Islam File    The New Translation

"Same-sex marriage" file

My article published yesterday on one of South Africa's most popular blogs - warning people about the danger of drug trafficking to HK:

Two more SA women sentenced in Hong Kong for drug trafficking   

Letter in Portuguese from a Brazil woman in prison in HK - tricked by an African man - at this link (July 25)

Updates from HK volunteer Janny Law working in a poor area of Malawi

Isaiah 6

In the year 740 B.C., I had a vision of the Lord God in Heaven:

Above the Lord were 6 angels who cried out "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God. His glory fills the whole earth."

Then I heard a voice asking
"Whom shall I send? Who will be our messenger?"

I answered "Here I am, send me."

Then the Lord sent me to be a prophet to the people

Here I am, Lord, send me. I'm willing to do anything you want me to do

Psalm 138 

I thank you, Lord, with all my heart. You have heard the words of my mouth.

With the angels I will bless you. I will adore you in your holy temple.

I thank you for your faithfulness and love which are far above what we can understand.

On the day I called you answered. You increased the strength of my soul.

All earth's kings shall thank you when they hear the words of your mouth.

They shall sing of the Lord's ways: "How great is the glory of the Lord!"

Though I walk in the midst of affliction you give me life and frustrate my foes.

Your love, O Lord, is eternal.
Do not abandon us whom you have made. 

Lord, when we remember how much you love us and help us, 
every day of the year is a Thanksgiving Day

Recording 

Hebrews 12.18 -13.6

Your ancestors were at Mount Sinai when God spoke to Moses

But you already have one foot in the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, where millions of angels gather in praise

So, continue to live a life of love and hospitality.

Keep in mind those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them

Keep your marriage undefiled.

Avoid greed. Be content with what you have

Jesus, help me remember heaven....and people in prison

Recording 

Recommended: check these readings early morning, think about them during the day, check them again at night. This habit gives us extra energy, courage, motivation, peace and compassion for each day

 Matthew 12.1-8

One Sabbath day Jesus and his disciples were walking through a cornfield. 

The disciples were hungry. They picked some ears of corn and ate them.

Picking corn on the Sabbath was regarded as unlawful by the Pharisees.  So the Pharisees said to Jesus "Your disciples are breaking the Sabbath law".

Jesus replied "Don't you remember what David and his followers once did when they were hungry? They ate the Temple bread which only the priests were allowed to eat.

Go and learn the meaning  of these words 'What I want is mercy, not superficial external offerings'.

I am Master of the Sabbath."

Jesus, Master of the Sabbath, please help me understand  that love is more important than law.

Recording 

The Joy of Love - Pope Francis' letter - on love in the family      Full English text

116: Recording

Love hopes all things

Panta elpízei. Love does not despair of the future. 

Following upon what has just been said, this phrase speaks of the hope of one who knows that others can change, mature and radiate unexpected beauty and untold potential. 

This does not mean that everything will change in this life. It does involve realizing that, though things may not always turn out as we wish, God may well make crooked lines straight and draw some good from the evil we endure in this world.

113a: Recording

There is also the fact that people no longer seem to believe in a happy future; they no longer have blind trust in a better tomorrow based on the present state of the world and our technical abilities.

There is a growing awareness that scientific and technological progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history, a growing sense that the way to a better future lies elsewhere. 

This is not to reject the possibilities which technology continues to offer us. But humanity has changed profoundly, and the accumulation of constant novelties exalts a superficiality which pulls us in one direction. It becomes difficult to pause and recover depth in life

90: Recording 

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.

As I was about to board Qantas Flight 98 on Sunday night for flight to Brisbane, staff at gate changed my ticket to business class. I had not asked for change. But ever since I took took tour groups to Australia a long time ago, one from HK and one from China ...and since I won a Qantas anniversary competition, the HK computer has often changed tickets

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 2nd of the month, Jesus please bless the prisoners of Fujian

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 2nd of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Niger

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

Letters from (mainly African) inmates in Hong Kong prisons - and other drug trafficking items:   2016

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

What is the origin of the term “Couch Potato”?

Don't be couch potatoes, Pope urges young people

 Pope Francis has urged young people not to become couch potatoes but to get out and engage in social activism and politics to create a more just world.

He expressed his dismay over how the time and energies of many young people were swallowed up by their use of computers, smart-phones and video games.

Isaiah 5

My friend had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He planted choice vines in it and expected it to produce good grapes. But it produced only sour grapes.

That vineyard is Israel. Its owner is the Lord. That chosen plant is the people of Judah.

The Lord expected the people of Israel to produce justice. But those people have produced only bloodshed and injustice.

Those people have no time to think about the Lord. They have no interest in what he has done for them.

So they are consigning themselves to ruin. The vineyard will be trampled on and become a waste.

Invaders will attack Israel. The people of Israel will be taken into exile. All because they rejected the Lord.

"I am the true vine. My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away.  Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more" -  Jesus  (John 15.1-2)

My recording of this reading

Psalm 137

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and cried, remembering Zion. On the poplars that grew there we hung up our harps.

For it was there that they asked us, our captors, for songs. "Sing to us", they said, "one of Zion's songs".

O how could we sing the song of the Lord on alien soil? If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand wither.

O let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I remember you not, Jerusalem, above all my joys.

Lord, please help  people who have been exiled from their homeland

Recording 

Beautiful song based on the above words: (YouTube)
By the Rivers of Babylon 

Hebrews 11.1 - 12.15

Only faith can keep us going. Only faith helped Abraham and other famous people in the Scriptures to keep going

So many of them were weak people who were given strength by God, to be brave when life became difficult

With so many witnesses in a great cloud all around us, we too should keep running in the race we have started. We should get rid of  everything that slows us down

Keep focusing on Jesus. He is running beside us. His example going to the cross gives us courage

Try to live at peace with everyone. Don't let any seed of bitterness begin to grown and make trouble. This can poison a whole community

Jesus, help me remember your presence in my heart

Recording 

Matthew 11.25-30

One day Jesus prayed:

Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I am joyfully amazed at the way simple people understand and accept what I'm saying, while proud and clever people miss the plot.

And he said to the ordinary people:

Come to me, all you who are treated unfairly by unjust religious laws. I will give you peace and justice.

Learn from me, and you will know peace, for I am gentle and humble of heart.

Jesus, please help people who are suffering from unjust religious laws

Recording 

The Joy of Love - Pope Francis' letter - on love in the family     Full English text

115: Recording

This trust enables a relationship to be free.

 It means we do not have to control the other person, to follow their every step lest they escape our grip. 

Love trusts, it sets free, it does not try to control, possess and dominate everything. 

This freedom, which fosters independence, an openness to the world around us and to new experiences, can only enrich and expand relationships. 

The spouses then share with one another the joy of all they have received and learned outside the family circle. 

At the same time, this freedom makes for sincerity and transparency, for those who know that they are trusted and appreciated can be open and hide nothing. 

Those who know that their spouse is always suspicious, judgmental and lacking unconditional love, will tend to keep secrets, conceal their failings and weaknesses, and pretend to be someone other than who they are.

 On the other hand, a family marked by loving trust, come what may, helps its members to be themselves and spontaneously to reject deceit, falsehood, and lies.

112: Recording

Yet we can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral.

Liberation from the dominant technocratic paradigm does in fact happen sometimes, for example, when cooperatives of small producers adopt less polluting means of production, and opt for a non-consumerist model of life, recreation and community. 

Or when technology is directed primarily to resolving people’s concrete problems, truly helping them live with more dignity and less suffering.

Or indeed when the desire to create and contemplate beauty, manages to overcome reductionism through a kind of salvation which occurs in beauty and in those who behold it. 

An authentic humanity, calling for a new synthesis, seems to dwell in the midst of our technological culture, almost unnoticed, like a mist seeping gently beneath a closed door. Will the promise last, in spite of everything, with all that is authentic rising up in stubborn resistance?

89: Recording

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.

Faster than Facebook or Whatsapp is Heavensapp .... it arranges things before they happen ...like yesterday morning. Before I went to 8.30 Mass at Yau Ma Tei I checked my email ... and saw a message from Janny Law in Malawi saying that a very poor family in her area was in need of urgent help. That was about 7.15am. Then after Mass, about 9.45, a kind parishioner put an envelope in my hand saying "This is for Malawi."
Disclaimer: on this website some weeks ago I had said Janny was helping some special families.
But yesterday's timing had a large dose of Heavensapp about it.
By 10.15 the donation had already been sent to Janny, via Western Union. 

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 1st of the month,  Jesus please bless the prisoners of Anwei

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 1st of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Congo

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

Letters from (mainly African) inmates in Hong Kong prisons - and other drug trafficking items:   2016

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

World Youth Day

Pope FALLS OVER during Mass at Poland Monastery

(now the whole world will know he is in Poland ...excellent publicity action)

Pope at World Youth Day calls for solidarity with refugees

Pope makes a statement with visit to fabled Polish monastery

Letter from a South African mother in a HK prison for drug trafficking: At this link  (July 25)

Facebook page of a Filipino inmate in prison in Hong Kong

Chris McDonnell (UK)

Mid-week Eucharist

Reflection on the savage murder of 85 year old Fr Jacques Hamel
in Normandy on July 26   

Isaiah 2

In the days to come, the mountain of the Lord's Temple will be specially blessed.

All the nations will come to it and say: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, that he may teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths".

When they learn the ways of the Lord, then the nations will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles.

Nation will not lift sword against nation, there will be no more training for war.

O House of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Lord, please help world leaders do more for peace in our world

My recording of this reading

Psalm 135

Praise the name of the Lord,
praise him, servants of the Lord.

Praise the Lord for he is good.
Sing a psalm to his name for he is loving.

I know the Lord is great. He does whatever he wills in heaven, on earth, in the seas.

Pagan idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.

They have mouths but they cannot speak. They have eyes but they cannot see.

Sons of Israel, do not trust in useless idols. Sons of Aaron, trust only in our Creator and Lord.

Dear Lord, please help people who worship idols to know and love you

Recording  

Hebrews 10.21-25

Jesus is the supreme High Priest of the whole house of God.

As we enter that house, let us have sincere hearts that are filled with faith and hope

Let us be concerned for each other, encouraging each other to do good

Do not stay away from the meetings as some people do, but encourage each other to attend

Jesus, may my life encourage others to do good

Recording

Today's Gospel:

For the Feast of Saint Martha

Luke 10.38-42

Jesus came to a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. 

She had a sister called Mary, who sat down at the Lord’s feet and listened to him speaking. 

Now Martha who was distracted with all the serving said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me.’ 

But the Lord answered: ‘Martha, Martha,’ he said ‘you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.’ 

Recording  

The Joy of Love - Pope Francis' letter - on love in the family      Full English text

112: Recording

First, Paul says that love “bears all things” (panta stégei).

 This is about more than simply putting up with evil; it has to do with the use of the tongue.

 The verb can mean “holding one’s peace” about what may be wrong with another person. It implies limiting judgment, checking the impulse to issue a firm and ruthless condemnation: “Judge not and you will not be judged” (Lk 6:37). Although it runs contrary to the way we normally use our tongues, God’s word tells us: “Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters” (Jas 4:11).

 Being willing to speak ill of another person is a way of asserting ourselves, venting resentment and envy without concern for the harm we may do. We often forget that slander can be quite sinful; it is a grave offense against God when it seriously harms another person’s good name and causes damage that is hard to repair. 

Hence God’s word forthrightly states that the tongue “is a world of iniquity” that “stains the whole body” (Jas 3:6); it is a “restless evil, full of deadly poison” (3:8). Whereas the tongue can be used to “curse those who are made in the likeness of God” (3:9), love cherishes the good name of others, even one’s enemies.

 In seeking to uphold God’s law we must never forget this specific requirement of love.

110a: Recording

The specialization which belongs to technology makes it difficult to see the larger picture. 

The fragmentation of knowledge proves helpful for concrete applications, and yet it often leads to a loss of appreciation for the whole, for the relationships between things, and for the broader horizon, which then becomes irrelevant.

This very fact makes it hard to find adequate ways of solving the more complex problems of today’s world, particularly those regarding the environment and the poor; these problems cannot be dealt with from a single perspective or from a single set of interests.

86: Recording

 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!

After attending the trial of an African prisoner at the High Court a couple of days ago, I walked through a nearby park. Each tree in the park had a plastic sign, showing the tree's Latin name. None of the names was familiar, until I came to one which said "Be careful of the low branch"! 

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 29th of the month,  Jesus please bless the prisoners of Chongqing

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 29th of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Mauritania

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

Letters from (mainly African) inmates in Hong Kong prisons - and other drug trafficking items:   2016

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

Another disappointment at HK's High Court yesterday when a South African lady was not given any discount for helping my anti-drug campaign, despite another South African lady, with a slightly larger amount of drugs, having been given 12 month's discount the day before! 

This discrepancy in sentencing will hopefully soon (? ... no such thing as soon in legal life?) be resolved by HK's Court of Appeal    

Customs seize suspected cocaine at HK airport

Because drug mules are easily detected by the latest Customs' equipment and highly trained staff, therefore the Drug Lords are continually trying other means for getting drugs into HK

Three Indonesians are due to be executed at Indonesia's notorious execution island this week .... probably at midnight tonight. The condemned prisoners were visited two days ago by O.M.I. chaplains.

Jesus, please move the hearts of Indonesia's leaders to oppose the death penalty!

Chris   McDonnell   (UK blogger)

One with each other

Chris' previous article about the shortage of priests has been published here

Isaiah 1

Listen, heaven and earth, for the Lord is speaking:

"The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib. But my people have rebelled against me.

I am tired of your hypocritical lives, tired of offerings given with dirty hands.

You are so greedy for profit, always looking for bribes.

Take your wrong-doing out of my sight. Stop doing evil. Learn to do good.

Practise justice towards the poor.
Help the oppressed, the orphan and the widow.

Then, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."

Lord, please help me "wash my hands" by doing good for poor people

My recording of this reading

Psalm 134

O come, bless the Lord, all you who serve the Lord, who stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God.

Lift up your hands to heaven and bless the Lord through the night.

May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made both heaven and earth.

Lord, please  protect my family tonight and every night

Recording

Hebrews 8.9 - 9.14

Jesus' priesthood is part of the new covenant predicted in the Scriptures:

"See, the days are coming - it is the Lord who speaks - when I will establish a new covenant with the House of Israel"

Jesus has come as High Priest of all the blessings that were predicted would be part of the new covenant

He has offered not the blood of animals like priests of the old covenant, but his own blood, by which he won our redemption

His blood can purify our inner self from dead actions,
to help us in our life of dedication to the living God

Jesus, by your precious blood, purify my heart and protect me

Recording

Matthew 10.17-42

Jesus said to his apostles
"Because you follow me and speak my message, therefore you will be arrested and put in prison.

But don't worry about what to say for your defense. What to say will be given you by the Holy Spirit.

Boldly proclaim my message
and do not be afraid of persecution.

Take up your cross and follow me. Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me
is not worthy of me."

Jesus, please give me more courage 

Recording

Pope declares 'world is at war' after French priest's slaying

French priest’s killer was freed from jail despite aiming to join jihadis

Murder of French priest opens a new frontier for Catholic church

The Joy of Love - Pope Francis' letter - on love in the family      Full English text

111: Recording

Paul’s list ends with four phrases containing the words “all things”. 

Love bears all things, 

believes all things, 

hopes all things, 

endures all things. 

Here we see clearly the countercultural power of a love that is able to face whatever might threaten it.

109b: Recording 

Yet by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development and social inclusion.[89] 

At the same time, we have “a sort of ‘superdevelopment’ of a wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast with the ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation”,[90] while we are all too slow in developing economic institutions and social initiatives which can give the poor regular access to basic resources. 

We fail to see the deepest roots of our present failures, which have to do with the direction, goals, meaning and social implications of technological and economic growth.

85: Recording

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

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 28th of the month,  Jesus please bless the prisoners of Beijing

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 28th of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Lesotho

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

Letters from (mainly African) inmates in Hong Kong prisons - and other drug trafficking items:   2016

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

Chinese court jails Colombian Miss World hopeful for 15 years for smuggling drugs

This is good!

An abundant worldview leads to shared prosperity

On issue after issue -- whether raising wages or investing in roads, bridges, schools and water systems -- an abundant worldview leads to broadly shared prosperity.

After three disappointments last week at HK's High Court (when 3 inmates in 3 different courts did not receive any discount for helping my anti-drug campaign), yesterday was a happy experience when a woman from South Africa received a discount of one year from her sentence because she had helped the campaign warn other people about the danger of drug trafficking to HK. 

HK's judiciary is now discussing the need for guidelines from the Court of Appeal how to acknowledge the efforts of  "campaign helpers". 
Thank you, Jesus!

Sirach 51

When I was young, before I became a traveler, I prayed for wisdom.

Thanks to wisdom, I have been successful in my work. And so I finish this book by praising the God who gave me wisdom:

I give thanks to you, Lord and King, and praise you, God my savior.

For by wisdom you have protected and supported me,
and rescued me from so many troubles.

I will praise you all my days and gratefully sing your praises.

Lord,  thank you for the wisdom in this book. Please give me wisdom for each day

Psalm 133

How good and how pleasant it is
when people live in unity.

It is like precious oil upon the head, running down upon the beard.

It is like the dew of Hermon which falls on the heights of Zion.

For there the Lord gives his blessing, life for ever.

Dear Lord, please help all the peoples of the world to live as one family, in unity.

Recording 

Hebrews 7.1-28

Melchizedek was king of Salem and a priest of God. He blessed  Abraham.  Abraham gave Melchizedek 10% of all he had

Melchizedek's priesthood  continued down the ages in people dedicated to the service of God. It reached its perfection in the Son of God, the Eternal High Priest

The Son of God, our Lord, did not come from the priestly tribe of Levi. Everyone knows he came from the tribe of Judah

This is because he established a new priesthood, coming not from Levi, but from Melchizedek. This is why the prophecy was made of him "You are a priest of the order of Melchizedek, for ever"

Jesus' priestly power to save us is utterly certain, since he is living for ever to intercede for all who come to God through him

Jesus, Eternal High Priest, please help all pastors and priests be more like you every day

Recording 

Matthew 10.1-16

Many men followed Jesus as "fishers of men", as "disciples".
Jesus chose 12 of them and called them "apostles":

Peter and his brother Andrew; 
Zebedees' sons James and John;
Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus; Thaddaeus, Simon and Judas.

Jesus sent them to prepare his way by visiting the places he would go.

He gave them power to cast out evil spirits and to heal all kinds of sicknesses.

He said to them: Proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is near. Cure the sick. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Cast out devils.

Jesus, please help all Christians to be apostles and fishers of people

Recording 

The Joy of Love - Pope Francis' letter - on love in the family     Full English text

110: Recording

  When a loving person can do good for others, or sees that others are happy, they themselves live happily and in this way give glory to God, for “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:7).

 Our Lord especially appreciates those who find joy in the happiness of others. 

If we fail to learn how to rejoice in the well-being of others, and focus primarily on our own needs, we condemn ourselves to a joyless existence, for, as Jesus said, “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

 The family must always be a place where, when something good happens to one of its members, they know that others will be there to celebrate it with them.

Democrat says that if party goes pro-life, it will be unstoppable

109a: Recording 

The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. 

Finance overwhelms the real economy. The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been assimilated, and we are learning all too slowly the lessons of environmental deterioration. 

Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems, and argue, in popular and non-technical terms, that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth. 

They are less concerned with certain economic theories which today scarcely anybody dares defend, than with their actual operation in the functioning of the economy.

They may not affirm such theories with words, but nonetheless support them with their deeds by showing no interest in more balanced levels of production, a better distribution of wealth, concern for the environment and the rights of future generations. Their behaviour shows that for them maximizing profits is enough.

The politics of disruption
In an act of desperation, the Victorian Premier this week wrote to the Prime Minister begging him not to hold a “harmful” people’s vote

84: Recording

The joy of the Gospel is such that it cannot be taken away from us by anyone or anything. The evils of our world – and those of the Church – must not be excuses for diminishing our commitment and our fervour.

 Let us look upon them as challenges which can help us to grow. With the eyes of faith, we can see the light which the Holy Spirit always radiates in the midst of darkness, never forgetting that “where sin increased, grace has abounded all the more” 

Our faith is challenged to discern how wine can come from water and how wheat can grow in the midst of weeds. Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, we are distressed by the troubles of our age and far from naive optimism; yet the fact that we are more realistic must not mean that we are any less trusting in the Spirit or less generous. 

In this sense, we can once again listen to the words of Blessed John XXIII on the memorable day of 11 October 1962: “At times we have to listen, much to our regret, to the voices of people who, though burning with zeal, lack a sense of discretion and measure. In this modern age they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin … We feel that we must disagree with those prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand. In our times, divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which, by human effort and even beyond all expectations, are directed to the fulfilment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs, in which everything, even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of the Church”.

After the High Court yesterday, I went to a local hospital to close the files for Christine Aquino who is now back in the Philippines, continuing her courageous fight against stage 4 (5?) cancer ... and let's keep up our prayers for a miracle for her. After the first hospital I then phoned a second hospital to inform them also that Christine was no longer in HK and that before she left HK, the doctors had said she had only a week or two to live. Clerk at second hospital, with Doctorate in Bureaucratic Language, unable to think out of the box, replied "Well, please tell her to personally sign the hospital release forms when she comes back to HK"!  Hope his words are prophetic!

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 27th of the month,  Jesus please bless the prisoners of Tibet

And praying for one of the world's poorest countries each day of the month:
On this 27th of the month, Jesus please bless the people of Uganda

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

Letters from (mainly African) inmates in Hong Kong prisons - and other drug trafficking items:   2016

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