₦airaland Forum

@Smile4kenn

This Religion part of nairaland, they are specialized in criticizing catholism

That won't be the reason for you to stop contributing to the thread, remember thru persecution you gather even more strength, i must tell you that i have learnt so much from this thread that has made me to even gaining more stand in belonging to the Catholic fold, that is the plain truth. Experience they say is the best teacher.

People have been tempted to set their focus on human figure. They build their faith on human ego. As a result, they are misled and highly disappointed. Many have dropped their faith in God and backslided to worldliness. Why? Because a great man of God, whom they so much trusted has been found unfaithful and immoral.

The various thread set up by our fellow (protestant) brethren has been very annoying, comprising of different lies, false accusation, but we know within us that it is not true. If it is true, why are people who have dropped out of the Catholic church coming back?

What i do personally is to avoid any post from them, except the ones that can grow me spiritually, but anyone they post that is against the Cathoic teachings i ignore it, with that i control myself.

So don't leave the thread, you can post something that is of interest that we can learn from.

Everyday i meditate on the readings of the day, and gather out some passages that is of interest to me and i share it together. Don't leave we need each other.

May God help us and our Mother Mary and all the angels and saints intercede for us.

Lord please i ask for your Grace upon your son (Smile4kenn) to serve you. Amen

@Smile4kenn
Its ok, i can understand you did it out of annoyance, but we shld learn to control our annoyance, it can lead you to say what you don't want to say.

My words to you is to learn how to tolerate people.

MEDITATION OF THE DAY
We belong to each other as parts (1st reading today Roms 12: 5-16)

The basis of our service to others is through the transformation which God has worked within us by the work of the Holy Spirit. Having being touched inwardly and individually, all Christains renewed by the Spirit of God, we are called as part of the body of Christ to serve according to the gifts we have received. God gives each person gifts that enable him or her to serve others and, therefore, to serve and glorify God.

We pray that our service would flow from the life of Christ within us and be offered unconditionally, as Christ offers his love to us.

JOURNEY WITH THE SAINTS
We need no wings to go in search of him but have only to find a place where we can be alone and look upon him present within us. ST. TERESA OF AVILA

Today's Saint

St. Nicholas Tavelic and Companions (d. 1391)

Nicholas and his three companions are among the 158 Franciscans who have been martyred in the Holy Land since the friars became custodians of the shrines in 1335.

Nicholas was born in 1340 to a wealthy and noble family in Croatia. He joined the Franciscans and was sent with Deodat of Rodez to preach in Bosnia. In 1384 they volunteered for the Holy Land missions and were sent there. They looked after the holy places, cared for the Christian pilgrims and studied Arabic.

In 1391 Nicholas, Deodat, Peter of Narbonne and Stephen of Cuneo decided to take a direct approach to converting the Muslims. On November 11, 1391, they went to the huge Mosque of Omar in Jerusalem and asked to see the Qadi (Muslim official). Reading from a prepared statement, they said that all people must accept the gospel of Jesus. When they were ordered to retract their statement, they refused. After beatings and imprisonment, they were beheaded before a large crowd.

Nicholas and his companions were canonized in 1970. They are the only Franciscans martyred in the Holy Land to be canonized.

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In the Rule of 1221, Francis wrote that the friars going to the Saracens (Muslims) "can conduct themselves among them spiritually in two ways. One way is to avoid quarrels or disputes and 'be subject to every human creature for God's sake' (1 Peter 2:13), so bearing witness to the fact that they are Christians. Another way is to proclaim the word of God openly, when they see that is God's will, calling on their hearers to believe in God almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Creator of all, and in the Son, the Redeemer and Savior, that they may be baptized and become true and spiritual Christians" (Ch. 16).

I wish this will be my last time on Religion part of nairaland

Why did you say that?

It is clear that even though many Christains have repented of sin and made completely holy.  We can die not having cared for one another as ardently as God's word demands.  We can die with sizable residues of arrogance, pride, selfishness, and resentment still remaining.  In the Bible, men and women could not see God face-to-face adn live because of their sins (Exo.33:20; Luke chapter 5 vs Sin keeps us from gazing on the glory of God.

As we seek Christ, we will not be overcome by the obstacles which frustrate our efforts to live each day as God desires.  Jesus, our Way, has ransomed us with his most precious blood.  Therefore, we can live now knowing the peace and Joy that come from living in obedience to God's will. 

Because the intercessory prayer is pleasing to God (1 tim.2:3), the saints - who are now perfect in love - are eager to pray on our behalf, and because the prayer of a righteous person is very powerful (James 5:16), asking the saints to assist us can be spiritually beneficial and rewarding.

@Uzzi
i'm one of the living testimony to what you said.  I have been experiencing wonders through the intercession of the saints and our mother Mary

@Akeye

yea OBY1
i heard about that.
who killed him?

I don't know i just heard that he was shot on his way back from a Vigil.


@Ebos
All i can say is Na wao Where u come go since? We miss you no bi small.

They cheat among them because they didn't allow God to reign in their home

"The first world has made me to know what heaven is in comparison with the earth, how great the earth is in comparison with the womb as the first world."

The Scripture made it clear "No one knows the hour when it will happen" We should be ready at all time.

The Reverend Father that was killed last week was Father Patrick Adegbite (i think he is the author of the monthly Spiritual Pathway)

May his Soul and the Souls of all the faithful departed rest in perfect Peace

@Pilgrim.1

I want to apologise here to everyone in my expressions.

I accept your apologies, If God can have mercy on us each and everyday of our life who are we not to forgive our fellow brethrens their trespasses as he (God) forgives us.

May God help all of us who seek him and increase his wisdom in us to be able to serve him as he deserves. AMEN

MEDITATION OF THE DAY (from Today's first Reading)
Rom 11: 32

God has imprisoned all men in their own disobedience only to show mercy to all mankind.

(God allowed a hardening of the Israelites hearts to manifest the glory of his purposes: through their failure it was made plain that salvation was by grace through faith, not by works.  Just as the Gentiles learned of God's mercy through Israel's transgression, Israel would be restored by that same mercy.  How great is our God! His love encompasses all.  He is not overcome by our sin, but works always toward our salvation, even allowing our failures to be occassions for learning about his mercy).

PRAYER
Holy Spirit, you opened St.Paul's mind to the glory of God.  Work in us too; enlighten our darkened minds and reveal ever more clearly to us 'the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.'  AMEN

JOURNEY WITH THE SAINTS
Get into the habit, little by little, of adoring God in this way: Beg for his grace and offer him your heart from time to tme during the day, in the midst of your work, at every moment if you can. Do not constrain yourself by rules or special devotions.  Simply turn to God in faith, with love and humility.  Brother Lawrence

Today's Saint

Venerable Solanus Casey (1870-1957) 

Barney Casey became one of Detroit’s best-known priests even though he was not allowed to preach formally or to hear confessions!

Barney came from a large family in Oak Grove, Wisconsin. At the age of 21, and after he had worked as a logger, a hospital orderly, a streetcar operator and a prison guard, he entered St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee—where he found the studies difficult. He left there and, in 1896, joined the Capuchins in Detroit, taking the name Solanus. His studies for the priesthood were again arduous.

On July 24, 1904, he was ordained, but because his knowledge of theology was judged to be weak, Father Solanus was not given permission to hear confessions or to preach. A Franciscan Capuchin who knew him well said this annoying restriction "brought forth in him a greatness and a holiness that might never have been realized in any other way." During his 14 years as porter and sacristan in Yonkers, New York, the people there recognized him as a fine speaker. "For, though he was forbidden to deliver doctrinal sermons," writes his biographer, James Derum, "he could give inspirational talks, or feverinos, as the Capuchins termed them" (18:96). His spiritual fire deeply impressed his listeners.

Father Solanus served at parishes in Manhattan and Harlem before returning to Detroit, where he was porter and sacristan for 20 years at St. Bonaventure Monastery. Every Wednesday afternoon he conducted well-attended services for the sick. A co-worker estimates that on the average day 150 to 200 people came to see Father Solanus in the front office. Most of them came to receive his blessing; 40 to 50 came for consultation. Many people considered him instrumental in cures and other blessings they received.

Father Solanus’ sense of God’s providence inspired many of his visitors. "Blessed be God in all his designs" was one of his favorite expressions.

The many friends of Father Solanus helped the Capuchins begin a soup kitchen during the Depression. Capuchins are still feeding the hungry there today.

In 1946 in failing health, he was transferred to the Capuchin novitiate in Huntington, Indiana, where he lived until 1956 when he was hospitalized in Detroit. He died on July 31, 1957. An estimated 20,000 people passed by his coffin before his burial in St. Bonaventure Church in Detroit.

At the funeral Mass, Father Gerald, the provincial, said: "His was a life of service and love for people like me and you. When he was not himself sick, he nevertheless suffered with and for you that were sick. When he was not physically hungry, he hungere with people like you. He had a divine love for people. He loved people for what he could do for them —and for God, through them."

In 1960 a Father Solanus Guild was formed in Detroit to aid Capuchin seminarians. By 1967 the guild had 5,000 members—many of them grateful recipients of his practical advice and his comforting assurance that God would not abandon them in their trials. He was declared Venerable in 1995.

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Father Maurice Casey, a brother of Father Solanus, was once in a sanitarium near Baltimore and was annoyed at the priest-chaplain there. Father Solanus wrote his brother: "God could have established his Church under supervision of angels that have no faults or weaknesses. But who can doubt that as it stands today, consisting of and under the supervision of poor sinners—successors to the ‘poor fishermen of Galilee’ #151;the Church is a more outstanding miracle than any other way?"

"The Lord has created us for himself and our hearts are restless until they rest in him". _{St. Augustine}

"My Lord and my God, take from me all that separates me from you! My Lord and my God, give me everything that will bring me closer to you! My Lord and my God, protect me from myself and grant that I may belong entirely to you!" AMEN.



@Akeye
You are welcome in the company of God's people.

Today's Saint

St. Martin de Porres (1579-1639)

"Father unknown" is the cold legal phrase sometimes used on baptismal records. "Half-breed" or "war souvenir" is the cruel name inflicted by those of "pure" blood. Like many others, Martin might have grown to be a bitter man, but he did not. It was said that even as a child he gave his heart and his goods to the poor and despised.

He was the illegitimate son of a freed woman of Panama, probably black but also possibly of Native American stock, and a Spanish grandee of Lima, Peru. He inherited the features and dark complexion of his mother. That irked his father, who finally acknowledged his son after eight years. After the birth of a sister, the father abandoned the family. Martin was reared in poverty, locked into a low level of Lima’s society.

At 12 his mother apprenticed him to a barber-surgeon. He learned how to cut hair and also how to draw blood (a standard medical treatment then), care for wounds and prepare and administer medicines.

After a few years in this medical apostolate, Martin applied to the Dominicans to be a "lay helper," not feeling himself worthy to be a religious brother. After nine years, the example of his prayer and penance, charity and humility led the community to request him to make full religious profession. Many of his nights were spent in prayer and penitential practices; his days were filled with nursing the sick and caring for the poor. It was particularly impressive that he treated all people regardless of their color, race or status. He was instrumental in founding an orphanage, took care of slaves brought from Africa and managed the daily alms of the priory with practicality as well as generosity. He became the procurator for both priory and city, whether it was a matter of "blankets, shirts, candles, candy, miracles or prayers!" When his priory was in debt, he said, "I am only a poor mulatto. Sell me. I am the property of the order. Sell me."

Side by side with his daily work in the kitchen, laundry and infirmary, Martin’s life reflected God’s extraordinary gifts: ecstasies that lifted him into the air, light filling the room where he prayed, bilocation, miraculous knowledge, instantaneous cures and a remarkable rapport with animals. His charity extended to beasts of the field and even to the vermin of the kitchen. He would excuse the raids of mice and rats on the grounds that they were underfed; he kept stray cats and dogs at his sister’s house.

He became a formidable fundraiser, obtaining thousands of dollars for dowries for poor girls so that they could marry or enter a convent.

Many of his fellow religious took him as their spiritual director, but he continued to call himself a "poor slave." He was a good friend of another Dominican saint of Peru, Rose of Lima.

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Pope John XXIII remarked at the canonization of Martin (May 6, 1962), "He excused the faults of others. He forgave the bitterest injuries, convinced that he deserved much severer punishments on account of his own sins. He tried with all his might to redeem the guilty; lovingly he comforted the sick; he provided food, clothing and medicine for the poor; he helped, as best he could, farm laborers and Negroes, as well as mulattoes, who were looked upon at that time as akin to slaves: thus he deserved to be called by the name the people gave him: 'Martin of Charity.'"

ONLY GOD KNOWS[color=#990000][/color]

Will you let the patient remain in pains under the life support system until he/she eventualy expires or will you append your signatuer (being the next of kin) for euthanasia agents to be administered?

If you append your signature which means to say "Kill the person", then as a Christain where is our faith.
I know it is hard as a human being, but it is not hard with the Grace of God.

The only thing is to pray and commit the life of that person into the hands of God and then allow God to act. If the person survives all to the Glory of God, and he didn't survive all to the Glory of God. But we should not stain our hands with blood no matter the situation.

my mother called to tell me yesterday night that a priest had died (don't know if it's the same one)

I think is the same (i heard it this morning)

May his soul and all the souls of faithful departed rest in perfect peace. AMEN

James 1:27 "What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine Religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and keep oneself from being corrupted by the world".

The Christain religion is a religion of the heart. Many Gospel episodes show Jesus condemning ritual rigorism and religious formalism. Jesus teaches that in the eyes of God what matters in religion are not the external gestures or the material expressions, but the heart which is the core of the human person.

Authentic religion is therefore a religion of the heart. It is not one that places too much emphasis on external rituals, sacrifices, laws and taboos.

Thus Christain religion is a response to the divine invitation with the totality of one's being. It is a relationship, a love relationship which brings about the joy, peace and fulfilment that surpasses understanding.

"Thou Shall not Kill"

Mercy killing or whatever is wrong, it means you have killed because the scripture had already made us to know that it is wrong.

With the division in Christainity can cause a shaky shaky Christain to change to other religion

i gathered from a source that a Priest in Lekki Parish was shot dead. Please we all should remember him too in our prayers. And also commit all the Clergy's into the hands of God.

I will be attending the evening mass today, since i couldn't make it to the morning mass.

During this period, please remember my departed uncle too in your prayer, he appeared to my brother in a dream and asked him to put him in prayer, his name is Joseph and also a departed friend too by name Patrick.

Thanks so much all

Eternal Rest grant unto them O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.

May they rest in Peace. Amen

"No matter how big your empire is, it is still a dot in the middle of planet earth. So humble yourself before the Creator and accept that you are nothing but a mortal man". _Oby1

Feast of all souls (remember your departed loved ones).

Glory to Jesus!!! Honour to blessed Virgin Mary

Today's Feast Day

Feast of All Souls

The Church has encouraged prayer for the dead from the earliest times as an act of Christian charity. "If we had no care for the dead," Augustine noted, "we would not be in the habit of praying for them." Yet pre-Christian rites for the deceased kept such a strong hold on the superstitious imagination that a liturgical commemoration was not observed until the early Middle Ages, when monastic communities began to mark an annual day of prayer for the departed members.

In the middle of the 11th century, St. Odilo, abbot of Cluny (France), decreed that all Cluniac monasteries offer special prayers and sing the Office for the Dead on November 2, the day after the feast of All Saints. The custom spread from Cluny and was finally adopted throughout the Roman Church.

The theological underpinning of the feast is the acknowledgment of human frailty. Since few people achieve perfection in this life but, rather, go to the grave still scarred with traces of sinfulness, some period of purification seems necessary before a soul comes face-to-face with God. The Council of Trent affirmed this purgatory state and insisted that the prayers of the living can speed the process of purification.

Superstition still clung to the observance. Medieval popular belief held that the souls in purgatory could appear on this day in the form of witches, toads or will-o’-the-wisps. Graveside food offerings supposedly eased the rest of the dead.

Observances of a more religious nature have survived. These include public processions or private visits to cemeteries and decorating graves with flowers and lights. This feast is observed with great fervor in Mexico.

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“We must not make purgatory into a flaming concentration camp on the brink of hell—or even a ‘hell for a short time.’ It is blasphemous to think of it as a place where a petty God exacts the last pound—or ounce—of flesh, St. Catherine of Genoa, a mystic of the 15th century, wrote that the ‘fire’ of purgatory is God’s love ‘burning’ the soul so that, at last, the soul is wholly aflame. It is the pain of wanting to be made totally worthy of One who is seen as infinitely lovable, the pain of desire for union that is now absolutely assured, but not yet fully tasted” (Leonard Foley, O.F.M., Believing in Jesus).

@mycc
As Christian is not right to flirt
God wants us to put off our old sinful ways of life, put on a new life in Christ.

2cor5:17 "Anyone who is joined with Christ is a new creature" So get rid of the life of flirting is not for the child of God, but of the world.

Thank you Pastor.
Thank God when the trumpet sounds is him (THE ALMIGHTY)who will judge all mankind AND WE ALL AWAITS HIS COMING.

GOD BLESS US ALL

Note: I said MY FAITH _{as a Catholic}. Religion cannot save anyone, but helps to build you up. Book of James 1:27 "What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world

26: Do any of think you are religious? If you do not control your tongue, your religion is worthless and you deceive yourselves.

"Always acknowledge those who are ahead of you so that you will always learn to pursue, and never forget to acknowledge those behind you so that you will learn to be contented." ^Gabriel

Remember today is holy day of obligation