Monday, November 10, 2008

ANG SIMBAHAN

Dedication of St. John Lateran Basilica in Rome
November 8, 2008


Today we celebrate the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, which took place in 324 AD, 1,684 years ago.  This Basilica was the first permanent public place of worship for Christians in the world.  It was built 300 years after the death of Jesus because until that time the power and might of the Roman Empire was determined to utterly destroy the Christian Religion.  first Christian refused to worship the the pagan gods, and so they were considered the enemy of the state.  They were arrested, imprisoned, tortured and cruelly executed when they wouldn't burn incense to Caesar.  Waves of violent persecution  crashed against the church for 300 years, creating a steady stream of martyrs.  only when emperor Constantine legalized christianity in 312 was the church free to breath a sigh of relief, and with that breath, they built the Lateran Basilica.  Ever since, it has been a symbol of that first great victory of the Church, which showed the whole world that this new temple, the mystical body of Christ, was indestructible.

Three points.

1. We are the Church
2. Church as the house of God
3. The church us Indestructible

The most concrete example of church is the family...our domestic churches.  The church symbolizes unity..us being one.  The family is being attack at all sides, no matter what, the family will always be victorious because it is the Mystical body of Christ.

Dios te Bendiga




Sunday, November 2, 2008

Kamatayan at Purgatoryo

DEATH AND PURGATORY
Homily inspired by epriest.com resources
November 2, 2008
All Souls Day
31st Sunday In Ordinary Time
6:45 am and 5:00 pm Mass St. Joachim's Catholic Church Madera, CA


Introduction

Yesterday, All Saints Day we praised God for His masterpieces: The saints, those Christians who reach spiritual maturity in this life, and so entered heaven immediately after death.

Today the world's one billion catholics are joining together to pray for the eternal repose of the souls of our many brothers and sisters who died in friendship with Christ, but who hadn't yet reached spiritual maturity.

Two points:
1. Death
2. Purgatory

Death:
Illustration:  A Pastor passionately preached in one of his homilies in his parish; Someday every member of this parish will die! Everyone in the congregation was stunned except one man who started laughing and yelled back, "I don't belong to this parish".

- Human Mortality rate is still at steady 100%
- We will all die
- we are all afraid of dying, ironically speaking this is the surest way to meet God.
-Jesus in the Gospels talked about the four last things: Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell

If we die in Friendship with Him, we will spend eternity with Him in heaven, though we need to pass through Purgatory, first; to cleanse any left over selfish tendencies that didn't get purified during our earthly life.

Purgatory:

- God's spiritual Hospital, purification stage, purifying and healing all the wounds cause by sins we committed here on earth.

Through our PRAYERS, the militant church, we are speeding up that painful process and hastening our departed brothers and sisters full entrance into heaven, this is the main reason why we have the exciting and rich tradition whom we call All Saints Day, Dia de los Muertos for our Hispanic brethren, and Araw ng mga Patay for us Filipinos and the list goes on and on.

All Christians believe in four last things but not all Christians like us Catholics believe in Purgatory let me convince you my dear brothers and sisters.

THREE PROOFS THAT PURGATORY EXISTS

1. common sense - there's no selfishness in heaven, God is pure love, unselfish, we die completely not free of selfishness and so we need to be clean-up, where purgatory enters into the picture, purgatio-cleansing, purifying.

2. History speaks clearly - Christians prayed for the dead since the very first century.  Catacomb's markings will testify on that. 190 AD there was this special request made by Abercius written on his tomb to please pray for him, St. Augustine's mother and St. John Chrisostom did the same.  Praying for the dead is not an invention, in fact NOT PRAYING FOR THE DEAD is the invention by Martin Luther in 1500 when he led a revolt against the Catholic Church.

3. Bible don't Lie - although the word itself doesn't appear, various passages are interpreted for it.  Mt. 5:26 and Lk. 12:59 speak of sinners being kept until they paid the last penny - purification. 1 Cor. 3:15 St. Paul says that some people will be saved but only "as through fire"
and in Maccabees 12: 14-45 speaks of Praises offering prayers for the dead.

Conclusion:

Death is real, that purification after death exists whom we believe as Purgatory and this involves some kind of pain but assisted by our PRAYERS we can hasten their entry into God's kingdom.

Why wait for the purgatory if we can purify ourselves here on earth, our sufferings here on earth makes us unselfish and worthy to inherit the kingdom of God.

Dios te Bendiga