miniZibaldone

Sun.Star Cebu's  Carvajal: "In Aid of" OF COURSE, extrajudicial killings by scalawags in the police force, as Sen. Leila de Lima is passionately crusading against, and extrajudicial killings by drug lords and other lords, as she surprisingly is not crusading against, not as passionately anyway, have both to be stopped. Such killings simply have no place in the nation of laws that we are. It is not a matter of course, however, that Senate investigations can stop these killings. These investigations are conducted by design and intent for nothing more than to aid legislation. Thus in the past these have often turned out to be platforms for grandstanding by legislators in aid of their re-election. From her experience as justice secretary, Senator de Lima should already know what law, if any, is needed to be passed to help stop extra-judicial killings (by all and not just by the police) without having to waste government time and money on endless but ineffective pro-forma ...

In collaboration with CEC (The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture). Participants: Mary O’Callaghan, Public Policy Fellows at the Center for Ethics and Culture, University of Notre Dame, USA; Orlando Carter Snead, Director of the Center for Ethics and Culture, University of Notre Dame, USA. On occasion of the conference, screening of a video-interview with Jean Vanier, Founder of the Community L’Arche. Introduced by Maurizio Vitali, Journalist.

Upon entering the gate of Jesus, the door of faith and of the Gospel, we can get out from worldly attitudes, bad habits, by selfishness and by our own closures. When there is contact with the love and mercy of God, there is a real change. And our life is illuminated by the light of the Holy Spirit: an inextinguishable light! From the angelus He leads us into fellowship with the Father, where we find love, understanding and protection. But why is this door narrow? One can ask. Why is it narrow?  It is a narrow door not because it is oppressive – no, but because it asks us to restrict and limit our pride and our fear, to open ourselves with humble and trusting heart to Him, recognizing ourselves as sinners, in need of His forgiveness. For this [reason], it is narrow: to contain our pride, which bloats us.  The door of God’s mercy is narrow but always wide open, wide open for everyone! God has no favorites, but always welcomes everyone, without distinction.  A door, th...

How is it possible to experience work as a free subject who doesn’t depend on circumstances, but can face them head on? What is the meaning of work?

In defense of the ‘staycation’ of Pope Francis Austen Ivereigh, August 18, 2016 John Allen recently laid out three good reasons why Pope Francis should take a break during the burning Roman weeks of ferragosto:  for the sake of the wider Church, for the sake of his subordinates, and for his own health. Although it seemed a little unlikely that it should be, of all people, Allen — the Stakhanovite of the vaticanisti — giving such advice to the pope, the reasoning was unarguable. But I want to question the assumption that Francis cannot be taking a rest because he has not taken a vacation. We tend to assume that a change is as good as a rest, that getting away to hotels in mountains or by the sea breaks with our routines and obligations and therefore revivifies us. And that can be true. But there’s another part of the story: not just the stress of travel (the delayed flights, the clogged roads, the mediocre hotel that doesn’t look anything like it did online), ...

From Communio Journal [full text]

Maria has suffered so much in her life. It makes us think of these women, who are suffering so much. We ask that the Lord to take them to Himself and liberate them from such bondage. From the angelus The Lord looks down on the humble to raise them and we heard this in Mary's song of the Magnificat. And that song reminds us, in particular, of the women overwhelmed by the weight of life and the drama of violence, the women who are slaves of the arrogance of the powerful, the little girls forced into inhuman work, the women forced to surrender themselves in body and spirit to the greed of some men. May the beginning of a life of peace, of justice, of love, come as soon as possible for them, waiting for the day when they may finally feel gripped by hands that do not humble them, but with tenderness raise and lead them along the path of life, to heaven.  The Assumption of Mary is a great mystery that concerns all of us, our future. Mary, in fact, precedes us on the path of those...