Pope's Encyclical:
The Joy of the Gospel

(see: need to cancel "archive" in some search results) V2Catholic.com   A voice for the poor 
Edited by Hong Kong prison chaplain Fr John Wotherspoon O.M.I.  胡 頌 恆 神 父   

DV  A new menu 7 days a week to encourage people who are trying
 to follow the example of Pope Francis by concern for issues like these

 
Imitating Pope Francis Francis 

 Yesterday on the MTR (Metro) on the way to a HK detention centre, I received a phone call from a lady vising HK for the day from across the border in Shenzhen. Some weeks ago I had phoned her after meeting her husband-to-be in a detention centre. Husband asked me to contact her, worried that she would abort their 2 month old child (..she has had two previous abortions, and is a heavy smoker. She herself is worried about health of baby because of smoking ...and she is living alone with no one to support her in Shenzhen)

A very complicated case. I had originally asked her to let me know when she was coming to HK, so that we could make a time to meet ....and I would arrange a local priest/deacon/family counsellor to meet with her.

But yesterday she phoned out of the blue ....and was here just for the day ...to visit her husband. So I said I could meet her in about 15 minutes after the train reached the detention centre station ....and I planned while meeting her to try to phone someone who could talk to her in local Cantonese better than mine.

But then, just as I was about to meet her near the detention centre, who should I meet on the street but a dear local Chinese Evangelical pastor who also is a chaplain at the detention centre. He also was about the visit the centre. Thank you Lord for perfect timing. (Might meet him on street once or twice a year, if that)

He spent time with the woman, gave her beautiful counselling. Then he and I entered the centre together and spent time with the husband ....the pastor again giving most encouraging counselling....and lining me up to join the husband in court next week as he appeals for bail, so as to have a normal wedding ceremony soon. 

Thank you for a prayer that the husband gets bail, that the mother stops smoking, that the baby is born healthy, and the family can soon be permanently together

Vatican II & Renewal (1)

16 Documents of Vatican II

A Call to Action
Assn Catholic Priests Ireland
Bp Pat Power
Bp Geoff Robinson
Bruce Duncan
Catalyst for Renewal
Catholica
Catholics for Ministry  
Catholics for Renewal 
STANDUP4VATICAN2
The Swag
VII - Voice of the Church
We Are Church

Excellent articles on Mission
  Hugh McMahon SSC

Documentary claims that Pope Benedict did not step down from the papacy so much as flee the job

91. One important challenge is to show that the solution will never be found in fleeing from a personal and committed relationship with God which at the same time commits us to serving others. 

This happens frequently nowadays, as believers seek to hide or keep apart from others, or quietly flit from one place to another or from one task to another, without creating deep and stable bonds. 

 This is a false remedy which cripples the heart and at times the body as well. We need to help others to realize that the only way is to learn how to encounter others with the right attitude, which is to accept and esteem them as companions along the way, without interior resistance. 

Better yet, it means learning to find Jesus in the faces of others, in their voices, in their pleas. And learning to suffer in the embrace of the crucified Jesus whenever we are unjustly attacked or meet with ingratitude, never tiring of our decision to live in fraternity.

South America file
(stopping South Americans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
 - letters from South American inmates in HK prisons

This beautiful article needs no commentary, just the words
 Amen! Yes! Come Lord Jesus!

Sun: Africa           Mon: Europe & Russia          Tues: South Asia          Wed: East Asia    
      Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific        Frid: South America           Sat: Central & North America 
    Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:
Jesus, today, Tuesday, please bless the people of South Asia

On this 4th of the month, Jesus please bless the prisoners of Guangdong
Please join me in praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month

Darlene Starrs
(Canada)

c.f. To accomplish a new evangelization, the Church needs women
Women are two-thirds of the People of God.  However, many of them feel discriminated against. Without women who are recognized in their essence there will be no new evangelization".

This website's kind bloggers
(past and present)
with archives of articles:

Bakhita
 Hazel C
 Daniel Daring
Inigo Joachim
Brian Lewis
 Judith Lynch 
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Chris McDonnell
Bill Mulcahy 
Des O'Donnell
Darlene Starrs
 TASMAD
David Timbs 
Peter Wilkinson
   Harry Winter  
 John Wotherspoon

  Weekly Archive 
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Previous archives 
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2010  2009  2008

John W:
Previous Daily Blogs

c.f. David Timbs: The Sacrament of the Neighbour

How the poor can survive: put last Sunday's Gospel into practice. Easier said than done, but must be possible: Seek first the Kingdom of God and God's values, and you'll have enough food and drink and clothing. The first audience who heard these words were mainly poor people, yet Jesus said they would have enough of the essentials if they put his values first. This is radical talk. Some people would say impossible, impractical. But in fact it's a Charter for the Poor!      jw

Interactive Bible Quiz - One Peter

Based on the actual words of the Bible. 
How many times can you get 3/3 ?!

These devotions are fleshy, they have a face. They are capable of fostering relationships and not just enabling escapism. 

 In other parts of our society, we see the growing attraction to various forms of a “spirituality of well-being” divorced from any community life, or to a “theology of prosperity” detached from responsibility for our brothers and sisters, or to depersonalized experiences which are nothing more than a form of self-centredness.

This website's Tanzania File
(stopping Africans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
- with links to all letters  from Tanzanian inmates  in Hong Kong prisons

South America file
(stopping South Americans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
 - letters from South American inmates in HK prisons

Love for the truth is an engine for Ecumenism

Sun: Africa           Mon: Europe & Russia          Tues: South Asia          Wed: East Asia    
      Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific        Frid: South America           Sat: Central & North America 
    Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:
Jesus, today, Monday, please bless the people of Europe & North Asia

On this 3rd of the month, Jesus please bless the prisoners of Gansu
Please join me in praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month

As wars and conflicts rage in our world (South Sudan, Central African Republic, Ukraine, Syria) and as the rich continue to get richer while the poor continue to get poorer, and as a mood of callousness spreads in the political world (welfare cutbacks, harsh policies towards asylum seekers etc) .... one man is continuing to "light candles" instead of "cursing the darkness". His "candles" are giving hope and encouragement to millions of people around the world. Let's pray for him every day.  Jesus, please protect Pope Francis and give him good health, courage and wisdom.

And to allow his message to take hold in our hearts and in our lives, let's make the effort to read his "The Joy of The Gospel". It's pure "candle power". I've been trying to read one article of it each day as I post it on this website. Inspiring stuff.  Let's make sure to read a bit of it each day ....and may it give us courage to do whatever we can to "light a candle".  For the last seven articles, see this menu and that of the past six days, below.

Pope Francis:
Thank you Holy Spirit

Inspiring photos:

Link
Link		Links 01  02	Link

Newness, harmony, mission

Engagements of Pope Francis

Many thanks for checking
 this website each day

St Paul on Metro/Tube/MTR!

Little girl telling the story of Jonah - brilliant!

Three steps to reform the Vatican

89. Isolation, which is a version of immanentism, can find expression in a false autonomy which has no place for God. But in the realm of religion it can also take the form of a spiritual consumerism tailored to one’s own unhealthy individualism.

 The return to the sacred and the quest for spirituality which mark our own time are ambiguous phenomena. Today, our challenge is not so much atheism as the need to respond adequately to many people’s thirst for God, lest they try to satisfy it with alienating solutions or with a disembodied Jesus who demands nothing of us with regard to others.

 Unless these people find in the Church a spirituality which can offer healing and liberation, and fill them with life and peace, while at the same time summoning them to fraternal communion and missionary fruitfulness, they will end up by being taken in by solutions which neither make life truly human nor give glory to God.

Drug lord's arrest sparks apprehension from Mexico to Chicago

This website's Tanzania File 
 (stopping Africans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
-  letters  from Tanzanian inmates  in Hong Kong prisons

South America file
(stopping South Americans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
 - letters from South American inmates in HK prisons

Theology and other church studies should be studied with ecumenical glasses, not just with Catholic bi(ased)-focals....and....all seminary courses should be polemic-free

On this 2nd of the month, Jesus please bless the prisoners of Fujian
Please join me in praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month

The unjust treatment
 of Bishop Bill Morris

Tribalism lives on, for better and for worse

Sent by a reader, re Cardinal George Pell

Advice from Pope Francis to help choose new bishop for Sydney:
Be 'restless' in search for pastoral bishops

88. The Christian ideal will always be a summons to overcome suspicion, habitual mistrust, fear of losing our privacy, all the defensive attitudes which today’s world imposes on us. 

Many try to escape from others and take refuge in the comfort of their privacy or in a small circle of close friends, renouncing the realism of the social aspect of the Gospel.

 For just as some people want a purely spiritual Christ, without flesh and without the cross, they also want their interpersonal relationships provided by sophisticated equipment, by screens and systems which can be turned on and off on command.

 Meanwhile, the Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction.

 True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.

 Don't let your worries get the best of you ... remember, Moses started out
as a basket case.

Some people are kind, polite, and sweet-spirited until you try to sit in
their pews 

 The good Lord didn't create anything without a purpose, but mosquitoes come
close

In Hong Kong I've met many "non-Catholics" who have never heard of Matteo Ricci, and rarely met a Catholic who has heard of Hudson Taylor

On this 1st of the month, Jesus please bless the prisoners of Anhui
Please join me in praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month

Beijing blocks APEC financial summit in Hong Kong

Liturgy - New Translation

1998 ICEL Sacramentary
Misguided Missal 
The new translation
Ghastly process/result

Ron Schmit:
 1962 Mass a condemnation of Vatican II

PrayTell

------------------------------------------

Spirituality

 Sacred Space 
 Daily prayer online.
Available in 19 languages

Jackie Evancho  - To Believe

Pray-as-you-go.org
Daily prayer with 
beautiful music

Whole text of 1966 Jerusalem Bible

Previous Smiles file

Central African Republic:
MSF report on the continuing slaughter of civilians

Time for Labor to disown PNG solution

China’s asylum hypocrisy

87. Today, when the networks and means of human communication have made unprecedented advances, we sense the challenge of finding and sharing a “mystique” of living together, of mingling and encounter, of embracing and supporting one another, of stepping into this flood tide which, while chaotic, can become a genuine experience of fraternity, a caravan of solidarity, a sacred pilgrimage. 

Greater possibilities for communication thus turn into greater possibilities for encounter and solidarity for everyone. If we were able to take this route, it would be so good, so soothing, so liberating and hope-filled! To go out of ourselves and to join others is healthy for us. To be self-enclosed is to taste the bitter poison of immanence, and humanity will be worse for every selfish choice we make.

And see Mini Blog, below, re Tanzanian drug mule recently arrested in HK

This website's Tanzania File 
(stopping Africans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
-  letters  from Tanzanian inmates  in Hong Kong prisons

South America file
(stopping South Americans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
 - letters from S. American inmates in HK prisons

May Christians of various denominations do more, not less, praying together

Sun: Africa           Mon: Europe & Russia          Tues: South Asia          Wed: East Asia    
      Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific        Frid: South America           Sat: Central & North America 
    Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:
Jesus, today, Friday, please bless the people of South America

On this 28th of the month, Jesus please bless the prisoners of Beijing
Please join me in praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month

c.f. stories re HK media freedom on menu of February 25, below

This site's full statistics
 for December 2013 

To publish an article on this site please contact Fr John Wotherspoon omi:   jdwomi@gmail.com  

If you find a broken link in this website,
  please contact: jdwomi@gmail.com

Why I collect rubbish for Pope

Taking a stand

Navigation Aids      

  Standing up to bullies

"Reform of reform" agenda

Too Western/European 

Abortion - a true story

"Same-sex marriage": two elephants
 in the men's room     

     Near Death Experiences

Globalisation of Indifference

Tale of Two Brains

John's other sites: 

www.doctorjesus.org

www.riccicenter.com 

www.simplebible.info 

www.china8.org 

  www.jesustower.com 

www.oneminuteenglish.com 

China Library
 - essential reading for anyone interested in China's Christian history

(I hope readers of this website will be a prayer fire-brigade team:
when we hear of a terrible event like this one in Nigeria, let's aim a daily prayer at Nigeria in the coming weeks: Jesus, please give peace to Nigeria)

Comment from a reader: Right through history, ambitious people have obtained positions, even the papacy, in the Church. But for this to be still happening is disturbing, given everyone's access to information through the internet. For a nakedly ambitious person like George Pell, who had Archbishop Frank Little evicted from Melbourne and who imposed himself on Sydney, to have been appointed to the G8 was bad enough. But now to be in the Vatican inner circle is very surprising, especially given Pope Francis' words to nuncios last year "don't appoint ambitious people". It means Francis is not getting all the information he should be getting. 

83. And so the biggest threat of all gradually takes shape: “the gray pragmatism of the daily life of the Church, in which all appears to proceed normally, while in reality faith is wearing down and degenerating into small-mindedness”.

 A tomb psychology thus develops and slowly transforms Christians into mummies in a museum. Disillusioned with reality, with the Church and with themselves, they experience a constant temptation to cling to a faint melancholy, lacking in hope, which seizes the heart like “the most precious of the devil’s potions”.

 Called to radiate light and communicate life, in the end they are caught up in things that generate only darkness and inner weariness, and slowly consume all zeal for the apostolate. For all this, I repeat: Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the joy of evangelization!                                               (No. 83 missed out on earlier menus)

West African drug trafficker arrested in Hong Kong 
- scroll down for video report in Chinese press (can't find in English press). 
Not arrested on arrival; was already in HK

This website's Tanzania File 
(stopping Africans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
- letters  from Tanzanian inmates  in Hong Kong prisons

South America file
(stopping S. Americans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
- letters  from South American inmates  in Hong Kong prisons

We humbly beg pardon of God and of our separated brethren, just as we forgive them that trespass against us

Hi there, John.   My name is (....) and I recently stumbled upon your web-site…phew she's a beauty. A real breath of the real Spirit.  Thank you.

Sun: Africa           Mon: Europe & Russia          Tues: South Asia          Wed: East Asia    
      Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific        Frid: South America           Sat: Central & North America 
    Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:
Jesus, today, Thursday, please bless the people of South East Asia  

On this 27th of the month, Jesus please bless the prisoners of Tibet
Please join me in praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month

Chris McDonnell
(Wed UK blogger)

We recognise the authentic person not just by what he or she says but who they are, how real they are, the relationships they make. It is a continuous thread throughout this book, how to get real, how to be authentic.

That surely, is the struggle that all priests face, in what ever context they exercise their ministry. It is a struggle that all of us share with them as we journey together.

Vatican II - Renewal (2)

Hans Küng: 
 Letter to bishops  

Revolution to stop authoritarianism 

Fr Joseph Ratzinger: 
Writings on Vat II 

Robert Mickens:  
Vatican Implosion

Nicholas Lash:     Vatican II: 
Of Happy Memory - and Hope?

Robert McNally:  
Crisis & Criticism in the Church 

Priests 9 Masses a day
 - need to ordain married men

The evil of compulsory celibacy

Link between compulsory celibacy and sexual abuse

Why are women not being
 ordained to priesthood?

South Carolina City implements law requiring $120 permit to feed the homeless

Vatican announcement  

Catholics for Renewal statement (& Catholica forum)

NCR analysis

by readers

Cardinal Burke:
Pope Francis' Pontificate is a Radical Call to Evangelization

Siddharthan Chandran explores how to heal damage from degenerative disorders such as MS and motor neuron disease (ALS).

Comments at Catholica re Ambrose Mong's article of Feb 23: Tissa Balasuriya

86. In some places a spiritual “desertification” has evidently come about, as the result of attempts by some societies to build without God or to eliminate their Christian roots. 

In those places “the Christian world is becoming sterile, and it is depleting itself like an overexploited ground, which transforms into a desert”.

 In other countries, violent opposition to Christianity forces Christians to hide their faith in their own beloved homeland. This is another painful kind of desert. 

But family and the workplace can also be a parched place where faith nonetheless has to be preserved and communicated.

 Yet “it is starting from the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the joy of believing, its vital importance for us men and women.

 In the desert we rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life.

 And in the desert people of faith are needed who, by the example of their own lives, point out the way to the Promised Land and keep hope alive”. In these situations we are called to be living sources of water from which others can drink. At times, this becomes a heavy cross, but it was from the cross, from his pierced side, that our Lord gave himself to us as a source of living water. Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of hope!

Q: Why was the computer cold?
A: It left it's Windows open!

Q: Why was there a bug in the computer?
A: Because it was looking for a byte to eat?

Q: What do you get when you cross a computer and a life guard?
A: A screensaver!

This website's South America file 
(stopping South Americans from being tricked into bringing drugs to HK)
- letters  from South American inmates  in Hong Kong prisons

 Pledges and signs of the future progress of Ecumenism

On this 26th of the month, Jesus please bless the prisoners of Xinjiang
Please join me in praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month

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Fr John Wotherspoon O.M.I.  胡 頌 恆 神 父   
 Email:   jdwomi@gmail.com  
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