Pope Quote

Pope John Paul II is reported to have said once that there were only two possible solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict - the realistic and the miraculous. The realistic would require divine intervention and the miraculous, an agreement between the two parties.
- Straits Times 9th May 2003, "Mr Bush, make Israel pay for its oppression "By Janadas Devan

The Matrix

I rewatched The Matrix today and was just thinking about some things.. first of all, isn't Morpheus a bit like Jesus who came into the world to show us the truth and set us free? If people in the matrix can't see, smell, touch or know about the real world, why do they even need to know about the real world? Perhaps just because it is the truth, that some innate human 'sense' yearns for the truth?

If you would allow me to compare the matrix with our physical world, and the real world as all of reality including the spiritual realm, would we not honestly want to be like Cypher? If the the real world were as bland and hard as the 'real world' in The Matrix, why can't we just live in honest, happy, meaningful, peaceful existence in the physical world, even if the truth was out there?

Why is it that believing in God, if that is the actual reality, becomes the harder, blander option? If the Truth were like that, I'd be happy to remain in the matrix.

This sunday's homily was by Fr Ambrose Vaz, but there's nothing really interesting to report. His message was very close to the text and I must admit I didn't follow it very well. It gets dreary if you don't have much affinity for the readings of the day. Which makes me kinda wonder, how many other people really listen to such sermons? My brother definitely wasn't. It seemed honestly quite hard for such a homily to have resonance in your life unless you are very close to God and the gospel already. I would imagine that less than 10 people (out of about 150 parishoners) really found the homily useful. Shouldn't homilies reach out to much more people, or at least relayed in a more 'everyday' style? I know that God touches only those that are ready to hear, but priests should endeavour to make every homily as accessable as possible. Since slow homilies, incoherent homilies and homilies that only talk about the text all have their own problems, is a 'good' homily every really possible?

email story: God doesn't exist
When did you last go to your barber/hairdresser?

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair and his beard cut as always.
He started to have a good conversation with the barber who attended to him.
They talked about many things and various subjects. Suddenly, they touched
on the subject of God.

The barber said: "Look man, I don't believe that God exists as you say so."
"Why do you say that?" - asked the client.

Well, it's so easy; you just have to go out in the street to
realize that God does not exist. Oh, tell me, if God existed, would there be
so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed,
there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't think of a God who
permits all of these things."

The client stopped for moment thinking but he didn't want to
respond so as to prevent an argument. The barber finished his job and the
client went out of the shop. Just then he saw a man in the street with long
hair and beard (it seems that it had been a long time since he had his cut
and he looked so untidy).

Then the client again entered the barbershop and he said to the barber "You
know what? Barbers do not exist."

"How come they don't exist?" Asked the barber. "Well I am here and I am a
barber."

"No!" - the client exclaimed. "They don't exist because if they did there
would be no people with long hair and beard like that man who walks in the
street."

"Ah, barbers do exist, what happens is that people do not come to me."

"Exactly!"- Affirmed the client. "That's the point. God does exist,what
happens is people don't go to Him and do not look for Him that's why there's
so much pain and suffering in the world."

The Paradox of the Stone
Let me tell you about this paradox that a friend in a faith crisis related to me. It goes like this.. if God is omnipotent, he can make the heaviest stone in the world, a stone so heavy even he couldn't carry it. But, also, if God is omnipotent, then he can carry every stone in the world, no stone will be too heavy for him. Therefore, our concept of an all-powerful God cannot make sense. God is either not omnipotent, or God doesn't exist..

The solution goes like this.. God, while omnipotent, is restricted by his very nature. For example, if we acknowledge that God is all-good and loving, then he cannot contradict his very nature by doing something evil. Therefore, God cannot make a stone which he cannot carry because it contradicts his very nature of being omnipotent. God cannot be such that it contradicts his very nature.

Had a nice sharing today over dinner with Adrian and Ivan over Joaquim Kang and the state of priests. The thing that surprises is that diocesan priests don't take a vow of poverty but only a 'promise of a simple life'. Whats more surprising is the fact that diocesan priest lack a close knit community of prayer and support that religious orders have. No wonder their sermons and homilies can be so bad.. coz they have no one to talk and share with, give them criticism, or a dose of reality check. Well, we need to pray for the priests and the church in Singapore, and especially the young and 'not so holy' ones.

Well, one more thing I learnt today is the a sermon is a sharing to make a point, but a homily is a sharing about the reading of the day.