Taken from 31 to 36 of Enciclical from Pope Franciscus, Fratteli Tutti, Oct. 2020.

 

31. In this world that races ahead, yet lacks a shared roadmap, we increasingly sense that “the gap between concern for one’s personal well-being and the prosperity of the larger human family seems to be stretching to the point of complete division between individuals and human community… It is one thing to feel forced to live together, but something entirely different to value the richness and beauty of those seeds of common life that need to be sought out and cultivated”.[29] Technology is constantly advancing, yet “how wonderful it would be if the growth of scientific and technological innovation could come with more equality and social inclusion. How wonderful would it be, even as we discover faraway planets, to rediscover the needs of the brothers and sisters who orbit around us”.[30]

PANDEMICS AND OTHER CALAMITIES IN HISTORY

32. True, a worldwide tragedy like the Covid-19 pandemic momentarily revived the sense that we are a global community, all in the same boat, where one person’s problems are the problems of all. Once more we realized that no one is saved alone; we can only be saved together. As I said in those days, “the storm has exposed our vulnerability and uncovered those false and superfluous certainties around which we constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities… Amid this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about appearances, has fallen away, revealing once more the ineluctable and blessed awareness that we are part of one another, that we are brothers and sisters of one another”.[31]

33. The world was relentlessly moving towards an economy that, thanks to technological progress, sought to reduce “human costs”; there were those who would have had us believe that freedom of the market was sufficient to keep everything secure. Yet the brutal and unforeseen blow of this uncontrolled pandemic forced us to recover our concern for human beings, for everyone, rather than for the benefit of a few. Today we can recognize that “we fed ourselves on dreams of splendour and grandeur, and ended up consuming distraction, insularity and solitude. We gorged ourselves on networking, and lost the taste of fraternity. We looked for quick and safe results, only to find ourselves overwhelmed by impatience and anxiety. Prisoners of a virtual reality, we lost the taste and flavour of the truly real”.[32] The pain, uncertainty and fear, and the realization of our own limitations, brought on by the pandemic have only made it all the more urgent that we rethink our styles of life, our relationships, the organization of our societies and, above all, the meaning of our existence.

34. If everything is connected, it is hard to imagine that this global disaster is unrelated to our way of approaching reality, our claim to be absolute masters of our own lives and of all that exists. I do not want to speak of divine retribution, nor would it be sufficient to say that the harm we do to nature is itself the punishment for our offences. The world is itself crying out in rebellion. We are reminded of the well-known verse of the poet Virgil that evokes the “tears of things”, the misfortunes of life and history.[33]

35. All too quickly, however, we forget the lessons of history, “the teacher of life”.[34] Once this health crisis passes, our worst response would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism and new forms of egotistic self-preservation. God willing, after all this, we will think no longer in terms of “them” and “those”, but only “us”. If only this may prove not to be just another tragedy of history from which we learned nothing. If only we might keep in mind all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators, partly as a result of the dismantling, year after year, of healthcare systems. If only this immense sorrow may not prove useless, but enable us to take a step forward towards a new style of life. If only we might rediscover once for all that we need one another, and that in this way our human family can experience a rebirth, with all its faces, all its hands and all its voices, beyond the walls that we have erected.

36. Unless we recover the shared passion to create a community of belonging and solidarity worthy of our time, our energy and our resources, the global illusion that misled us will collapse and leave many in the grip of anguish and emptiness. Nor should we naively refuse to recognize that “obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction”.[35] The notion of “every man for himself” will rapidly degenerate into a free-for-all that would prove worse than any pandemic.

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT

SOMETHING ABOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT.

It has been said that the great unknown is Thy Holy Spirit, it is allwais good to remember Thy, pray to Thy and maditate about all what Thy does for each one of us and for the the unique Church of Christ. To start, we can say that Thy is the source of all unity, that in Pentecost gave the Apostols the gift of tongues, and since then they remembered and understood all the teachings of Jesus, that came to form the writen Gospels and the Holy Christian Tradition. We should not expect the same gifts, this are other times and circumstances, but Thy gives us gifts that are very valuable, to start the possibility of intuition of God. He came to it´s church and to us, as promised by Jesus Christ himself, after his Resurection and before going to his Father in Heaven.

The Psalm 104,30 says:

WHEN YOU SEND YOUR SPIRIT, THEY ARE CREATED, AND YOU RENEW THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

The Psalmist celebrates the glory of Creation. The earth was not in order, and was empty, darkness covered the abism and THE SPIRIT OF GOD  MOVED OVER THE SURFACE  OF THE WATERS.

It is Jesus Christ who will make clear to us that the Holy Spirit is one of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, God´s love for menkind is aforded to us throug the Holy Spirit, God is love and his love to us is given trough his Spirit.

“The Grace of Jesus Christ, the Charity of God, and the communion of the HolySpirit, be with us all”. We have to be able to discern of the action of the Holy Spirit , over our children, if one of them shows a vocation of a religious life, we should not take away the opportunity, and without forcing, take her or to a well prepared priest in these matters, or a the ideal person to chat with. It migth be a vocation or just devotion, God is who gives the vocations, so we as parents, should prudently investigate.

When we are bautized, the Grace of God Father is our new reborn, it is given to us by the Holy Spirit, in Jesus Christ. Due to the conduction of the Son, since the Son presents them to the Father and the Father in return gives the incorruptibiity, so without the Holy Spirit it would be imposible to see the Son of God, and without Son no one can get near God, because the knowledgment of the Father is through the Son and knowing of the Father is through the Holy Spirit.

Our faith also comes to us by the Holy Spirit, and along all our lifes Thy will be with us, with his inspiration, in the words of Christ in his last dinner with his Apostols he said that it would be the Holy Spirit who would keep them in the truth of his Revelation, and until the end of times.

The Holy Spirit is a gift to us by God, and he has 7 gifts to us, and this allows us to make our life a gift to God. these gifts are:

1)      WISDOM.-  that allows a person to know the truth.

2)      UNDERSTANDING.-  trough it, we gain a certitude about our beliefs.

3)      COUNSEL.- because Thy will guide us in defending those truths

4)      FORTITUDE.- courage against evil.

5)      KNOWLEDGE.-  desire to live up to the meaning and purpose of God, as ability of knowing.

6)      PIETY.- the perfection of the virtue of religión, to worship God and serve Thy.

7)      FEAR OF THE LORD.- taking in account our smallness and Thy greatness, puts us in perspective.

These informations are taken from the sciptures, and are and will be for all mankind the effective forum of the faith that saves us. We should prey or the capacity and comprehension of the messages that come from Jesus Gospels, that are a set of truths and comming from his own voice. The Gospels are Christ Thyself, Eucaristy, Confession, Praying.

Discerning about the the influence in our children is an important matter, if one or more of them show, signs of a religious vocation, we should not ignore it, but without forcing them they shoud be taken to a wise priest or a well prepared person in this, and let them talk alone, as many times as necessary. The Holy Spirit will do the rest.

The enemies of our Church, Religion, and beliefs, are alwais trying to influence our children, with idelogys that are bad for them, being nowdays the “Gender Ideology”, of wich we have to take all posible precautions, and get information that allows to know its dangers and corruption of the tiny minds of our minors. Lets pray to the Holy Spirit to donate us, what is necessary to guide our minors agaist the perverse influence of the Ideology of Gender.

Jorge Casas y Sánchez.

IN THIS OPPORTUNITY LETS PRAY WITH HOMILY OF POPE FRANCISCO.

I have negglecteds this blog but my intention is to, again work on it, due to my difficulties in expressing my own thinking I will include in my posts homilies, prayers, information etc. from other persons in it, this way you will be able to go to the original writers also. God Bless you.

PRAYING

 

PRAYING.-

Praying is the most important activity that a human person can have. There is no other activity that can be called better than it.  So we should not miss our daily time dedicated to God,  concentrated on Christ of course. Thereis a wide panorama of forms of prayer, all with beneficent effects, personal, to the human living society, and for those in purgatory. ¿Why concentrated in Christ?, lets follow this advice from the Church, “the best way to God Father is trough the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, with the Holy Virgen, Mother of God Jesus Christ, son of the Living Father”.

It is our faith that prepares us to speak with the Trinity, we could say: “chat with God”, due to the confidence that we have with thy. And there are many things to chat about, our happenings, our family, the difficulties of life, our needs, the needs of the others, our main concerns of piety, mortificatios, acomplishments, our professional activity, the proper and others health, for peace,in the world, the Pope, the Church, remembering the death, and a long Etc., remembering that by ourselves alone we can not acomplish any thing, but with God´s help we could move mountains. Some times it may be necessary to be guided, by readings, it is a good idea to have the Gospels              at hand, and other apropiate books,  nothing is better for us than being evangelical persons.

Our testimony of our believes, is an example to others, that in no way can be better showed than in our behavior inspired by love, our love of God, must grow to loving thy creatures, specially the humans, and after that the natural world, that we should treat in the best of our capacity, keeping it as clean of contamination as posible. It is a task, not easy, not agreeable some times, but it is what takes us to Christian adulthood, and gain of inner mayurity, if, to this way of life, we add the frecuency of Sacraments, and prayer, we are in the way to salvation, ¿what can beat this? Noting absolutely.

Christ risen from the dead after his Passion gave his apostols, several advices, one episode of those forty days that he spent among us, before his elevation to God Father, was in a mount, we do not know wich, but we know that in order to pray he, on many times went to  mounts, since there he found the lonlyness, and tranquility, he wanted so as to pray. In this opportunity he told his apostols, among other things: “go and predicate all men, all razes and baptism them in the name of the Father,  and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them all what I have ordered you”, and in those orders, there was,  that of praying.

After they returned from the mount, they were together  in hope, waiting to the promise received,  that in due time would take place, they were in prayer when at the Pentecostes celebration the Holy Spitit  came to them.

In our life, praying, is something that God expects from us, it is said that praying is talking to God, and listening to what he has to say to us. Lets have frecuent daily conversatios with our Lord.

Jorge Casas y Sánchez.

SALVATION BY FAITH

Salvation by faith

 On the basis of this sharing in Jesus’ way of seeing things, Saint Paul has left us a description of the life of faith. In accepting the gift of faith, believers become a new creation; they receive a new being; as God’s children, they are now "sons in the Son". The phrase "Abba, Father", so characteristic of Jesus’ own experience, now becomes the core of the Christian experience (cf. Rom 8:15). The life of faith, as a filial existence, is the acknowledgment of a primordial and radical gift which upholds our lives. We see this clearly in Saint Paul’s question to the Corinthians: "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor 4:7). This was at the very heart of Paul’s debate with the Pharisees: the issue of whether salvation is attained by faith or by the works of the law. Paul rejects the attitude of those who would consider themselves justified before God on the basis of their own works. Such people, even when they obey the commandments and do good works, are centred on themselves; they fail to realize that goodness comes from God. Those who live this way, who want to be the source of their own righteousness, find that the latter is soon depleted and that they are unable even to keep the law. They become closed in on themselves and isolated from the Lord and from others; their lives become futile and their works barren, like a tree far from water. Saint Augustine tells us in his usual concise and striking way: "Ab eo qui fecit te, noli deficere nec ad te", "Do not turn away from the one who made you, even to turn towards yourself".[15] Once I think that by turning away from God I will find myself, my life begins to fall apart (cf. Lk 15:11-24). The beginning of salvation is openness to something prior to ourselves, to a primordial gift that affirms life and sustains it in being. Only by being open to and acknowledging this gift can we be transformed, experience salvation and bear good fruit. Salvation by faith means recognizing the primacy of God’s gift. As Saint Paul puts it: "By grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God" (Eph 2:8).

 Faith’s new way of seeing things is centred on Christ. Faith in Christ brings salvation because in him our lives become radically open to a love that precedes us, a love that transforms us from within, acting in us and through us. This is clearly seen in Saint Paul’s exegesis of a text from Deuteronomy, an exegesis consonant with the heart of the Old Testament message. Moses tells the people that God’s command is neither too high nor too far away. There is no need to say: "Who will go up for us to heaven and bring it to us?" or "Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us?" (Dt 30:11-14). Paul interprets this nearness of God’s word in terms of Christ’s presence in the Christian. "Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead)" (Rom 10:6-7). Christ came down to earth and rose from the dead; by his incarnation and resurrection, the Son of God embraced the whole of human life and history, and now dwells in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Faith knows that God has drawn close to us, that Christ has been given to us as a great gift which inwardly transforms us, dwells within us and thus bestows on us the light that illumines the origin and the end of life.

 We come to see the difference, then, which faith makes for us. Those who believe are transformed by the love to which they have opened their hearts in faith. By their openness to this offer of primordial love, their lives are enlarged and expanded. "It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal 2:20). "May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith" (Eph 3:17). The self-awareness of the believer now expands because of the presence of another; it now lives in this other and thus, in love, life takes on a whole new breadth. Here we see the Holy Spirit at work. The Christian can see with the eyes of Jesus and share in his mind, his filial disposition, because he or she shares in his love, which is the Spirit. In the love of Jesus, we receive in a certain way his vision. Without being conformed to him in love, without the presence of the Spirit, it is impossible to confess him as Lord (cf. 1 Cor 12:3).

GAUDETE ET EXULTATE 18-32.

GAUDETE EL EXULTATE, 18-32

accomplish ordinary actions in an extraordinary way”.[16]

18. In this way, led by God’s grace, we shape by many small gestures the holiness God has willed for us, not as men and women sufficient unto ourselves but rather “as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” (1 Pet 4:10). The New Zealand bishops rightly teach us that we are capable of loving with the Lord’s unconditional love, because the risen Lord shares his powerful life with our fragile lives: “His love set no limits and, once given, was never taken back. It was unconditional and remained faithful. To love like that is not easy because we are often so weak. But just to try to love as Christ loved us shows that Christ shares his own risen life with us. In this way, our lives demonstrate his power at work – even in the midst of human weakness”.[17]

YOUR MISSION IN CHRIST

19. A Christian cannot think of his or her mission on earth without seeing it as a path of holiness, for “this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess 4:3). Each saint is a mission, planned by the Father to reflect and embody, at a specific moment in history, a certain aspect of the Gospel.

20. That mission has its fullest meaning in Christ, and can only be understood through him. At its core, holiness is experiencing, in union with Christ, the mysteries of his life. It consists in uniting ourselves to the Lord’s death and resurrection in a unique and personal way, constantly dying and rising anew with him. But it can also entail reproducing in our own lives various aspects of Jesus’ earthly life: his hidden life, his life in community, his closeness to the outcast, his poverty and other ways in which he showed his self-sacrificing love. The contemplation of these mysteries, as Saint Ignatius of Loyola pointed out, leads us to incarnate them in our choices and attitudes.[18] Because “everything in Jesus’ life was a sign of his mystery”,[19] “Christ’s whole life is a revelation of the Father”,[20] “Christ’s whole life is a mystery of redemption”,[21] “Christ’s whole life is a mystery of recapitulation”.[22] “Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us”.[23]

21. The Father’s plan is Christ, and ourselves in him. In the end, it is Christ who loves in us, for “holiness is nothing other than charity lived to the full”.[24] As a result, “the measure of our holiness stems from the stature that Christ achieves in us, to the extent that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we model our whole life on his”.[25] Every saint is a message which the Holy Spirit takes from the riches of Jesus Christ and gives to his people.

22. To recognize the word that the Lord wishes to speak to us through one of his saints, we do not need to get caught up in details, for there we might also encounter mistakes and failures. Not everything a saint says is completely faithful to the Gospel; not everything he or she does is authentic or perfect. What we need to contemplate is the totality of their life, their entire journey of growth in holiness, the reflection of Jesus Christ that emerges when we grasp their overall meaning as a person.[26]

23. This is a powerful summons to all of us. You too need to see the entirety of your life as a mission. Try to do so by listening to God in prayer and recognizing the signs that he gives you. Always ask the Spirit what Jesus expects from you at every moment of your life and in every decision you must make, so as to discern its place in the mission you have received. Allow the Spirit to forge in you the personal mystery that can reflect Jesus Christ in today’s world.

24. May you come to realize what that word is, the message of Jesus that God wants to speak to the world by your life. Let yourself be transformed. Let yourself be renewed by the Spirit, so that this can happen, lest you fail in your precious mission. The Lord will bring it to fulfilment despite your mistakes and missteps, provided that you do not abandon the path of love but remain ever open to his supernatural grace, which purifies and enlightens.

ACTIVITY THAT SANCTIFIES

25. Just as you cannot understand Christ apart from the kingdom he came to bring, so too your personal mission is inseparable from the building of that kingdom: “Strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Mt 6:33). Your identification with Christ and his will involves a commitment to build with him that kingdom of love, justice and universal peace. Christ himself wants to experience this with you, in all the efforts and sacrifices that it entails, but also in all the joy and enrichment it brings. You cannot grow in holiness without committing yourself, body and soul, to giving your best to this endeavour.

26. It is not healthy to love silence while fleeing interaction with others, to want peace and quiet while avoiding activity, to seek prayer while disdaining service. Everything can be accepted and integrated into our life in this world, and become a part of our path to holiness. We are called to be contemplatives even in the midst of action, and to grow in holiness by responsibly and generously carrying out our proper mission.

27. Could the Holy Spirit urge us to carry out a mission and then ask us to abandon it, or not fully engage in it, so as to preserve our inner peace? Yet there are times when we are tempted to relegate pastoral engagement or commitment in the world to second place, as if these were “distractions” along the path to growth in holiness and interior peace. We can forget that “life does not have a mission, but is a mission”.[27]

28. Needless to say, anything done out of anxiety, pride or the need to impress others will not lead to holiness. We are challenged to show our commitment in such a way that everything we do has evangelical meaning and identifies us all the more with Jesus Christ. We often speak, for example, of the spirituality of the catechist, the spirituality of the diocesan priesthood, the spirituality of work. For the same reason, in Evangelii Gaudium I concluded by speaking of a spirituality of mission, in Laudato Si’ of an ecological spirituality, and in Amoris Laetitia of a spirituality of family life.

29. This does not mean ignoring the need for moments of quiet, solitude and silence before God. Quite the contrary. The presence of constantly new gadgets, the excitement of travel and an endless array of consumer goods at times leave no room for God’s voice to be heard. We are overwhelmed by words, by superficial pleasures and by an increasing din, filled not by joy but rather by the discontent of those whose lives have lost meaning. How can we fail to realize the need to stop this rat race and to recover the personal space needed to carry on a heartfelt dialogue with God? Finding that space may prove painful but it is always fruitful. Sooner or later, we have to face our true selves and let the Lord enter. This may not happen unless “we see ourselves staring into the abyss of a frightful temptation, or have the dizzying sensation of standing on the precipice of utter despair, or find ourselves completely alone and abandoned”.[28] In such situations, we find the deepest motivation for living fully our commitment to our work.

30. The same distractions that are omnipresent in today’s world also make us tend to absolutize our free time, so that we can give ourselves over completely to the devices that provide us with entertainment or ephemeral pleasures.[29] As a result, we come to resent our mission, our commitment grows slack, and our generous and ready spirit of service begins to flag. This denatures our spiritual experience. Can any spiritual fervour be sound when it dwells alongside sloth in evangelization or in service to others?

31. We need a spirit of holiness capable of filling both our solitude and our service, our personal life and our evangelizing efforts, so that every moment can be an expression of self-sacrificing love in the Lord’s eyes. In this way, every minute of our lives can be a step along the path to growth in holiness.

MORE ALIVE, MORE HUMAN

32. Do not be afraid of holiness. It will take away none of your energy, vitality or joy. On the contrary, you will become what the Father had in mind when he created you, and you will be faithful to your deepest self. To depend on God sets us free from every form of enslavement and leads us to recognize our great dignity. We see this in Saint Josephine Bakhita: “Abducted and sold into slavery at the tender age of seven, she suffered much at the hands of cruel masters. But she came to understand the profound truth that God, and not man, is the true Master of every human being, of every human life. This experience became a source of great wisdom for this humble daughter of Africa”.[30]

THE SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION.

THE SACRAMENT OF CONFIRMATION.

Confirmation. This Sacrament seals what took effect in our Baptism, there we became adoptive children of God, by full rigth, and inherited the benefits of his love, promises and Redemption. We acquire a particular relationship with Lord Jesus, we are consecrated  as his witnesses in his Church and the world. So he hopes from us a behaviour dedicated to the well-being of the others and ourselves.

We must be responsable, dedicated and loyal servants of the Gospel, seeking the identity and knowledgment of the Word of God.  And Confirmation of the adult brings us to the capacity of it.

Children are not masters of themselves, but adulthood, is the time when we all have to spread the profound and comprehensive knowledgment of catholic doctrine, it is our fate

Catechesis is something that we all can do, simply due to the fact that there will alwais be others that know less than us, starting with our children. It is our love of God and its creatures that gives us the moto to do it, and for us it is a gain in relation to our salvation.

It is notorious how many adults ask in their parishes to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, the reason for not having been Confirmated may be one or the other, now what realy is significant is to be ready and willing to receive the Sacrament. Ussually it is required to have taken the pre-sacramental lectures, being this very convenient. So, if you are or know of some adult that has not been confirmed, do not hesitate and prepare to receive it, in your case or do the favor to someone else. She or he will be greatful for the rest of its life.

Jorge Casas Sánchez.