The System is Down

So I'm at work.

NOT working.

I've been here all day, currently it is 1:40pm, and the server's been down and when it's not down, then the database is down, and when it's not down, something else is probably down. In conclusion, nothing... nothing works. So I'm just sittin' around here, visiting random websites, complaining to my co-workers, and now writing in my blog. (That is, after a short visit to facebook!)
I am just so amazed that I could get so tired from doing nothing. But that's how it is I guess.

On a vaguely more interesting note, we hired John. Yep. He's right here behind me. Lookin.

That's what we do when there's nothing to do.
the end.

Gotta have faith? Yes.

Regarding my previous post, I thought I should clarify something first, just in case anyone gets confused, as I often forget not everyone knows the prelude to the thoughts I write.

Before one can get to servitude, one must start with faith. And to have faith, one must start with prayer. (Prayer being communication with God, in whatever form that might take... not necessarily formal prayers). It is absolutely fruitless to enter into service unless God appoints the service. We can go out and do a lot of "good" things, but God may be saying, "well that's great and all, but it isn't exactly what I had planned for you". And where we make our efforts to serve where it is not God working through us, our efforts will inevitably be fruitless, even if at first they may seem like they have brought forth fruit. So without faith, without an initial love for God, one cannot enter into a service that leads towards a complete sacrificial love.

I guess though that should have been a bit obvious as why would one want to serve to become a sacrifice for God if they didn't first.. well... WANT to become a sacrifice for God. Ha ha. So maybe my words here are unnecessary.

Though I do think it's a good point to ponder, as we often go out doing "good deeds" and do not necessarily think as to whether that is the good deed that God desires us to do. And to serve others, one must first serve God, so that one might see God in others, and serve Him there. We must do God's appointed work for us, not our own. Going back to that passage with Peter and Jesus, we can see that it is Jesus who is appointing Peter with the service before him. It is Jesus who gave Peter the keys to heaven. It was Jesus who gave Peter authority to bind and lose in heaven what he binds and looses on earth. And clearly Peter is not given an authority that supercedes God's will, but rather one that fulfills God's will. This is why the Pope cannot declare something and change God's will. But rather through the Pope, God's will for us is revealed, since that office is only one of servitude of God's appointed tasks.

in conclusion, good morning everybody!!!

Servitude leads to sacrifice

I was meditating today on.... wait... what was I meditating on?

well the point is, here's what I got out of it that I'd like to share.
If you're like me, it's hard to offer yourself like a true sacrifice to God. By this I mean, that completely within, to make a sacrificial offering, surrendering entirely to the Lord's divine will in ALL things. Ha ha.. okay, I guess those who are truly there are few and far between.

But I was thinking about Peter, and his response to the cross. If you recall Peter's denial of Christ, we can see he was not accepting of the cross. The people asked him if he knew Jesus, and his denial was to protect himself, because he was unwilling to accept the sacrifice required of being identified with Jesus.
He did not yet love Jesus sacrificially.
This doesn't mean he did not love Jesus. He most certainly did, just like many of us do. We love Jesus, but only to a point... are we really willing to give absolutely everything, or is there a point at which we say, "that's enough"?

Fast forward to when Jesus asked Peter 3 times if he loved Him. This is a twofold situation... First, this was an opportunity of reparation for having denied Christ 3 times. Secondly, by looking at the original text we see something deeper. In the original Greek there is more than one word for love. When Jesus asked, "Peter, do you love me?" the word love meant "sacrificial love". Peter replied, "yes Lord, I love you", but here Peter used love in the "brotherly love" sense. Peter said he loved Jesus as one loves a human, but not as one that loves God in the sacrificial way. Another time Jesus poses the same question and Peter gives the same response, but the last time, Jesus asks if Peter even so much as loves him in a brotherly sense. This is why Peter is upset in response and says, "of course you know I love you" (in the brotherly sense). Jesus wants Peter to go further, to have the sacrificial love he lacked when he denied Jesus 3 times. But there's another important thing to notice here. Every time Peter replied that he had a brotherly love for Jesus, then the Lord's reply was always, "feed my sheep". Jesus seems to be telling Peter that because he does not yet have this sacrificial love, the way to have it, is to serve—to feed God's sheep. This means that for anyone who really wants to go all the way and give their lives to God, the way to grow in love is to serve. Then service will grow into sacrifice, and we may be like Peter by the time of his death, who was also crucified.

Let us never run from the cross. It is painful, of course it is, but it is the path of the truest love... and if we want to live forever in love, it is the cross where we must run toward, and not away from. And we can do this by serving one another.

Dead bat! I mean... um... something else!

So I saw a dead bat for the first time today. On the side of the road.

What a note on which to start my first blog entry in a long time...


SO!
As many of you already know, I have been working in Toronto for the past month, programming and designing graphics and the like. So far I have not succeeded in mastering space and time, just posting dinosaur comics around the office walls.

I've also been having a lot of ideas for my website which you may have noticed. I've added a "slightly orange account", which is not too different from the user profile for the forum, aside from the fact that the template has changed and it will soon extend to allow for posting comments on the animations. Also I've added a section for listening to some of my music, and I'll get that up and running soon.

OH!

and I'm reading a most excellent book! For those of you wanting to learn more about Christ or to deepen your faith, totally go pick up "Life of Christ" by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. What a brilliant man, he totally just opens up the scriptures. Quite marvellous.

Way to go, Adam and Eve

Today is Ash Wednesday. It's a time where we recall the fall of man... the time when Adam and Eve decided to pluck the forbidden fruit from the tree, eat of it, and usher sin upon the world. Good work you two. Well done. From dust to dust: we were made from dust, and because of that sin, we return to dust, unless we enter into the resurrection of Christ and are born into the life of the New Adam (Jesus).

So I got to thinking... to all you vegetarians out there who think that eating animals is wrong, if only Adam and Eve had just feasted upon suckling pig instead, then they would have never got into this mess! I mean come on! Delicious roasted pig, mmmmmmm tasty. But no, let's go eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. That sounds like a larf.

The previous is simply a farce, and should not be taken seriously or literally. I love vegetarians, even though I think they'd be a lot happier with a big steak on their plate, but please don't try to read this post as theological, except for maybe the first paragraph. Some assembly required. Batteries not included. Those who cannot read this clause should get glasses or copy and paste this text into an editor and increase the size. If that's what you did, then kudos to you.

Unexpected Suffering

It's been a long time since I've posted. I sort of forgot about this blog, got busy with exams, got busy with life in general. Oh well, it's not like this blog is a necessary aspect of my life.

So, I just wanted to share a little of what's been happening with me, by sending it out into the vast void of the internet where it may or may not be read by anyone. I feel as though the closer I come to joining a religious community, that the further from God I become. I never imagined things to become confusing in this sort of a manner, and has resulted in a rather unexpected suffering. I suppose the more I try to give my life to God, it is as though I have grown far further from ever achieving this. My whole being rebels against me, and the interior battles have turned me towards some level of hopelessness, which is bizarre, because hopelessness is not really my style, and it's not something I thought I'd ever feel compelled towards. Yet here I am, experiencing it to some degree, despite knowing full well intellectually that my feelings are not grounded in truth. Feelings are a funny thing... I didn't imagine such peculiar battles of emotion/disposition versus intellect.

So what am I saying? Well, mostly I feel like a giant hypocrite... I know many of the things I OUGHT to be doing, yet it at the very least feels like I am not following at all what I ought to be. I don't know what to make of this, as I'm having trouble reconciling how I simply feel and how things actually are, so I am in the dark on the subject. And I know... I know that the devil is behind this and is trying to destroy me, but the difficulty is I can't really see whether he is succeeding or not, making it very hard for me to know how to fight him.

So yeah, essentially I'm just in some sort of a mess, and I feel so unworthy to give advice to others because I always feel at the same time that I'm saying, "here's what you should do... I'm not doing it, and I feel hopeless in my ability to succeed, but you go do what I'm not doing and what I ought to do". I hope that in this time I do not disillusion anyone else, or pull someone else away from God because of my mess. It's hard not knowing what's going on.

Prayers please?

True Devotion

I'm so very excited in many ways to have returned to school. I was in a bit of a rough spot there for a while, and I'm very thankful for others, because I find myself to be rather destructive when I'm going solo.

The good news is, I'm back into the swing of things and I'm hunting for a job again. Also, I'm glad to be back together with the bible study group at King's, and I've actually decided to start a new group that will study more Marian doctrine since our bible study is protestant, and, quite frankly, I really want to delve into the good stuff and not pussyfoot around on all this "halfway there" theology. (No offense to protestants, I love you guys, but there's just such a wealth of knowledge in the Catholic Church and I'm mighty hungry!)

So our new group (which I definitely won't put in conflict with the previous bible study) will essentially be reading over St. Louis de Montfort's book, "True Devotion", which explains how to have a rightly ordered and wholly good devotion to Mary, and consequently, to Christ as well. It's fantastic and I can't wait to go over it with my friends because it'll bring us closer together, bring us all closer to Mary and thus closer to Christ, and it will keep me out of trouble and force me to do something active and useful outside of class.

I also find it neat because this will be the first thing I've ever completely organized and run by myself and instigated by myself (well, inspired by the Holy Spirit of course, I just mean there was no one else pushing for it or trying to convince me to do it). So this'll be a learning experience for me too.

And um... why might you all care about this random piece of my life? I really don't know... I'm just excited and writing about it... you're the one reading it!