Retreat - Friday - Sixth Day Texts

The penultimate day of our week-long parochial faith awakening spiritual experience. The day for the sick and the day for the meditation on the mystery of the Cross. The conclusion of the day was the meeting with married couples taking on the issue of the crisis of the father figure in the world. Here are the texts:

Wells Of Life Wisdom

Home visiting of sick and elderly in Kiabakari has been a pastoral experience I look forward to always. This morning I visited our seniors and sick parishioners in four out of six districts of Kiabakari township. Meeting those people i nothing less that drinking their living wisdom, shaped up and matured by life, suffering and experience. Came back overjoyed though sad that there are sick people in the parish. This is mystery of the Cross which teaches me humility and respect for life along with appreciation of whatever health I still enjoy. God bless our seniors and sick members of our parochial community! Happy Easter! Many of you we will see on Easter Sunday! Some pictures from today's visitation (random order).

Demonstrate Your Faith

Saint Jacob Apostle in his letter which is quoted in today's Second Reading of the Liturgy of the Word of the Twenty  Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time Cycle B, writes the following profound words:

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone says he has faith but does not have works? 
Can that faith save him? 
If a brother or sister has nothing to wear
and has no food for the day,
and one of you says to them,
"Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well, "
but you do not give them the necessities of the body,
what good is it?
So also faith of itself,
if it does not have works, is dead.

Indeed someone might say,
"You have faith and I have works."
Demonstrate your faith to me without works,and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works." (Jas 2:14-18)

Three Crosses

Just a quick post. My homily for today's Sunday. In kiswahili language, so, please, use Google translator provided at the right sidebar of this blog to read in your native language...

Some Things

A very close friend of mine sent me a message in the wee hours of the day, asking if he was correct by meditating on Christ's Passion while reciting Divine Mercy chaplet (he explained what he meant by this). His message prompted me to look deeper into the Passion of Christ and to offer a broader perspective, writing to him that Christ's Passion is much more about spiritual and psychological torture and suffering, than the physical one only. So, I continued with the meditation on the Passion and pinpointing the crucial elements of the spiritual and psychological dimensions of Christ's Passion. While doing so, I found this page, which drew my attention, though a bit off the topic but the last paragraph of the text in that link speaks volumes about my point. By the way, what I read in that link somehow correlates with my feelings when I denied at first watching the movie, only later only reluctantly doing so, as I never was and never will be a fan of biblical movies. They force, in my opinion, a certain angle of the director of the movie into my imagination, denying me my freedom to visualize the Bible content in my own way and my own sensitivity, based on what I read and reflect upon in the spiritual reading.

Stations

Fridays of Lent. Happy are those who understand that Lent without participation in the Stations of the Way of the Cross loses a lot of its meaning and power. Happy are those who in the hectic schedules of their daily lives cut out a sufficient chunk of time for active participation and meditation of the Stations and the Passion of Christ. Nothing helps us grow faster and mature in the spiritual life and union with Living God than meditation on the Passion of Our Lord which has its summit in the Sacrifice of Eucharist. Every Saint throughout the ages will attest to this...

Passion Fish

Reading one of the reviews of a book 'Zapach Malin' which, by the way, I intend to buy and read at the earliest opportunity, it struck me that the book reminded me very much of a movie that I considered as my Top Ten movies of my life... movies that greatly influenced me and impacted on my way of seeing things, understanding the world, reality, suffering, relationships, people, our limitations and the power of human spirit and will... The movie will soon celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its release in movie theaters in USA and elsewhere in 1992. This is 'Passion Fish'. Watched it several times but always with the same tension and passion. I simply love it. And Mary McDonnell (who I am a huge fan of) with Alfre Woodard are simply outstanding... This is a trailer of the movie. If you have a chance to watch it, please do so!

The Sea Of Grass

The picture I found accidentally today, while browsing through online albums of my photos, triggered emotions and heavy thoughts... I live among people I love, respect, cherish and serve to the best of my poor abilities...I am surrounded by caring hearts, loving souls... Yet so many times I feel lonely, abandoned by everyone, helpless... Don't get me wrong... I am not talking about relationships, friendships, feelings of unity and closeness...

For Nothing

The First Reading of today's liturgy of the commemoration of St. Vincent de Paul, priest, offers to us a richness of meaning and insight into our own spiritual attitude and relationship with God and the world...

The Holy Hour

Thursday before the First Friday of each month is a day for a very special liturgical service - A Holy Hour. As the name of this devotion says itself, this is a hour long adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament, of Jesus Himself in the mystery of the Eucharist... The more I grow in years and become more and more absorbed with spiritual, pastoral, administration, development and other activities, the more I long for this special hour spent on knees in front of Jesus in Eucharist among the liturgical assembly of my fellow Christians in Kiabakari...

Halfway Through

Today is the last day of the first half of this year of 2010. When I was celebrating the morning Mass in the shrine, I couldn’t but walk down the memory lane looking back at those past six months and what they brought with themselves. Feelings of praise, gratitude, remorse and hope for better filled my heart and mind.

Tears Away

Once I read somewhere that when someone hurts you, then God will send someone else to wipe your tears away. I have experienced this phenomenon of God's love and tenderness today in an amazingly simple and elegant way.