Merry Christmas!

Hey everyone
just want to thank you all so sincerely for this year
you guys have made this year so memorable, wonderful and special for me! if not for your presence i would be so much the less without it!

hope that this year's season of Christmas where we celebrate the birth or advent of our Lord Jesus Christ finds you happy and holy (and whole)! May you all continue to be richly blessed by God our Almighty Father, His Son Jesus and the Most Wonderful and Blessed Counseller the Holy Spirit!

looking forward to seeing you all in 2009 for more fun and a deepening of our faith!

Much love and Merry Christmas to you all!
Andrew

My addiction

This is an adaption of Neyo's song because I'm officially addicted to God!

"Because of You"

Want to, but I can’t help it
I love the way it feels,
It’s got me stuck between my destiny and what is real
Sing to you when I want to, sing to you when I don’t
Tell myself I’ll stop everyday, knowin’ that I won't

[Bridge:]
I got a problem cos I don’t know what to do about it
Even if I did, I don’t know if I would ease but I doubt it
I’m taken by the thought of You, and I know this much is true
Jesus, you have become my addiction, I’m so strung out on you
I’m filled with joy and I like it

[Chorus:]
And it’s all because of you [3X]
And it’s all because…
Never get enough,
He’s my glorious love.

[Verse 2:]
Think of You every second
I can't get nothing done,
Only concern is the next time, I’m gonna sing you songs
Know I shouldn’t steer away from, but gamsat’s creeping up
I try and try but my obsession wont let me be

[Bridge:]
I got a problem cos I don’t know what to do about it
Even if I did, I don’t know if I would ease but I doubt it
I’m taken by the thought of You, and I know this much is true
Jesus, you have become my addiction, I’m so strung out on you
I’m filled with joy and I like it

[Chorus:]
And it’s all because of you (all because of you) [3X]
And it’s all because…
Never get enough,
He’s my glorious love

Ain’t no doubt, so strung out [2X]
Over you, over you, over you

Because of you,
And it’s all because of you,
Never get enough
He’s my glorious love, He’s my glorious love.

Strong Christians

Sermon from Pastor Philip Mantofa (in Taiwan)

This cracks me up, Pastor Philip is so awesome in his sermons and healing services. Check out what he says...

When you are with your friends, your friends say "I change girlfriends every 2 months" and your friend is a womaniser, you are the only one who's different. They mock you, they say "Oh, you are a priest... Father! Father!" People mock you, I had that kind of treatment when i was younger, when they say "Father! Father!". I will not be angry or offended, why should i be offended? Why should i be offended when they associate me to the Lord? I should be proud, so [when] they said "Father! Father!", I said (in a deep voice) "Yes - I bless you! I bless you!".
:D

They say that you should have a lot of girlfriends, they say that you should cheat on your girlfriend, cheat on your wife, your husband. You say to them, "no i will just have one girlfriend and i will marry her". I will just have one girlfriend, holy, Godship, and I will marry her. They say "Oh you are so old fashion" [and I said] "Yeah - i come from biblical age!"
:D

Father's Love Letter

An Intimate Message From God to You

God Loves You. And He is the Father you have been looking for all your life. This is His love letter to you...

My Child,

You may not know me,
but I know everything about you.
Psalm 139:1

I know when you sit down and when you rise up.
Psalm 139:2

I am familiar with all your ways.
Psalm 139:3

Even the very hairs on your head are numbered.
Matthew 10:29-31

For you were made in my image.
Genesis 1:27

In me you live and move and have your being.
Acts 17:28

For you are my offspring.
Acts 17:28

I knew you even before you were conceived.
Jeremiah 1:4-5

I chose you when I planned creation.
Ephesians 1:11-12

You were not a mistake,
for all your days are written in my book.
Psalm 139:15-16

I determined the exact time of your birth
and where you would live.
Acts 17:26

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalm 139:14

I knit you together in your mother's womb.
Psalm 139:13

And brought you forth on the day you were born.
Psalm 71:6

I have been misrepresented
by those who don't know me.
John 8:41-44

I am not distant and angry,
but am the complete expression of love.
1 John 4:16

And it is my desire to lavish my love on you.
1 John 3:1

Simply because you are my child
and I am your Father.
1 John 3:1

I offer you more than your earthly father ever could.
Matthew 7:11

For I am the perfect father.
Matthew 5:48

Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand.
James 1:17

For I am your provider and I meet all your needs.
Matthew 6:31-33

My plan for your future has always been filled with hope.
Jeremiah 29:11

Because I love you with an everlasting love.
Jeremiah 31:3

My thoughts toward you are countless
as the sand on the seashore.
Psalms 139:17-18

And I rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17

I will never stop doing good to you.
Jeremiah 32:40

For you are my treasured possession.
Exodus 19:5

I desire to establish you
with all my heart and all my soul.
Jeremiah 32:41

And I want to show you great and marvelous things.
Jeremiah 33:3

If you seek me with all your heart,
you will find me.
Deuteronomy 4:29

Delight in me and I will give you
the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4

For it is I who gave you those desires.
Philippians 2:13

I am able to do more for you
than you could possibly imagine.
Ephesians 3:20

For I am your greatest encourager.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

I am also the Father who comforts you
in all your troubles.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4

When you are brokenhearted,
I am close to you.
Psalm 34:18

As a shepherd carries a lamb,
I have carried you close to my heart.
Isaiah 40:11

One day I will wipe away
every tear from your eyes.
Revelation 21:3-4

And I'll take away all the pain
you have suffered on this earth.
Revelation 21:3-4

I am your Father, and I love you
even as I love my son, Jesus.
John 17:23

For in Jesus, my love for you is revealed.
John 17:26

He is the exact representation of my being.
Hebrews 1:3

He came to demonstrate that I am for you,
not against you.
Romans 8:31

And to tell you that I am not counting your sins.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19

Jesus died so that you and I could be reconciled.
2 Corinthians 5:18-19

His death was the ultimate expression
of my love for you.
1 John 4:10

I gave up everything I loved
that I might gain your love.
Romans 8:31-32

If you receive the gift of my son Jesus,
you receive me.
1 John 2:23

And nothing will ever separate you
from my love again.
Romans 8:38-39

Come home and I'll throw the biggest party
heaven has ever seen.
Luke 15:7

I have always been Father,
and will always be Father.
Ephesians 3:14-15

My question is…
Will you be my child?
John 1:12-13
I am waiting for you.
Luke 15:11-32

Love, Your Dad
Almighty God

Falling in Love with God

God loved you before you were born, and God will love you after you die. In Scripture God says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." This is a very fundamental truth of your identity. This is who you are whether you feel it or not. You belong to God from eternity to eternity. Life is just a little opportunity for you during a few years to say, "I love you too." If you dare to believe that you are beloved before you are born, you may suddenly realise that your life is very, very special... This brief lifetime is my opportunity to receive love, deepen love, grow in love and give love. - Henri Nouwen (Finding My Way Home - Pathways to Life and the Spirit)

What a beautiful and touching way to look at our relationship with God! When I stop and pause to think about my purpose in life and why God put me here on this Earth, I think it can be defined by one simple yet powerful word - Love. Reaching out and serving others springs from a desire to share this deep love of God with those around me. Acts of kindness = acts of love. We were born to be lovers of Christ!

How does one "fall in love"? Like any good relationship, I believe there needs to be a strong sense of trust, courage and faith. A degree of self-abandonment. To let go and willingly take God from our Sunday day of obligation, and to allow him to propagate our core being - our total self! Only then is He the centre of our being... our sounding board for every decision, choice and action.

For me, it occured last year during a CGC retreat where we studied the first encylical letter by Pope Benedict XVI called "Deus Caritas Est" (Latin for "God is Love"). It was a turning point for me as during a heartfelt confession, I was challenged to jump off the cliff edge and proclaim with hand on heart... "JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU!".

Trust wholeheartedly in Yahweh, put no faith in your own perception; acknowledge him in ever course you take, and he will see that your paths are smooth" (Proverbs 3:5)

Just knowing that God will be there to catch me when I fall off that cliff gives me a sense of liberation. Freedom. I used to worry and stress a lot about what others think. Of how I will be perceived. Perhaps this was because I trusted God 80% of the time, but for 20% of the time I would doubt that he wasn't listening completely.

Our fears are what limit us.

Nouwen eloquently reflects the fullness of God's love... "In this world when you are chosen, you know that somebody else is not chosen. When you are the best, you know that somebody is not the best. When you win and receive a prize, you know there is somebody who lost. But this is not so in the heart of God. If you are chosen in the heart of God, you have eyes to see the chosenness of others. If the Love of God blesses you, you have the eyes to see the blessedness of others."

Now I can loosen up and smile! :) Because I know what God wants counts most... and he is always there to help and guide me along my own journey. We are all called to shine and dance freely with God!

So I challenge you to give your heart to God!

God truly loves me more than I love myself.
God desires my happiness.
God knows best how I'll be happy.
(Fr John Powell SJ)

PRAYER TO LOVE GOD ABOVE ALL THINGS
God, my Father, may I love You in all things and above all things. May I reach the joy which You have prepared for me in Heaven. Nothing is good that is against Your Will, and all that is good comes from Your Hand. Place in my heart a desire to please You and fill my mind with thoughts of Your Love, so that I may grow in Your Wisdom and enjoy Your Peace. Amen.

When Pigs Fly and Monkeys Type

=== posted here for your reading pleasure ===
article by GERALD SCHROEDER

Stephen Hawking in his A Brief History Of Time taught the world that given enough time, monkeys hammering away on typewriters could type out a Shakespeare sonnet.

It is a nice adage but totally off base, at least within the reality of our world. Having gone to MIT I don't know many sonnets. In fact when I thought about this I only knew the opening line of one, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day." There are a bit fewer than 500 letters in that sonnet [All Shakespeare's sonnets are about the same length; all by definition 14 lines long.]

Let's consider a grab bag with the 26 letters of the English language in it. I reach into the bag blindfolded and pull out a letter. The likelihood that it will be 's' for the first letter of the sonnet is one chance in 26. The likelihood that in two draws I will get an 's' and then an 'h' is one chance in 26 times 26. And so on for the 500 letters. Neglecting spaces between the words, the chance of getting the entire sonnet by chance is 26 multiplied by itself 500 times. That number comes out to be a one with 700 zeroes after it. In conventional math terms, it is 10 to the exponent power of 700.

To give a sense of scale for reference, the known universe including dark matter and black energy weighs in the order of 10 to the power 56 grams; the number of basic particles [protons, neutrons, electrons, mesons] in the known universe is 10 to the power 80; the age of the universe from our perspective of time, 10 to the power 18 seconds. Convert all the universe into micro-computers each weighing a billionth of a gram and run each of those computers billions of times a second non-stop from the beginning of time and we still will need greater than 10 to the power 500 universes, or that much more time for even a remote probability of getting a sonnet; any meaningful sonnet. Chance does not produce intelligible text and certainly not a sonnet, not in our universe.

But so convincing is the Hawking argument that the students at the Plymouth University in England convinced the National Arts Council to put up 1500 Sterling, about $3000, to try monkey typing skills. They rented a monkey house for a month. Six monkeys hammered away on a computer key board and failed to produce a single English word. Surprised, since the shortest word in the English language is one letter long? Surely the monkeys must have hit an 'A' or an 'I' in all their efforts. But think about it. To a make an 'A' a word requires a space on each side of the 'A'. That means typing: space, 'A,' space. If there are about 100 keys on the computer key board, the probability is one chance in a 100 times 100 times 100 which comes out to be one chance in a million. Random guessing in a spelling bee is always a losing proposition. And that is for a single letter word.

But what about life? Could random mutations have actually produced the ordered complexity of life, or even a viable protein? Mutations that are to be passed on to the next generation must occur in the genetic material of the reproductive line, which is in the DNA of sperm or egg. That mutation results in a variant (mutated) protein which might produce a new more effective type of organ, say a better muscle or the beginning of a transition from fin to foot. That would be the neo-Darwinian concept. But let's look at that process rigorously. When we do we'll see it does not work if randomness is the only driving force.

The building blocks of all life are proteins. Proteins are precisely organized strings of amino acids. Information held on the DNA determines the order in which the amino acids join together to form the end-product, the protein. So if the DNA mutates, we get a different amino acid and hence a different protein. Now comes the problem of mutations in the theory of neo-Darwinian randomness.

The genetic system of all life is totally coded. An example of code would be the Morse code sounds, 'dot dot dot dash' which look, sound or seem nothing like the letter 'V' for which they code. If you did not know that this sequence of sounds represented a 'V' you'd not have a clue as to its meaning. And so it is with the data on the DNA. Though the data on the strands of DNA (the chromosomes) in our cells carry the information for the amino acids and proteins that are to form, the data on the DNA are held as assorted groupings of four different nucleic acids. Nucleic acids have absolutely zero physical resemblance to either amino acids or proteins. The information is totally coded.

In nature, this lack of similarity between code and final product ensures that there is no logical feedback from protein or amino acid to DNA. Information flow is one way: DNA to amino acid to protein. New mutant variations of proteins can arise only through mutations at the DNA that have no physical hint of the final protein product.

In all known life, there are only 20 different amino acids. Stringing them together in varied sequences produces varied proteins, just as intelligently stringing letters together in varied sequences will produce varied sentences and sonnets. Scientific literature suggests that all of life is made from combinations of fewer than a million different proteins. Other proteins are either useless [neutral, adding no selective advantage for survival] or lethal. But let's say our estimate is off. In place of 1,000,000 viable proteins, let it be 100 million or billion or trillion viable proteins.

Here are the crucial numbers:

Proteins vary in length from strings of a few hundred to a few thousand amino acids. Consider a relatively short protein, such as 200 amino acids long. Into each of the 200 spaces any one of the 20 amino acids can fall. That means the total number of possible combinations is 20 times 20 times 20 repeated 200 times. The result is a one with 260 zeros after it, or 10 to the power of 260 or a billion billion billion repeated 29 times. From this vast biological grab bag, we are told that nature by random chance mutations has been able to form the fewer than a million proteins that don't kill the organism. This did not, and could not, and will not happen by chance. And every biologist enamored with neo-Darwinian evolution knows it. Their feeble reply is that there must be other factors that limit the types of mutations that can occur. There certainly are…but not as randomly as the materialist biologist would have it.

The unrealistic possibility that the selection of viable proteins could have occurred by unguided random mutations in the DNA led Simon Conway Morris, professor of evolutionary paleobiology at Cambridge University, Fellow of the Royal Society of England, and possibly the world's leading paleontologist, to write his book, Life's Solutions (Cambridge University Press, 2003). In it we read: "Life is simply too complex to be assembled by random reactions on any believable time scale. … evolution [has the] uncanny ability to find the short cuts across the multidimensional hyperspace of biological reality. …"

This opinion is also found in the writing of Nobel laureate, organic chemist and a leader in origin of life studies, Professor de Duve, in his excellent book, Tour of a Living Cell:

"If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one. ... Faced with the enormous sum of lucky draws behind the success of the evolutionary game, one may legitimately wonder to what extent this success is actually written into the fabric of the universe."

Life written into the fabric of the universe. Sounds like design to me.

Noble laureate, Professor of Biology, Harvard University, the late George Wald, may have provided us with the answer to this wonder when he wrote "Life and Mind in the Universe" in the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry: Quantum Biology symposium 11 (1984):

"It has occurred to me lately - I must confess with some shock at first to my scientific sensibilities—that both questions [the origin of consciousness in humans and of life from non-living matter] might be brought into some degree of congruence. This is with the assumption that mind, rather than emerging as a late outgrowth in the evolution of life, has existed always as the matrix, the source and condition of physical reality—that stuff of which physical reality is composed is mind-stuff. It is mind that has composed a physical universe that breeds life…."

This is science, not theology, speaking. But it is also theology.

"In the beginning was the logos [logos-logic, intellect, word]" (John).

A few hundred years earlier,

"With the word of God the heavens were made." (Psalm 33).

And a few hundred years before that,

"B'raisheet (With wisdom) God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis I:1).

[Not 'In the beginning.' That is the erroneous mis-translation of the Hebrew word B'raisheet introduced by the Septuagint]

If indeed wisdom, logic and mind are the essence of existence, then the conundrum of the origin of the life's design is solved. The Intelligence behind the design is ubiquitous in every particle of the world and most evident in the brains and minds of humans as we puzzle over our cosmic origins.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Gerald Schroeder. "When Pigs Fly and Monkeys Type." tothesource (October 2, 2007).

THE AUTHOR

Gerald Schroeder holds a BSc, MSc, and PhD all earned at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a PhD in two fields: Earth and Planetary Sciences; and, Nuclear Physics. His formal theological training includes fifteen years of study under the late Rabbi Herman Pollack, Rabbi Chaim Brovender and Rabbi Noah Weinberg. He spent seven years on the staff of the M.I.T. Physics Department prior to moving to Israel and joining the staff of the Weizmann Institute of Science and then the Volcani Research Institute and the Hebrew University Isotope Separation Mass Spectrometer facility. He is currently teaching at the Aish HaTorah College of Jewish studies in Jerusalem.

His Name is Joseph

I’ve heard the story of the Annunciation so many times that I think I've started to tune out if ever I come across it.

But I came across this song sometime last year, a reflection on Mary's "yes" to God. I love it because of how it was able to put me in Mary's shoes, understand a little of how she might have felt when the Angel Gabriel put the proposition (proposed?) to her.

What moves me the most is the way that I’d like to think Mary would have prayed to God about this. The account in Luke doesn’t give a time frame of how quickly Mary made her decision, but I’m sure God would have allowed her time enough to discern her answer.

In particular, I like the way that in the song, Mary

• Confides her deepest feelings to God: “I admit that I am scared; I was really not prepared” and “It is one thing for me to walk into this glorious unknown; But another, Lord, to think that I must do it alone”
• Tells God about Joseph and her fear of losing him if she accepts His proposal: “But I ask your reassurance for the love that found me: His name is Joseph; he is a carpenter. I believe our hearts are destined for each other”
• Accepts God’s proposal/will for her, despite her fears: “But let the world think what they will; For today your promise is fulfilled” and “So you have chosen this for me; I accept it willingly”
• Asks God honestly for what her heart desires: “But as for him, I cannot tell; I can only pray you've chosen him as well” and “If he goes, life will not end; But I could truly use a friend"
• Considers the feelings of those around her as part of her discernment: “And when you find him, please tell him gently; This is something I can't think he'll understand; Oh send your angels to sing to him”

This is exactly the appeal that Mary has for me: her gentle humility, her humanity, and the fact that she understands completely what it is like to be single, in a relationship, and married. She is totally our mum and is someone that will listen to us and pray to God on our behalf!

Dearest Mary,

Thank you for your example of humility, love for our God and complete trust in His will. Thanks also for being such a good mum for Jesus and good wife to Joseph, so that He was able to grow up in such a loving family.

Please pray for me. Please ask the Holy Spirit to be with me always and inspire me so that I may remember to include God when making my decisions, and that I will learn to discern the way that you have.

Please pray that I may learn to trust God as you did, especially when I have to make hard decisions that will affect those around me. Please pray that I will remember always that our Father loves me and only ever wants the best for me.

Please continue to pray for all of us as we step through life – to appease the anger that we incite in our Father as we make mistakes, and continue to guide us so that we might end up with you and your son at the end of our journey.

Life

Life is like a fragile flower
that must be nurtured and appreciated
before it wilts away

the crazy thing is,
the paradox
where we finite humans
live as if we shall never die

a reflection of the divine image?

Love

A quote that I came across - not sure who wrote it!

Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.

the pursuit of Happiness (with a Y!)

I pose the questions put by Fr John Hardon in an article on happiness

How is it that what everyone is looking for, so few seem to find? And how is it that what all the wise men of history have been teaching, so few seem to have learned? It cannot be that people's desire for happiness is not strong enough. It is on examination the strongest impulse of human nature

As St Augustine (~late 4th, early 5th century) says,

"Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible."

It's interesting isn't it... this search for happiness drives all our interactions and relationships with others, so it's a bloody important thing to understand. Our own pursuit of happiness us actually a critical component to one's spiritual life! Let alone LIFE in general...!

So why is this the case? Why are the majority of people not happy? Do we just not have the right concept of happiness? Not willing to pay the price to achieve it? Or do we have so many desires now that we do not know how to be happy?

I'm of the view that it's probably all of the above, but importantly, maybe we just don't know where to look.

So we are all engaged in the pursuit of happiness but most are not sure where to start...

There are voices everywhere that beckon us to happiness.. lets take a look at a few of them:

- wealth
- relationships (romantic, platonic i.e., just friends
- sex (maybe this should come under entertainment?)
- entertainment and the pursuit of pleasure (hedonism)
- career
- reputation and fame
- knowledge
- power
- academic achievement
- physical beauty
- alcohol and drugs

On the list there, all of them are good in themselves, and have a place in our lives especially when used in the right context. (Maybe except illicit drugs which aren't used for pain-relief purposes... magic mushrooms he he ). However, to pursue them in order to fill a gap in our lives is a falsity that is proved by experience.

The best way to learn is through the mistakes of others, and it is quite evident that these things do not satisfy by themselves! They may cause temporary, transient feelings of pleasure and contentment, but eventually the drive for.... something MORE tugs at the heart again. There is more to life than these!

Usually, most people do not recognise that these are 'false' cures of happiness and interpret the feeling of lack, this "gap", as meaning they have not yet attained the pinnacle of that wealth, pleasure, relationships, career etc... so they go to more extremes in order to try fulfil this longing.


Part II later. I'll leave you with some thoughts...

true happiness will allow us to fully reflect the love of God to others and is part of the "peace that the world cannot give" that Jesus promises to his disciples.


and more in Augustine’s Commentary on Psalm 32.

All men love happiness, and therefore men are unreasonable in wanting to be wicked without being unhappy. And whereas unhappiness is the inseparable companion of wickedness, these perverse folk not only want wickedness without unhappiness, which is an impossibility, but they want to be wicked on purpose to avoid being unhappy. What do I mean by saying they want to be wicked on purpose to avoid being unhappy? Consider this point for a moment: in all the wickedness men commit, they always desire happiness. A man steals; you ask: “Why?” For hunger, for need. So he is wicked for fear of being unhappy, and all the more unhappy for being wicked. For the sake of driving away unhappiness and obtaining happiness, all men do whatever they do, good or bad; they invariably, you see, want to be happy. Whether they lead a good life or a bad one, they want to be happy; but not all attain to what all desire. All wish to be happy; none will be so but those who wish to be good. And then, lo and behold, someone or other, although doing wrong, wants to be happy. How? With money, with silver and gold, with estates and farms, with houses and servants, with worldly magnificence, with fleeting and perishable honors.