Feast day of St Paul Miki and Companions all Martyrs

Today is the feast day of St Paul Miki パウロ三木 and twenty five other Catholics who were crucified in Nagasaki in 1597.

26 Martyrs memorial official site

Random Picture Post

from here.  Its someone`s travel pic.  Aside from the athletic footwear all the Sisters I see in Japan dress in that style of habit with the veil basically as seen below.

from here its a news site.

from here a site with lots of old school nun pics from around the world.  I think the Poor Clares here dress in the traditional habit but they`re cloistered so I’ve never actually seen anyone dressed like that.  This photo also reminds me that I saw a young women wearing a kimono (not a wedding one like in the pic) at mass and she also had on a veil like in the photos below.

from here a pro photo site.  Caption on site says taken in Kyoto

RCIA people in Tokyo.  Not my photo.  I like to say the closer one gets to Nagasaki the more you`ll see women  wearing a veil.  Will these women keep wearing it after that special day in the photo its hard to say but people think it`s fine either way.

To be continued…

Jesuit Parking

I thought this was funny.

Travelling With the Saints

Shinjuku – not my photo

Since October when I said that novena then suddenly couldnt avoid St Therese as her image, statue, and quotes started popping up everywhere becoming unavoidably annoying to me (in a good way) I said to her fine if you wont leave me alone you can come with me everywhere and any other saints that want to too.  Im sure Teresa of Avila accepted the invitation as it was after that that she started to get my attention as well.  So now everyday I say let’s go guys when I go out and as crazy as it sounds its like a saint or saints are there.  Just as our guardian angels are with us all the time even though we aren’t aware of it I’m guessing people have saints with them too although maybe not 24/7 like our angel but still there part of the time.

Something I’ve been doing for at least a year or two now is praying for everyone around me, everyone I see, people who irritate me and so on and I ask any saints that want to be out with me to pray too.  It’s probably their inspiration not mine that we do that anyway but thats what I do.  I don’t pray all the people I see become Catholic but simply that God`s will be done in their lives.

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas

Now here`s a saint that would probably appreciate the new iPad   At any rate I appreciate Thomas for his Eucharistic hymns in particular and am posting  a version of Pange Lingua that I like.  I don’t recall when I first heard of  his hymns but unfortunately it wasnt at church as a child thats for sure.  With that in mind I think its safe for me to say that most people around my age havent heard them either.  I don’t know how many Japanese people know these songs as well because as far as I know they aren’t sung at any Mass I’ve been to.  Ok I will stop typing now so you can listen.

Here are the lyrics.

Speaking of doctors of the church, with the Dominicans and Carmelites tied at three apiece, my Teresa of Avila miniseries arrived in the mail this past Monday when the estimated delivery date was February 10th so that was a really nice surprise and I have watched parts of it every night since.

Books

Well I met with my spiritual director again and got two books.  One is a collections of letters and essays about St Teresa Benedicta (Edith Stein) for lighter reading and the other book could be considered more controversial.  The book is Questions of Life by Nicky Gumbel and is part of something called the Alpha course.  I checked online as to the background etc and found that its value for Catholics is debated.  I am not taking the Alpha course though and am reading it in a certain context and under the guidance of a priest as well as keeping my critical reading hat on at all times.  I am a bit surprised he didn’t give me a Catholic book by saint so and so (patron saint of stuff & things) but I will give this a try and see what happens.

On Order

The St Teresa of Avila miniseries sold by Amazon   I have a region free dvd pl;ayer btw.

I can’t believe I’ve ordered it.  Even worse I cant believe I watched four parts of it (to see if it was worth ordering) on youtube in Spanish and I don’t speak Spanish at all!  How did it come to this?  Well a couple of months ago when my spiritual director told me not to think about the Carmelites, marriage, or that kind of thing but to focus on Christ someone forgot to tell heaven.  Almost daily I listen to the ewtn readings and homily and during the time I was supposed to be focusing on Jesus it seemed like almost every day or two ewtn would quote  Teresa of Avila.  And not just ewtn either but her name and quotes started popping up in other places as well.  These quotes would make me laugh or pause in amazement and I started to wonder about this saint I had previously ignored as being mystically nuts.  I had no idea she was so intelligent and funny.  I then read a comment  someone wrote about what happened to her after her death that it was kind of gross.  At the same time I had also come across a link to the last part (with English subtitles) of the above mentioned miniseries.  Out of morbid curiosity as to what happened to her I watched the final part.  It didn’t show what happened to her after death (the gross part being how she was exhumed and pieces of her cut out to be relics) but I was captivated.  If you have 45 mins to spare that clip is here.

I told my spiritual director about Teresa distracting me when I was supposed to be ignoring her order and he didn’t mind as it turns out he is a big fan of hers too.  Of course that didn’t really surprise me as he is a Spanish Jesuit so we discussed how great she is, and he was pleased to point out all her connections to the Jesuits as well lol.  That was over a month ago though and finally we will meet again on January 25th.

Now That We`re All Dead From Swine Flu…

Im joking of course as these days everyone says swine what.  No one notices or cares about swine flu anymore, so when are they going to put the holy water back in churches?!?!  I recently learned of  something St Teresa of Avila wrote and it makes me wonder how this all fits together.  Here is what she said: “From long experience I have learned that there is nothing like holy water to put devils to flight and prevent them from coming back again.

They also flee from the cross, but return; so holy water must have great value. For my own part, whenever I take it, my soul feels a particular and most notable consolation.”

Bold mine.  Interesting to say the least and I think it is safe to say that if holy water puts devils to flight then what happens without it?  What is happening to people and churches spiritually who don’t have it?  I don’t have the exact quote but Teresa also said something like the devil enters through small cracks.  I think this absence of holy water since May of 2009 might be a crack or could become one and it must be fixed as soon as possible.

Cult raided over death of baby boy

FUKUOKA (Kyodo) Police raided the Fukuoka headquarters of a religious group Thursday over the death of a baby whose parents allegedly caused him to die by withholding medical treatment.

Their 7-month-old son, Yoshihiko, underweight and suffering from eczema, died in October

The parents allegedly only tried to help their son through religious acts of holding their hands over the baby’s body in what the sect calls a “jorei” service to cleanse the soul.

Hideo Takatsuki, 32, became a follower in elementary school, while Kuniko Takatsuki, 30, joined when she was in junior high school.

article here

Yet another crazy cult here.  I dont have an official number but there are quite a few of these small groups around with a lot of them hiding behind a veneer of Buddhism when they really aren’t Buddhist at all.     More often when these groups end up in the news it is because of money issues.  It’s so sad that this time an innocent kid died.

Currently Reading…

… Mother Angelica: The Remarkable Story of a Nun Her Nerve and a Network of Miracles.

Available from Amazon.

For several years Ive been listening to the daily readings and homily from EWTN on my computer then ipod.  Eventually I started listing to other programs as well but the last one I wanted to hear was Mother Angelica Live.  For no good reason I assumed she was a boring old preachy nun who had nothing interesting to say to me.  Then one day, only a year ago or so, I downloaded her program and listened to it on the train.  Big mistake!  I was sitting there, on a busy train, stifling laughs as I learned Mother Angelica is funny.  From then on I’ve been an avid listener of those reruns and finally decided to buy the book to learn the back story.  If you too are at all interested in Mother Angelica or EWTN I recommend the book.

In the book it is mentioned that they broadcast shortwave radio and tv to Japan however I have been unable to find any mention of EWTN on any satellite packages here.