Despise not Thy works and forsake not Thy creation, O just Judge and Lover of men, though I alone have sinned as a man more than any man. But being Lord of all, Thou hast power to pardon sins.
The end is drawing near, my soul, is drawing near! But you neither care nor prepare. The time is growing short. Rise! The Judge is near at the very doors. Like a dream, like a flower, the time of this life passes. Why do we bustle about in vain?
Come to your senses, my soul! Consider the deeds you have done, and bring them before your eyes, and pour out the drops of your tears. Boldly tell your thoughts and deeds to Christ, and be acquitted.
There has never been a sin or act or vice in life that I have not committed, O Saviour. I have sinned in mind, word and choice, in purpose, will and action, as no one else has ever done.
Therefore I am condemned, wretch that I am, therefore I am doomed by my own conscience, than which there is nothing in the world more rigorous. O my Judge and Redeemer Who knowest my heart, spare and deliver and save me, Thy servant.
The ladder of old which the great Patriarch saw, my soul, is a model of mounting by action and ascent by knowledge. So, if you wish to live in activity, knowledge and contemplation, be renewed.
Because of his crying need the Patriarch endured the scorching heat of the day, and he bore the frost of the night, daily making gains, shepherding, struggling, slaving, in order to win two wives.
By the two wives understand action and direct knowledge in contemplation: Leah as action, for she had many children, and Rachel as knowledge, which is obtained by much labour. For without labours, my soul, neither action nor contemplation will achieve success. — Troparia from Ode 4, Monday of the First Week of Lent
From the IHT: Canada lifts visa requirments for Poland and three other Eastern European countries
TORONTO: Canada is lifting visa requirements for travelers from Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania and Hungary.
Canadian Immigration Minister Diane Finley said Saturday the visa-free status for the four countries takes effect immediately.
About 33,000 Poles came to Canada on short-term visas in 2007.
Poland welcomed the move. Warsaw lifted visa requirements for Canadians in 2004, when Poland joined the European Union.
Warsaw would like the United States to introduce a similar policy.
As would I. Of course being a staunch ally never stopped the U.S. from stepping on Poland. Yalta and all you know… Poland is slowly waking up to that fact and is pulling out of Iraq. Hopefully they do the same with the ABM installation the Bush Administration is touting, either that or force Washington to pay dearly for what they want – in advance.
From the San Francisco Chronicle: Study: Incarceration rate lower for immigrants
Immigrants in California are far less likely to land in prison than their U.S.-born counterparts, a finding that defies the perception that immigration and crime are connected, according to a study released Monday.
Foreign-born residents make up 35 percent of the state’s overall population, but only 17 percent of the adult prison population, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, which conducted the research.
Noncitizen men from Mexico between the ages of 18 and 40, which the study indicated were more likely to be in the country illegally, were eight times less likely to be in a “correctional setting,” the study found.
The study did not address the visa status of those included among the foreign-born, which would include citizens and noncitizens, including those in the country legally and illegally.
Nonetheless, these results have implications for the current debates over immigration policy, said Kristin Butcher, co-author of the report.
“Our research indicates that limiting immigration, requiring higher educational levels to obtain visas or spending more money to increase penalties against criminal immigrants will have little impact on public safety,” Butcher said in a statement.
While immigrants often have lower levels of education and higher poverty rates, which are normally associated with higher crimes rates, other factors are probably contributing to the underrepresentation among the foreign-born in state prisons…
The story doesn’t mention it, but I would venture to state that immigrants are representative the societies they come from, i.e., family oriented, hard working, and with a strong religious and moral code founded in the Catholic faith. They are here for the purpose of improving the lives of their families – the collective whole of their lives. Going to prison defeats that purpose.
From Reuters via the Gulf News: Gunmen kidnap Iraqi Chaldean Catholic archbishop
Mosul, Iraq: Gunmen kidnapped the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul on Friday in the northern Iraqi city and killed his driver and two guards, police said.
In Rome, Pope Benedict deplored the kidnapping of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho as a “despicable” crime and urged the gunmen to free the prelate.
Provincial police spokesman Brigadier-General Khaled Abdul Sattar said Rahho was kidnapped in the al-Nour district in eastern Mosul when he left a church.
“Gunmen opened fire on the car, killed the other three and kidnapped the archbishop,” he said.
…
An assistant to Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, the Chaldean patriarch of Baghdad and spiritual leader of Iraq’s Catholics, said they had heard that three people were killed and they did not know the fate of the Rahho.
Chaldeans belong to a branch of the Roman Catholic Church that practises an ancient Eastern rite. Most of its members are in Iraq and Syria, and they form the biggest Christian community in Iraq.
The Vatican issued a statement in Rome saying the pope was saddened by “this new despicable act” which it called a premeditated criminal act.
“The Holy Father asks the universal Church to join in his fervent prayer so that reason and humanity prevails in the kidnappers and Monsignor Rahho is returned to his flock soon,” the statement said.
A number of Christian clergy have been kidnapped or killed, and churches bombed in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion.
Last June, gunmen killed Catholic priest Ragheed Aziz Kani and three assistants in Mosul, 390 km north of Baghdad, after stopping his car near a church in the eastern part of the ethnically and religiously mixed city.
The assailants dragged out the priest and his assistants and shot them dead in an attack that was condemned by Pope Benedict…
This sort of thing didn’t happen under Saddam Hussein. Now, the persecution of Christians is a regular occurrence. This under the U.S. backed government of Iraq. That’s the U.S. government run by a man who calls himself a Christian.
Of course, as I’ve said here before, Evangelicals like Mr. Bush believe Catholics aren’t Christians at all. To Mr. Bush the murder of these people is just one more step along the route to the Armageddon. Hurray for Israel, hurray for death, hurray for the second coming. My will be done.
Thankfully, real Christians of every sort have the assurance that only the Father knows the time, and that Mr. Bush’s idea of control does not affect God in any way (other than the sorrow He must feel at the deaths that Mr. Bush has inflicted).
May God return the Archbishop safely and may the perpetual light shine upon those who were murdered. Amen.
The Lord rained fire from the Lord, my soul, and burnt up the former land of Sodom.
Escape to the mountain like Lot, my soul, and make Zoar your refuge in time.
Run from the burning, my soul! Run from the heat of Sodom! Run from the destruction of the divine flame.
I alone have sinned against Thee, sinned above all men. O Christ my Saviour, spurn me not. Thou art the good Shepherd; seek me, Thy lamb, and neglect not me who have gone astray.
Thou art my sweet Jesus, Thou art my Creator; in Thee, O Saviour, I shall be justified.
I confess to Thee, O Saviour, I have sinned, I have sinned against Thee, but absolve and forgive me in Thy compassion. — Troparia from Ode 3, Monday of the First Week of Lent
Attend, O heaven, and I will speak; O earth, give ear to a voice repenting to God and singing praises to Him.
Attend to me, O God my Saviour, with Thy merciful eye, and accept my fervent confession.
I have sinned above all men, I alone have sinned against Thee. But as God have compassion, O Saviour, on Thy creature.
Having formed by my pleasure-loving desires the deformity of my passions, I have marred the beauty of my mind. A storm of passions besets me, O compassionate Lord. But stretch out Thy hand to me too, as to Peter.
I have stained the coat of my flesh, and soiled what is in Thy image and likeness, O Saviour. I have darkened the beauty of my soul with passionate pleasures, and my whole mind I have reduced wholly to mud.
I have torn my first garment which the Creator wove for me in the beginning, and therefore I am lying naked.
I have put on a torn coat, which the serpent wove for me by argument, and I am ashamed.
The tears of the harlot, O merciful Lord, I too offer to Thee. Be merciful to me, O Saviour, in Thy compassion.
I looked at the beauty of the tree, and my mind was seduced; and now I lie naked, and I am ashamed.
All the demon-chiefs of the passions have plowed on my back, and long has their tyranny over me lasted. — Troparia from Ode 2, Monday of the First Week of Lent
Where shall I begin to lament the deeds of my wretched life? What first-fruit shall I offer, O Christ, for my present lamentation? But in Thy compassion grant me release from my falls.
Come, wretched soul, with your flesh, confess to the Creator of all. In future refrain from your former brutishness, and offer to God tears in repentance.
Having rivaled the first-created Adam by my transgression, I realize that I am stripped naked of God and of the everlasting kingdom and bliss through my sins.
Alas, wretched soul! Why are you like the first Eve? For you have wickedly looked and been bitterly wounded, and you have touched the tree and rashly tasted the forbidden food.
The place of bodily Eve has been taken for me by the Eve of my mind in the shape of a passionate thought in the flesh, showing me sweet things, yet ever making me taste and swallow bitter things.
Adam was rightly exiled from Eden for not keeping Thy one commandment, O Savior. But what shall I suffer who am always rejecting Thy living words? — Troparia from Ode 1, Monday of the First Week of Lent
Is He then not good, Who has shown me good things? Is He not good, Who when six hundred thousand of the people of the Jews fled before their pursuers, suddenly opened the tide of the Red Sea, an unbroken mass of waters?—”so that the waves flowed round the faithful, and were walls to them, but poured back and overwhelmed the unbelievers.
Is He not good, at Whose command the seas became firm ground for the feet of them that fled, and the rocks gave forth water for the thirsty? so that the handiwork of the true Creator might be known, when the fluid became solid, and the rock streamed with water? That we might acknowledge this as the handiwork of Christ, the Apostle said: “And that rock was Christ.”
Is He not good, Who in the wilderness fed with bread from heaven such countless thousands of the people, lest any famine should assail them, without need of toil, in the enjoyment of rest?—”so that, for the space of forty years, their raiment grew not old, nor were their shoes worn, a figure to the faithful of the Resurrection that was to come, showing that neither the glory of great deeds, nor the beauty of the power wherewith He has clothed us, nor the stream of human life is made for nought?
Is He not good, Who exalted earth to heaven, so that, just as the bright companies of stars reflect His glory in the sky, as in a glass, so the choirs of apostles, martyrs, and priests, shining like glorious stars, might give light throughout the world.
Not only, then, is He good, but He is more. He is a good Shepherd, not only for Himself, but to His sheep also, “for the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.” Aye, He laid down His life to exalt ours—”but it was in the power of His Godhead that He laid it down and took it again: “I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it. No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself.” — Book II, Chapter 2
Now this is the declaration of our Faith, that we say that God is One, neither dividing His Son from Him, as do the heathen, nor denying, with the Jews, that He was begotten of the Father before all worlds, and afterwards born of the Virgin; nor yet, like Sabellius, confounding the Father with the Word, and so maintaining that Father and Son are one and the same Person; nor again, as does Photinus, holding that the Son first came into existence in the Virgin’s womb: nor believing, with Arius, in a number of diverse Powers, and so, like the benighted heathen, making out more than one God. For it is written: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord your God is one God.”
For God and Lord is a name of majesty, a name of power, even as God Himself says: “The Lord is My name,” and as in another place the prophet declares: “The Lord Almighty is His name.” God is He, therefore, and Lord, either because His rule is over all, or because He beholds all things, and is feared by all, without difference.
If, then, God is One, one is the name, one is the power, of the Trinity. Christ Himself, indeed, says: “Go ye, baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” In the name, mark you, not in the names.”
Moreover, Christ Himself says: “I and the Father are One.” “One,” said He, that there be no separation of power and nature; but again, “We are,” that you may recognize Father and Son, forasmuch as the perfect Father is believed to have begotten the perfect Son, and the Father and the Son are One, not by confusion of Person, but by unity of nature. — Book I, Chapter 1
What shall we do, then? How shall we ascend unto heaven? There, powers are stationed, principalities drawn up in order, who keep the doors of heaven, and challenge him who ascends. Who shall give me passage, unless I proclaim that Christ is Almighty? The gates are shut,—”they are not opened to any and every one; not every one who will shall enter, unless he also believes according to the true Faith. The Sovereign’s court is kept under guard.
Suppose, however, that one who is unworthy has crept up, has stolen past the principalities who keep the gates of heaven, has sat down at the supper of the Lord; when the Lord of the banquet enters, and sees one not clad in the wedding garment of the Faith, He will cast him into outer darkness, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth, if he keep not the Faith and peace.
Let us, therefore, keep the wedding garment which we have received, and not deny Christ that which is His own, Whose omnipotence angels announce, prophets foretel, apostles witness to, even as we have already shown above. — Book IV, Chapter 2