Stushie’s Stuff

It ain’t over till the Fat Lady sings….

…hasn’t Hillary been putting on a few more pounds lately????

Breaking news from China reveals that authorities are clamping down on Roman Catholics who wish to worship at a Marian shrine during the month of May. The xenophobic Chinese leaders fear Christians mingling together for worship because they are afraid that it might lead to protests.

Here’s what Bernardo Cervella had to write in yesterday’s edition of Spero News

There is a subtle war underway against pilgrimages to the Marian shrine of Sheshan, the national Chinese shrine that is typically visited during the month of May. The war is being waged by the government and by the Patriotic Association (PA). Both “recommend” (meaning: order) that people not visit Sheshan for the entire month of May.

The government cites safety problems, while the PA does not give any reason, but wants to block any mingling among official and underground Catholics, who meet each other every year at the shrine, above all on May 24, the feast of Mary Help of Christians, to whom the church of Sheshan is dedicated. Moreover, this year Benedict XVI has asked Chinese Catholics to celebrate May 24 as a Day of Prayer for the Church in China, praying for its unity and for its persecutors (cf. Letter to the Chinese Catholics, no. 19).

For the entire month of May, the local government of Shanghai has placed restrictions on traffic and the movement of the faithful on the roads to Sheshan, about 50 kilometres southwest of the city.

According to reports sent to AsiaNews, the authorities have also asked the various dioceses, especially Shanghai, Wenzhou, Ningbo – the dioceses closest to the shrine – not to go on pilgrimage this month.

Read the rest of the report here…

Throughout history, pro-active forces have sought to diminish Christianity and eradicate its influence. Today, Christians need to be able to express and defend their faith, especially with those who are anti-Christian.

Podcast version here

1 John 4:3 …but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

For just over nineteen hundred years, the words of the Apostle John have alerted Christians to the fact that there are forces in the world which pro-actively work to diminish Christ and eradicate Christianity. In John’s time, it was the Roman emperors who tried to eliminate the faith. Four centuries later, barbarians tried to do the same. And in the sixteenth century, Islamic jihadists all but destroyed the Byzantine Empire and tried take over all of Europe. If they had succeeded, the Pilgrim Fathers would never have set sail and all of our succeeding history would have been wiped out forever.

Throughout the twentieth century, evangelicals declared that the Anti-Christ was manifested in the Kaiser, Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin. Latterly, Saddam Hussein was meant to be the Anti-Christ and now whoever wins the Whitehouse in November may be given that same dubious title by religious fanatics.

But John doesn’t necessarily mean a person in this scripture. He is writing about a spirit, a movement, perhaps even a cultural change. If his words could be applied today, then perhaps militant atheists, secular humanists, and New Age gurus may be considered anti-Christian spirits. And because they are becoming culturally popular, we have to be prepared to explain, express, and even defend our beliefs on a regular basis. The old days of resting in our Christian comfort zones are coming to an end. The world wants to set Christ aside and make His followers ineffective and redundant. We are in danger of becoming antiquated and archaic, especially in Western society.

So the challenge for us today is this: let’s make our faith relevant in our daily activities and show others that Christ matters to us and to our culture.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, there are so many distractions in our world that it is getting harder to remain focused and committed to You. As Christians, we are often pressured to let go of our faith and show to others that we are just like them. Remind us that the purpose of our faith is to try to be like You, which is why we are called Christ-ians. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.