(Real) Women of the Philippines, UNITE!

Tags

Cosmetic Surgery, gender, Homosexual, men, Ms. Universe, sex-change, transgender, Women

I am sure that some people will accuse me of fostering the bullying of homosexuals with my articles. Far from it. What I won’t stand for is when people promote a lie and try to make it pass as acceptable. Children actually watch these pageants and it is simply wrong to make them think that men and women can be otherwise solely based on their chosen behavior!

Two groups in the Philippines have expressed their support to the recent (absurd) decision of the Donald Trurmp’s Ms. Universe franchise to accept he-females into the contest. As I mentioned in a previous post, it was only a matter of time before the bandwagon of homosexual rights activism would weigh-in on the issue. They see this as a milestone for their cause. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, time will tell whether real-women contestants would stand up for their dignity and femininity by not participating against sexually surgically altered men peddling themselves as women. It’s a bit like racing a stock, off-the-showroom car against one that has been custom modified, where’s the challenge there? I am calling on women to uphold their dignity and identity and boycott this franchise.

At any rate, here are a few terms I picked up from a news article which these groups insist on using to mask what is plainly and simply a homosexual lifestyle issue:

1. Transgender: “Transgender is the state of one’s “gender identity” (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one’s “assigned sex” (identification by others as male, female or intersex based on physical/genetic sex)… The precise definition for transgender remains in flux…”

I got this from Wikipedia and it strikes me that the definition is as confused as those who want to apply it to themselves.

2. Naturally born female: The term implies that someone who is born male or female can choose not to really be one. Isn’t that more of a behavior problem than a mistake in “sex assignment”?

3. Gender reassignment surgery: We used to and still call this a “sex-change operation.” It is a bizarre mental process to think that sex can be reassigned by cosmetic surgery. It makes it appear that once you give a man breasts, inject female hormones in him and castrate him, he becomes a female… he doesn’t, it’s a lie!

4. Homophobe: “an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people”… Sounds correct, doesn’t it? But this was actually invented to label people who do not agree with anything that involves the homosexual lifestyle. I have been called this simply because I say that homosexual behavior is a sin or is disordered… heck I wan’t even the first one who said that!

5. Sex assignment: “refers to the assigning (naming) of the biological sex at the birth of a baby“…you mean that darn doctor or your parents were bigots and it had nothing to do with your chromosomes?

Ever see this movie, “The Crying Game”?

 The way things are going, my advice: Men BEWARE who you date!

There are more terms out there which activists and advocates are trying to peddle so if you feel like it, please add some more.

Ms. Universe and the universally stupid organizers!

Tags

Atheists, Bb. Pilipinas, Catholic apologetics, dissenters, Filipino Freethinkers society, Freethinkers, homosexuality, homosexuals, miss universe, pagenat, transgenders, universe

I was never really into watching the Ms. Universe pageant and the recent change in their rules allowing he-females (I refuse to use the nonsense term, transgender, there ain’t no such animal) into the competition just sealed any chance of me ever watching this again! Consider their reason for doing so as reported in the Manila Bulletin 4/12/12, “We have a long history of supporting equality for all women, and this was something we took very seriously,” said Paula Shugart, president of the Miss Universe Organization.

If this isn’t the most stupid thing anyone has ever said I don’t know what is. How is allowing a male who thinks or sees himself as a woman have anything to do with “equality for all women”? I have news for you Ms. Shugart, Ms. Canada is a he, therefor, the equality for all women rule does not apply or are you people really just plain idiots. Sheesh, just because someone thinks or sees that he is a woman and dresses and acts like one doesn’t mean he is one!

This ain't a woman, trust me!

Real women wake up, this is an assault on your femininity. I hope everyone who thinks that this decision is insane boycotts this franchise and YES, including the Bb. Pilipinas pageant whose organizers have been contaminated by this obtuse thinking as well!

At least someone at the Ms. Earth pageant still has some sanity left in disallowing non-females from competing. Women should support the Ms. Earth pageant instead!

Xristos Anesti, Christ is risen, Allleuia! A Joyful Easter to all

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benedict XVI, Easter, homily, Pope, St. Peter's Basilica

The homily for the Easter Vigil on the night of April 7, 2012, in Saint Peter’s Basilica 

Dear brothers and sisters,

Easter is the feast of the new creation. Jesus is risen and dies no more. He has opened the door to a new life, one that no longer knows illness and death. He has taken mankind up into God himself. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”, as Saint Paul says in the first letter to the Corinthians (15:50). On the subject of Christ’s resurrection and our resurrection, the Church writer Tertullian in the third century was bold enough to write: “Rest assured, flesh and blood, through Christ you have gained your place in heaven and in the Kingdom of God” (CCL II, 994). A new dimension has opened up for mankind. Creation has become greater and broader. Easter Day ushers in a new creation, but that is precisely why the Church starts the liturgy on this day with the old creation, so that we can learn to understand the new one aright. At the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word on Easter night, then, comes the account of the creation of the world.

Two things are particularly important here in connection with this liturgy. On the one hand, creation is presented as a whole that includes the phenomenon of time. The seven days are an image of completeness, unfolding in time. They are ordered towards the seventh day, the day of the freedom of all creatures for God and for one another. Creation is therefore directed towards the coming together of God and his creatures; it exists so as to open up a space for the response to God’s great glory, an encounter between love and freedom. On the other hand, what the Church hears on Easter night is above all the first element of the creation account: “God said, ‘let there be light!’” (Gen 1:3). The creation account begins symbolically with the creation of light. The sun and the moon are created only on the fourth day. The creation account calls them lights, set by God in the firmament of heaven. In this way he deliberately takes away the divine character that the great religions had assigned to them. No, they are not gods. They are shining bodies created by the one God. But they are preceded by the light through which God’s glory is reflected in the essence of the created being.

What is the creation account saying here? Light makes life possible. It makes encounter possible. It makes communication possible. It makes knowledge, access to reality and to truth, possible. And insofar as it makes knowledge possible, it makes freedom and progress possible. Evil hides. Light, then, is also an expression of the good that both is and creates brightness. It is daylight, which makes it possible for us to act. To say that God created light means that God created the world as a space for knowledge and truth, as a space for encounter and freedom, as a space for good and for love. Matter is fundamentally good, being itself is good. And evil does not come from God-made being, rather, it comes into existence through denial. It is a “no”.

At Easter, on the morning of the first day of the week, God said once again: “Let there be light”. The night on the Mount of Olives, the solar eclipse of Jesus’ passion and death, the night of the grave had all passed. Now it is the first day once again – creation is beginning anew. “Let there be light”, says God, “and there was light”: Jesus rises from the grave. Life is stronger than death. Good is stronger than evil. Love is stronger than hate. Truth is stronger than lies. The darkness of the previous days is driven away the moment Jesus rises from the grave and himself becomes God’s pure light. But this applies not only to him, not only to the darkness of those days. With the resurrection of Jesus, light itself is created anew. He draws all of us after him into the new light of the resurrection and he conquers all darkness. He is God’s new day, new for all of us.

But how is this to come about? How does all this affect us so that instead of remaining word it becomes a reality that draws us in? Through the sacrament of baptism and the profession of faith, the Lord has built a bridge across to us, through which the new day reaches us. The Lord says to the newly-baptized: “Fiat lux”, let there be light. God’s new day – the day of indestructible life, comes also to us. Christ takes you by the hand. From now on you are held by him and walk with him into the light, into real life. For this reason the early Church called baptism “photismos”,  illumination.

Why was this? The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil. The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general. If God and moral values, the difference between good and evil, remain in darkness, then all other “lights”, that put such incredible technical feats within our reach, are not only progress but also dangers that put us and the world at risk. Today we can illuminate our cities so brightly that the stars of the sky are no longer visible. Is this not an image of the problems caused by our version of enlightenment? With regard to material things, our knowledge and our technical accomplishments are legion, but what reaches beyond, the things of God and the question of good, we can no longer identify. Faith, then, which reveals God’s light to us, is the true enlightenment, enabling God’s light to break into our world, opening our eyes to the true light.

Dear friends, as I conclude, I would like to add one more thought about light and illumination. On Easter night, the night of the new creation, the Church presents the mystery of light using a unique and very humble symbol: the Paschal candle. This is a light that lives from sacrifice. The candle shines inasmuch as it is burnt up. It gives light, inasmuch as it gives itself. Thus the Church presents most beautifully the paschal mystery of Christ, who gives himself and so bestows the great light. Secondly, we should remember that the light of the candle is a fire. Fire is the power that shapes the world, the force of transformation. And fire gives warmth. Here too the mystery of Christ is made newly visible. Christ, the light, is fire, flame, burning up evil and so reshaping both the world and ourselves. “Whoever is close to me is close to the fire,” as Jesus is reported by Origen to have said. And this fire is both heat and light: not a cold light, but one through which God’s warmth and goodness reach down to us.

The great hymn of the Exsultet, which the deacon sings at the beginning of the Easter liturgy, points us quite gently towards a further aspect. It reminds us that this object, the candle, has its origin in the work of bees. So the whole of creation plays its part. In the candle, creation becomes a bearer of light. But in the mind of the Fathers, the candle also in some sense contains a silent reference to the Church. The cooperation of the living community of believers in the Church in some way resembles the activity of bees. It builds up the community of light. So the candle serves as a summons to us to become involved in the community of the Church, whose “raison d’être” is to let the light of Christ shine upon the world.

Let us pray to the Lord at this time that he may grant us to experience the joy of his light; let us pray that we ourselves may become bearers of his light, and that through the Church, Christ’s radiant face may enter our world. Amen.

Saints are Sinners: Let’s Qualify That.

Tags

Altruism, atheist, Catherine of Sienna, Catholic apologetics, Children, Church, Filipino, Freethinkers, homosexuality, Ignatius of Loyola, pro-life, St. James, Vatican

If you will look into your own heart in complete honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not a saint: you do not wholly want to be.

From William Law’s, Serious Call 

I was going to write something about the difference between saints and sinners until I realized that saints are sinners just like the rest of us. So what makes a saint become a saint and the rest of us, just like the rest of us, sinners?

When one reads about the lives of saints whether they be the strong-willed, feminine saints like Joan D’ Arc, Catherine of Sienna or St. Therese of Avila or masculine ones like St. Ignatius of Loyola or St. James the Great, one cannot be struck by their obedience. It always boils down to a diminishing of the self, the desire to put God’s interest in front of one’s self-interest. Whereas saints say, “Thy will be done”, we say, “my will be done.” Therein lies the difference: Saints lose their pride, while the rest of us fall into false pride. When Christ said ”loses himself” for the sake of the kingdom, He actually means to lose one’s self-gratification, one’s pride, one’s selfish interests. The only way to lose one’s pride is to practice the virtue of humility and one can only practice this if one realizes that this physical world is not all there is. He alludes to children and their child-like quality of dependence which is a form of humility.

Consider atheism. Atheists deny a supernatural reality. They deny God’s existence and look at themselves as insignificant in the scheme of things. It is a self-contradiction. They say, we are here by chance and we are not special but their actions belie their thinking. They live their lives trying to find meaning in their personal accomplishments either from academic accolades, philanthropic endeavors or the championing of human rights. Most atheists I have encountered and who are vocal are usually from the intelligentsia, the academic elite. I have not encountered an atheist who comes from the ranks of what society considers the poor and downtrodden, I wonder why?

Christianity encourages us both to achieve and serve but Christianity does so, not to give one a feeling of personal worth or purpose but because it is a way to sanctification and one can only sanctify his deeds if one’s purpose for doing so is directed towards God. In a sense, a nominal Christian who lives his life like an atheist is in a worst position. Imagine professing belief in God and living a life as though He does not exist!

Excerpts from the Holy Rule of St. Benedict, chapter VII. On Humility

• …then, is that a person keep the fear of God before his eyes and beware of ever forgetting it. Let him be ever mindful of all that God has commanded; let his thoughts constantly recur to the hell-fire which will burn for their sins those who despise God, and to the life everlasting which is prepared for those who fear him. […] Let a man consider that God is always look at him from heaven, that his actions are everywhere visible to the divine eyes and are constantly being reported to God by the Angels.
• The second degree of humility is that a person love not his own will nor take pleasure in satisfying his desires, but model his actions on the saying of the Lord, I have come not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
• The third degree of humility is that a person for love of God submit himself to his Superior in all obedience, imitating the Lord, of whom the Apostle says, He became obedient even unto death.