"Same-sex marriage" file

Islam File    The New Translation

52. The foreign debt of poor countries has become a way of controlling them, yet this is not the case where ecological debt is concerned. 

In different ways, developing countries, where the most important reserves of the biosphere are found, continue to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future. 

The land of the southern poor is rich and mostly unpolluted, yet access to ownership of goods and resources for meeting vital needs is inhibited by a system of commercial relations and ownership which is structurally perverse. 

The developed countries ought to help pay this debt by significantly limiting their consumption of non-renewable energy and by assisting poorer countries to support policies and programmes of sustainable development

The darkness deepens in our troubled world, with intensified attacks on Christianity and Christian values:

* Christians in some parts of US are now not allowed to use government buildings (because they oppose  "same-sex marriage" - here - which also describes how schools are forcing a gay agenda on students)

* In so many parts of the world there's been a rise in the physical persecution of Christians 

* Such persecution has led Pope Francis to use the terms "World War III" and "genocide"

 ... this reflection continued below

Exodus 40

God said to Moses: "On the first day of the first month, consecrate and start using the Tent of Meeting. Use chrism to anoint all the furnishings. Anoint Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests."

Moses did everything that God asked.

Then a cloud covered the Tent
and the glory of God filled the sacred site.

At every stage of their  journey in the desert, the Israelites would continue their march whenever the cloud rose from the sacred site.

A fire shone within the cloud at night.

Dear God, please guide us on our way through life

Psalm 91

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, says to the Lord "you are my refuge in whom I trust".

The Lord will hide you and protect you. Under his wings you will find refuge.

You will not fear any night time terror, nor any attack during the day.

Upon you no evil shall fall, no plague approach where you dwell.

For you has he commanded his angels to keep you safe in all your ways.

Dear God, thank you for your protection day and night

Recording

Revelation 7.9-17

I saw a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, and language

They were standing in front of the throne, with palms in their hands.
They shouted: "Victory to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb"

One of the elders told me who these people are: "These are the people who have been through the great persecution. They now serve God day and night in his sanctuary. The Lamb is their Shepherd. He leads them to springs of living water. God has wiped away all tears from their eyes"

Jesus, please help sorrowing people who are crying today

Recording

Matthew 26.17-29

On Passover Eve, Jesus ate a last meal with his apostles.

While they were eating, Jesus told them he knew he would be betrayed by one of them. He told Judas he knew he was the betrayer.

Then Jesus took some bread, blessed it and gave it to his apostles saying "Take this and eat it. This is my body".

Then he took a cup of wine, blessed it and gave it to them saying "Take this and drink it. This is my blood".

Jesus, please help me understand how bread and wine become your body and blood when Christians celebrate the Eucharist

Recording

The darkness deepens  - continued from top of menu

* Beijing's continuing crackdown on Christians in China

* The increase of drug trafficking and use of drugs

* The continuing spread of pornography

* The continued growth of the abortion industry

* The growth of the culture of indifference, the culture of greed/corruption, the exploitation of the poor, the growing poverty gap in most places

* Within Christianity there are good people who, for the sake of political correctness or whatever reason, are not only not speaking out against the darkness, but are even supporting its spread (e.g. the many Catholic (?) websites which promote the gay agenda).   

Is there a link between so many areas of darkness? The Bible reminds us that wherever we find goodness, God is there; wherever we find "darkness", the Prince of Darkness (Satan) is connected. Our battle is a spiritual one as much as a human one.  

The worse the darkness gets, the more we need to pray, read the Bible, work with other Christians to stand up for Christian values.

As the darkness worsens, we can expect more conflict situations. The late Cardinal Francis George O.M.I. of Chicago was seen by many to be exaggerating when he said in 2010 "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history."  The further we go in 2015, the less these words seem to be an exaggeration.

As Christians are pushed into a corner in the US, some people are already talking about Civil War II

Jesus, Light of the World, stronger than Satan, may your light overcome the spreading darkness. May there be a great explosion of love and healing in our troubled world to stop the spreading darkness!

HK's Cardinal Zen calls China cross removals an insult to the faith

"Same-sex marriage" 

90. Genuine forms of popular religiosity are incarnate, since they are born of the incarnation of Christian faith in popular culture. For this reason they entail a personal relationship, not with vague spiritual energies or powers, but with God, with Christ, with Mary, with the saints. 

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.

Yesterday at Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre I had a quick game of table tennis with an inmate in one of the day rooms ...to the amusement of many other inmates (...actually, a good way of making friends and breaking the ice). Some of them asked me my age, and complimented me on being able to play so well for an old feller. That makes up for a recent night on the street in Yau Ma Tei, as people lined up for rice boxes, when one man, in all seriousness ...not trying to be funny ...asked me "Father, are you 90 yet?"!

Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:

Sun: Africa        Mon: Europe & Russia     Tues: South Asia      Wed: East Asia  
Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific       Frid: South America       Sat: Central & North America 
  
Jesus, today, Tuesday,  please bless the people of South Asia

And praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month:
On this 18th of the month,  Jesus please bless the prisoners of Shandong

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 18th of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Ivory Coast

And praying for one Islam-related intention each day of the week:
Jesus, please pacify Boko Haram 

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

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

This website's HK Asylum Seekers' File
(stopping South Asians from being "people smuggled" to HK)

"Same-sex marriage" file

Islam File    The New Translation

 51 (c):  “We note that often the businesses which operate this way are multinationals. 

They do here (in poor countries) what they would never do in developed countries or the so-called first world. 

Generally, after ceasing their activity and withdrawing, they leave behind great human and environmental liabilities such as unemployment, abandoned towns, the depletion of natural reserves, deforestation, the impoverishment of agriculture and local stock breeding, open pits, riven hills, polluted rivers and a handful of social works which are no longer sustainable”.[30]

---------

An example of the above:  Developing countries paying high price for global mineral boom

   Seen on HK T-shirt: "Save water. It will save you later" 

Powerful South African media documentary about South Africans locked up abroad - and SA government's heartless refusal to make Prison Transfer Agreements with other nations.  Has lessons for all nations, especially re people tricked into being drug mules

More about SA inmates - see below

Exodus 39

The skilled workers  made the high priest's vestments: his ephod, his breastpiece, his robe.

Vestments were also made for the ordinary priests.

When everything for the whole Tent was finished, Moses examined all the work.

He saw what a good job the workers had done.

Moses then blessed all the workers.

Dear God, please help me always to do a good job

My recording of this reading

Psalm  90  

O Lord you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.

Before the earth or the world existed, you are God, without beginning or end.

For you, a thousand years are like yesterday,  come and gone so quickly.

We humans have a short life, our life is over like a sigh.

Our span is 70 years, or 80 for those who are strong.

Make us know the shortness of our life, that we may gain wisdom of heart.

In the morning, fill us with your love. Give success to the work of our hands.

Lord, help us realize the shortness of our life, that we may live our lives more wisely

Recording

Revelation 5.11-14

I heard the sound of an immense number of angels gathered around God's throne. There were 10,000 times 10,000 of them, shouting:

"The Lamb that was sacrificed is worthy  to be given power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory and blessing"

I heard all living things in creation - angels, people, animals - crying out: "To the One sitting on the throne and to the Lamb, be all praise, honor, glory and power for ever and ever"

"Thou are worthy, Thou art worthy, Thou are worthy O Lord,
to receive glory, glory and honor, glory and honor and power"

Recording

Matthew 26.1-16

A few days before the Passover festival, the religious leaders kept looking for a way to arrest Jesus and have him put to death

Jesus knew what was happening. He told his disciples "In a few days I will be crucified".

During these days Jesus had a meal at the home of Simon the leper. At the meal, a woman put expensive burial oil on Jesus' head. The woman understood  that Jesus was soon to die.

One of Jesus' 12 apostles, Judas Iscariot, went to the religious leaders and offered to help them arrest Jesus at a convenient time.

The leaders paid Judas 30 pieces of silver. Judas looked for an opportunity to arrange the arrest.

Jesus, please forgive me for the times when I have not been faithful  to you 

Recording

Following Jesus Christ
The Gospel for Monday has Jesus telling the rich young man that if he desires perfection, he must sell all of his possessions, give the money to the poor, and follow Him.

This is the scripture that spoke to Katherine Dougherty, who founded a community and mission called Madonna House in Combermere, Ontario, Canada. Throughout, Canada, the United States and in various countries around the globe, you will find their "Marian Centers." Some centers are soup kitchens, others are prayer houses.

Pope prays for China disaster victims

China’s currency crisis:   Eight reasons why it matters to us all

Taxi deregulation is Uber-disgusting! No to newcomers, innovators, modernisers and foreigners!

Petition to South African government to sign Prison Transfer Agreements with other countries.  I have signed this petition

Open letter to South African parliament
- from Belgian doctor in Thailand, distressed at deteriorating condition of inmates in Thai prisons

The International Organization for Migration, which, according to above open letter, says that people forced/tricked into drug trafficking should be reclassified as "victims of human trafficking". This has huge ramifications.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime  (mentioned in South African documentary at top of this menu) - has produced  Handbook on the international transfer of sentenced persons 

Vietnam jails Australian man for trying to send drug precursor chemicals home

West African syndicates tricking Australians into risking death on drug-running missions
Another version of recent Australian ABC TV report

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.

"She who must be obeyed" is slang for "my wife", implying wife is in charge.
In China, President Xi Jinping has become all powerful ...everyone must obey him.
And since "she" and "Xi" have a similar sound, so the above article re China's currency crisis  cleverly uses the term "Xi-who-must-be-obeyed"!

Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:

Sun: Africa        Mon: Europe & Russia     Tues: South Asia      Wed: East Asia  
Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific       Frid: South America       Sat: Central & North America 
  
Jesus, today, Monday,  please bless the people of Europe & Russia

And praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month:
On this 17th of the month,  Jesus please bless the prisoners of Shaanxi

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 17th of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Malawi

And praying for one Islam-related intention each day of the week:
Jesus, please pacify ISIS 

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

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

This website's HK Asylum Seekers' File
(stopping South Asians from being "people smuggled" to HK)

"Same-sex marriage" file

Islam File    The New Translation
   

50. Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. At times, developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of “reproductive health”. 

Yet “while it is true that an unequal distribution of the population and of available resources creates obstacles to development and a sustainable use of the environment, it must nonetheless be recognized that demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development”.[28] 

To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues. It is an attempt to legitimize the present model of distribution, where a minority believes that it has the right to consume in a way which can never be universalized, since the planet could not even contain the waste products of such consumption. Besides, we know that approximately a third of all food produced is discarded, and “whenever food is thrown out it is as if it were stolen from the table of the poor”.[29]

 Still, attention needs to be paid to imbalances in population density, on both national and global levels, since a rise in consumption would lead to complex regional situations, as a result of the interplay between problems linked to environmental pollution, transport, waste treatment, loss of resources and quality of life.

Matthew 25.31-46 (a)

Jesus said to his disciples: When I come in glory at the end of the world, all peoples of all times will be gathered in front of me.

I will separate them, like a shepherd separates sheep from goats. I will place the sheep on my right, the goats on my left.

I will say to those on my right "Come and enter my kingdom. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you made me welcome. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to see me".

My recording of this reading

Matthew 25.31-46 (b)

Then those good people on my right will say "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you?

When did we see you thirsty and give you a drink?

When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, naked and clothe you, sick or in prison, and visit you?"

I will answer "Each time  you helped and cared for a poor person, you helped and cared for me".

Recording

Matthew 25.31-46 (c)

Then I will say to those on my left
"Go away from me and join Satan and his angels in hell.

For I was hungry, and you never gave me food.

I was thirsty, and you never gave me anything to drink.

I was a stranger, and you never made me welcome, naked, and you never clothed me, sick and in prison, and you never visited me".

Recording

Matthew 25.31-46 (d)

Those on my left will then ask "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?"

I will answer "Each time you refused to help and care for a poor person, you refused to help and care for me".

Those on the left will then go to eternal punishment. Those on the right will go to eternal life.

Jesus, please help me do more for poor people. Make me understand that when I help a poor person, I help you

Recording

Hong Kong Taxis Uber Alles
The Uber arrests are yet another shocking example of the gradual breakdown of the rule of law in Hong Kong as vested interests increase their grip on officials.

"SSM"

Australian Christian, Muslim leaders against marriage change
"Parliamentarians of Australia have a duty to lead the debate over SSM rather than opportunistically seeking to garner votes by jumping onto what seems to be an irresistible bandwagon"

God Calling August 12
"Face your responsibilities. What is wrong in your country, its statesmen, its laws, its people? Think out quietly, and make these matters your prayer matters. You will see lives you never touch altered, laws made at your request, evils banished.

Yes! Live in a large sense. Live to serve and to save. You may never go beyond one room, and yet you may become one of the most powerful forces for good in your country, in the world"

He died on this day in 1941:  

Kevin Lau attackers convicted  
(Having often met these men, I, like most others, felt they are not the real attackers)

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 menu)

Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:

Sun: Africa        Mon: Europe & Russia     Tues: South Asia      Wed: East Asia  
Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific       Frid: South America       Sat: Central & North America 
  
Jesus, today, Friday,  please bless the people of South America

And praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month:
On this 14th of the month,  Jesus please bless the prisoners of Jilin

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 14th of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Ethiopia

And praying for one Islam-related intention each day of the week:
Jesus, on this Muslim day of prayer, please bless all Muslims!

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

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

This website's HK Asylum Seekers' File
(stopping South Asians from being "people smuggled" to HK)

"Same-sex marriage" file

Islam File    The New Translation

49. It needs to be said that, generally speaking, there is little in the way of clear awareness of problems which especially affect the excluded. Yet they are the majority of the planet’s population, billions of people. These days, they are mentioned in international political and economic discussions, but one often has the impression that their problems are brought up as an afterthought, a question which gets added almost out of duty or in a tangential way, if not treated merely as collateral damage.

 Indeed, when all is said and done, they frequently remain at the bottom of the pile. This is due partly to the fact that many professionals, opinion makers, communications media and centres of power, being located in affluent urban areas, are far removed from the poor, with little direct contact with their problems. They live and reason from the comfortable position of a high level of development and a quality of life well beyond the reach of the majority of the world’s population. 

This lack of physical contact and encounter, encouraged at times by the disintegration of our cities, can lead to a numbing of conscience and to tendentious analyses which neglect parts of reality. At times this attitude exists side by side with a “green” rhetoric. Today, however, we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

Exodus 37-38

The skilled workers next made the ark, then the table for the bread offerings, then the lamp-stand and the altar of incense.

Next they made the altar of sacrifice, the bronze basin and the courtyard with its special curtains.

Dear God, please bless all skilled workers

My recording of this reading

 (making the ark)

Psalm 89

I will sing for ever of your love, O Lord. Of this I am sure, that your love lasts for ever.

The heavens proclaim your wonders, O Lord. The heavens are yours, the world is yours.

Blessed the people who find joy in you, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face.

Thank you, Lord, for our beautiful world

Recording

Revelation 5.1-10

I saw a sealed scroll that no one could open. Then I saw a Lamb, which seemed to have been sacrificed

The Lamb took the scroll, and the 24 elders sang a new song:

"You are worthy to take the scroll
and break its seals, because you were sacrificed, and by your blood you ransomed us for God
out of every race, language, people and nation"

Jesus,  Lamb of God in heaven. We praise you Lord

Recording 

Click to enlarge:

Matthew 24.9-44

Jesus spoke to his disciples about the future:

"On account of my name you will be hated, tortured and killed. But the Good News of the kingdom will spread to every nation before the end of the world.

At the end of the world, the sun and moon will stop shining. Stars will fall from the sky.

Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky and all peoples will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds with power and glory.

He will send his angels with a loud trumpet to gather good people from all parts of the earth.

Therefore you should live a good life, and you will have nothing to fear on your last day."

Jesus, please help me be a good person 

Recording

Famous Chinese Christians

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!

- check the photo ...maybe not the best choice ....6 people in photo don't look all that enthused!

Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:

Sun: Africa        Mon: Europe & Russia     Tues: South Asia      Wed: East Asia  
Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific       Frid: South America       Sat: Central & North America 
  
Jesus, today, Thursday,  please bless the people of S.E. Asia & Pacific

And praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month:
On this 13th of the month,  Jesus please bless the prisoners of Jiangxi

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 13th of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Mali

And praying for one Islam-related intention each day of the week:
Jesus, please pacify Al-Qaeda

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

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

This website's HK Asylum Seekers' File
(stopping South Asians from being "people smuggled" to HK)

     "Same-sex marriage" file

Islam File    The New Translation

 48 (b): The depletion of fishing reserves especially hurts small fishing communities without the means to replace those resources; 

water pollution particularly affects the poor who cannot buy bottled water;

and rises in the sea level mainly affect impoverished coastal populations who have nowhere else to go. 

The impact of present imbalances is also seen in the premature death of many of the poor, in conflicts sparked by the shortage of resources, and in any number of other problems which are insufficiently represented on global agendas.[27]

Deadly cheap heroin taking its toll on people of Zanzibar

"Nzowa has headed the Tanzania anti-drug unit for a decade, refuses to retire, and is at the top of every drug lord’s hit list.

One unlikely informant turned out to be John Wotherspoon, a Catholic priest living in Hong Kong, who noticed the increasing amount of Tanzanian men jailed in Hong Kong for smuggling"

Exodus 36

The Israelites were so generous towards building the Tent
that Moses was told by the craftsmen: "The people are bringing more than is needed for the Lord's Tent."

The skilled workers made the tabernacle, the framework and the veil for the Tent of Meeting.

Dear God, please give me a generous heart

Psalm 88

Lord my God, day and night I call to you for help. Please turn your ear to my cry.

For my soul is filled with evils. My life is on the brink of the grave.

I am reckoned as one in the tomb.
I have reached the end of my strength.

Will your love be told in the grave? Will your wonders be known in the dark?

Fear surrounds  me like a flood.

All my friends have deserted me. My only companion is darkness.

Lord, please help people who are in despair

Recording

Revelation 4.1-11

In my vision I saw a door open in heaven. The same voice as before said to me "Come up here. I will show you what is to come in the future"

I saw God in all his glory, being worshipped by the angels who sang:

"Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the Almighty"

And I saw 24 elders around the throne. They were praising God saying

"You are our Lord and our God.
You are worthy of glory and honor and power, because you are the Creator of the universe"

"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God, Almighty. Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee"

Recording

Matthew 23.1-36

Jesus told the people to respect their religious leaders, but he condemned the religious leaders
-  for not practising what they preached
- for doing things just to attract attention
- for craving front seats and places of honor
- for being concerned only with externals

Jesus called the religious leaders
-  "hypocrites"
- "blind guides"
- "tombs that look good on the outside but are full of dead bones".

Jesus, help religious leaders be good people

Recording

Chris McDonnell (Wed UK blogger) 

Spirit-seeking lanterns
One man who was there when the first bomb exploded over Hiroshima , was Fr Pedro Arrupe SJ, later to become superior of the Jesuit order. His account of those hours is both moving and utterly painful. 

Full page advertisement
 in August 10 Australian

UK and its allies are the real marauders, not African migrants

Sydney man becomes oldest person charged with cocaine smuggling – at 91 - another case of an elderly person being conned.
c.f. ABC 7.30 Report from Australia - about elderly and vulnerable people being duped into being drug mules - including several inmates in HK whom I regularly visit

Forcing ice addicts into detox won't help

85. One of the more serious temptations which stifles boldness and zeal is a defeatism which turns us into querulous and disillusioned pessimists, “sourpusses”. 

Nobody can go off to battle unless he is fully convinced of victory beforehand. If we start without confidence, we have already lost half the battle and we bury our talents.

 While painfully aware of our own frailties, we have to march on without giving in, keeping in mind what the Lord said to Saint Paul: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”. 

Christian triumph is always a cross, yet a cross which is at the same time a victorious banner borne with aggressive tenderness against the assaults of evil.

 The evil spirit of defeatism is brother to the temptation to separate, before its time, the wheat from the weeds; it is the fruit of an anxious and self-centred lack of trust

This website's July statistics. God bless all kind readers and bloggers! A special blessing on the 20 or more readers who are using this website's recordings each day. Hope the word spreads how these recordings can help English students.
Note that some articles on v2catholic have a wider reading after they are posted elsewhere. Like this letter posted on Jamii Forums  - has had 853 views with 18 comments

To go with
 "85", above

Please join me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:

Sun: Africa        Mon: Europe & Russia     Tues: South Asia      Wed: East Asia  
Thurs: S.E. Asia & Pacific       Frid: South America       Sat: Central & North America 
  
Jesus, today, Wednesday,  please bless the people of East Asia

And praying for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month:
On this 12th of the month,  Jesus please bless the prisoners of Jiangsu

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 12th of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Guinea-Bissau

And praying for one Islam-related intention each day of the week:
Jesus, please pacify Al-Shabaab 

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

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

This website's HK Asylum Seekers' File
(stopping South Asians from being "people smuggled" to HK)