Pro-life Image is Banned from Twitter On the Feast of the Holy Innocents

The Image of Christ Crucified is identified  as “Graphic Violence”

by Susan Fox

“We adore Thee O Christ and we bless Thee because by the Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.” (Catholic prayer)

Twitter put a lump of coal in my stocking on the Feast of the Holy Innocents,  Dec. 28, 2018.

They locked down my Twitter Account because of my profile picture, which they said contained graphic violence. 

I agree 100 percent with the sentiment. I truly wish Twitter would ban adult content and graphic violence, but I am still dismayed to run across pornographic content on Twitter. 

Banned from Twitter: Jesus Christ Crucified

To my shock, I found that Twitter identified the image of Jesus Christ crucified as an image of graphic violence! 

St. Paul was right!  "For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1Cor 1:18) And he warned us that Christ crucified is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. But to Twitter it is "graphic violence." 

An atheist responding to this post demonstrated the problem. He looked at the banned picture of Christ Crucified and he responded, "Hey, it's just a guy getting a nail in his arm!"  

By saying that, he identified himself as a nominalist, someone who believes that universals or general ideas are mere names without any corresponding reality. Only particular objects exist. I'm often amused by the fact that atheists will argue that human beings are mere meat puppets. You ask them why some meat puppets are atheist and some are Christian, and they ascribe it to a series of chemicals that I find in my vitamins. So to a modern thinker, God's perfect sacrifice is reduced to a guy with a nail in His arm.

For us Christians, Christ Crucified is an image of Love: the Innocent Lamb, giving His Life so that He might take away our sins. Christ's Death is not a computer game arousing and exciting its users with images of meaningless violence. Such titillation the  Romans enjoyed when they threw the Christians to the lions for public entertainment. 

Witness the photo of Pope Saint John Paul II engrossed in prayer at the Hill of Crosses in Siauliai, Lithuania, in 1993. He looks like he is weeping. 
I found this in an article from Catholic World Report, "To Glory in the Cross of Christ" by Peter M.J. Stravinskas. What a wonderful writer! It said, "Every cross borne by any believer gains meaning and becomes life-giving when it is brought into a relationship with the Cross from which Jesus reigned as the King of Love and over which He triumphed in His glorious Resurrection."

Adding that Jesus Christ is “King of love on Calvary,” Stravinskas said, "Only the most hard-hearted are not moved to pity and sorrow. "

Fifth century pagan philosopher Socrates would have admired Christ's sacrifice on the cross. He argued against the tyrants and powerful men in Athens who believed that "Might makes right." Socrates said it was better to suffer a humiliating injustice than to act unjustly toward another person. He believed in an afterlife in which each person would receive what he justly deserved for his actions during life. What he couldn't foresee was that God Himself would send His Son to die for our sins. A graphic image of Christ crucified -- under these circumstances -- would be an object of reverence even to a pagan like Socrates.

Christ Crucified is the core of my Christian faith. Jesus died for my sins. By his stripes, I am healed. From His crucified side flows rivers of Living Water, the Life of the Sacraments that heal. Banning an image of Christ Crucified is equivalent to banning photos of the Quran, eliminating statues of Buddha, or removing pictures of cows in Calcutta. You would offend Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus by removing the images of their religions. But they have chosen instead to offend Catholics. Do you know how many images of Christ crucified there are on Twitter profile pages? A lot.

It will take them a year to ban them all. As I told Twitter in my appeal, every Catholic home in the world has an image of the crucified Christ on their walls. In Hispanic cultures, the images are always bloody. Every Catholic Mass begins with the image of Christ on the cross.  

Infant Christ and his little coffin in the Byzantine Rite
Catholic Tradition

Even Christmas in the ancient Byzantine Catholic Rite points to Christ’s death. Byzantine icons show Mary and Joseph pulling the tiny baby Jesus from his little coffin. Yes, Jesus is pulled from a coffin, not a crib, not a manger — a coffin. It’s to remind us He is born to die for our sins.

For centuries, the Catholic Church celebrated the Circumcision of Jesus eight days after His birth on Jan. 1. This was the first time the blood of Christ was shed, thus beginning the redemption of man.

Even former atheist and famous Anglo-Catholic poet T.S. Eliot uses the image of Christ's death in his poetry in connection with His birth.  

Reading Eliot’s poem Journey of the Magi for the first time, I was brought up short by images of Christ’s death in connection with Christmas. I remembered the poem after Twitter decided to terminate the picture of Christ crucified from my profile page during Christmas.

One generally expects to see the Birth of Christ  at the end of  the journey of the three wise men, who followed the star hoping to worship the newborn King of the Jews. One anticipates rejoicing angels, happy shepherds, quiet donkeys and a little drummer boy! But Eliot’s Magi make their journey and find — His  death.

“Were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But I had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.”  (Journey of the Magi by T.S. Eliot)

In the poem, the journey to the Christ Child was full of images of His death. It was made in the “very dead of winter.”  They saw “three trees on the low sky,” symbolising Golgotha, the place of Christ’s death. When they came to a tavern, they ominously find six hands dicing for pieces of silver — silver was paid to Judas for Christ’s betrayal. And finally, the Magi ask the question, “Were we led all that way for Birth or Death?” 

There was a birth — they saw the Christ Child, but there is a death as well. The Child was born to die. In a sense, that is His purpose.  And after they encounter Christ, they are no longer at ease in their own pagan kingdoms because they live among what is now “an alien people clutching their gods.” This is a form of death from their own culture, and makes the Magi long for “another death,” their own.

Ironically, my profile image on Twitter contained a pro-life message and hinted that pro-abortion voters betrayed Jesus Christ, effectively crucifying Him again in the person of the unborn child. Containing 30 pieces of silver, a voting booth, the image of an unborn child and the message “Vote ProLife,” it implied that voting pro-abortion was equivalent to the kiss of Judas. And in fact, Planned Parenthood earned more than 30 pieces of silver for its betrayal of the American child. It raked in $1.5 billion in taxpayer funds in the last three years while it earned $229.9 million in income in 2011. In order to get back onto Twitter, I replaced the image of the crucified Christ with an image of the famous kiss of betrayal. 

How interesting that Eliot so strongly connects Christ’s birth and death while Planned Parenthood has begun a campaign to #ShoutYourAbortion. 

In the 5th Century B.C., Socrates identified forms of deceptive messages. By comparing two similar things, one good and one bad, one can make a false statement. When one delivers a living baby, one celebrates his or her birth. Now the abortionist wants us to celebrate the child’s death. These are similar ideas with drastically different and opposing results. But they fool some people. 

At Christmas, we do celebrate the Child’s death: Jesus’ is born to die for our sins. But only Jesus, true God and true Man, qualifies to die for the sins of the human race. Only God can apologise to God for man’s sins.  No one else’s death will repair the damage done by mankind.

"And so, a symbol of ignominy throughout the ages, the Cross is transformed by Jesus Christ into a symbol of victory. The Book of Genesis tells us that the cause of Adam’s disobedience was a tree; Jesus, ever-obedient to His Father’s Will, takes that tree and makes of it an instrument of salvation. Today we see that good does ultimately triumph; Jesus has not gone down in the annals of history as an executed criminal; on the contrary, He is history’s point of reference," Stravinskas wrote. 

Think of the poor Jews sacrificing untold numbers of unblemished male lambs for centuries. They killed the sheep over and over again as a sacrifice for sin. They may have had a delicious dinner, but they never received redemption by a single sheep’s death. No, that was not the point. The point was that as Abraham prophesied, “God Himself will provide the Lamb for the Sacrifice.” (Gen. 22:8) Instead of killing his son, Issac, Abraham was to sacrifice an animal. Jews would sacrifice lambs  over and over again so that in the fullness of time, when the Son of God appeared, they would recognise their own Messiah. “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world.” (John 1:29)

Excavated Aztec sacrifices, results of graphic violence

Think of the Aztecs murdering 100,000 people in one weekend by cutting into the victim’s torso in six seconds flat, removing his still beating heart, and then mounting his head on a pole. Now that was graphic violence! It was useless! Nobody was saved. But the Aztecs believed these sacrifices — routinely repeated among the Mexica people in the 14th to 16th centuries — would feed the gods and ensure the continued existence of the world. Aztecs are long gone, but the world is still here and so are the skulls of their victims.

Hitler exterminated 6 million Jews during the 1940s in an effort to purify the German race. Nothing was made pure by his actions. Images of emaciated Jews and the results of Nazi experiments are routinely published to show the horrors of Nazism. These are images of graphic violence. However, I suspect Twitter would welcome them. 

Since 1973, the people of the United States have killed 61 million Americans by abortion in the name of convenience. What convenience? Abortion is the desolation of the human family. It is the destruction of the human race. We are not allowed to show these images of graphic violence on Twitter. 

These twisted deaths do nothing to improve society, but Christ’s death brings redemption! When the New Jerusalem comes down from heaven in Revelation 21, we find that the city is built from jewels that appear first in the the Garden of Eden --  jasper, emerald, onyx, carnelian, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth, amethyst, sapphire and agate. What is the significance of the jewels? 

Ezekiel explains. This was the original state of man to be clothed in vestments of such jewels: To Adam, God said,  "You were the signet of perfection full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, carnelian, topaz, and jasper, chrysolite, beryl, and onyx, sapphire, carbuncle and emerald..." (Ezech. 28:11-13) Adam is perfect and beautiful in the midst of creation. He was priest, king and walked blamelessly on God's mountain.

The high priest in the Old Testament
wore the same jewels found in the
Garden of Eden before the Fall. They
symbolise the beauty of creation. 

Then he fell and exchanged his  beautiful garment for hard work, death and suffering, which is the consequence of the first sin, an act of rebellion against God.

In Rev. 21, the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven as a glorious Bride for her husband, the Lamb Slain. Her walls and floors contain all the jewels mentioned in the Garden of Eden that Adam wore. And now man dwells with God forever where there will be no more tears. The image shows us that man has been redeemed and restored to his original dignity as priest, king in creation! 

All this is made possible by Christ's suffering and death on the cross. 

And that’s why Christians celebrate His image, both His Death and His Birth at Christmas. His crucifixion is an image of Divine Mercy. It is the sublime beauty of hope. Because even if you have killed millions of children, or just one, you can be forgiven and receive redemption through the crucified Christ Jesus! 

Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral shows how the Catholic  mind works. It is a play about the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170. At the beginning of the play, we know we are going to the cathedral to see a death, but somehow Eliot turns it into a Birth -- Christ's Birth.

The sermon on Christmas Morning, 1170, offered by the Archbishop Thomas Becket -- before his impending murder -- gives us the clue. The archbishop tells us that wherever the Mass is celebrated, we re-present the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, while on Christmas -- with the same Mass -- we celebrate His Birth.

“As the world sees, this is to behave in a strange fashion. For who in the World will both mourn and rejoice at once and for the same reason? For either joy will be overborne by mourning, or mourning will be cast out by joy; so it is in these our Christian mysteries that we can rejoice and mourn at once for the same reason.” (Interlude, Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot)

Yes, the way Catholics think is strange to the world. Christmas is both a feast of Birth and Death. On Dec. 26, the day after Christmas, we celebrate the martyrdom of St. Stephen. The celebration of the martyrdom of the Holy Innocents also falls right after Christmas  on Dec. 28.

The Magi visited King Herod looking for directions to the Christ Child. They saw his star at its rising, but they needed to check where the new born King of the Jews would be born. They were sent to Bethlehem, where they indeed found Him. The Jews knew where their Messiah would be born. 

Herod said come back and tell me where you found Him so I can worship Him too. But like Planned Parenthood, he spoke deceptively. He was an illegitimate king, not from the line of  King David. And he knew a newborn from the line of David would be serious competition for his throne. 

Image of Graphic Violence, the Murder of the

Holy Innocents

The Magi in a dream were warned not to return to Herod, and went home by another route. But Herod remembered Bethlehem and plotted the murder of the new born king. He  sent his soldiers to murder every male child under the age of two, planning to catch the newborn Christ in his murderous net. But Mary, Joseph and Jesus — thanks to a dream sent from God — had escaped to Egypt. The rest of the little innocent boys in Bethlehem did not fare as well: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” (Matt 2:18) 

So it is no surprise that my pro-life profile was struck down on Dec. 28, the Feast of the Holy Innocents. What could be more appropriate than King Twitter attacking both a pro-life image and the image of the crucified Christ on the day that we remember the innocents killed by King Herod. Herod's murderous search continues to sweep the world today through the organisation called Planned Parenthood. Abortion is nothing to be celebrated. But it can be forgiven. Forgiveness is well worth celebrating.

Murder in the Cathedral also reminds us of Simeon, who meeting the Infant Christ, announces He will be a sign of contradiction to many, and His mother’s heart too will be pierced with a sword. To the world, Christ's bloodied image is a sign of contradiction. That is why God was ripped from my Twitter profile page.

Image of Graphic Violence

according to Twitter 

“Between Christmas and Easter what work will be done?” Eliot inquires.  The answer is Good Friday, the day on which Christ was crucified. 

“Shall the Son of Man be born again in the litter of scorn?” The Chorus asks early in the play. 

Yes in the life of a martyr such as St. Thomas Becket, in the life of all Christians, the Son of Man is again scorned and killed when they are persecuted. As the character of the Archbishop says in Eliot’s play, he has been waiting his whole life to die. So have we all. 

Since childhood, I have spent countless Friday nights praying the Stations of the Cross, singing, “O Sacred Head surrounded by crown of piercing thorn! O bleeding head, so wounded, reviled and put to scorn. Death's pallid hue comes o'er thee, the glow of life decays; yet angel-hosts adore thee, and tremble as they gaze.”

The Cruel Image of my Beloved is meant to be adored by angels and men! Certainly it deserves to be on Twitter. “Now judgment is upon this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself."  He said this to indicate the kind of death He was going to die.” (John 12: 31-33)

Where is He lifted up? Where will He die? On the cross. But He invited us to join Him! "Lift up your cross! And follow me."

Would you like to read more about Nominalism?  Read  Truth or Consequences? A Dark Churning Blindness Engulfed Humanity. It is called Nominalism

Want to read an unbeliever's dialogue with two Christians? 
Read Are We Meat Puppets?

Living in the Age of Martyrs

Pray the Rosary: It Feeds the World

by Susan Fox 

"But do you hear the bombs?” the official said.

Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta: "Yes, I hear them.” 

"It is absolutely impossible to cross (east to west) at the moment; we must obtain a cease-fire!” he said. "Ah, but I asked Our Lady for a cease-fire for tomorrow eve of her Feast Day” (Feast of the Assumption, August 15), the tiny nun responded.  (Faded Transcript of a conversation in East Beirut, Lebanon, on Aug. 13, 1982 between Saint Teresa of Calcutta and an unidentified priest and officer.)

Fighting was fierce between the Israeli Army and the Palestine Liberation Organization in West Beirut that day. But responding to a desperate cry for help, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, India, had landed in Lebanon by the small port of Jounieh on Aug. 10, 1982. The appeal for support came from Amal Makarem, horrified to find a hundred spastic and mentally retarded Muslim children abandoned in a West Beirut orphanage without food, care or hygiene. Some were dying. She herself had tried to rescue the children, but had met with reams of bureaucratic red tape. 

The faded conversation reveals that the priest, too, was objecting to Mother’s heroic intervention: “You must understand the circumstances Mother . . . Two weeks ago, a priest was killed. It's chaos out there. The risk is too great. “

Her response: "But Father, it is not an idea. I believe it is our duty. We must go and take the children one by one. Risking our lives is in the order of things. All for Jesus.”

The next evening on Aug. 14, 1982, the Eve of the Feast of Our Lady’s Assumption into heaven, total silence enveloped the city. Mother Teresa went safely into the war zone and saved the lives of 36 surviving Muslim children. That’s all that were left. (Source: AsiaNews.it)

“She is the only one who came,” said Fr. Andre Y Sebastian Mahanna, Maronite Catholic priest and founder of the Apostolate of Our Lady of Hope/St. Rafka Mission of Hope & Mercy. It is an organisation dedicated to bringing hope and mercy to persecuted Christians and innocent victims of hate throughout the world. 

That forlorn statement, “She is the only one who came” is part of the reason he started and runs the worldwide  apostolate to Christian refugees, he told Christ’s Faithful Witness in an interview this summer in Denver. 

About the same time in the same tragic war, Fr. Andre was a child growing up. His family was among dozens of Maronite Catholic families who lived as refugees 20 miles north of  Beirut in a cave called Magharet El Saheb or Magharat Al Saheb, (Cave of the Friend) to escape the ravages of a war that began at his birth in 1972 and very quickly escalated into a major clash between nations, religions, and cultures. 

“That summer the Syrian Army, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and other illegally armed groups took away the food. We had no gas, no electricity, no oil. You name it. Everything was shut down, and the siege lasted for over two years but people here (in Denver) didn’t know about it. People like me we had to live in caves. I literally slept in a Phoenician tomb (Magharet El Saheb in the ancient seaport town of Byblos),” Fr. Andre told members of St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Centennial, Colorado, during Mass on Sunday July 29, 2018.

“When I saw the deacon read the gospel, one of candles was on and one was a little dim. It reminded me that one of our favourite games to play in the cave was to go deeper inside the cave and take that  candle with you until it dims. When it dims you stop because when the candlelight blows out that’s it, you are dead. There is no more oxygen to breathe. That’s the life I lived.”

But then it was decided among his Maronite Catholic community  to take the youth up to the mountains to improve their mood. “Our food was cheddar cheese and bread, except there was no bread,” he told us.

“Now how many of you pray the Rosary on a daily basis?” he asked. A show of hands went up. “Pray the Rosary the rest of you because it feeds the world!  I mean it. It feeds the world.”

“Our Lady comes to me and she says, ‘Go to Cezar, the chief of the camp, tell him to send with you the young adults of the camp.  Go up for about 3 hours to the road. You will see a white van and the white van will have bread in it. And you will bring it down to the camp.’”

Young Andre was very excited. “I went to the chief and I told Cezar you need to listen to this. Our Lady came and she said you need to give me young adults. We are going to walk for 3 hours, and there’ll be a white van. They will have bread and we’ll bring it back.” 

Cezar’s response was “Who is this ‘Our Lady?’” 

The young Andre answered: “I think (pause) the Virgin Mary.”

Cezar’s answer was disappointing, “ Okay, I think you are really hungry.” 

Andre didn’t give up. After eight in the evening, he told Cezar everyone needed to pray the Rosary all together. So they did.

Around midnight, Cezar, said, they wouldn’t lose anything by trying so he sent Andre with some guys to go up to the road. Sure enough when they reached the road, a white van comes and stops. The driver had 150 packs of bread to give them and he drove them back to the camp. 

The man explained why he stopped, “Something was telling me I’d see a fat boy with a Rosary and that I needed to stop immediately.” Living through a war since his birth, Fr. Andre had developed a fear of hunger and the habit of looking in school trash cans for food. He jokingly attributes his chubbiness to those habits. And that night, he held a Rosary. 

“Mary said, ‘If you are hungry I’m going to give you food.’ This is what her Son said. ‘If you are thirsty I am going to give you to drink.’ Knock at the door and the door shall be opened. I honest to God believed in it,”  Fr. Andre said. 

“Cherish your children. Tell them how blessed they are. When they tell you they don’t want to go to church,  (correct them) because  if they don’t go to church, Satan is going to

Fr. Andre Y Sebastian Mahanna: "Cherish your children."

swallow them. There’s no option today. Christianity is the largest persecuted religion in the world today. I witnessed myself between 2005 to 2015, 1 million Christians in the Middle East were killed. We have mass graves — 80 percent of those are Catholics.”

The Apostolate of Our Lady of Hope/St. Rafka Mission of Hope & Mercy prays and works through spiritual diplomacy as a team of  “first responders on the front lines of persecution accompanying people who are suffering migration — (with) no homes, no passports, unknown,  not helped,  rejected,  isolated, hopeless and no (medical) treatment for them.” 

Our Lady of Hope does home visits. They bring food, hygiene products, take people to the hospital and try to build their trust.

“The Church is too much oppressed. There is no sign of heaven (for the refugees). We need to regrow solidarity within the Church under oppression to show them Christ exists,” he told Christ’s Faithful Witness. 

The Apostolate undertakes the formation of volunteers worldwide. “Throughout the world there are 220 million people experiencing oppression, rape, sex slavery, genocide, human trafficking, organ trafficking, labor slavery, and homelessness,” Fr. Andre wrote. “Some are refugees, some are without food and some have no human rights, living in countries that have become clearly hostile to the faith in Christ and those who practice it.” 

Some of the apostolate’s volunteers are doctors, youth ambassadors, speakers. They have a team of about 37 people worldwide who are being formed to serve the suffering Christians in the world. But not only that, they also evangelise their persecutors. 

“We cross behind enemy lines. We talk to them. We preach to them the Gospel. We try to tell them to learn from the story of one of the 21 martyrs who were slain in Libya. Mark the Nigerian man came as an oppressor and when he saw the 20 Coptic men being killed for their faith, he knelt down with them, converted and accepted the Christ,” Fr. Andre said at Mass. “This is life,” Mark said, “Faith in Jesus Christ.”

Fr Andre puts his volunteers under the discipleship of Pope Saint John Paul II, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, St. Maximilian Kolbe  and St. Rafka (Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès, 1832 to 1914). Rafka was a Lebanese Maronite nun who longed to share the passion and suffering of Jesus Christ.

It would take at least a month to read all the names of the monks killed in the Christian Massacre in 1860 in Lebanon that are listed in the monastic necrology. In that year, St. Rafka was actually in the village closest to the Druze Muslims, who were killing the Christians. Most people would have run the other way, but she ran toward her persecutors, who were chasing a small child. She hid him under her robes. The Druze came and questioned her, but they mistook her for a Muslim woman. 

“How did she survive this?” Fr. Andre speculated she wanted to be martyred, but God had other plans. As the orphans were rescued by Mother Teresa in West Beirut, St. Rafka saved the life of the child hidden in her robe. St. Rafka told Jesus, “I want to carry your most hidden pain.” It was the weight of the cross. Her bones broke and her eye fell out. She bore the sixth wound of Christ, Fr. Andre concluded.

Left to Right: Fr Andre, holding the Rosary, St. Teresa of Calcutta, St. Rafka, St. Maximilian Kolbe. Below: Pope Saint John Paul II

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish priest who was killed by deliberate starvation after volunteering to take the place of a Jewish father with several children in the starvation bunker of the Nazi Death Camp Auschwitz, Poland. Both he and Pope Saint John Paul II were deeply devoted to Our Lady. The pope's copy of True Devotion to Mary, which he kept by his bedside in the Vatican,  was stained with chemicals from his hands when he worked in a chemical factory as a young man. The Marian classic by St. Louis Marie de Montfort is said to be the foundation of the pope's priesthood and his papacy, out of which he urged countless number of Catholics to join the New Evangelisation.  Fr. Andre asks his volunteers to read the writings of these saints to prepare for the mission of helping persecuted Christians. 

“We try to respond to the crisis of faith hope and love in any given place where faith in Christ is under attack. We aim to spread the newness of evangelisation amongst oppressors,” Fr. Andre said. 

Fr. Andre never returned home after Our Lady’s miracle. Mary told Fr. Andre, “You need to give me your heart.”  He went and knocked on the door of the Monastery of St. Anthony the Great in Wata Houb, Tannourine, north Lebanon. There he became a monk, and was educated in France to become a priest. At the age of 23, he was assigned to shepherd the Lebanese Catholics in Los Angles, and became a naturalised American citizen.  Now he is pastor of Our Lady of Lebanon, St. Rafka Maronite Catholic Church in Lakewood, Colorado, U.S.A. 

But God is calling him to even greater efforts on behalf of the  Christians in the Middle East. He is not unknown to U.S. President Donald Trump, who at a rally in Greeley, Colorado,

Fr Andre meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump

in 2016, asked, "Does everyone here know Fr. Andre?" The whole crowd cheered. Fr. Andre -- for his part -- is hoping President Trump can be a voice for Christians in the Middle East, believing that assistance to them would be essential in reducing terror attacks in Europe and the U.S. (Source: National Catholic Register)

“We do not want to be accountable for doing nothing about the worst global persecution against the Church and Americans not knowing about it,” Father Mahanna told a gathering of Catholic Executives in Denver on Jan. 12, 2017, also reported by the NCR. “When God asks, ‘Where were you when my sons and daughters were being slaughtered?’ you don’t want to tell him, ‘I was doing business,’ or ‘I was eating,’ or ‘I was looking at iPhone messages.’ This destruction of the Christian Middle East is the gate to destroy the United States of America.”

“Christians are a treasure in the Middle East. They are capable of maintaining the peace with Muslims. They are capable of helping Muslims understand the religious value of Israel. They are capable of forgiving, pardoning and rebuilding their countries," Fr. Andre said, adding, "This (U.S.) administration should have an interest in asking Christians to assist them in how to better understand the modern Muslim world.”

In 2016, he was appointed by the Apostolic Union of Clergy in Rome to serve as a special envoy to clerics in the United States, with a specific mission of raising awareness on the status of the Christian Middle East. As founder of the Apostolate of Our Lady of Hope, “I am an ambassador of hope,” Fr. Andre concluded. 

“We are living in very special times. We must look for the age

of martyrs, of saints, of leaders, of fathers of the Church, and we must look for holy families,” he wrote in his weekly newsletter. 

“‘Do not let your hearts be troubled for I have conquered the world.’ I affirm to you again and again this splendid victorious and consoling answer of Christ, my and your Lord.”

"When Christianity is no more, the world goes into darkness." Learn more about Fr. Andre's Mission of Hope and Mercy. Sign up for his newsletter. Make a donation.  

A video of Fr. Andre's sermon can be found among the Homilies of St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Centennial, CO. Look for the one from Fr. Andre Y Sebastian Mahanna on July 29, 2018 

Prepare the World for Repentance

Sermon by Rev. John Paul Shea

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 15, 2018

Saint Charles Catholic Apache Mission Church, San Carlos, AZ

Today is another opportunity to praise God and ask for His mercy to help us live our New Life in Our Lord Jesus Christ.

In today’s Gospel (Mark 6:7-13), Jesus sends out His 12 disciples. He chose the number 12 because it signifies the 12 tribes of Israel, representing the whole people of God. Our Lord's coming fulfills God's promise to the Israelites that He would visit His people and bring true and lasting peace. 

The prophets of the Old Testament were called to guide the children of Israel toward conversion of heart so that God’s people would be prepared for the fullness of the Kingdom of God through Our Lord Jesus Christ. We hear of the Prophet Amos in today’s first reading (Amos 7:12-15). He is a shepherd called by God to speak to the children of Israel.

Now, as the 12 are sent out, Our Lord calls them to speak with urgency. They were to

take no extra provisions so that they would become reliant on the power of God and be His witness.

They were called to build the early Catholic Church so that it would faithfully announce the Kingdom of God until Jesus comes again.

Our Lord had said this world is ending and a new world is coming. Therefore, repentance and conversion are to be proclaimed everywhere so all may be saved from their sins and come to live in God’s eternal Kingdom.

In today’s second reading (Ephesians 1:3-14),  we learn blessings are in store for those who are saved through God’s mercy. Therefore, we Christian are to live in holiness in order

to prepare to live as we will in God’s Kingdom. 

Saint Paul says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.” He adds, “In love [God has] destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved.”

In our Baptism, we receive new life where we are to live -- not according to the ways of this  world -- but as God calls us to live in accord to the favor of His will.

My brothers and sisters, God has called us to be His children by adoption through Our Lord Jesus Christ. God invites us to become part of His very self.  Let us remember what God has done for us through His Son. Jesus suffered in the flesh so that we can be reconciled to God.

We received new life in God through our Baptism, but each of us needs to persevere in the practice of our faith. God has given us the most perfect way to be forgiven through frequent confession of our sins. 

After He was raised from the dead, Our Lord breathed the Holy Spirit upon His apostles and gave them the authority to forgive sins. This authority has been passed down to every

age through the ordained priesthood. I understand we do not have regular confessions here at Saint Charles, but if you would like to have regular times for confessions maybe on a Saturday or a day that you feel would be good, I will be happy to take time each week to hear confessions. 

It is also good for us to recognize and acknowledge our own weaknesses. What sins do we struggle with? What areas of temptation lead us to hurt the Holy Spirit that we have been given in our Baptism? Maybe we struggle with anger. Maybe we struggle with drugs or addictions. Maybe we struggle with temptations of the flesh and are tempted with pornography. Whatever areas we may struggle, God wants to help us. He loves us and has chosen us. He does not want us to hurt ourselves or one another.

I have heard that the Apache people were considered warriors in their brave battles in the late 19th century. I encourage each of you and myself to be warriors today not for

The Apache Christ on the Mescalero Apache reservation.

fighting earthly wars but to be warriors for our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us fight the good fight against sin with the help of God’s grace so that we may attain the gift of eternal life that Our Lord Jesus Christ paid such a dear price with His Life. 

For as Saint Paul says, it is in Our Lord Jesus Christ that we, “who have heard the word of truth, the gospel of [our] salvation, and have believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory.”

My brothers and sisters, as we come together

Fr. John Paul Shea

to celebrate the Holy Eucharist this morning, let us open our hearts to the gift of life that Our Lord Jesus has come to give all who call upon His Holy Name. For, Our Lord has not come to condemn the world because the world has already condemned itself. Our Lord has come to save us from the condemnation of this world through the message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

May God bless each one of us, and may our hearts be open to His Grace and His Love. For God has chosen us! Amen.