Harry Potter and the Small Step

As a child the first book I read cover-to-cover was a Western. The first thing that I saved up to buy with my pocket money was a cap gun. My parents were not afraid of me turning to a life of violent crime because of the big step between play-acting and handling real guns. Later when I did start handling guns, the first lesson I was given was in weapons safety. Later, in the army, weapons safety was drilled into me.

Today, the first book a child may read cover-to-cover could be about the occult. Children’s interest in such books as the Harry Potter series provide us with a great opportunity to teach our children not only to handle unseen forces but to overcome them with the power of Jesus.

Unlike the imaginative world of Westerns, there is a very small step for us from play-acting about unseen forces to actively summoning and using them. Our own children could well have been the objects of such destructive behaviour. When I was a child my parents taught me how to look after myself when faced with physical and emotional bullying. Today we could well add the psychic dimension to such parental guidance.

The most important thing for our children to know is that God loves them.  Jesus protects them from all forms of evil. If they love God and do what he wants then psychic attacks and evil curses are going to bounce off them and often they won’t even know about it.

The next important thing is that those who use spells and such things need help. So if your children think that others are doing something creepy then tell them to ask God to bless those people. This will confuse whatever unseen forces they are trying to use.  It will also show them that the goodness of God is better than whatever they are using.

Then it is helpful for our children to know that there are good beings in the unseen realm too. These are our Angels and Saints. Two encouraging prayers are the Prayer to St Michael and the Prayer to the Guardian Angels. The Rosary is another powerful prayer.

With so many occult films and television programmes around these days, we can say that unseen influences have become accepted into the fabric of the contemporary culture. Our Children need to learn how to overcome the destructive influences they portray. They need to know in a practical way that Jesus is the Lord of everything, seen and unseen. So here is a great prayer and a great proclamation for creepy situations:

 “Every knee shall bend, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (Philippians 2:10-11)

Jews opposed to Zionism

In 1990 I was on a ship that docked at Zada on the Adriatic Coast of Yugoslavia. The place looked so inhospitable. When I came ashore further down the coast at Split, I had a similar impression. The outward indicators were that the officials were officious; the modern architecture was bland; there were few flowers around the streets. Others had told me that you get a certain feeling in a Socialist country. And I felt it. The feeling was more normal when I mixed among the local people.

Surprisingly, I had a similar feeling as I flew into Tel Aviv for the first time, which surprised me. And it was there when I visited a kibbutz which had been founded by people with a socialist mind-set. I had thought that Israel would be a bigger version of my childhood neighbours’ place.

As a child, I had lived for a time next door to the Jewish Club in Wellington, New Zealand, a few years after the Second World War. The cook’s son and I played together. I still remember the fresh platted bread loaves with sesame or poppy seeds on top. Sometimes I would see men with a haunted look at the club and my mother told me that they had suffered in the war. Even with these sad reminders of the recent past, there was a sense of hospitality and of faith in God about the club.

 Things fell into place when I came across Jewish people on the Internet who are opposed to Zionism. Their beliefs seemed much closer to the ones that I had experienced as a gentile child amongst Jews.

http://www.nkusa.org/index.cfm

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/

http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/index.htm

Jews opposed to Zionism think that secular Jews have taken matters into their own hands to get back the Promised Land.  From my reading of it, Jews opposed to Zionism believe that they were dispossessed of their land in the first century because they had been unfaithful to God and His Law. God would restore them to the Holy Land in his time and in his way.

Inspired by their earlier history, they say that the Jewish people are to be productive citizens in their places of exile. (See Jeremiah 29:7, 10) God will intervene by choosing a gentile instrument like King Cyrus (See 2 Chronicles 36:19-13) who would provide them with the help to return home. They are to believe and not to interfere in God’s work.

Such an approach does raise interesting questions. Do Zionists unwittingly carry out the socialist plans of their financial backers?  Does God have a plan to restore the Jewish People to their historic homeland so that they can live in peace and justice with the people around them?  Are the Muslims neighbours not so much opposed to people of Jewish faith as they are to secular Zionists? In other words, do they smell a rat, something to do with a socialist New World Order?

The faith of the Jews opposed to Zionism inspires me to think even further. They believe that God will restore them in his time and in his way to their land. The God they worship is also ‘the God of all the kingdoms of the world’ (Isaiah 37:16). Then, if the Christians among us are as faithful to our Gospel as they are to be to their Law, the Peace of Christ will come to the earth. (See Luke 2:14)

A Growing Force

A friend of mine, in New Zealand, wrote the other day:

"The 2006 Census shows that there are approximately 35,000 Muslims in New Zealand. This figure has doubled twice since 1996 and reminded me that Islam is a growing force in our country. It is not the small minority group that it once was. It numbers above other predominant groups such as Jehovah's witnesses', Assemblies of God, SDA's and the Salvation Army just to name a few.

there is an old adage that says 'there is safety in numbers', there is also power in numbers in a world which values democracy as a foundation of our political system."

Given that in NZ we have a "Mixed Member Proportional" representation (MMP) in our parliament, it is easy for a relatively small group to bring about changes in the law.

Why the Violence?

A cobber of mine, Wyn, who is a retired businessman in his early 90s, wrote this the other day:

People say: "A violent society doesn't just happen. Its the economy." - Yeah, Right!

In New Zealand in 1999 there were 39688 recorded Violent Crime offences and in 2007 there were 56983, which is an increase of 43.6%. THere were 110458 reported Domestic Violence offences, increasing by 119.6% to 24258 in 2007. Abortions went from 15501 to 18382, an increase of 18.65.

There are many other statistics that could be quoted, but that’s enough.
Teachers are resigning because of the abuse and assaults they have to endure.

I was asked a silly question, “How can God allow this sort of thing to happen”.
What’s it got to do with God?

For years we have been telling God to get out of our schools and our government.
We have failed to understand that separation of church and state does not mean that we should abandon the values that European civilisation has been built on.
How can we expect God to give us His protection if we ask Him to get out?

We have persistently declared that we are a secular nation.
Prayer in state schools has been discouraged.
The Bible teaches us “Don’t Kill”, “Don’t steal” and “love your neighbour”
Teaching Bible in state schools as part of the curriculum is forbidden.

Then we passed laws to arrest parents who spank their children, when they misbehave, Labour and National both voted for this under the whip, but 86% of the population did not approve.

Then someone told the teachers you can’t discipline the children in school, and we wonder why there is no respect for authority. In some state schools it is near chaos.

Then the state decided that our daughters could have an abortion even if they were under 16, without telling their parents. They said boys will be boys and they will have their sex in any case so supply them with condoms and we won’t tell their parents. Then we wonder why there are so many minors having babies, and why there are so many solo mothers and why there are so many abortions.

Then someone in Government said it doesn’t matter what we do in private so long as we do what we are paid for and we wonder why we have so much corruption in high places.

Then they said lets publish nudity and call it appreciation of the female form.
Lets have explicit sex on T.V. and call it art.
Lets allow profanity and call it being real.
Lets flood the children’s T.V. with violence and call it entertainment.
Lets play lyrics that encourage suicide, murder and satanic themes and call it entertainment.

Now we wonder why our children have no conscience, scrawl graffiti, steal cars and treat them as expendable because there’s plenty more where they came from, and in any case the insurance companies will pay for them.

But when it comes to our computers we say Garbage in Garbage out.

The NEW AGE Factor

There is a New Age component in this conflict between Christian Civilization and the New World Order.
In 2003 the Roman Curia published a Christian reflection on the “New Age”, entitled “Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life.” The Curial groups involved gave a sympathetic view of the New Age Movement (NAM). But they also pointed out that the NAM is an agent to bring a one world religion:
'New Age shares with a number of internationally influential groups the goal of superseding or transcending particular religions in order to create space for a universal religion which could unite humanity. Closely related to this is a very concerted effort on the part of many institutions to invent a Global Ethic, an ethical framework which would reflect the global nature of contemporary culture, economics and politics.' (2.5)

They also point to the roots of NAM in freemasonry and its associates of previous centuries:
'The essential matrix of New Age thinking is to be found in the esoteric-theosophical tradition which was fairly widely accepted in European intellectual circles in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was particularly strong in freemasonry, spiritualism, occultism and theosophy, which shared a kind of esoteric culture.' (2.3.2)

Today, the NAM is an active component in bringing about the New World Order:
'The global brain needs institutions with which to rule, in other words, a world government. “To deal with today's problems New Age dreams of a spiritual aristocracy in the style of Plato's Republic, run by secret societies...”(Michel Lacroix) This may be an exaggerated way of stating the case, but there is much evidence that gnostic élitism and global governance coincide on many issues in international politics.' (2.3.4.3.)

The present day influences on the NAM are anti-Christian:
'It must never be forgotten that many of the movements which have fed the New Age are explicitly anti-Christian. Their stance towards Christianity is not neutral, but neutralising: despite what is often said about openness to all religious standpoints, traditional Christianity is not sincerely regarded as an acceptable alternative.' (6.1)

They deny the core of Christianity, which is the reality of sin and salvation:
'There is no sin; there is only imperfect knowledge. … There is no need for Revelation or Salvation which would come to people from outside themselves, but simply a need to experience the salvation hidden within themselves (self-salvation), by mastering psycho- physical techniques which lead to definitive enlightenment.' (2.3.4.1)

The NAM is the old Gnosticism of the early Christian era dressed up to look new:
‘But what really is new is that New Age is a conscious search for an alternative to Western culture and its Judaeo-Christian religious roots.' (3.1)

It is an old conflict. The early Christians handled it well. They took the aspirations of the Gnostics and showed that they are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, as the hymn in Colossians 1:15- 20 shows. (See 3.3)

Marionettes?

Yesterday I read, “Lynn Forester De Rothschild to Back McCain and Not Obama.” This got me thinking about who in the Global Elite is pulling the strings of these two candidates.

Searching the internet for a connection between McCain and Rothschild, I found out that two senior Rothschilds had organised a fund-raising dinner for McCain in London on the return leg of Senator McCain’s visit to Israel.

The Obama and Rothschild search produced nothing substantive. So I looked for an Obama and Rockefeller connection. I found that Senator Rockefeller endorsed Obama for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidency, at a pivotal moment in February. Not only that, but Abigniew Brezezinski was chosen at Senator Obama’s foreign relations advisor. Brezezinski co-founded the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, who is the doyen of the Rockefeller clan. The Rockefellers are the American surrogates of the European Rothschilds.

As much as I enjoy watching the contest between Senator McCain and Senator Obama, I don’t have to look far to see the influence of the International Elite. The contestants look rather like two marionettes being controlled by the two hands of the same manipulator.

Click here for Lynn Forester De Rothschild.
Click here or here for the McCain and Rothschild connection.
Click here and here and here for the Obama - Brezezinski - Rockefeller connections.
This blog does not endorse the sentiments of these sites

Who will control the new President?

A responder to my previous blog directed me to an article "Who will control the new President?" found here. This article is in PDF format in the Republic magazine. Click on page 30 in the sidebar.

I cannot vouch for the accusations in the article. The value of the article is that it gives an overall picture of who is pulling the strings. It is two hands of the same group.

Don't let knowledge of behind-the-scenes activity detract from 'the show'. After all, both campaigns are pouring millions of dollars into their production. They are much better than soap-opera

Devout Muslims

Today's local newspaper had an article byMuhammad Abdul Bari (pictured). He is Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain and he wrote: "Muslims living in Paris, London, and Berlin are more religious than the general public."

That would be true for New Zealand also. I have not met a Muslim man with whom I could not get into a discussion about religion. Many of them have shown signs of considerable devotion when we talked of prayers, sin and relating to God.

The New Testament shows us that God’s likes to bless devout people, like Simeon and Anna in the Temple (See Lk 2:25 37), like the devout men at Pentecost and like the devout household of Cornelius. (See Acts 2:5; 10:2)

Devout Muslims are coming to Jesus Christ through Christian friends and through visions of Jesus and through the example of Christian fellowship. I need to remind myself not to get side-tracked with discussions about the Trinity and the Incarnation but to go beyond the arguments to the intimacy with God that these doctrines indicate. Meeting up with Muslims can be a “blessed occasion” like it was for those devout people of the New Testament.

A Robust Faith

Whether we are up against the agents of the NWO or the Islamization of our culture, we need a robust faith.

Jesus encourages a robust faith.

‘Seek first the kingdom…all these other things will be given to you as well.’ [Mt 6:33]
‘Since John the Baptist came, up to this present time, the kingdom of heaven has been subjected to violence and the violent are taking it by storm.’ [Mt 11:12] This is the violence of wrestling and God rewards wrestlers. [See Gen 32:29-31] ‘Have faith in God. In truth I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, “Be pulled up and thrown into the sea”, with no doubt in his heart, but believing that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.” [Mk 11:22-23]
‘In truth I tell you, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, and will perform even greater works because I am going to the Father.’ [Jn 14:12]

The Vision of Faith is Massive.

At its core faith is about salvation from sin through the person of Jesus. But faith is not just a "me and Jesus thing". God's plan for saving the world is to use a People that is devoted to him and is immersed in humanity.
This People is called the Church and it's mission is to establish the Kingdom of God in the world right now. That is why the Church is called 'The Universal Sacrament of Salvation.'
When Jesus returns in glory, "The whole of creation itself must be freed from the slavery of corruption and brought into the same glorious freedom of as the children of God." [Romans 8:21]Wow!!


Writing of such robustness, Scot McKnight has a good article "The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel" in Christianity Today.

A Spirituality for the Conflict

(See Revelation Chapter 13)

End-Time Spirituality

The Bible presents us with conflict from beginning to end, from the "enmity" (Genesis 3:15) between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, to the dragon making "war on the rest of her children" (Revelation 12:17). And the New Testament gives us some great images of conflict for end-time spirituality:


· We have the example of Jesus, driven by the Holy Spirit into the desert, where Satan offers him the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would worship Satan. (See Matthew 4:8-11 & parallels)


· St Paul gives us the prophecy of the great apostasy and the coming of the “wicked one” (anti-Christ) who will take over God’s sanctuary. And he encourages us to stand firm. (See 2 Thessalonians Chapter 2)


· The Book of Revelation has a dramatic scene (see Chapter 13) featuring the dragon and the two beasts. The dragon is Satan, the first beast is Caesar, and the second beast represents the advocates of emperor worship.


“Take care that no one deceives you” (Mark 13:5) is the hallmark of this spirituality. Jesus spoke a lot about deception in his end-time talks. Deception is a major weapon of an intelligent enemy.


The ascetical dimension of end-time spirituality is about shouldering the burden that the world gives us as we walk in the path of Jesus (See Mark 8:34-38 and parallels.) It is not so much about fleeing from the world or confronting internal demons or doing great penances as it is about facing the pain of the conflict with the sinful world.


The mystical dimension of end-time spirituality is the realization that God is walking with us as we carry out our mission (See Matthew 28:20 and parallels). As the experience of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane shows, Jesus not only faced the pain, but he was still using the familiar term “Abba” (Mark 14:36) for God and he was encouraged by an angel (See Luke 22:43).


End-time Spirituality is future-oriented. The Spirit, our advocate in the conflict, “reveals the things to come” (John 16:13) and gives us a longing to hear those words from Jesus, when he returns to judge the living and the dead, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (Matthew 25:21) And as we look at the evil around us now, the Spirit gives us an understanding of what the world will be like when the effects of sin are finally cleaned out and we have a “new heaven and a new earth.” (Revelation 21:1)

Creeping Islam

In 1990 I spent some time in Whitechapel, London, and noticed how islamic that part of the East End was becoming. The Cockney humour had been replaced on the streets by the stridency of Muslims, talking about taking over that part of London. Today, the call for Sharia Law is finding a voice in the English media.

The following blog presents a step-by-step picture of Islam creeping in to take over

Islam in Action Blog
July 21, 2008 10:38 AM

Bapakgila said...
Well you know the old saying, "give them an inch and they will take a mile." However, just in case anyone here hasn't seen these statistics concerning Muslim immigration, here at some stats:
Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life.
Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.

Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.

When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well. Here's how it works.

As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will be for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens. This is the case in:

United States -- Muslim 0.6%
Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
China -- Muslim 1.8%
Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs. This is happening in:

Denmark -- Muslim 2%
Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
Spain -- Muslim 4%
Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population. For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims. They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply. This is occurring in:

France -- Muslim 8%
Philippines -- Muslim 5%
Sweden -- Muslim 5%
Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law. The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions. In Paris , we are already seeing car-burnings. Any non-Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam. Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in:

Guyana -- Muslim 10%
India -- Muslim 13.4%
Israel -- Muslim 16%
Kenya -- Muslim 10%
Russia -- Muslim 15%

After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:

Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
Chad -- Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:

Albania -- Muslim 70%
Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:

Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
Egypt -- Muslim 90%
Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
Iran -- Muslim 98%
Iraq -- Muslim 97%
Jordan -- Muslim 92%
Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
Palestine -- Muslim 99%
Syria -- Muslim 90%
Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
Turkey -- Muslim 99.8%
United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%

• 100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace. Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:

Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
Somalia -- Muslim 100%
Yemen -- Muslim 100%

Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

Clearly, where ever Islam goes, freedom flees.

Click here to read more of Bapakgila

Catch the Fire

The way to catch the fire of the Spirit is to follow Jesus. He would begin a very busy day’s work by going off by himself to spend time with God (See Mk 1:35). He would address God as “Father”; he was familiar with figures from the Old Testament and he talked of pressing issues (See Lk 9:30-31). His prayer was caught up in loving God “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Mt 22:37)

So spend time each day with the indwelling Spirit on God’s terms (See Rm 8:8-9). Think of God as revealed in the Scriptures. When you have a “movement of the heart” towards God stay with it for as long as it lasts. Then move to the next thought. A sense of awe, thanksgiving, sorrow and determination are examples of movements of the heart, as is a simple “gaze” towards God.

Sometimes you will experience only “aridity”, which is a spiritual dryness. Check to see if there is unconfessed sin. If there is none, stay in prayer for your regular amount of time presenting your aridity to God. It is likely that God is strengthening your faith for an even closer walk with you. Watch out also for attachment to even “the things of God” instead of to “the God of things”. The Spirit will be leading you to a more simple faith in God, like the faith of Abraham (See Heb 11:17-19) so that you depend on nothing else but him.

When you leave such a daily time of prayer, you will find it easier to think like Jesus, feel like Jesus and act like Jesus. And when you follow Jesus that closely, you will catch the fire of the Spirit. Then nothing that the New World Order throws at you will overcome you for you will be "clothed with the power from on high" (Lk 24:49).

Core Business - Sin

The "core business" of the Church is salvation from sin. It is not running hospitals, educating people or supporting protests, as good as these may be. The readings of the Mass for the First Sunday of Lent (Year A) focus on why Jesus came. "Sin entered the world through one man...As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man's obedience many will be made righteous" (Rm 5:12, 19).

Matthew has summarized the temptations of Jesus 40 days in the desert as putting right what the Chosen People did wrong during their 40 years in the desert. (See Mt 4:1-11) They had sought nourishment apart from God (See Dt 8:3: Ex 16). They tested God by saying "Is God with us or not?" (Ex 17:7). They worshipped a false God (Ex 32:1) as their leader. So salvation from sin is like zipping up something that has been unzipped; it reverses the process.

To carry out our core business, we need to recognise sin and to apply the salvation of Jesus Christ. We will be able to help others do that with sensitivity when we have recognised our own sin. (See Mt 7:5) The Lenten prayers call us to recognise sin in ourselves; it is a great time in the Church's year for a "spring clean."

Of course the agents of the New World Order, want us to ignore sin as being 'too negative', or re-thinking it as "Integrating the shadow self" (See my blog on Carl Jung) or as causing "bad feelings." But we all know sin exists because we can easily recall the people who have sinned against us.

Charisms Revisited

In 1969 I first heard of “Catholic Pentecostals”. Wanting to dismiss them, I said that we don’t have to recognize the Holy Spirit since he will get on with his job anyway. In the group was a professor of dogmatic theology who told us that a person would only be fully present if we recognized that the person is there. Similarly the Holy Spirit will not be fully active, if we do not welcome his presence. On the strength of that thought, I had a look at and then joined the Charismatic Renewal (as it became known).

In recent years, I walked away from the Catholic Charismatic Renewal because I had seen so much emotional self-indulgence and emotional manipulation. More especially, New Age practice had so permeated the meetings that the reality of sin and the power of the cross were actively avoided. There was none of the prophecies, miracles, deliverances and profound conversions that I had previously known.

Yet, the Church in western civilization needs the Spirit’s powerful presence even more, now that the social engineering of the NWO has a stronger grip that it had 40 years ago. So I have revisited St Paul’s teaching on the charisms that is found in 1 Corinthians 12-14. The teaching is wonderfully simple. The power that Jesus had in his ministry is shared among the members of his Body when we come together in prayer, bringing a “psalm, teaching or prophecy” (14:26) to build up the community (12:26) and to let the Spirit move us with “many different gifts” (12:4).

St Paul encourages us to “be ambitious for the higher gifts” (12:31). Instead of presenting us with programmes, techniques or seminars, Paul puts before us the way of unconditional love “which is always patient…is not boastful…and endures whatever comes.” (13:4-7)

We are to “be eager, too, for the higher gifts, especially for prophesying” (14:1) which not only teaches and encourages us but which tests the hearts of non-believers bringing them to “worship God, declaring that ‘God is indeed among you.’” (14:25)

Yes, I could buy into a charismatic renewal that is like that!

The Lamb of God

“Lamb of God” is a very powerful image for people who are standing up to the New World Order that is intent on destroying Christian Civilization.

There is evidence that the image was probably used in the Mass within 25 years of Our Lord’s death. St Paul, in his early writing, speaks of “Our Pasch, Christ, has been immolated”. (1 Cor 5:7) Scripture scholars say that his expression reflects common usage. We also find the image used in Peter’s and John’s writings. (See 1 Pt 1:19; Jn 1:29; Rev 5:6)
“Lamb of God” melds two images from the Old Testament. One is of the “Lamb led to the slaughter” (See Acts 8:32), that is of the suffering servant who takes our sins upon himself. The other is of the blood of the paschal lamb that was painted around the door of the Hebrew houses in Egypt, which brought about their deliverance from slavery. It is easy to see how these ideas expressed the mystery of the Mass for first generation Christians.

As the Church developed and experienced persecution, this image took on an eschatological dimension. The “Lamb of God”, now seated on the throne of glory was no longer a weak innocent lamb, but the one who directed the wrath of God against the persecutors of His People. (See Rev 6:1 ff) The Lamb will lead his followers to victory in the war against the forces of evil (See Rev 17:14). It will only be when he returns in judgment, that the “Lamb of God” will again show the gentler side as the bridegroom. (See Rev 19:8)
So when we hear at Mass: “This is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper”, we are referring to the eschatological feast (see Rev 19:9). Those people who ally themselves with the forces of evil will not be called to the supper.

As we stand up to the agents of the New World Order, we have the example of the second generation Christians standing up to the Roman World Order. They drew such encouragement by celebrating the glorified Lamb who was looking after their destiny.
Because of their fidelity the Roman Empire was won for Christ. That conversion provided the foundation of a Christian civilization. With the heavenly court we can also acclaim:
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honour, glory and blessing.” (Rev 5:12)

Family Approach to the Global Environment

The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that the family and not the individual is the basic cell of society. It is in the family that the individual learns the basic skills for life in society. In the family we experience justice and love between brothers and sisters, the role of authority expressed by parents, the loving concern for the members who are weaker because of youth, sickness and old age, mutual help in the necessities of life, readiness to accept others and, if necessary, to forgive them.

The ‘school house’ of the family equips us for getting on with one another in wider society. Society will only function well with “the generous consent of all its members.” Where contemporary society acts like a family there is little need for state intervention.

When it comes to global environmental issues, the Holy Father encourages us act as “the human family, which dwells in that common house which is the earth”. Families strive for generous consensus and not brutal coercion. He encourages us to be “uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions.” I take that to be a reference to the agents of the New World Order, who are backing one-sided scientific conferences, who are saying that we are only one species among many others, and who want to drastically reduce the world population with evil means.

In that ideology, the individual and not the family is the basic cell of society. Like Communist Russia and China, the politico-economic power will undermine and take over the God-given work of families. By trying to make the individual paramount, they are really trying to make themselves paramount.

In confronting the issue of global warming, we need to draw on our own experiences of the family way of doing things, encourage the beleaguered parents in contemporary western society and use the approach that we are all one family sharing a global home.

Click here to see the Holy Father's message for the World Day of Peace on 1 January 2008

"Practicing the Presence of God"

Recently, when I hit a “brick wall” put up by agents of the New World Order, these words came to mind, “Whoever abides in me, as I abide in him, bears much fruit; for cut off from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5) The Lord is exactly right. We can get so caught up in recognizing and analyzing “the increase of lawlessness” that “love in most people will grow cold.” (Mt 24:12) It is more important to put time into relating with God than in trying to solve the problem by ourselves.

“Practicing the presence of God” is even more important for us when we are confronting the evil that is trying to destroy Christian civilization. In the brutality of Calvary, the image of St John and the Holy Women reminds us of gentility of the abiding love of the Lord. In fact this image is an ‘icon’ of Christian civilization in a hostile world.

The New Testament provides three approaches to abiding in Christ, one for the reflective mode, another for the active mode and the third for the endurance mode:

1. There is the heart-to-heart abiding in Jesus. We show Jesus what is happening in our hearts and we let his words permeate our hearts. (See Jn 15:1-17) This fits very well when we are meditating, or ‘day-dreaming’.
2. There is the step-by-step following of Jesus. We imitate what Jesus did, adapting it to our situation. Our pray is, “Jesus, give me the grace to do what you would do here.” (See Mark 8:34-35)
3. There is the beyond-the-horizon awareness of cosmic Christ that St Paul expresses, so well in the Colossians hymn (See Col 1:15-20; also 2 Cor 5:17). When we are simply enduring the overpowering force of the enemy, being aware that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28) puts the enemy into perspective and maintains our communion with God.

Practicing the presence of God needs discipline. One exercise I do when I am walking is to set my mind to walk with Jesus to the next corner, then the next and then the next. (Distance runners will know what I am talking about.)

Another exercise is when I take a break, during the daily routine, I ask our Lord, “How am I doing?” Then I thank him when I have got it right or ask forgiveness when I got it wrong and then thank him.

Obviously when we “make the sign of the Cross” we are putting ourselves in God’s presence. And things like grace-before-meals should do the same.

It would be interesting to read of some of your practices.

An inspiration to many is a French lay-brother who lived in the 1600s. You can read about Brother Lawrence at http://www.catholictreasury.info/Presence/Default.htm

Ultimately practicing the presence of God is not about particular methods or techniques but an abiding relationship with the Blessed Trinity. Like any personal relationship, we have to work on it. So when we stand firm against the NWO we will “go out and bear the fruit that will last.” (Jn 15:16) There is no winning formula; but there is a winning relationship.

The Pagan Influence of Carl Jung

This picture is of the trinitarian fountain of pagan dieties Diana, Bacchus and Theseus united under the protecting hand of Apollo. It is across the road from St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney. Carl Jung would have been pleased with the symbolism !

Thirty years ago we were in the heady days of renewal. I was hearing expressions from our spiritual leaders like, “Get in touch with your shadow self”, “You have got to love yourself first”, “Pay attention to your dreams”, “Active imagination”, “Journalling” and we were all-abuzz with combinations of letters, INFJ and ESTP from the Myers-Briggs personality-type questionnaire. Swept aside from Catholic spirituality were expressions like “purgative, illuminative and unitive ways”, “discerning the will of God” and “being formed by the Word”.

Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychotherapist, was the main influence in this shift. He sounded spiritual and good. He provided us with a spirituality with which we could have ‘meaningful dialogue’ with the world. What we were not told was that he hated the Catholic Church, that his mother was a psychic and his paternal grandfather was an illuminated freemason.

We were not told that he had a falling out with Sigmund Freud because Freud wanted to keep religion out of psychotherapy and Jung wanted Christianity to be replaced by psychotherapy as the religion of Europe. He wrote to Freud ‘Religion can only be replaced by religion’ and he induced his clients to emotionally experience pagan myths. This meant that they were to attain an illuminated state in which they were to experience themselves as a god. Obviously, the word ‘illumination’ has a very different meaning from its use in Catholic spirituality, where it means living by the light of faith.

We were not told that Jung was suicidal and kept a loaded pistol beside his bed because he was so depressed with many of his followers turned away from him rather than turn away from Christianity.

Carl Jung signed one of his works as “Philemon’s Gateway.” If you use a search engine on the words ‘Jung’ and ‘Philemon’, you will find that Philemon was Jung’s familiar spirit. In his writings that he claimed were inspired by Philemon he taught that Salvation is found in coming to terms with oneself and not with matching up with an external rule.

“Active imagining” is a popular activity we learnt from Carl Jung. It means getting into an imaginary scene and inter-acting with the characters in our mind. This activity has been encouraged from the pulpit and in Catholic retreats. What most of us don’t know is that this is an occult way to get in touch with familiar spirits.

Through Jung’s influence the occult has come into Catholic practice. A book that I have found very helpful is The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung by Richard Noll and written in 1997 (ISBN 0-679-44945-0). Noll wrote on page 130:

"Yet the ancient pagan mysteries continued to occupy the imagination of humankind in an only nominal Christian Europe. Throughout the centuries their symbols and initiatory rites, their gods and goddesses, daemons and genii all found their way into the occult underground in the traditions of Gnosticism, Hermeticisim, alchemy, astrology, the Kabbalah, the Tarot, ritual and ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and especially in the occult revivals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They live on in the works of C.G. Jung and those who practice therapy in his name."

This is not to say that all these things are practiced in the Church. But it does mean that we need to be alert to spirituality with a focus on oneself instead of on God, with integrating one’s “shadow” instead of admitting our sins, with engaging in “active imagination” instead of imagining Gospel scenes, with recognizing psychic energy instead of recognizing the Spirit of Christ.

Carl Jung is the darling of the ‘one world religion’ advocates within the New World Order. They must drain Christian spirituality out of the Catholic (i.e., Universal) Church to make the one world religion a success. So, we have a challenge right in our midst.

As quickly as they drain Christian spirituality out we need to refill the Church. Through the centuries God had provided us with many streams of spirituality, such as the Augustinian, Benedictine, Carmelite, Franciscan and Ignatian which cater to different personality types and all of them stress the way to find God is through the cross, “per crucem ad lucem”. We have a rich heritage to draw on, but beware of modernizers who adulterate the original teaching with psychology.

Some websites I have found helpful with recognizing Jung’s influence on the Church are:
http://www.catholicculture.org/library/view.cfm?recnum=545
http://theconstructivecurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2006/07/carl-jung-beware.html
http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/palette/187/session11.html

Manly Virtues Required

Cities used to be built around Cathedrals

The agents of the New World Order have been rather successful over the last 40 years in destroying family life, marginalizing the Church and making citizens more dependent on the State in what we once called “Christian countries.” If the Catholic (i.e., Universal) Church is neutralized, there will nothing to oppose the enslavement of the world by the Super-rich. Manly virtues, such as far-sighted assertiveness, courage in the face of danger and self-sacrifice for the common course, are called for if the Church in our time is going to liberate and defend people from this clear and present evil. (See the previous blog)

Our Lord Jesus Christ, as he was portrayed in the Gospels was a man of such virtue. He, himself, described his actions as those of a liberator. He was like a plunderer who broke into a strongman's house, tied him up and took his possessions. (See Mark 3:27) He described himself as a defender when he spoke of himself as a "good shepherd". A good shepherd would risk his life in confronting a wolf, unlike a hireling or a thief, who would run away. (See John 10:14) He carried that attitude into building his Church to be like a battering ram that the "Gates of hell could not resist" (Matthew 16:18)

In carrying out his mission, Jesus gave a great example of manly virtues: he identified with his sinful people when he insisted on being baptized by John; he confronted evil in the loneliness of the desert; he ‘called a spade a spade’ in verbal confrontations; he took the fight to the enemy when he cleansed the Temple; he liberated others from various forms of evil; he treated women sensitively; he loved children; he stepped over restrictive boundaries at social gatherings; he had a special concern for the weak and dispossessed; he gathered and prepared disciples for conflict and they eventually did him proud; he made a few good friends; he sacrificed his life for his nation in such a way that a Roman centurion saluted him with the words: “Truly, this was an upright man.” (Luke 23:47)

The arena of manly virtues involves politics, economics and warfare and Jesus made his mark in that arena. Politically he was labelled "King of the Jews" and he had to die "for the sake of the people. " He confronted the Pharisees with their greed for money. And, of course, he was betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Militarily, he taught his occupied nation how to avoid destruction and to undermine their Roman oppressors by turning the other cheek (i.e., taking the insult along with the injury) and carrying a soldier's luggage two miles instead of the prescribed single mile. (See Mt 4:8-10; Jn 18:14; Lk 16:14; Mt 5:41)

The struggle in the political, economic and military arena is essentially spiritual. It is part of the primordial battle between good and evil (See Genesis 3:15) and of allegiance to God or Satan, for mastery of the world (Luke 4:4-8).

In a past age, when the terms “western civilization” and “Christian civilization” were used inter-changeably, it may have been safe to downplay the manly virtues of Jesus. But it is disastrous now. With the undermining of Christian civilization by the New World Order, we need people who will master their fear, identify where the threat is coming from and confront it collectively. We will only get that when God’s People, men and woman, renounce themselves, take up their crosses and follow Jesus of the Gospel, who portrays masculine virtue.

On a personal note, if anyone has the impression that I think women are weak, I come from a family where the women have outshone the men in heroism and they have put before me manly models of virtue.

My impression of Sunday sermons is that we have psychologised and emasculated the Gospel. Our priests need encouragement to preach the masculine aspects of Christ’s mission. In our personal lives we need to keep a balance between the Church as “mother” and the Church as “militant”. Then God will truly have a Church that can be the “Universal Sacrament of Salvation” (See Catechism of the Catholic Church 774-776).

What the NWO say

"Let me control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws" - Mayer Amschel Rothschild 1828

"If my sons didn't want wars, there would be no wars." - Mrs Rothschild

"We must war against all prevailing ideas of religion, of the state, of countries, of patriotism. The idea of God is the keynote of a perverted civilization. It must be destroyed." - Karl Marx 1848

"The Lie is sacred" - Lenin citing Voltaire

"The Pope, whoever he is, will never come to the secret societies; it is up to the secret societies to take the first step towards the Church with the aim of conquering both of them...Let the clergy march under your banner, always believing they are marching under the banner of the apostolic keys" - Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita (an Italian masonic organization.

"The Masonic religion would be, by all of us initiates in the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine." - Albert Pike 1889

"Socialism is precisely the religion that must overcome Christianity." - Antonio Gramsci, Italian Communist. 1916

"There also exists another alliance - at first glance a strange one, a surprizing one - but if you think about it in fact, one which is well grounded and easy to understand. This is the alliance between our Communist leaders and your Capitalists." - V.I. Lenin 1917

"Religion can only be replaced by religion" - Carl Jung in a letter to Sigmund Freud

"What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day programme of humanistic teaching?" - C.F. Potter, a co-signer of the "Humanist Manifesto, in 1930

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element ...has owned the (US) government since the days of Andrew Jackson." - President Franklin D. Roosevelt to Colonel Edward House. 1933

"The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole." Carroll Quigley of Georgetown University (President Clinton's mentor) 1966

"By way of deception, thou shalt do war." - Motto of Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service.

"Some opponents of humanism have accused us of wishing to overthrow the traditional Christian family. THey are right. That is exactly what we intend to do." -British Humanist Association 1969

"God is going to die. We women...will change the world so much that He won't fit anymore." - Naomi Goldenberg in "Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional Religion"

"In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day." - Jacque Cousteau at the Earth Summit in 1992

" I used to say to him what's the point of all this,' states Russo, 'you have all the money in the world you need, you have all the power you need, what's the point, what's the end goal?' to which Rockefeller replied (paraphrasing), 'The end goal is to get everybody chipped, to control the whole society, to have the bankers and the elite people control the world.'" - Aaron Russo speaking of Nick Rockefeller

This kind of talk is a call to action. Someone once said: "The price of freedom is vigilance." I reckon that it is a few other things to, like moral courage and endurance. What do you think ?