To the Filipino Worker

SALUTATIONS OF CHRISTIAN PEACE and common good will to all Filipino workers.

During my time away from our one Republic, I have had the opportunity to ask a number of our fellow Filipinos who live and work in Australia and in the United States what they personally think about the future of our Country. None of them expressed any optimism as to our future, half were bitter and the other half just didn't care.

My fellow citizens, granted that the above sampling does not represent an adequate number enough of our population for me to present the above conclusion as reliable, it shocks me to realize that I am drawing my own hopes for our Country from something as flimsy and as circumstantial as a lack of statistical requirement.

It leads me to ask, "where have our patriots gone?" O Mother Protectress, have all thy sons and daughters abandoned thee? What happened to our Pearl of the Orient, the nation our beloved Jose Rizal penned his shining testament of his undying love for us in his Mi Ultimo Adios, the nation that the Saint and Martyr of God, Lorenzo Ruiz, the Blessed Pedro Calungsod and other Venerables and Servants of God calls their home? Does no one remember anymore the love of our heroes and martyrs, past and present, known and known only to God, that have merited from us the privilege of this particular endeavor of Country? Does no one value anymore the noble suffering and sacred blood shed by our honorable military, police, fire, rescue and government service personnel who everyday fight not only to preserve what promise this one Republic holds for us in the present but also to feed and sustain their own families and loved ones? Most important of all, does no one care enough to even invest the smallest flicker of hope in this particular endeavor of Country and it's great Republic promise on behalf of our everyday suffering citizens, many of whom live in degrading and humiliating degrees of poverty?

Listen, O my dear Filipino, listen to the deep of your own silence. Listen and hear our Blessed Lord calling out to you in the night and say, "here I am, Lord". Our salvation, one with another, is intertwined, O Land of the Morning. For we are the sons and daughters of the new morning, the one from on high. Being called to His light, let us advance the cause of God's peace to break the long spell of this midnight darkness that engulf our lands and bring relief to our people that by resurrecting patient hope in our own promise of Country, we may also one day shine with hopes for peace for other nations of the one family of the suffering nations of mankind. But how can we do this unless we ourselves are at peace; at peace in our hearts that lead to peace in our times?

I believe in the Filipino worker. Because I am a Filipino worker. There is a certain dignity in honest labor and we must recognize this dignity in each and every one of us, from the least laborer to the office of the President of the Philippines. Let us recognize, my dear Filipino, that this dignity though not equal in significance is more importantly equal in it's importance to our particular endeavor of Country. We are all our nation's hope. We are all in this together. Let us try and have this basic respect for one another. Let us be willing to care, let us be willing to love, let us be willing to work as citizens, one with another. For how can any one sector of our society stand without the other? More importantly, how can our one nation advance the cause of our common hopes without all the seemingly faceless, nameless, common Filipino workers who each and everyday exert both body and soul to move those heavy gears that build and sustain for us our Pearl of the Orient?

May 1 is when we recognize this dignity - that all workers are of equal importance in the context of nation building. It is also the day we reaffirm in our hearts our belief in the promise of our common endeavor of Country and to make sure that all our particular efforts in each field of social and human development eventually lead us all toward this one great labor. For this labor, my precious Filipino, this endeavor of Country, is the labor that makes us free as a people.

My people, I believe that corruption will exist for as long as sin exists in our world but corruption will never flourish in our societies as far as we are united in our common hopes and we must define this hope of Country as a particular people knowing that every Republic hope in general is a hope for liberation from fear and suffering, the hope for the genuine freedom to be truly happy, the hope for peace and good things. Now, my precious friend, hope is by nature something good that is given, one can not have hope without having received and embraced something that is good and therefore, true that did not exist before, for hope will not exist without a Giver. This is why this Filipino Republic must never be separated from it's belief in God, in the one God of our common creation, the one common Creator of the one common parental lineage of all mankind, a God of life, peace, good, virtue and truth, the reality of the one God Who is not a product of any honorable religious traditions, the One Who embraces all in all.

I am not espousing a theocracy, far from that, my fellow Filipino, I do not believe that religion should enter into the political realm of the statesmen. I am espousing the reality that God is above religion, that the reality of God does not depend on any religious tradition no matter how honorable or wicked. For any religion being the virtue that enables us to give true worship to our God according to the revelations of God that is entrusted to our own particular faith traditions is inherently divisive because not only is each faith tradition particular in its application, the deeper degrees of personal, particular faith is also specific to each particular person.

But the hope that is derived from faith and its honorable religion is common and common enough to speak a language that can be understood by all which is the language of truth, the common tongue of the peace. This is why I am a firm believer in the separation of Church and state, my precious friend, but never the separation of God and state. A godless state is nothing more than a cage. It hopes not because it believes only in itself and therefore, receives no real hope. And because it receives no real hope, it is like a ship in the desert, it knows not the right path to any particular future. Trapped in its own limitations, it will soon find itself empty of promise and without any real ability to fulfill its potential for sacred life and life's freedom to be happy.

The Republic I speak of here is what I present to you, my fellow Filipino, as the one, faithful Republic; one people informed by universal and absolute truths, ascendant truths revealed by the light of a universal faith in a universal Creator and Source of all life and truth, the pillar of an authentic monotheistic faith. And this is not incompatible with my Roman Catholic Christian faith, for I am deeply Catholic - however, because I am deeply religious, I have respect as well for the dignity of other people, including their religious belief.

What is good is also what is true. Evil is ephemeral. Republic governments in free societies exists because the people have given it a right to exist and these governments derive their authority from Divine Providence. Therefore, governments who are true to their mandate have no right to believe in evil and false hopes, hopes that are selfish in nature, hopes other than that entrusted to them by their constituent populations whose sacred trust they are bound by electoral oath to serve and defend nor does government have any right to force any particular faith on any particular person.

The seal of all our elected offices of state as well as the seals of our particular communities are more significant than the person occupying those seats of office. This fact must receive the right proportion of truth in our awareness because those seals are the unchanging symbols that represent its particular authority and the necessary continuation of that authority which is derived from God, and that authority which shall only cease when our nation itself ceases to be. When we have as one people fallen into the maw of the beast of war or at the consummation of the age of mankind at the close of this temporal dispensation, at the General Judgement of God. This awareness of an unbroken lineage of Republic office is vital if our hopes as a nation are to be carried forward and refined by electoral succession because it preserves in government what is enduring even as we shed as a nation those false things that are inconsistent with our passage into maturity as one Filipino people.

My beloved Countrymen, if we believed in the person more than the seal of his or her office, then we will have also put our complete trust in that person's human limitations and are bound to be severely disappointed. For the order of Republic authority that flow from God Himself is undermined because we will not see that person as a fellow citizen holding elected office but as a person holding power. And if this falsity perseveres in our social consciousness, we will become witness to a backslide into medieval feudalism in our present times. For power is that which corrupts and absolute power that corrupts absolutely. Power in a Republic is never held because the authority to govern the people does not belong to any one person. Power in a Republic is an authority given by God through the people. It is a good to be handed down to the people, to empower the people and to enable us to live decent, useful lives, even as our hope of Country is handed up to God by our elected leadership, for the benefit of the people, and this shall be so for all the generations of the people. For a Republic must trust in Almighty God or it is not a free Republic. In a faithful Republic, power is held by no man, for the power to govern is an authority derived from God and is an integral part of Divine Providence; it is a part of God's whole government of the universe. Because of this, God is correctly known to the people of all free, faithful Republic as the first and foremost defender of the state.

A faithful Republic is like a vision of a fertile land of growing, fruitful things, a home under the sun to all the wandering children of faded Eden, there is patient truth in every life, there is verdant life in every citizen, and there is real happiness to be had for all, for there is peace that lengthen the days, and days strong enough to stay the darkness of the beast of war, the civilizing light of our honorable religions shine brightly, a light that illuminates this great realm of hope that surround us, embraces us as one people and reaches as high as the sky, a sky that shine with the numberless kindly lights of our every hearts, upon a great nation where all citizens can share in the warmth of our one, true God that save against hopelessness and final despair.

But equally true is the fact that citizens and not governments make good societies which is why the right to the free practice of all honorable religions is vital in today's quickening, integrating, globalizing environment. Peace can not be transmitted to the population by our leaders, we must as individual citizens embrace the peace offered to us by Country on our own free accord and allow this peace to grow by prayer and the grace of God as a good in our hearts and by extension, as truth applied into our quite needful present times. Peace, the same with all good things as virtue and sacred life, ascends, cleaving from truth to truth, strength to strength, grace to grace, from the inward self, to our family and friends, to our local community (barangay), to our town or city, to our province or state, to our national region, to our nation, to our local regional community, to our continental region, to our greater continental region, to our world, to our God. In the Solidarity, this is the ascendant order of the peace.

Far from any honorable religion becoming obsolete, now more than ever does mankind need the civilizing strength of all true and honorable religions. Peace is a requirement for our world to advance and move forward away from this midnight desolation that mire our poor, suffering nations in the descendant pull of war and darkness. Atheism and secularism can never rise high enough to break through the darkness and the gravity of war that keeps our young Countries poor and keeps our mature Countries from evolving into those necessary Elder states.

Apart from the strength of our one, faithful Republic, peace is a promise I know in my heart of hearts that our Holy Mother Church, the Roman Catholic Church, united with all of blessed Christendom can deliver for sacred life and faithful Country. Peace is a foundation strength of my Roman Catholic faith and of all of blessed Christendom, a hope from among other shining hopes such as life, freedom, love, mercy, social harmony etc. that we, as Christians, can really and truly share with each and every nation of the one family of nations of mankind, most especially those nations we call our home whose hopes we shall work to sanctify.

There is so much hope in Country, O my Filipino nation, let us despair not, but come together and believe, let us be renewed again in God and one another, O land of the morning, let thy promise dawn in our hearts as we labor together towards peace in our times, prosperity in our lands and true freedom for our people!

Mabuhay ang mga mangagawang Pilipino!
Mabuhay ang pag-asa ng ating bayang Pilipinas!
Pax Pilipinas, Mabuhay!

Glory to God in our native Republic.
Adoration to Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Peace to our precious Filipino workers.

O Saint Lorenzo Ruiz, pray for us.

Abortion: A Hidden Holocaust

ONE OF THE THINGS I NOTICED here in my home Country is that our young are flourishing. There are children here and you will see them everywhere you go. Granted, we are poor and many people here live in degrading conditions in shanty towns and dirty slums. There are more poor people here than there are middle class and those who are considered rich constitute only a tiny fraction of our present population. But this gap is artificial and can be bridged by honest, transparent and effective government.

We only need to refocus our national will and redefine for ourselves our collective hopes as a people in the great promise of our particular endeavor of Country; to find out for ourselves what defines for us both our pursuit and our goal of happiness as a nation and we will discover who we are; who we have always been. Indeed, the world would have us believe that our children are not a treasure worth having and fighting for.

Abortion is illegal here in my Country, true to her calling, this Filipino nation knows better than to abandon sacred life, especially our unborn, the life which sustains our hopes as a people. My people, I know will bleed to see to it that our posterity is adequately protected from the ravages of sin and war for even though our times are evil times, we all know as a people that it is not life that is evil. Our Mother Protectress still value what promise there is in our young people but the world abhor the young who for a time in their lives exist completely immersed in the hope that binds two generations together. A most precious time in our lives that is so easily forgotten by us adults but a time nevertheless that our blessed Savior recognize and point out to us to imitate in children. We we're once so filled with hope that we could imagine anything and everything and we honestly believed in our little heart of hearts, our little souls, that all of the world was still the same as it was in faded Eden, good just as God originally intended everything to be.

Remember those times, my precious friend? It seems so hard because we have been so constantly invaded in our hearts by the forces of sin that we now live in a different world, what adults call the "real" world is really an arbitrary form of reality that we create because we have lost so much of our young hope to lose faith enough in the impossible and as the child-like God of our innocent, little lives recede, the dark of our reason slowly replace the light of our complete submission to the One who makes the impossible possible in our hearts and therefore, in our simple, happy, little worlds as well.

Indeed, a place with less young people, a place with less children, is less likely to be a happy place. It will be a place that will soon forget that simple little world, so full of infinite possibilities, so joyous and content in the vision within itself, to become a barren womb, a lonely place, darkened of hope and longing for life.

The problems that face life in this world can be overcome by those who yet believe in life for the problems that face life are artificial and can be solved by the people if only the people are unified and rightly guided. No one ever takes with them into those permanent eternal realms the temporal riches of this corruptible, physical world. For we all enter into this world naked and crying and in the same way shall we all make our exit from this place of probation into the real world that God had intended for us to inhabit.

But those who have lost faith in life itself face a more difficult time for they have lost their natural ability to overcome by strength of faith and spiritual character alone, the perils that face all human beings, the perils of sin and war. For how then can they build God's Kingdom and His righteousness in their hearts without first sanctifying their faith by a firm belief in the sacred nature of the many distressing similitude of suffering life that represents God's image and likeness in our world? How can anyone who have lost belief in the visible ever hope to profess belief in the reality of the invisible God without which everything turns to ashes within and to dust without ? For behold, my precious friend, truly there are enemies that exist in our world, those evil that exist in high places, that can never be defeated by force of arms alone. There are enemies that God alone can vanquish as sin and war but how can these spiritual adversaries be held back by those whose very souls have crossed lines to become the very scourge of war that inflict upon our suffering peoples defeat upon defeat.

Indeed, the prevailing weather of the world today and what has been the climate of our planet for millennia is one of war. The destruction of everything and anything seems like the norm for everybody in our present times that the violence of sin and war, even genocide, is looked at with a disturbing lack of natural human antipathy and in some quarters actual relish and delight. The life of our world, plant, animal and most especially human, which is the crowning glory of God's physical creation has become a cheap commodity.

In contrast, in a world of peace, we will be more preoccupied with building both our virtues and our world in truths that serve the good of all. For Peace is a builder, indeed Peace is a builder just as Jesus Christ Himself was during His time on our world, a builder. Peace is born of Law, which is why due process is important because law, which is a direction of reason, simply must be given time to shape our collective thinking. But if we are impatient with the law though it is just or if the law serves not the interests of sacred life, then how can law serve to direct us toward the sheltering wings of peace? How then without peace can any society and the social virtues that uphold the common good within our communities flourish, advance and mature? If it takes peace longer than necessary to become fully matured and realized in our needful, evil times, will the life of our nations, most especially our Lord's own, i.e. the poorest ones, our Lord's own poor whom we must put first, survive the assaults of the beast of war?

Ascendant Concentration, the teaching methodology of our community, works to counter the pale allure of evil things as sin and war and bring out the ascendant truth that man is created good and that good is by its very nature superior over evil and that evil is ephemeral unless it finds a footing in our soul. It works to create the conditions for us to be thankful, having realized with joy, the infinite goodness of the Good God because our minds through our catechists and teachers and our hearts through much prayer and the grace of God have come to behold the refined vision of the glory of God in creation through an awareness of the proper proportions of the truth in our lives and in the lives of others even here in our poor, suffering world.

Verily, we, as one whole humanity, have come to imbibe deeply in our consciousness the lie that there must be opposition in everything or else the order of the world will come crashing down. Opposition is wholesome if by it we are formed in virtue just the same as affliction is necessary if the truth is to be refined. But opposition itself is not a virtue just as much as affliction wrongly inflicted contain no ability to convince anyone. But people nowadays act as if this is indeed, a world ruled by war; a world where opposition have become an adaptation to order and affliction its method.

This same poisonous mindset, perhaps, have convinced those who support the murder of the unborn hope of our nations, those who clinically eliminate those of us who are the weakest and most defenseless of all, those who reduce the dignity of the most precious gift of all into something less than sacred life. Life begins at conception. But this mindset of war just had to go against the convention of things that have preserved the order of our generations since the time of our Father Adam and our Mother Eve. There really is no justification for the taking of innocent life and those who believe in the God of life know it. Even those who believe in nothing but this life, may God awaken in them the joy of believing in life more abundantly received in the promise of Jesus Christ and His peace, correctly perceive the monumental wrong that have claimed the lives of more than 40 million innocent human beings, many of them belonging to the global ranks and files of our own generation and, my precious friend and Companion, this is a very conservative approximation.

Those clean sounding, clinical words that the misguided and the untruthful use to scientifically describe the murder of innocents must be one of those dialects spoken in hell. Our Blessed Savior spoke the truth and our Lord's truth is like a sword, it cuts clean through lies and darkness. The mysteries of our Christian faith stands up to the scrutiny of reason because there is a part of our reason that is veiled and so reason itself knows it must believe because reason understands that for reason to become whole, it must believe in what is veiled. Reason must believe because faith then unveils and illuminates for it the ascendant truths that serve and defend sacred life. For St. Augustine said one does not understand to believe, one believes to understand. Now those who speak of abortion who use the words of science, though they speak the truth, believes without faith and therefore knows without reason and have no eyes to see what is plain to see to those whose reason is liberated by the light of the truth. Reason without faith is blind and so science without morality is dangerous because even truth when it descends to the gravity of evil things, ceases to become the truth because all light is borrowed and once it loses sight of it's ascendant Source, it ceases to become itself and becomes something else. In the Solidarity, science imbued with faith is pure science.

Instead of an artificial gap in the distribution of material wealth as in my Country, the great evil of abortion is creating a generational gap, a more or less permanent condition and a tear in the lineages of hope that must exist to carry through from past to present, in the shape of faithful Country, the undying hopes of all our patriarchs, prophets, judges, bishops, emperors, kings, queens and forefathers, all our uncommon heroes and our common loved ones who have walked this mountain path before us. For the life that those unborn human potentialities that abortion have taken away from us will always remain missing and the lines of the peace that stand against the evils of the present today will have to contain these gaps. And this calamity is particularly becoming widespread in those Countries with the potential to become Elder states. But the dissipation of all these hopes in general cause great suffering because we are all slowly becoming ignorant of our true purpose as a community to the effect that even as individuals, we encounter a sense of despair for futures that look bleak. As if the future is empty, as if our Lord Who goes before us is a defeated Lord, as if our God is a God Who is empty of promise. In a world of war, we slowly lose our peace within ourselves and as a result, we witness the deterioration of the peace of our present time, even the peace of entire nations that hold back the assault of the beast of war have been completely lost and as a result, their entire complement of peoples suffer what seemingly is a needless suffering. And all of the hate and the despair that result from this adds to the flames that feed the hunger and give strength to the beast of war.

One might say that I am over-analyzing things, that these things such as abortion and war can not possibly be related to one another. What possible connection can abortion and war have? My precious friend, inside every sin is the same lie that in faded Eden has robbed us of our heritage of life. The sin that invites us to worship it in place of our God Who is our everything. One can not say to a believing Christian that sins are not related to each other nor can any believing Christian ever entertain the thought that different sins lead to different outcomes for they are indeed related and their consequence well known to all honorable religions. Abortion is clearly a sin, in my heart of heats, a great and abominable sin, therefore it adds to the realities of the evils that we all must face in the present time, the evil that is consuming our poor world and our poor hearts in sweeping conflagrations of a relentless, endless war.

The unseen angelic realms which form part of our natural world have long been emptied of its peace and made desolate by the same scourge of sin and war that is now poised to turn our world into a lifeless, soulless, spiritless desolation. For there is a war in heaven; a war fought in those natural unseen spirit realms that form part of our native skies, an invisible reality that embrace and penetrate our living world. It is a war born of pride which is the first sin of Lucifer, a war in those timeless spirit realms of the angels that are also inhabited by the width and breadth of our human souls; a war that from the visible natural realms of man seem to rage from deep within our hearts ever existing, ever lingering in the rise and flow of our awareness, a war that afflict the very foundations of our being, already darkened and wounded by sin, here in the now of the moment. Their probation happened in an instant, the good angels ascended to the glory of God and shone as the stars of the celestial skies. They found their rightful places across the Light Inaccessible and the supernatural abode of the Lord in the heaven of eternity. But not before one third of their immortal brethren fell into sin, not before losing one third of those timeless friendships that the good angels of God used to enjoy with those who have now become their most bitter enemies. Having received the gift of supernatural glory, the holy angelic hosts of God reach out from heaven to serve and defend sacred life by the power of Almighty God Himself from the real threat of the evil angels, a threat that outmatch us in every way. For the numerous devils and Satan himself battle ferociously against the Church of Christ to pull every human being down with them into the fiery depths of hell. For Satan and the evil angels burn with an immortal hatred of God and so hate us all by extension. For they detest the most profound humility of the Incarnation and covet the great promise given to mankind by the Redemption, the unmerited promise merited by Christ for His Church to be able to love and serve the LORD FOREVER in peace and without fear. Satan and his fallen angels and the reprobate who will not serve life are all therefore condemned forever like the Devil to an everlasting death, a turning to dust and to ashes from within, a becoming forever imprisoned by the descendant weight of their own innumerable sins, to burn in the dark, unholy fires of their own evil creation, trapped and twisted under the immense crushing gravity of their infinite offenses against the liberating, one and ascendant Truth of our one triune God. For in the Person of our Savior, there is indeed, much reason for all men of good will to hope for our Good Lord have given us His peace and fights for us everyday with His grace. Now, the goodness of our God, most especially manifest in the Person of Jesus Christ, is all the more reason to let our Christian hope guide our choices rightly toward the liberating truth of the Love that guarantee that these choices can be made.

Therefore, I am not convinced that the so-called freedom to choose is justification enough to take the life of an unborn human being. Choice is not an excuse to commit sin, human freedom is not license. Only in a world where all choices bear no consequence whatsoever to the reality of our living can any rational person worth his or her moral and intellectual salt believe that choice and the power to choose redeems us from consequence whether good or evil. But here in our real world where every choice bear consequence, it is not permissible that evil flourish because some have chosen to ignore the good. Justice must see to it that true human freedom is the ability to choose the paths leading to the good. For evil destroys freedom. If all choices were equal, why then is virtue both recognized and encouraged by grace and vice both prohibited and punished by law. If all choices were equal, there would be no freedom. Is this is pro-choice?

Whatever good that this particular illusion may pretend to present for the consumption of the general public, it is the legalized ability to murder the unborn hope of nations entire. This is clearly a political good. Now, some political good are real but this one is clearly an apparent good, an expedient submission to the evil fashions of the world, fashions that fade and flee made of sins that leave us with only with tears and confusion. It is not a real good. It is a false hope, an evil desire that lead to the demise of the freedom of the sons and daughters of God, this is not just true for us Christians but the one whole human family. What's worse is this pretense that claim to empower choice leads the unwary who are already victims in themselves to lose their peace with God and their own conscience for how can a any mother not feel the loss of one of her own.

O Lady of Sorrows! O heart that sum up the completeness of thy maternal desire to see us live! How you must weep for our unborn whom thy Son has uplifted by His Cross yet are treated as something less than life.

Abortion is a surrender to captivity, it is a release from Christian accountability, an easy escape from paternal and social responsibility in the name of mere convenience, moral relativity and our so-called modernity - all of them, evil fashions of the world - and a real threat to sacred life.

I am a great supporter of women's rights which is why I stand for the life of both the mother and the child believing both to be equal in dignity. This is because I am a human being. However, as a practicing Christian in general, I will never support the choice to commit evil nor evil itself. For I believe in the choices that preserve what good there is in each of us and what good there is to be had for all of us. As a practicing Catholic Christian in particular, I will neither pitch nor subscribe to the lie that pits the rights of the mother against her unborn because God's Eternal law in my heart screams out to me that this is evil. I do believe our God has made provisions to protect both mother and child and the peace of my Lord Jesus Christ excludes none from His love.

To help our Lord's poor - particularly, single mothers united with their unborn, the Solidarity, if necessary, will raise and support units at the Squadron level of Promise Keepers made up of local flights that in conjunction with Holy Mother Church at the parish and diocese levels will function as foundation support structures that maintain the hope and morale of those victims of the sins of impurity. It will function to bring them together as penitents and petitioners alike and create for them and their children a community of hope built from the solidarity of their shared suffering and like all special Squadrons of our Lord's poor (AA, NA, Covenant Hearts, Original Freedom, Courage and Sanctuary) will benefit from the full support of our community across all our national Wings.

In the Solidarity, the poor is to be referred to correctly as our Lord's poor. Our Lord's poor is anyone and everyone in need whether the need be spiritual or temporal in substance. All the regular Squadrons of the Solidarity in conjunction with any functional Abrahamic, Ecumenical or Multi-Faith Squadrons have an obligation under the national Wing to assist all our Lord's poor beginning from the furthest and the greatest of spiritual and temporal needs respectively. The assistance must be intelligently directed toward healing and wholeness of being and material and spiritual sufficiency of soul and then body.

The Solidarity, aspiring to enrich the life of our Holy Mother Church, share also in her great missionary spirit founded on the great commission of our Lord Jesus Christ. However, on the question of conversion, one can only hope to convert one's own self. Any forced or deceptive practices of conversion that violate the seal of faith within our Solidarity - that all faith is personal in nature and exists only between the believer and the one common Creator of all life and truth - is an offense to the peace. Faith can not be forced. For the work of conceiving in the hearts of other people the capital grace of true faith in Jesus Christ is the work of the Holy Spirit of God. One must only hope to convince one's own self of the truth and speak when God calls for it of his or her own convictions of the truths of our Christan faith and the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others who are willing to listen. We shall ever be ready to present the truth and deny it not to those whom God calls to embrace it. In all other times, we will witness to the truth by our lives and not by our words for we are called to the works of prayer, peace and mercy - the method of application by which we shall build with our own lives the promise of our Lord in our times and God-willing, change the destiny of our nations, shifting at the void at the threshold of the third Christian millennium, the destiny of our peoples from one of war and bondage to sin to one of peace and communal liberation from suffering, turning this long lingering darkness into the daybreak twilight of the new morning from on high, and a better, kinder, safer world for all men, women and children of all the nations of the one family of the nations of mankind.

Because life is uncertain, law is particular and this particularity and specificity of law is reason for legislators to make laws that are robust enough to embrace the whole sweep of the ideal good that it protects. It is not society that must adapt to law for the needs of society do not change, but the evils of the times that every society of every age must confront does change, and so therefore, it is law that must adapt to the reality of the times to take into account the changing natures of the evils that it confronts on behalf of the public peace and the common good of human societies.

If it were society that must adapt to laws that no longer serve it, it would be an outright and insufferable tyranny of words.

Now, there ought to be laws that serve both the mother and her unborn child for the good of both mother and her children constitute one truth and laws must not serve to divide that good much less pit them against each other. This is why there are parties and houses of legislation, to fuel the debate that serve to constantly refine the truth at the core of every bill that is passed into law to enable it to do the most good for the people. Parties only oppose each other not in principle but in the service of the people. They are in principle united in their effort at the end of the day to advance the hopes of the people and not to divide a nation's dreams. For law is meant to serve life for it is just plain unreasonable not to do so.

Verily, every nation is a common dreaming of life, the abundant life, even that life which is everlasting. How could any faithful Country trust to the illusions that rob her of her precious heritage of hope carried forward into the present moment by the unbroken lineages of the generations of life?

Fr. Frank Pavone and Priests for Life presents us with two videos that show the reality of the evil that we face in abortion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us_y9GP_-DA (Dismemberment abortion) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBOAPleF1t0 (Suction abortion).

How can any government sanction what would in the end weaken the body politic it is duty-bound by sacred oath to uphold and defend, how could any Country trample on the rights of those generations who ensure the survival of her unborn hopes, how could a nation who have fought so hard and so well to guarantee for her citizens a participation in the present forsake the fight to preserve the unrealized dreams of those who have yet to live in her bosom?

Unborn they remain, yet never unloved, nameless yet never forgotten, the unlived lives of those men and women who could have fought and died for things noble and true, who could have served our communities well, who could have discovered works of wonders for the good of all mankind, who could have helped our humanity make this world a better, safer, kinder world for all men, women and children of the suffering nations of all mankind.

The holy innocents and the promise of their lives shall not be forgotten, most especially within the Solidarity, the effects of the void left by these missing, unwritten, unfinished lives cut short by sin and war, violence and abortion, can never be overlooked for their blood soaks the very ground that we live on and their silent cries does not go unheard for if your listen all around you, my precious friend, there is a chorus that resound all around us that pierce our unconscious native skies into the heart of the reality of our one triune God.

And the time is late.

To all the children -
to all children of the Holocaust,
the innocent victims of war and sin.
Rest now, little starshine, close your eyes.
Let the past go now. Thy hurt shall fade and flee.
This evil will soon melt away.
Fly now, little ones, the LORD awaits thee.
Let His eternity embrace thee. All our tomorrows to receive thee.
And here in the present there will be much remembering to do.

Glory to God in His creation
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to all men of good will.

O Holy Innocents of God, pray for us.
O Blessed Jacinta, Flower of Fatima, pray for us.
Hail Mary, full of grace, pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death, AMEN.

Conduct of the Peace

AT THE LAST DAY, there will only be two kinds of people in the world; those who serve life and those who refuse to serve life.

Those who serve life serve God and those who serve God serve God's peace and those who serve God's peace serve because God's love and compassion is present in them. Therefore, peace is a virtue informed and animated by charity; a virtue whose acts are acts of love.

When our Savior gives us His peace, our blessed Lord requires us to realize the wholeness of His trust in our ability to fulfill our Christian promise. In effect, our Lord is telling us, "I am entrusting you with all that I am. All of my love and hope for you, all the examples of my earthly life, my wisdom and counsel, my Passion and Cross, death and Resurrection into new life, I give you. All that I am is yours."

In return, when we give to our Lord and to each other the same gesture of peace, we entrust to God and to each other all that we are. Dear Christian, our peace is not a parting of ways, it is a reciprocal union of the one sacred Christian trust; a loving exchange of solemn promises that we shall forever belong to our Savior and to one another in time and eternity as the one, universal, holy and apostolic Christian Church, the Roman Catholic Church. Our peace is a promise that we receive from God and a hope that we confirm to each other as one communion of Saints in Jesus Christ, a promise to see each other through by grace of God and our intercessions one with another both in time and eternity.

When we value our sacred Christian trust, our peace with one another through our peace with our Lord becomes a power to act. It becomes a virtue with the power to bring down the will of heaven here on earth. Therefore, peace and the works of peace for those who follow our Lord Jesus Christ is a sacred trust and this Christian trust is a public responsibility. It is a gift and a promise that Christianity has always had the potential to give to humankind.

In our present time, we live in a planet engulfed with the conflagrations of war, a world full of nations suffering from conflicts that arise due to lack of concern for this world in general and the dignity of human life that represent the life of our world in particular. Indeed, is vital for us as a planet to understand the relevant truth and necessary importance of peace in order to hold back the devouring evil of war in our present times.

For peace is a virtue with the power to build, preserve and advance entire human civilizations. It is the climate of Christ and a pledge of unity, harmony and continuity among the nations whose hopes it sanctifies.

Peace is a good and is therefore an ascendant truth. It does not exist to oppose war, opposition being the fundamental spirit of conflict, but to lead away from it, rising above the discord, division and dissolution of the desolation of war into the unity of truths that build from strength to strength, truth to greater truth, hope to higher hope, and grace to ascendant grace to cleave to the unity of the Truth in the oneness of our God Himself. Therefore, there can never be two sides to the one peace for our peace is one just as God is one.

This virtue serves as a beacon that illuminate the heart and mind of a person not so much to drive away the darkness of sin in the mind but to open for the soul a new path that lead the heart away from the darkness the nearer it shall brave to walk closer into the Light and see itself as it truly is.

The virtue of peace, in all it's acts ascends to unity, accepts no division within itself, embraces all sides as one and excludes no one from itself. It abhors every kind of division and discord among men. It denies war a footing in the heart because it recognizes only the goodness of itself and speaks only in the tongue of the truth. It acts only to defend and never to offend. It is patient and steady being sure of it's own truth. It defends because it loves and is likewise defended because it is loved. Peace does not recognize war and never acts because of anger or hatred because the ways of war are foreign to her. For the actions of peace are always the actions of love being her divine love for sacred life and for the Good God of all life; the Love that animates and informs her as a virtue.

Peace form the sheltering wings that uphold the public order that preserve the common good that allows the due process of law and right reason to take place and to flourish, affording the citizenry the security to find true freedom enough to gather together in good will and build up the necessary juridical systems of functional constitutional rights that include a unified national vision and mission, the constitutional blueprints of an effective central government, it's scope, hierarchical structure and official responsibilities, efficient national military and law enforcement instruments, potent symbols, colors, hymns and anthems of state, the requisite national and international policy accommodations and limitations, public service, health, education and social welfare institutions, water, food and agriculture, necessary civilian habitations, civil defense, utilities, telecommunications, market and environmental control, trade and banking agreements and the economic and social blueprints of state that that give any particular endeavor of Country a real chance to fulfill her great promise for her people and all her honorable religions the genuine ability to sow the seeds of religious solidarity, human camaraderie, hope of communal liberation from suffering, in living communities of salvation united in safeguarding our lasting peace; the sheltering wings of the one great spiritual commuinion that embrace sacred life and uphold the mighty shield of a faithful state that defend with valor the long march of beloved Country across this vast desolation of war and the midnight darkness of exile time.

Those who are gifted by God with this virtue rise quickly to defend true self, others in God and all of living, breathing creation, those forms of life, animals and plants who can not speak for themselves from sin and the aggression of sin - the beast of war - not because of want of honor or praise or glory or any personal gain - but because there is love of God in them and God's love for life is in them. They know to serve only one Master - bearing full and absolute allegiance to the one common Creator of all life and to God's ascendant truth, rising from strength to strength, truth to truth, hope to hope and grace to grace to the unity of the one whole one of God's peace: the full communion of Saints, all who serve out of love for life and Country and by doing so give glory to the God of life and all creation.

Dear Christian, the struggle to establish peace in the void of our present times is most certainly meritorious in the eyes of heaven and earth because the path of peace is the path of our Savior and ultimately leads us to our promised rest along clear waters of life everlasting.

But war is certain defeat and those who live for war will never see an end to their battle. They will never rest who relentlessly pursue the descendant path of division, discord, dissolution and endless death and destruction.

The things we shall do today matter, my Companion from always to always. From the smallest to the greatest acts, the history of our present time will establish for the next 1000 years the nature of our quickening world for those succeeding generations of innocent life who shall soon follow after ours have faded away into the mysterious embrace of eternity.

Beloved of God, remember when our Blessed Lord said: "no one can serve two masters": Peace is a promise. War is a lie. It is vital that we draw the line.

Glory to God in His creation
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to all men of good will.

Further Reading: Peace as Prologue

To my Generation X

TO ALL MY PEERS,
Salutations of Christian peace
and common good will
to our Generation X.

It seemed as if it would never come
But now the world awaits
What virtue we shall impart
To the nations of whose hopes
We shall soon inherit.

O my generation!
What distinguishes us
from the past?
Is it the hurt,
Is it the lack,
Is it the want of heroes' fire?
Who are we
and what defines us
as a generation?

We are here.
We are here now.
What shall soon define us
is not our past.
What shall soon define us
is not in the future.
What shall soon define us
in the eyes of heaven and earth
is our being here now
our being here in the moment
our being present for the peace.

O my kindred spirits,
O my generation be aware
of the wide, awakening twilight
of the time, times and a choice
at this void at the threshold
of the third Christian millennium
a space between our common human hopes
for peace and a better world
caught between tears and shadow
and God's infinite ocean of mercy.

The reality of our times exist
between the autumnal dusk of faded Eden,
this midnight world of war,
and the springtime thawing
of the new dawn from on high,
that bright new morning of peace,
before the noontime reign of Christ,
the Splendor of the Truth
and the Sun of Righteousness,
arising here in the wintering of our times
in the glory of God the Father,
the one common Creator of all mankind
on behalf of suffering humanity
and our poor world.

We must begin today
what no other generation can.
We must quicken to truths
that no lie can ever deny.
We must open doors
that lead to new horizons.
And we must shut the gates
so that no one may be left behind.

"For you were once darkness,
but now you are light in the Lord.
Live as children of light,
for light produces every kind of goodness
and righteousness and truth.
Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness;
rather expose them,
for it is shameful even to mention
the things done by them in secret;
but everything exposed by the light becomes visible,
for everything that becomes visible is light.
Therefore, it says: 'Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead,
and Christ will give you light.'
Watch carefully then how you live,
not as foolish persons but as wise,
making the most of the opportunity,
because the days are evil."

- Ephesians 5: 8-16

Glory to God in creation
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to men of good will.

Single Not Alone

"Home and possessions are an inheritance from parents, but a prudent wife is from the LORD."

- Proverbs 19: 14

Beloved of God, the highest goal of the Christian life is not marriage. The propagation and therefore, the preservation of our one race of humanity is important and in a highly secularized, materialistic world, this might be viewed by many as the highest duty of every human being. Indeed, the survival of our race is vital but for the Christian, however, there is a much higher calling than this. For the highest goal of the Christian life is to advance the cause of Christ which is to bring forth the salvation of our poor world and this accomplished through baptism of water and confirmation of fire that work the rebirth, by merit of the the Passion and death of Jesus Christ, of the elect but fallen sons and daughters of Adam and Eve.

Our highest purpose as dutiful Christians, my precious friend, is to bring forth the fullness of the age of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ in ourselves in order to diffuse the grace of God into our poor world. This is our highest Christian duty and all of the three recognized vocations of our Holy Mother Church; the religious state, the married state and the single state work as a synergistic, blessed whole towards this end as the Mystical Body of Christ.

Of all the three vocations of life, I've had the most experience in one: The single lay vocation. I know a lot of single people just want to keep it quiet thinking to themselves perhaps that they have somehow failed somewhere in their lives, that the marriage boat has for some reason sailed away without them. Let me tell you, my precious friend, I know this feeling very well. There used to be a time in my life when I had felt this tremendous pressure to get married. But I realized that I can not decide to get married like it is when I decided on my college course. One soon realizes that marriage require more faith, more hope, more trust, spent outside of the self for it to even become a possibility. Why? First of all, because it involves another person, another body and soul. And second and most important of all, it involves the Lord: The one Divine Love from Whose sacramental grace and blessing husband and wife become that one blessed unity as they realize, moment by moment, their unsurpassed love for one another; a love that gives birth to sacred life and sacred life that, in turn, gives glory to the Lord our God.

The beauty of the married state is this synergy of husband and wife, a synergy that is founded perhaps, at first, in the vanity of physical appearances and in the easy world of similarities between the lovers but whose longevity will ultimately be derived from the undying bonds of the spirit that measure the maturity of their love by their enduring together as one the great sacrifices that arise from the difficulties and differences of real life. Yes, my Companion, in a nutshell - a good wife is from God. But let us now talk about the single lay vocation.

What is the single life? First of all, being single is not a kind of failure. If you are single like me, let me ask you this: How can a Christian who is seriously practicing his or her Christian faith be a failure? Christianity is not a faith that subscribes to fatalism. No Christian, of whatever state of life, is a failure who clings to God in faith, lives in hope and continuous repentance and proclaims with love in his or her soul the salvation of Jesus Christ, the same, yesterday, today and forever. No, my precious friend, even in the midst of grave sin, we are never a failure unless we admit into our hearts the isolating bitterness and dark despair that lead to the ultimate defeat of whatever light of faith or song of hope that remain in our hearts and minds - in our souls.

A single, a Christian single, a Catholic lay single is not the unfortunate residue of the springtime passing away of youth. No, my precious friend, we are a unique vocation - a particular Christian occupation that satisfy a particular need of our Holy Mother Church. I am of the belief, my precious friend, that single lay Christians have much to contribute towards the building of a better world for all men, women and children.

"Duc in altum" - set into the deep! As laity we have the ability to penetrate deeply into our poor world to bring forward the evangelizing light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through thought, word and deed across the front lines of solid Catholic orthodoxy and orthopraxy safeguarded by our clergy and our religious contemporaries to advance bravely the cause of Jesus Christ right into the very heart of the darkness of the wars within that plague the peace of our world without. Indeed, the evils of the present are sufficient enough for every reasonable Christian single to manifestly believe that it is high time we live out our greatest potential in Jesus Christ.

The greatest peril for the single Christian is loneliness for this loneliness can easily lead one to bitterness and despair. Bitterness come from past hurts inflicted by evils that we refuse to let go and therefore remain unforgiven or unaccounted for and fester in the present like open sores. Bitterness like its taste are those evil things that linger and stain one's daily appetite for general human living. From this bitterness come a kind of misplaced anger and resentment, powerful passions that spead like the taste of bitterness to obfuscate right reason making evil appear good and good appear evil and may lead the less vigilant to forget that what animates and informs Christian life is charity; that what motivates us is divine love. Love requires us to be merciful. Our Lord's prayer prescribes us to be forgiving as our Father in Heaven is forgiving. But one who is bitter who relentlessly and secretly refuses to forgive the sin of either the self or of others consequently chooses to retain it. One then begins to be driven by a hate one does not recognize like a demon in disguise, this secret sin work to deny us our peace with our Savior and undermine the will leading the unwary soul towards subtle rebellion against the sovereign will of God.

We are nameless in the face of evil. And I speak here both of physical evil - of corporeal pain, senescence, illness, accident and death as well as the evil of sin - moral evil or the mystery of iniquity. Physical evil does not seek us out as unique individuals. Physical evil befalls all men indiscriminately because it is with humility that we must accept the fact that in this world, our Lord's Providence sustains both the wheat and the tares, bringing forth sunshine and rain alike to both the good and the bad.

But moral evil displays a disturbing kind of intelligence that is called the mystery of iniquity. All evil involves the destruction of what is real. Whereas physical evil acts externally causing injury, suffering and death to the corporeal body, moral evil pursues the annihilation of the inner nature of things and therefore desires our absolute destruction. Moral evil attacks the human soul.

We are nameless in the face of this evil because this evil strips us of everything and anything that makes us human. Those who abandon themselves to this enemy become the appearance of their sin. In the Solidarity, this mystery of iniquity is our sworn enemy with God and God's hosts. It is the beast of war.

But two things the faithful must bear in mind when it comes to the mystery of evil. First is that our Lord Who goes ahead of us will never give us a burden that we can not carry. Second is that whatever it is that befalls us Christians in this life happens always with God's permission. The good and the evil things that happen to us is always God's will for us and therefore, we always have reason to hope that our Lord will either give us strength to endure or He will not allow us to suffer. For God turns all things to good to those who serve Him with love and holy fear.

We are all wounded by Original Sin but let us all recall that our God made us to be good. Hence, whenever the good in us comes into contact with what is evil, there is suffering. This encounter with the mystery of evil and the suffering it inflicts to the good is clearly manifest in the Passion of our Savior Who is Goodness Himself. But it is never by the evils inflicted to our persons alone that we are distinguished as Christians. All the evil in the world will not be punishment enough to atone for what offense we are all guilty of in the face of our one God who alone is Good.

It is what hope we become in Jesus Christ, it is how we bear with virtue the evil of the times that our Christian character receives the shining recognition of both heaven and earth. Trials alone do not make us good Christians, it is what good we bring about amidst evil times that confirms us in Christian truth and virtue. It is what we become in the midst of life's suffering that confirms us in grace. Our Lord's Passion and death alone does not complete our faith. Our Lord's Passion and death as well as His Resurrection into the glory of God the Father make valid and whole our Christian witnesses. Evil is to be overcome with good for good alone prevails over evil because God is Goodness Himself.

In much the same way, it is true that we must carry our crosses with Christ but how we labor to overcome these crosses with, through, in and for Christ depend entirely on how we share our burdens, one with another, as one universal Christian Church and not as disparate individuals or separate Churches for how do we carry our crosses with Christ; how do we overcome the evil of our present times without the good of being able to share our burdens, one with another, willingly, obediently and with joy? We can forever rail bitterly against the evils of the present time and be in danger of sin or we can accept the evils of the present time and through mercy and penance, add to the peace of our times by quenching with our Lord's peace the wars that rage within us.

Good men who live in evil times know from Whom they receive all in all and are never anxious for they are at peace with the One who is Good. Evil men who live at all times know no rest.

My Companion, there is a great difference between our letting go of something good and true and something evil and false. Good things tend to last because all of heaven and earth know that the good stand on a foundation of truth. What is true is also what is good. But evil is ephemeral unless it finds a footing in the soul. And it matters not whether this evil be the evil of other people or the evil that lives in our own selves, evil things have no foundation at all unless we stand them on a platform of unforgivingness and decide to hold on to the lie that lives within this sin. The justice of God is not served by our anger nor is God's righteousness a validation of our hate. It never serves the Christian soul to be so unforgiving of self or others as to give anger, ephemeral by its own self, a lasting place where it can quietly usurp the unsung love that keep the very supernatural life of grace that keep us alive in God and God in us. Once we recognize evil, it would serve us well as Christians to withstand the lie of this particular sin, the very same lie of the serpent of faded Eden, and to deny it entrance to our souls and recalling the peace of our Lord, to let it go either by virtue of mercy or penance.

In the Solidarity, it must be recognized that all the evil in existence is as a tiny drop of ink and God's mercy, an endless, clear ocean. All of evil shall ultimately disappear for those who believe in the victory of Jesus Christ and the infinite mercies of the Father Who sent Him. Good is by nature of its own truth ascendant over evil and must receive the right proportion of its significance in our collective and individual awareness within the community that with due diligence do we perform the eternal fruits of virtue to the glory of God and with the correct promptitude do we fly away, body and soul, from the ephemeral temptations that herald the approach of the evil of that same wicked lie that live within all that is sin. This is the foundation thought of Ascendant Concentration; the methodology of teaching within our community.

Despair as a sin against hope is when one becomes so disposed to believe that salvation whether it be their particular own or of other people in general is unattainable even though the words of our Savior Himself counsels us that everything is possible in God. But the despair I am speaking about here is a kind of sorrow that arise out of lack of faith in things greater than one's own self as God, the will of God and the greater community of other people, our neighbors. This despair is more of a weakness but a weakness still that lead to either bitterness or to the real sin of despair which is a sin against hope.

Because of all of this, the Christian lay single must above all else avoid feelings of isolation from the whole communion of the Church - a single lay Catholic must above the two other states work to merit by the grace of Jesus Christ an active and lively place within the communion of Saints - most especially those Saints and Holy Souls in purgatory that God Himself prescribes to this or that particular single believer. A single lay Catholic must know with the conviction of the Holy Spirit that he or she is single but not alone, never alone. For our corporeal bodies that live here in the temporal world are only representations of the whole person of a human being. Our whole person as human beings extend beyond temporality because our souls have a local consciousness that exist beyond time and distance almost touching the infinite realms of the divine. Our souls are not our corporeal bodies, our souls are the whole of our awareness and extend beyond the corporeal realm to broad horizons of consciousness that are continuously realized, enlarged, magnified and expounded by our profound encounters with the deep reality of the supernatural through correct prayer and the proper reception of the sacraments of our Mother Church.

Our souls are not contained by our corporeal bodies, nor are the dimensions and powers of our souls the same as our physical forms. Our souls are the life giving principle of our corporeal bodies, the physical body is inhabited by our souls but this physical body can not contain what in reality has the ability to pierce freely the veil of time and breach the imprisoning walls of nature and space by strength of mind and will of faith alone. By our common baptism, a particular Christian character is imparted to our souls, a character that by grace of God will crown and perfect in eternity the unique human personality that already exists in the self.

This planet is far too small for our souls not to touch, despite the ignorance and the darkness of exile time and in spite of the artificial limitations of the divisive politics that the misguided and the untruthful unjustly create, there is a social dimension to human consciousness, a collective spirit that exist in our humanity which is greater than the sum of its parts, a conscious reality of the common things that make us care and reach out with concern to one another.

We are therefore, my precious friend, truly always present together in our hearts and minds, we form a togetherness in spirit through our souls in community one with another that is more real than the illusions of the distances of time and space that appear to separate our representative, physical bodies here on this world. We are, most especially in our prayers, public as well as private, ever a standing together in the presence of our Lord and each other even though our corporeal bodies may be a wide distance apart; we are, after all a one, whole communion of Saints.

Having said all that, it must also be said that it is inevitable in the life of every man of any state of life, religious, married or single, to feel lonely. This world is indeed sometimes a desperately lonely place which is why Christ is our hope. Indeed, Jesus gave us His hope and His hope for us became our own hope - the hope of abundant life and the necessary grace that through the workings of the Holy Spirit leads to the promise of an everlasting life lived in the fullness of joy caught forever between the most precious embrace of the Father and the Son.

Single people are not failures unless we allow ourselves to believe in the miserable lie that isolates us from the company of both the seen and the unseen, the lie that thinks we are alone.

We are single not alone. We can feel lonely like the rest of humanity at certain times and places but because we are Christian, this loneliness is only a challenge to draw nearer to our blessed Lord, His Holy Mother, the Angels and Saints of heaven and the Holy Souls in purgatory in prayer that confirm virtue, as well as to our own contemporaries here in the militant Church and our contemporaries in the tremendous world of our common human hopes in virtue that bring forth good works.

Beloved of God, I know of a truth that the relationships we will enjoy in eternity are infinitely deeper and more intimate than the relationships we know here on earth. Embraced by the timeless beauty and exquisite felicity of the vision of God we become to each other more than a wife or a husband, a brother or a sister. I know of no human words to describe this blessed friendships born to an eternity of joy into the pious society of Saints and Angels, relationships founded upon truths noble and divine, relationships built upon virtues, holy and pure, friendships filled forever to the overflowing of a Love, immortal and divine, untrammeled by sin and unhindered by neither sorrow nor separation. The covenant of marriage ends with our inevitable passage into this greater unity of the whole of the communion of Saints. For our Lord Himself said that we are to be like the angels in heaven. Now, married couples need not worry, it is not a step down of your love for one another to become like the angels for this transformation across the veil of exile time perfects our union with God and with each other making what was an imperfect love sublime. This also leads us to realize that there is a love that exists that is deeper and more profound than our need for sexual fulfillment and it is this one love being the theological virtue of charity that is the requisite ingredient of a happy Christian life of any state.

If we put the need for sexual fulfillment first, as the world, the flesh and the Devil would have us do so nowadays, before we even begin to love another, that person ceases to be a person and becomes a mere object in our eyes. The immense value of the virtue of chastity that guard the sacred purpose of God in the procreative act between man and woman is easily overlooked and then annihilated altogether as the capital vice of lust take prominence in soul of a person. Lust, having found a foothold in the soul, is then free to work its scandal and soon spreads like a cancerous malignancy among the sons and daughters of our common humanity. The sacred purpose of the sexual act as a means to transmit life and consummate the love of God that exist in the union between a man and a woman protected by the sacramental grace of their sacred wedlock vows is so recklessly abandoned to the detriment of families, the deterioration of the Domestic church, and our eternal Christian regret.

Pornography and the pornographic nature of our times constantly reinforces this mindset, a poisonous mindset that reduces the dignity of the human person into the play thing of the sins that victimize with such scandal and severity the nobility of man.

Indeed, the greatest challenge of the single person in the context of our sexually saturated present time is the defense of chastity. The Venerable Louis of Granada in his book, "The Sinner's Guide", have described this as the most severest warfare that a Christian is expected to fight. It is something that can not be done without God's strength and fidelity, the efficacious intercessions of the whole Christian community, the one whole communion of Saints led by the Immaculate Heart of the Queen of heaven and earth.

Homosexuality is a sure sign of a calling towards the single life. Indeed, the identity struggle that every homosexual man or woman must suffer through must eventually come to the same rational realization that there is no real substitute to the union of man and woman. This truth must not serve to imprison them. They will be led to ask questions that challenge their Christian identity and the stereotypes of the world and the ignorance of many shall lead most of them to hopelessness and despair. Trapped in artificial circumstances they feel powerless to prevent, external circumstances that deprive them of their God-given dignity as human beings they will become angry and this anger will prevent them from recognizing the liberating peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It will isolate them.

In the Solidarity, we will view homosexuality not as a gender identity. We will rise above the prejudice and stereotypes of this world that attempt to deceive us with labels that break us up into descendant parts and disparate pieces, into tiny islands of truths that disappear here and there in a vast ocean of lies, into little spaces of indistinguishable peace in instances far and few in between separated by a million wounds of war. We will view homosexuality for what it really is, the manifestation of a unique soul - a unique soul the same with all our souls, irreplaceable and unrepeatable potentialities imprinted with the image and likeness of God - and a particular Christian calling, a very specific calling towards the single lay vocation.

The homosexual is more akin to the angels than they realize. They are a unique personality just as valuable and just as capable of giving and receiving love along with the rest of our common humanity. The difference is that the truth that live within the homosexual personality is one that shall ultimately find their absolute and most beautiful expression not in this world but in the world to come, in the world that is promised by our Lord. They are reserved for a much better time and place if they likewise preserve themselves in chastity with courage in their faith in God in Jesus Christ. It is a challenge indeed for them to be courageous for the promise ahead of them is tremendous. It is something that we must leave for them to discover for themselves.

Our task is to share our burdens together with the burdens that our homosexual brothers and sisters carry for they are not exempt from our Christian obligation to love each other as our Savior loves us. We are to welcome the sinner but never the sin. Towards this end, the Solidarity shall support units of Courage or Catholic Courage at the Squadron level to encourage, support and bring out of the darkness, our suffering homosexual brothers and sisters who desire to live in the peace of Jesus Christ in full communion with God and Holy Mother Chruch.

Our life, homosexual or not, is a lonely path that shall only find fulfillment not through sexuality or promiscuity but through the sanctity of the one love of God in charity, a love that run deeper than human sexuality and its challenges to our wounded humanity.

The single vocation could be a temporary vocation or a permanent one. It depends on the person whether he or she would like to fully dedicate their lives as consecrated singles in the service of Christ and His Church or to accept the will of God for them should they in time find a suitable partner in marriage.

In the Solidarity where we as Catholic laity live the awareness of the whole communion of Saints - militant, suffering and triumphant - the single person is recognized for who she or he is, not as an object of suspicion or idle gossip but a valuable friend and Companion, a Beloved of God.

For the militant Church exists not in the stone of its buildings, these structures only serve the whole of the Chruch - militant, suffering and triumphant. The militant Church or the pilgrim Church of Jesus Christ here on earth, exists in each and every person of the faithful - so when we say we belong to our Holy Mother Church, we expressly mean we belong to each other as one whole communion of Saints because, my precious friend, we are the militant Chruch and no one else, we are the life of this world that must give glory and dutiful service to the God of our hopes and the Lord of our lives, for love of Christ on behalf of suffering humanity and the salvation of our own souls.

Glory to God in His creation
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to men of good will.

Our Holy Father in America

CHRIST OUR HOPE: Much love, hope and prayers for our Holy Father Benedict XVI, may our Lord God bless him with a safe and fruitful passage to the United States of America and back.

May the noble spirit of America, by virtue of the choice faith of her people, find herself renewed and may this blessed Country soon awaken to who she truly is in the third Christian millennium: An Elder State, a Shepherd Nation, a leading light in a bright, new world of peace.

All towards a better, kinder, safer world for all men, women and children for all the nations of the one family of the nations of mankind.

May God bless you, America.
And may God bless us all.

Glory to God in creation
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to men of good will.

The Abrahamic Branch

BELOVED OF GOD, realize what promise there can be had from among those who profess peace the greatest from among all the religions of the world: the great monotheistic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Together we form that one lineage of Abrahamic faith in one God, in one common Creator and in one common beginning for the one human race, in the one parentage of the one family of the peoples of all mankind.

In the Solidarity, we shall refer to this one great lineage without any particular distinction to any particular faith as the Abrahamic branch - a harmony of spiritual strengths founded on the vision of the common practice of the peace between our three great monoitheistic faiths, in the Name of our one God, for the benefit of all of suffering mankind. The commissioning of an Abrahamic squadron within the national wing of the Solidarity is a means toward this end.

Therefore, we must treat all honorable believers of all honorable religious lineages of truth and wisdom with dignity and respect, most especially, our brethren Jews and Muslims. We must purge ourselves of any personal or cultural prejudices that demonize, belittle or hold in contempt the honorable believers of other particular faiths, most especially, our brethren Jews and Muslims. We must annihilate any kind of evil in ourselves that will prevent us from understanding and benefiting from the lineages of divine truth and spiritual wisdom that surely exists in the heritage of other particular faiths (Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, etc), most especially Judaism and Islam.

In our present world dominated by war where lies most especially about honorable religion are normally bandied about either knowingly or unknowingly by the most common folk. A midnight world where the common language of hell has become fit for the consumption of innocent souls, it would truly benefit every honorable religion, all of Christendom most especially, to foster with a common will to preserve the soul of the race of humanity entire, true harmony and cooperation from among the world's great religious traditions. True to this purpose, it is only befitting of our Dominican heritage in the Solidarity that we embrace the richness of the wisdom and the truths founded in other traditions of religious worship that we may build bridges and knock down walls. This must be done without dissipation or syncretism to our own particular Roman Catholic faith knowing with the conviction of the Holy Spirit that the fullness of the Truth subsists wholly in our Holy Mother Church in the Person of Jesus Christ, our Savior, our All.

Who is greater than a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew or any other believer but God alone? This makes us all equal save for our understanding of the truth about God, the universe and each other and the progress of our inward journey into union with the One. For our one God both ascends as well as transcends our divisions of self and religion to unite all true things from truth unto greater truth unto the one Truth that there is but one God and no other. No man is greater than any other man save for the spirit of selflessness and virtue that wills to serve the good of humanity in community with God and one another.

Realize, my Companion, that the common hope of the whole world for Jews, Muslims and Christians and the great potential of the Abrahamic branch must constitute 2/3's of what is necessary to bring about the change needed to transition the paradigm of our world from one of war to one of peace.

And realize, my Companion, that we do not have to be anything but our better selves to realize this potential for we each already profess an undying faith to one God. However, it would do us good to know what it is to come from one lineage of universal faith for although we will always be who we have been called by our own particular faiths to be, we are yet come from one Source and so what makes us one - what raises us to the ascendant unity of our God - our common patrimony, our theological parallels, our spiritual similarities, our geographical interconnectedness, our common human hopes and our shared thirst for knowledge, truth, understanding and peace must be seen as greater than the things that divide us. Because we should be appreciative of what makes us similar and at the same time there should be nothing but respect for our differences.

The reason things are not the way it should prevent safe passage across this longest night of our poor world both for our planet and for our one human race that, in spite of it all, must at the end of the day call this little blue world home.

My dear Christian, religious cooperation and spiritual interconnectedness is part and pre-requisite of that one, ascendant peace that our Solidarity exists to firmly establish, by grace of our Lord, so that we may build for the generations of life to come, a better, kinder, safer world for all men, women and children of every nation of the one family of the nations of mankind.

Shalom, Salaam Aleikum, Peace and Godspeed - do they not all mean one thing?

Glory to God in His creation
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to all men of good will.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us.
Holy Father Dominic, pray for us.

Recommended Reading: Part I of One Country: Faith in God, Nostra Aetate, Ut Unum Sint

Prayer of Presence

MY DEAR CHRISTIAN, if you are ever confused or in doubt as to what to do to either begin or to deepen your relationship with God in Jesus Christ, please remember this: Prayer is the beginning and the end of all things. In our prayer, within our hearts, we are like a standing still, we breathe in faith and breathe out hope bearing our minds heavenward and our longings into the deep of the silence where our good Lord fills our hearts with His light, His truth, His grace.

Have a recourse to prayer, my precious friend, and look to God and the rich traditions of Mother Church to teach you your own particular grace in this matter. I am, of course, dear Companion, speaking here of private prayer. Our corporate prayers are important - most especially Holy Mass, but let me speak here to you about private prayer.

For our own good, our Mother Church binds us, under pain of sin, to celebrate Holy Mass with her at least once a week on Sunday, our Lord's Day or our Sabbath. But with regards to private prayer, something I believe to be just as important a source of grace but not as significant as Holy Mass or the sacraments, there is only either our sense of Justice or Charity to bind us. If we should think any of ourselves adequately equipped by either virtue let us remember, Beloved of God, that love and justice are the two essential requirements of a perfect human civilization. Now, let us look at the world around us and realize that it would do us all an immense good to be humble.

Our souls are like a dry sponge and God's grace is like water, we constantly thirst for that drink that would quench our thirst of God's infinite perfections, of God's profound truths, of God's irresistible lovableness, we pine for eternity in a finite universe. Our existence in this world is like a desert, parched and empty. And we are like restless children who have become lost in this dangerous wilderness, a spiritual desolation ruled by a wicked tyrant. Verily, deep inside the hearts and minds of all human beings is a longing to be saved. Through the infinite merits of our Savior's life, Passion, death and resurrection, God has redeemed all of mankind, past, present and future. Grace which is the mysterious participation of God's own life within our own lives have become available to all of us sinners who do not deserve it. There is everliving water to be had by those who are called to one day never be thirsty again.

Prayer is something so easily overlooked by the Laity who live deep in the deserts of the world. Sometimes we get so used to the dust and the ashes all around us that we become insensitive to the inner, spiritual thirst of our immortal selves. We dry up and give in to temptation and face the great spiritual peril of becoming part of the desert altogether; to become a place hostile to life and devoid of love - a dead thing, perceiving neither light of faith nor song of hope, whose body of corruption will very soon return to dust, to be forgotten by heaven and hid under the earth as a prey of worms and whose immortal soul has like Satan, by the descendant gravity of it's own evil and lack of concern for life, turned to ashes from within to become forever the sport of demons.

Now, sacramental grace is like drinking from an eternal body of fresh water but the grace we get from private prayer is like water from a well. If we celebrate Holy Mass only once a week, as most of us Laity do, how sure are we not to dry up during our journeys between Sabbaths?

Saint Francis de Sales, in his book, "Philothea" or "Introduction to the Devout Life", taught me a very useful practice - the practice of the Presence of God. It is a way of recollecting the presence of God in our life right at the beginning of each prayer. The good Saint promised that this practice would prove invaluable if one adheres to it consistently. To help you get started, my precious friend, on the road to the habitual grace we call prayer, let us learn from the good Saint this quite useful practice. Here's how it works:

Spend some time (1-5min) before each prayer to recollect your awareness of God's presence in your life. You can meditate that God is really present in your life in four ways: 1. That God is present everywhere around you. 2. that God is especially present within you - in your heart and mind. 3. That our most loving Jesus is sitting right beside you waiting to listen to your prayer. 4. That our most loving Jesus is watching you from heaven above. Use only one meditation at a time so use the one that suits the dispositions of your heart at the time. The goal of this practice is so that you may adapt the proper inward attitude, to become deeply aware that you are really praying and that you are praying in the presence of the God of all creation; to be able to bow your head as well as your heart to the one, triune Perfection; to the one common Creator of all things seen and unseen.

In my own experience, this practice of the presence of God has led me to a more or less constant awareness of God and the realization of the unity of heaven and earth. It may sound like it, my precious friend, but this is not something esoteric - it is just the rational conclusion of the practice taught to me by Saint Francis de Sales in his book. I am quite sure that anybody who will follow the good Saint's advice will come to this same mystical realization.

What I mean by the unity of heaven and earth is the way one relates to his or her experiences here on earth. Where heaven and earth are one in the heart of the believer, all things are related to God's greater purpose for creation and so there is neither luck nor random events in a world where nothing exists that does not owe their existence from God's own truth. Everything, every motion, every manifest reality within the infinite worlds within and without the common, finite universe of all mankind is governed by Divine Providence. I say God's greater purpose for creation because neither man nor angel can fathom what God's higher intentions are for all things in existence, however, where heaven and earth are one , man become more and not less free to choose the paths towards the good ends that God has destined him or her by His grace to be and in eternity become. Where heaven and earth become one, we become less and less limited by the boundaries of our humanity as our souls ascend to higher purposes greater than the self to look upon vistas of greater and greater truths that lead us toward the one ascendant peace and unity in ourselves, in our one God and harmony in our times.

It has become a prayer of presence. A more or less constant awareness of the participation of God everywhere within our lives and in the real world of precious living, breathing things all around us. Our forgetful souls are led to return to His grace time and time again as the living reality of the Divine stirs us to remembrance of Himself with all things that happen to us, good and/or bad. We begin to see things in a different way - heaven and earth become one and the veil of time become what it really is, an illusion.

Instead of recollecting God's presence, as if the Lord has left us and needs to return to us, where we have become convinced of God's sovereign presence in and around all things seen and unseen, where heaven and earth have become one in our hearts; it is now we ourselves that needs to be retrieved from the darkness and the oblivion that engulf us here in daily lives to return to prayer. Like a standing still in the presence of a God who is immovable motion, a divine Creator that is everywhere creating and recreating anew the subtle miracles behind the unique realities we experience in our souls as the bittersweet landscapes of human life, deep in our prayer, we may dare to ask: "Indeed, there is movement in my standing still but Who is the Mover?" It is the LORD.

So pray, my precious friend, let us pray as we humbly say, "here I am, Lord, here I am": To stand amidst beauty and sing adoration to our God's wondrous perfections, to stand amidst goodness and plenty and sing thanksgiving to our God's unsurpassed generosity, to stand amidst truth and virtue and sing praises to God's awesome glory and brilliant majesty, to stand amidst sin and suffering to become awakened to our need for God being our God and, as Christians, to be indebted to His unfathomable wisdom and infinite mercy forever.

Glory to God in His creation
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to all men of good will.

Hosea

This is one of my favorite Catholic Hymns. It's about repentance, something I know so very well.

Come back to me with all your heart.
Don't let fear keep us apart.

Trees will bend though straight and tall.
So must we to each other's call.

Chorus:
Long have I waited for your
coming home to me and
living deeply our new life.

The wilderness will lead you
to your heart where I will speak.

Integrity and justice
with tenderness you shall know.

Chorus.

You shall see security,
faithfulness will be your joy.

Chorus.

I love this hymn. Most especially the last part - "faithfulness will be your joy".

This hymn also speaks volumes about the Christian faith, that our faith is not just about rules and common ideals; our faith is not simply a human accord - it is a covenant. Our Christian faith is a real, living, breathing relationship that we, Christians, share with our one, triune God existing within the mystery of Himself. Our religion is our profound response to a most merciful God Who loved us first, even while we were still His enemies.

Glory to God in the highest
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to all men of goodwill.

A Message to our Youth

"...In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world."

- John 16: 33

SALUTATIONS OF PEACE

and common goodwill to you,
our precious Starshine.

O precious child, O little lambs!
Think not your life to be uncertain
life is indeed full of uncertainties
but let this not burden your minds
nor make your hearts anxious
for it is not life that is uncertain
it is time that is uncertain
but life is for always.

For the life of man is in the soul,
made in the image and likeness
of our one common Creator,
and the soul of man is spirit
for God is spirit
and our God is a God of life
He is for always.

Time is uncertain
because the Truth is veiled
and all of heaven is in mourning.

There is much despair in our world today -
too many people are bitter,
too many people live in fear,
too many people are dying...
without even truly beginning to live.

Too many hearts have been hardened,
too many souls have turned away,
too many minds have become blind...
without even beginning to truly believe.

Too much lies, the language of war,
have twisted the tongue
of our nations.

Too much war, the scourge of life,
has plagued the memory
of our peoples.

Evil has taken a prominent place
in the hearts and minds of many;
like a dark star that rises
Wormwood ascends from sin to sin
in the Sacred Sanctuary of the soul
to eclipse our Eternal Daystar
turning our poor world into midnight
in the inward seasons of the celestial sky.

Every generation of every time and place
must confront the evils of their present time:
this darkness is that evil that we must confront
it is a spiritual darkness, a beast of war,
a reality that prevent the ascendant peace
and deny respite not only for our suffering peoples
but for our dying world itself.

Our generation and yours
along with those elder generations
still here for us today by the grace of God
has been commissioned by Christ
to arrive in this time and place
to shine and lead the way
out of the darkness of war
and into the new morning from on high;
a new era of peace and renewal
for our planet and her peoples.

Never be ashamed of who you are:
You are a child of this dawning
a vanguard of this twilight awakening
that is the truth that no lie can ever take
this is the fight of your generation
and it is also the fight of mine.

O numberless stars
of our Father Abraham!
Shine for sacred life
and be present for peace.
For if we do not do this
though our actions are but
a tiny drop in the eternal sea
it will yet remain undone -
what will the future of our world be?
what will the succeeding generations
think of us who left for them a desolation?
Are we not all a part of this one world?

Nay, we must do this
we must stand together.
In our hearts first
and then outward
into the tremendous world
of our common human hopes.

So be brave,
dear Christian soul
and remember,
from always to always,
we belong to our God and to each other:
One whole communion of Saints.

Life is hard indeed
But life is not impossible
nor is life evil.

So never fall into despair.
Because we are Christian,
O little flock, O little lambs,
there is always, always hope
because we are here now:
We are here now
in the name of Jesus Christ
on behalf of suffering mankind.

Heavy indeed, precious Starshine,
and troublesome are the burdens of this world
but the burdens of this world
are the burdens of this world
they are not our burden
our burden is to love
and love all things well
neither exceeding nor holding back
according to our individual vocations
what promise we have in Jesus Christ.

Our Blessed Lord Himself said,
"the truth shall set us free."
Therefore to accept
Jesus into our hearts
is not a form of slavery
as the world would have us believe
for indeed His burden is light
and His yoke easy.

For who is our Lord but our Life
and this Life is the Light
of the human race.

This Light is Truth unveiled
it is life endlessly abundant
and joyful complete
it is heaven rejoicing greatly
our risen Savior's shining glory.

So when you are in doubt,
O little flock, O little lambs
Just be true to the things that are for always
as God, your inner life, and your baptism,

family, friends, and friendships.

And be of good cheer,
and let our Lord's Peace keep you,
for our Peace is not a parting of ways
as Christians we never say goodbye
save for grievous sin.
We say, "Peace and Godspeed" -
it is my hope and your hope together,
it is our Lord's hope in you and in me;
our gathering together in eternity.

Jesus Christ loves you, O little lambs,
the Immaculate Mother of God loves you,
all the Angels and Saints love you,
all the Holy Souls love you,
all of Holy Mother Church embraces you
with an everlasting love.

Precious Starshine,
the things that really matter in this life
can not be perceived by human eyes
so liberate your minds from
the vanity of external things.
Penetrate deeply into this world
But never let the world master you.

All we have to do to shine
as the countless stars of Father Abraham
is to turn away from the darkness
live in loving repentance
and walk into the one Light
into the welcome arms
of our risen Savior bright.

Build like natives.
Live like pilgrims.
Love like Christians.

Glory to God in the highest
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to all men of goodwill.

Peace and Godspeed!

This message came really, really early but is meant for our WYD 2008 in Sydney, Australia (Noted 20080808).