Just as one needs to communicate appropriately with one’s friends and family to maintain relationships, one needs to pray, converse with God on a regular basis. Prayer should not be motivated solely by our temporal desires, but by our need to grow in faith and become more intimate with God.
Unfortunately, we often experience God as a capricious figure whom we can manipulate with the “right” prayer formula, ritual or devotion, thinking that our insistence might magically convince Him to give us what we want, regardless of the goodness of our request. Prayer is not only asking, but also listening.
Mortal sin is like deliberate solitary confinement. If death comes and one has not repented, his heart is forever sealed – he will have excluded himself from enjoying infinite truth, goodness, beauty, life, and happiness.
The new Diocesan Youth Center is focused on drawing youth to discover the best in themselves, develop it and offer it to the world. In doing so, they will also evolve in their spiritual life and learn to become better persons.
A physically manifested prayer and silence can both play a significant role in drawing us in communion with our fellow brethren and with our Trinitarian God, as we follow in the footsteps of the great saint, Francis of Assisi.
The Macau Post and Telecommunications Bureau launched on Sunday a set of stamps commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Chapel of Our Lady of Penha, on the suggestion of the Macau Catholic Culture Association. The new philatelic products were conceived by local designer Vai Chi Hang.
The Diocesan Youth Commission will hold this Wednesday its very first open day with the aim of introducing the new Diocesan Youth Centre to Macau’s population. The Commission wants the facilities, located at Rua Formosa, to become a reference point for the Special Administrative Region’s younger generations.
Often we expect that God will simply give us whatever we ask for in prayer and are disappointed when we do not receive it. But prayer has effects more far reaching than merely having petitions for temporal wants met.
This year the feast of Our Lady of Fátima, celebrated this Sunday in Macau’s northernmost parish, had a special flair to it. Located at a short distance away from Mainland China, the Church of Our Lady of Fátima became the first in the Diocese of Macau to display relics of Saint Jacinta and Saint Francisco Marto, two of the little shepherds who witnessed the Cova da Iria apparitions.
There is hope that the Silsilah Dialogue Movement will, by educating the youngest minds, eventually bring reason and peace to the conflicted island of Mindanao.