary life of oneness, simplicity and reality. Let’s strip off all those hidden agendas and decorative personas we show to others. Instead, show the people who and what you really are-  a true servant and follower of the Christ. 

Christ and the Many

Brothers and Sisters, listen carefully.

Christ did not come for the many, but he came for the select few. And Christ chose amongst the many a few disciples who would be faithful and understanding to the innovative knowledge and wisdom he imparted upon them.Surely, this is one reason why it is understandable and accepted that not all have converted to the Christian faith and not all should be forced to accept it. If they did, people would be stripped off their freedom and that would violate the very gift that God has given us which is free-will; to accept or decline the gifts given to us.

 The irony here is that if the Church had not been in full intolerance of its other religious neighbors and pagans, then Christendom would not have spread today.

So my friends, let it be in your conscience and mind that Christ’s message is for a select people. And if you tell them and they lend their ears to hear the gospel, then surely they are ripe enough to understand the way to salvation brought by the Christ. But if they come to listen and yet they turn their backs and do not bother to properly converse the message of the Christ, then surely they have not yet developed the proper senses to understand what it means to be a Christian- especially in these modern times.

God Bless us all.

Fr. Gnostic, S.J.

The Christ is Love Incarnate

There are moments when I engage in my spiritual exercises that I become so engrossed in the feeling of sympathy and compassion with those people who are less privelaged than me. 

But there is this question asked, “who are those less privelaged than us?” Surely, it cannot be the poor, it cannot be those of ill-health, and it cannot be those children with no parents. We too experience poverty, both material and spiritual; we too experience sickness, both mental and moral; we too experience orphanage when we become showered with too much pain and suffering that we forget that there is a God who is our parent caring for us. In reality, there is no difference with all of us. We share the same predicaments no matter what status quo in life we are in. We are all united in Christ as our total comfort.

 As a Priest and Father confessor, I cannot help feeling for the agony and suffering of my countrymen. Imagine all those cries and pain within their hearts that seem solutionless. But I answer them that we should not lose her- hope. She is that which enables us to cling and desire for Christ to redeem us from all these things we are experiencing..

One good thing about suffering and the troubles we experience in life is that they become fuel for us to desire a better and more better life worth living. This better life is found in Christ. This happy life of contentment can be attain through Christ, and is Christ alone.

Dear Friend, I tell you. Christ came here on Earth to show men the way to eternal life. His life was the great drama and example of perfection that we ought to imitate and realize; that we too can live a life of happiness. Christ showed the way, the truth and the life. 

Some may say that the Christ has risen, the Christ has died and is not here. But my Brothers and Sisters, Christ never left us for deep inside each and everyone of us is where Christ resides. If we only listen and follow that flame within each and everyone of us which is Christ, why should anyone suffer a life of distress? No one should. It is about time to know that there is within our heart found the kingdom of heaven and this is where Christ resides.

If people say that the kingdom of heaven is up above the sky then the birds shall precede you; if they say that the kingdom of heaven is in the ocean then the fishes shall precede you, but if we just learn to know and understand that the kingdom of heaven is within each and everyone of us, where it resides in the heart, then the only thing to do is the follow the way of Christ, the way of the heart.

Listen, and you will be bothered. There is no need to search for any other. But know that the kingdom of heaven is within you, your heart. You were born with it and thus it is a natural birth right. Listen, follow the example of Christ and imitate him. you will surely transcend and answer the pains that you are experiencing.

In the Love of Christ who is Love incarnate.

Church crisis and the need to adapt more spiritual teachings

Henri Boulad, an Egyptian Jesuit, is launching an SOS in a letter to Pope
The most prominent Egyptian Jesuit Church in intellectual areas, Henri Boulad, launches an SOS to the Church today in a letter to Benedict XVI. The letter was forwarded through the Nuncio in Cairo. The text circulated in media worldwide church.

Holy Father:
I dare to speak directly to you, because my heart bleeds to see the abyss into which our Church is precipitating. Subsidiary will excuse my frankness, both inspired by “freedom of the sons of God” to which St. Paul calls us, and my passionate love for the Church.

I also apologize for the alarmist tone of this letter because I think that “are less five” and that the situation can not wait.

Let me introduce myself first. Jesuit Egyptian-Lebanese Melkite rite, will soon be 78 years. For three years I was rector of the Jesuit College in Cairo, having held the following positions: superior of the Jesuits in Alexandria, regional superior of the Jesuits in Egypt, a professor of theology at Cairo, director of Caritas-Egypt vice president of Caritas Internationalis Middle East and North Africa.

I know very well the Catholic hierarchy in Egypt for many years and I participated in its meetings as President of the superiors of religious institutes in Egypt. I have very close relationships with each of them, some of whom are former students of mine. Furthermore, I personally know Chenouda Pope III, whom she saw often. As for the Catholic hierarchy in Europe, I had occasion to meet personally many times with one of its members, as Cardinal Koenig, Cardinal Schönborn, Cardinal Martini, Cardinal Danneels, Archbishop Kothgasser, diocesan bishops and Kapellari Küng, the other Austrian bishops and other bishops from other European countries.These meetings occur during my annual trips to lecture in Europe: Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, France, Belgium … In these journeys I address many different audiences and the media (newspapers, radios, TVs …). I do the same in Egypt and the Middle East.

I have visited almost fifty countries on four continents and have published some thirty books in fifteen languages, especially French, Arabic, Hungarian and German. Of the thirteen books in this language, you may have read “Gottessöhne, Gottestöchter” [Sons and daughters of God], he sent his friend Fr Erich Fink of Bavaria.I say this not to brag, but to say simply that my intentions are based on real knowledge of the universal Church and its current status in 2009.

I return to the reason for this letter, try to be as brief, clear and objective manner. First, a few observations (the list is not exhaustive):

* 1. Religious practice is in constant decline. A dwindling number of elderly people, which disappear quickly, are those that frequent the churches in Europe and Canada. There will be forced to close these churches and turn them into museums, mosques, clubs or municipal libraries, as is already done. What surprises me is that many of them are being completely renovated and modernized by large expenditures so as to attract the faithful. But this is not what will stop the exodus.

* 2. Seminaries and novitiates emptied at the same rate, and vocations plummet. The future is rather bleak and you wonder who will take over. More and more parishes are run by European priests from Asia or Africa.

* 3. Many priests leave the priesthood and the few who still exercise, whose mean age often exceeds that of retirement, have to deal with many parishes, administrative and expeditious manner. Many, both in Europe and in the Third World, cohabiting in view of its followers that normally accept them, and their bishop, who can not accept it, but given the shortage of priests.

* 4. The language of the Church is obsolete, outdated, boring, repetitive, moralizing, totally unsuited to our times. It is not at all accommodating or demagoguery, because the message of the Gospel must be presented in all its rawness and demanding. We need greater good approaches to this “new evangelization” that Pope John Paul II invited us. But this, unlike what many think, is not to repeat the old way, which says nothing, but to innovate, to invent a new language to express faith in an appropriate manner and that has meaning for people today .

* 5. This can not be made only through a thorough renewal of theology and catechesis, to be completely rethought and reformulated. A German priest and religious who recently met told me that the word “mystic” was not mentioned even once in “The New Catechism.” I could not believe. We notice that our faith is very cerebral, abstract, dogmatic, and very little goes to the heart and body.

* 6. Consequently, many Christians are turning to Asian religions, sects, new-age, evangelical churches, occultism and so forth. No wonder. They will look elsewhere for food are not at home, have the impression that we give them stones like bread. The Christian faith that once gave meaning to people’s lives, is an enigma to them today, remnants of a past finished.

* 7. On the moral and ethical opinions of the Magisterium, repeated to satiety, on marriage, contraception, abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, marriage of priests, divorced and remarried, etcetera, and do not affect anyone and only produce carelessness and indifference. All these moral and pastoral problems deserve more than categorical statements. Pastoral need of a treatment, sociological, psychological, human … in a more evangelical line.

* 8. The Catholic Church, which was the great educator of Europe for centuries, seems to forget that Europe has reached maturity. Our adult Europe does not want to be treated as minor.Paternalistic style of a Church “Mater et Magistra” is definitely outdated and no longer works today. Christians have learned to think for themselves and are not willing to swallow anything.

* 9. Catholic nations before-France, “eldest daughter of the Church” or “ultra-Catholic French Canada have a 180 º and have fallen into atheism, anticlericalism, agnosticism and indifference.In the case of other European nations, the process is underway. One can see that the more controlled and protected by the Church has been a town in the past, the stronger the reaction against it.

* 10. The dialogue with other churches and religions are in retreat today concern. The great advances made over the past half century are at stake at this time.

Faced with these facts almost devastating, the reaction of the church is twofold:- It tends to downplay the seriousness of the situation and consoling to see some pickup in its most traditional faction, and in third world countries.- Appeals to the trust in the Lord, who has held for twenty centuries and it will be able to help her overcome this new crisis, as it did with the previous ones. Does not it promise of eternal life?

I answer:- Not relying on the past or getting your crumbs as resolving the problems of today and tomorrow.- The apparent vitality of the churches in the Third World is equivocal. Apparently, these new churches will go through sooner or later by the same crisis that has seen the old European Christianity.- Modernity is irreversible and have forgotten is that the Church is today in such a crisis. The Vatican II attempted to recover four centuries later, but one gets the impression that the Church is slowly closing the doors opened then, and tempted to turn to Trent and Vatican I, rather than to Vatican III. Recall the statement of John Paul II often repeated: “There is no alternative to the Vatican II”.- How much longer will play politics of the ostrich and bury our heads in the sand? How long will avoid looking at things in front? How much longer will his back, twitching against all criticism, rather than see this as an opportunity for renewal? How long ad will continue to drag on forever postponing a reform that is imposed and it has been abandoned for too long?

- Just by looking resolutely forward, not back the Church fulfill its mission of being “light of the world, salt of the earth, the leaven in the dough. However, and unfortunately today we have noticed is that the Church is in the tail of our time, having been the locomotive for centuries.- I repeat what I said at the beginning of this letter: “ARE AT LEAST FIVE!” - Fünf vor zwölf! - History does not wait, especially in our age, which is packed and the pace is accelerating.- Any commercial operation that finds a deficiency or dysfunction is reconsidered immediately, meet experts, tries to recover, mobilize all their energies to overcome the crisis.- Why the Church does the same? Why not mobilize all its forces for a living radical aggiornamento? Why?- Why laziness, carelessness, pride, lack of imagination, creativity, quietism guilty in the hope that the Lord will manage and that the Church has experienced other crises in the past?- Christ in the Gospel warns us: “The sons of darkness manage their affairs better than the children of light …”

THEN DO ?…. The Church today has a compelling and urgent need of a triple reform:

1. A theological and catechetical reform to rethink and reformulate the faith in a coherent manner to our contemporaries.A faith that no longer means anything, it gives meaning to existence, is nothing more than an ornament, useless superstructure falls herself. This is the case today.

2. A pastoral reform to rethink from top to bottom inherited structures.

3. A spiritual reform to revitalize the mystique and rethink the sacraments in order to give an existential dimension, to articulate with life.

Have a lot to say about that. The Church today is too formal, too formal. One has the impression that the institution asphyxiation charisma and that what ultimately counts is purely external stability, honesty surface, some facade. Do not run the risk that one day Jesus will try to “whitewashed tombs”?

Finally, I suggest the convening of a general synod of the church universal level, with the participation of all Christians, Catholics and others to discuss frankly and clearly the points made above and those that are proposed. That synod, which lasted three years, ending with a general-we avoid the term “council” - to synthesize the results of this research and draw conclusions from there.

End, Holy Father, asking forgiveness for my frankness and boldness, and ask your paternal blessing. Let me also say that I live these days in his company, thanks to the extraordinary book “Jesus of Nazareth”, which is the subject of my spiritual reading and meditation daily.

 Yours faithfully in the Lord,P. Henri Boulad, s.j.henriboulad@yahoo.com

http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2010/03/sos-to-pope-benedict-xvi.html

a jesuit’s blog of gnostic wisdom

This blog is a personal blog of a Filipino Gnostic Jesuit who has learned to accept and gain a more deeper and more esoteric understanding of the faith through the divine ‘gnosis’ that this Filipino priest received and experienced during his spiritual exercises in a Jesuit Retreat house in luzon.

I would like to share my spiritual insights in light of Christ and his wisdom teachings to all my countrymen, without the bias and dark teachings of most priests here in our country. I hope this blog would serve as a gateway to higher consciousness and deeper study and application of our faith in Christ to God.