full article here

The joy and sweetness of thousands of young Catholic pilgrims who flooded into the city, in the words of Cardinal George Pell, simply “overwhelmed” the rancid negativity of sections of our sex-fixated media, and those aggressive secularists who regard religion as an irrational threat to their way of living.

For many Sydneysiders, even jaded priests, it showcased a new generation of young people who shocked them with their social conservatism. This wasn’t the fabled youth of binge drinking, drug abuse and rampant sexually transmitted diseases, but a group of gregarious, sophisticated people unashamedly embracing the 21st-century revival in orthodox religious faith.

The World Youth Day generation, as the national German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has described it, “is united by a consciousness fundamentally different from that of the 1968 generation and their children”. It is rebelling against the do-whatever-you-want culture spawned by the 1960s social revolution. It has experienced first hand the consequences of the four-decade-long experimentation with false freedom, the broken marriages and damaged children, and a sense that there are many truths and no immutable moral rules.

Amen!! The problem is many my age have been cheated out of knowing their faith by tides of liberalism that swept through the church.  I am lucky that through the grace of God I was able to return to the Catholic church more informed then ever and very orthodox.  I dont lean to the left or the right, those are political terms, I want to go straight to the heart of truth straight to Rome to the rock.  That is the only way to survive.  I, like many of my peers, received a very shoddy education in all things Catholic while growing up, so I am very thankful for the internet where I can look up official church documents, and where I can also watch ewtn or listen to it on my ipod.  I can also get on the internet and write a blog where I can say hey I can live a decent faithful Catholic life in Japan a place where many (not all) Western foreigners come and toss all morality aside.  Im not bragging make no mistake I just want to encourage others to lead a better life and to show Japanese people what a good Catholic looks like because you might be the only one they ever meet.  Pray for the country and its people too especially the people that really annoy you.

Jerusalem, Jul 22, 2008 / 02:06 pm (CNA).- In the Jubilee Year of 2000, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land stopping at one point to bless an olive tree on the Mount of the Beatitudes. A forester with the Jewish National Fund reports that this tree is the only one producing olives this year.

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Too bad there dont seem to be any photos of this tree because I would love to see it.

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“In his homily, Capuchin Franciscan Father LaSalle Parsons exhorted the congregation, saying, “We are lamenting that little has been achieved in 63 years. How long must we wait? Jesus urges us to act now. Let’s work for peace.“

Maybe it is just me or a bad translation but that makes no sense. Peace has been achieved in Japan. The statement “let`s work for peace” really annoys me because it sounds like empty words that are so often tossed around in this country. I think the real work for peace in Japan involves working for the end of abortion which, as far as I can find, is never worked for here by churches that I am aware of.

“However, a notable number of participants came from outside of Okinawa. Saneiki Tanaka who came from Hokkaido’s Obihiro Church with his university friend said, “This was our first visit to Okinawa. To be honest, we are shocked by the atrocities of war and the terror of mass suicides. I feel now we shouldn’t overlook such tragedies. We want all Hokkaido to know of them.“

What about the tragedy of abortion here where Ive read that 300, 000 babies a year are killed. What are they doing to make people aware of that and stop it??? Where is the outrage? Oh wait there is none. The churches promote groups such as Caritas but do nothing that I know of to pray in front of places that perform abortions and so on. Meanwhile the news is full of comments about Japans aging society with no one to replace them. Oh yeah because the replacements are all dead and no one has said a thing.

As the pope said in a recent address at World Youth Day

“The concerns for non-violence, sustainable development, justice and peace, and care for our environment are of vital importance for humanity. They cannot, however, be understood apart from a profound reflection upon the innate dignity of every human life from conception to natural death: a dignity conferred by God himself and thus inviolable.”

Full text of that speech here

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“Across Japan, Buddhism faces a confluence of problems, some familiar to religions in other wealthy nations, others unique to the faith here.”

“According to a 2007 report by the Japan Consumers’ Association, the average cost of a funeral, excluding the cemetery plot, was $21,500, of which $5,100 covered services performed by a Buddhist priest.”

I have no idea how much, if anything, one must pay a Catholic priest for a funeral mass but it surely cant be that expensive!

full article here

“The Holy Father’s second meeting with representatives of other religions took place at the Chapter Hall of St. Mary’s Cathedral, including leaders from the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu traditions. To them he said, “Motivated by charity, [the Church] approached dialogue believing that the true source of freedom is found in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe it is he who fully discloses the human potential for virtue and goodness, and he who liberates us from sin and darkness.”

“Life is not just a succession of events or experiences, helpful though many of them are. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this – in truth, in goodness, and in beauty – that we find happiness and joy.”

The Holy Father`s homily is so packed with insight and teaching I can read his words over and over and still find new, deeper meaning packed into each sentence.

“Dear friends,” Benedict XVI said, “in your homes, schools and universities, in your places of work and recreation, remember that you are a new creation! … As Christians you stand in this world knowing that God has a human face - Jesus Christ - the ‘way’ who satisfies all human yearning, and the ‘life’ to which we are called to bear witness, walking always in his light.”

full article here

I like the photo of BXVI wearing the police hat

It has been one year since I first learned of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy and started saying it.  Yesterday  July 16 John Pridmore, whose story was one of the two that convinced me to start saying the chaplet, gave his testimony to tens of thousands of young people like me at World Youth Day.  Things have really changed for the better in my life since starting the chaplet and am so happy to think of how Mr. Pridmore`s story may help start many other young people on the same path.

As a reader has challenged me to say a rosary a week for a year for Japan I am still doing so, and encourage any reader to include in their prayers even a small prayer for this country.  I know there is so much in the world that needs our prayers it can feel overwhelming but even a quick Hail Mary in your day for Japan wont hurt.

Actually since I started praying the chaplet I have, for the first time in my life, really started praying for other people, counties and so on.

As the Holy Father is recovering from jet lag after arrving down under this article from the AP explains a bit about what popes have done on their days off.  Some things I knew already like our Current Holy FAther likes to take walks and play the piano, and the late John Paul II liked to hike and ski.  Things I ddint not know but find amusing  are

“Leo XIII, an avid hunter before becoming pope in 1878, was known to shoot pigeons from the windows of the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican.”

I don’t mind that he shot pigeons what I find amusing is that he was doing it out of the apostolic palace windows

Also “other pontiffs simply took walks inside the Vatican, sometimes alarming unsuspecting gardeners and other workers.”

Maybe they did it for the fun of surprising the employees thinking “oh look Giovanni is quietly gardening I shall go sneak up on him<insert plotting papal laughter>”

Tucked way down at the bottom of the article is this “But 12 youngsters will join Benedict for lunch on Friday at St. Mary’s Cathedral House in Sydney. The Vatican said they can ask questions.”

Interesting number that 12!  If I was having lunch with the pope I think I would be so nervous and excited it would be hard to eat  On the other hand eating could be a good alternative to talking since it is reported that even the most educated people have become tongue tied in the pope`s presence.