Do Not Give A Child the HPV Gardasil Vaccine

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I am a vigorous opponent of the HPV Gardasil Vaccine.  The numbers of girls and boys harmed by this vaccine should cause a vigorous outcry throughout the nations to have Gardasil banned.

13 Year Old Boy Becomes Paralyzed from Neck Down 

After Gardasil HPV Vaccine

Does your church or denomination have a stated position on dangerous vaccines and drugs?  Does you church organisation have a mechanism for the church to pass national resolutions against dangerous and deadly vaccines and drugs?  If so, step up and do the work so your religious community is on record against the HPV Gardasil Vaccine.

God will hold the churches and individual Christians accountable if they do not speak out against drugs and vaccines that kill, maim, and paralyse the innocent.

Earthquake: From the Monks of Norcia

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To send a donation, dear Reader, you may click on the following link:
https://en.nursia.org/donations/

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Mary, Queen

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Mary, Queen of Heaven, pray for us.

O God, who made the Mother of your Son

to be our Mother and our Queen,

graciously grant that, sustained by her intercession,

we may attain in the heavenly Kingdom

the glory promised to your children.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever.

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What have you read lately ...

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A friend has got me very interested again in the very earliest era in Zoroastrianism.  I have been reading again in M.L. West's The Hymns of Zoroaster which I find to be the most satisfying treatment of the Old Avestan text in translation.  

When one has a good grasp of that early era of Zoroaster's proclamation and prophecy, one unveils unexpected windows into the pre-Mosaic, pre-Deuteronomist Hebrew religion, into the faith as ritually observed in Solomon's Temple, as well as into the Hebrew faith tradition that found its way into Christianity but not into the rabbinical reformulation that became Judaism after the Council of Javna (Jamnia).

In musing upon these things I recall that with the Persian invasion that destroyed so many Christian churches and holy places in the Holy Land, the Persians did not destroy the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem because at that time there was a great exterior image that portrayed the Wise Men in the garb of Persian Zoroastrians or Magians.  

It is a fascinating footnote in history, but it tells us that very early in Christianity the Wise Men who came with sacred gifts for the Infant God-man Jesus were associated with one or more of the following three things: the Persians themselves, the Zoroastrians, or the community of Magi in Babylon whose roots could have been two-fold going back to Zoroaster on the one hand and going back to the Biblical prophet Daniel (Saint Daniel the Prophet if you see things as the Orthodox Christians do) on the other hand.

Apart from my readings in the astounding revelation given to Zoroaster, I have also been reading again the writings of Dr. Margaret Barker and the Rev. Dr. Laurence Hemming.  Both of these voices in the area of Temple Theology are touching upon the most essential and important questions regarding the identity of the first Christians, the faith Jesus lived and taught, and the ways in which the various divided Churches have unconsciously kept alive elements of the original faith.  

Both Barker and Hemming have done great good in their fearless approach to academic dialogue with Mormon academics on questions regarding the Temple of Solomon and Christian origins.  (In my youth there was almost no academic interaction between Mormon academics and the scholars of the various Christian Churches and Communions.) 

I have also gone back to read Dr. Barker's Isaiah essay in the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible.  How I wish I had had that information when studying Isaiah, Enoch, and intertestamental literature years ago!  

God grant both Barker and Hemming long lives filled with good health so they can continue to uncover what I think is the most important area of Christian inter-disciplinary and inter-communal study -- Temple Theology.

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I have also begun to read the new book by Immaculée Ilibagiza entitled "The Boy who met JESUS and A MESSAGE FOR HUMANITY".  This is a new volume not to be confused with her earlier book on Segatashya emmanuel of Kibeho.  If you purchase the book from Amazon, you will likely get the first book and not this new edition.  It is safer to buy the new book from Immaculée's website: click here.  

The first book was Immaculée's telling of the conversion, ministry, and martyrdom of Segatashya Emmanuel.  This new book is Segatashya in his own words and relating the words spoken to him by the Lord Jesus Christ.  I heartily recommend both books.

As I have written before, although the Church has rendered no judgement regarding Segatashya of Kibeho and his visions and encounters with Jesus, I hold absolute personal conviction as to the veracity of his witness which was confirmed by his holy martyrdom in the satanic Rwandan Genocide.  The new book by Immaculée is slender and is meant for reading and then meditation and prayer.  It is the sort of book I would encourage giving as a gift particularly at Christmas or Epiphany.

St Maximilian Kolbe Quote

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Dr Margaret Barker: The Temple and the First Christians

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Dr. Margaret Barker discusses the early Christians and the Temple.

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A Coptic Orthodox Prayer of Thanksgiving

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The prayers of the Coptic Orthodox Church are many and beautiful. The Breviary of the Coptic Christians is called The Agpeya coming from ti agp meaning 'the hour.' 

The following comes from the online edition of The Agpeya:

THE PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

Let us give thanks to the beneficent and merciful God, the Father of our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for He has covered us, helped us, guarded us, accepted us unto Him, spared us, supported us, and brought us to this hour. Let us also ask Him, the Lord our God, the Almighty, to guard us in all peace this holy day and all the days of our life.

O Master, Lord, God the Almighty, the Father of our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, we thank You for every condition, concerning every condition, and in every condition, for You have covered us, helped us, guarded us, accepted us unto You, spared us, supported us, and brought us to this hour.

Therefore, we ask and entreat Your goodness, O Lover of mankind, to grant us to complete this holy day, and all the days of our life, in all peace with Your fear. All envy, all temptation, all the work of Satan, the counsel of wicked men, and the rising up of enemies, hidden and manifest, take them away from us, and from all Your people, and from this holy place that is Yours.

But those things which are good and profitable do provide for us; for it is You Who have given us the authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and upon all the power of the enemy.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, by the grace, compassion and love of mankind, of Your Only-Begotten Son, our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, through Whom the glory, the honour, the dominion, and the adoration are due unto You, with Him, and the Holy Spirit, the Life-Giver, Who is of one essence with You, now and at all times, and unto the ages of all ages. Amen.

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Dorothy Kerin, Anglican stigmatist

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A prayer by the sainted Dorothy Kerin from her own notebook:

By the bruising of my whole life,
strengthen me with sympathy
for every wounded soul, 

and let my prayers be as balm 
for the wounds of thy children, 
that they may be healed.

And here is another blessing for you, dear reader, from Dorothy Kerin's vision of the Garden and of the weeds concerning which she writes:

"After some years, I was unhappy in my heart, that I had done so badly, with difficulties and how badly I had used the grace given me.

Dorothy Kerin
Anglican, healing ministry

"I was in prayer, when I found myself in the Garden. I had not been there for some time and there was a difference. It was full of flowers, and the scent more exquisite. Our Lady was there. 

She took my hand for she knew how bewildered I was about things. She led me to different plants. Her tears were still wet on them. 

Then I was alone. 

I saw a heap of weeds Our Lady must have pulled up. Then the Holy Spirit showed me everything I had done to produce these weeds, since the King made the garden. 

The stem of the Hope plant has a tendril clutching it, the weed was fear, the Charity weed was judging, the Faith plant was despair. 

Then I knelt down on the grass and confessed my faults to the King of the Garden. It is impossible to tell you the joy that forgiveness brought me."

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Immigrant Crisis: What to do with the Tsunami of Immigrants

There is no government in Europe, North America, or Australia that has a proper grasp of what to do with the huge number of people who have left their nations seeking admission to other nations.

https://fee.org/articles/can-a-hong-kong-for-refugees-solve-the-crisis/

The link above is to an article that appears to be the first serious attempt to address the reality of the current situation.  

Muslim immigrants do not belong in Western nations because they refuse to assimilate, they demand the institutionalisation of Sharia law, and they intend to be part of Islam's conquest of the non-Islamic nation where they are living.    

I disagree with the author in his seemingly positive evaluation of Australian detention centres which may best be called prisons outside any rule of law.  Those Australian centres are in fact the opposite of what needs to take place as I see it, because Muslim immigrants need a solution within already existent Muslim nations.  They do not have any intention to become anything other than what they are, and many of them dream of being part of Islam's conquest of a rich, non-Muslim nation.  

If cities of haven are to be built for these refugees and immigrants, then there need to be particular cities built for the Muslims, and in another location at a great distance should cities of haven be built for other refugees.  Certainly, the largely Christian West should be willing to embrace the Christian refugees and work toward solutions for them... but nothing is that easy when refugees and immigrants can be a convenient political football.

The article linked above is a must read because the answer he is proposing is consistent with the compassionate nature of Western culture which has arisen from its Christian roots.  I would definitely have said some things differently had I written the article, but I am convinced that he has identified exactly the sort of approach that is needed.

St. Augustine's Prayer Book: HEART OF JESUS

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HEART OF JESUS, think of me.

Eyes of Jesus, look on me.

Face of Jesus, comfort me.

Hands of Jesus, bless me.

Feet of Jesus, guide me.

Arms of Jesus, hold me.

Body of Jesus, feed me.

Blood of Jesus, wash me.

Jesus, make me thus thine own

Here and in the world to come. Amen.

Saint Augustine's Prayer Book

Order of the Holy Cross
The Episcopal Church

USA

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Ikon of the Transfiguration

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During this octave of the Feast of the Transfiguration, I thought it would be salutary to prayerfully contemplate the following early 15th century ikon attributed to Theophanes the Greek (called ‘Feofan’ in Russian), the teacher of the famous iconographer Andrei Rubliev which was originally painted for the Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Pereslavl but is now in the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow:

Liturgical Life and Liturgical Beauty

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From a DVD by the Canons Regular of the Mother of God:


https://youtu.be/PR2y8S7gPsE

Please also see this excellent paper on The New Liturgical Movement blog:
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2016/07/the-sung-liturgy-in-formation-of-human.html

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