One man’s cup of tea is another man’s poison.
A Chinese proverb.
He who has a “why” will find a “how”.
Friedrich
Nietzsche, 1844-1900, a
German existentialist philosopher and philologist.
Life is a mysterious plot of chance, destiny, and character.
Wilhelm
Dilthey, 1833-1911, a
German philosopher, sociologist, and hermeneut
(a
scholar who studies interpretations and meanings of texts).
Extinction is the rule, survival is the exception.
Carl Sagan,
1934-1996, an American cosmologist and science communicator.
1.
Transnoia.
Transnoia (from the Latin prefix trans-, “beyond”, “outside”,
“through”, also, “change” or “moving” and the Greek word νοũ̃ς,
noũs, “mind”). I am going to write this Greek word without the tilde above the “υ” (but it
must have it): νους.
The transnoia or “beyond the mind” or “through the
mind” is the discipline by which a man/woman lucubrates in order to create
conjectures about himself/herself and his/her relationships with others. “What
if I...”, and this can be considered in a positive or a negative sense...
Speaking of the positive sense, the transnoia deals with
self-improvement, working harder, studying, saving; in short, everything you
can consider positive.
Regarding the openness to others, especially to our fellow-creatures
or neighbors, the transnoia has to do with proposing, suggesting, cooperating,
encouraging, always constructively, positively, and to work collectively to
achieve a beneficial purpose.
Given that human relationships are bidirectional or
multidirectional, the potential recipient of any proposal or suggestion always is
and will be free to reject it, even though it seems to the proponent that he/she
can help the potential recipient to improve his/her situation, et cetera.
Moreover the negative sense can be exemplified if an
individual intends to fall into vice, crime, vagrancy, loitering, failure, irresponsibility,
debauchery...
Similarly, anyone can direct this negative sense to his/her
peers through induction or the intention of inducing his/her fellow men toward
pernicious activities: vice, crime, vagrancy, loitering, failure,
irresponsibility, debauchery, et cetera.
Also, the others can reject or accept the proposal in
part, or even adapt it from their point of view, to their reality.
-
The slain former U.S. Attorney General and Senator
Robert F. Kennedy (Robert Francis Kennedy) (Brookline, Massachusetts 11/20/1925-Los
Angeles, California 06/05/1968) once, before students of a South African
university in 1966, quoted lines of the serpent in the play Back to Methuselah (A Metabiological
Pentateuch), by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950):
You see things, and you say, Why? But I dream things
that never were, and I say, Why not?
A paraphrasis, this time by U.S. Senator Edward
Kennedy (1932-2009), a brother of the above-mentioned Robert Kennedy:
Some men see things as they are and say, Why? I dream
things that never were and say, Why not?
In a positive sense, by applying the transnoia you
should try to get to the “other side of the river” by crossing the bridge, and if
there is no bridge, learn to swim with a good teacher (no matter if it takes
days or weeks), wait some time until the right time comes, and swim... or make
a bridge, or cooperate in building a bridge, or call a number of people for
helping you to build a bridge...
The point is getting across to move on, to go on –it
is better if you do it alone as far as possible, but not completely and utterly
alone– toward your destiny, profession, job, family, future, your way of life, and your life... Maybe in your life, you will need to cross a few "rivers" only, or 400, or maybe 30,000... maybe you do not know it... yet.
Also, you should put into action the “high beam” of
your perception, your mind, as when on the road in a very dark night, you
switch your vehicle's headlights to “high beam” to see further, and reach your intermediate,
temporary or final destination, safely or with less risk.
After a mild or deep introspection, after a short or
long self-examination and analysis, you may be able to embark on changing the
world, but maybe FIRSTLY you should change yourself.
The transnoia is about cooperation, collaboration,
collectivity, community, co-management, self-management, cooperativism, self-improvement,
and the teaching of the old saying: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a
day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.
2. Freedom.
Freedom. The man, once he has reached a certain age,
should be free. This age can vary, depending on the individual: 18 or 21 or 25
or even 40 years old?
The English empiricist and liberal philosopher John
Locke (1632-1704) proposed that the life, property, freedom and the right to
happiness are natural rights of men.
Freedom is a natural human ability to act one way or
the other, and not to act (to omit). The faculty to decide what to do, what not
to do, what to stop doing, what to start doing, what to do intermittently, et cetera,
without harming others, and being responsible for his/her actions and
omissions.
Exercising freedom is a matter of will and
responsibility.
German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
once wrote: “The will is the backbone of the spirit.”
3. Common
sense.
“Sound and prudent judgment based
on a simple perception of the situation or facts”.
“Thinking
and proceed as the generality of people would.”
“Right judgment most of humankind possesses.”
We think with common sense, and then act according to
common sense.
Thomas Reid (1710-1796), a leading Scottish philosopher,
was the founder of the philosophical school
of Scottish
He opposed the common
sense realism to skepticism of David Hume (1711-1776), who argued that the
principle of causality was questionable, and the idealism of George Berkeley
(1685-1753), who said that the outside world was a mere figuration of mind.
In 1764,
in Aberdeen ,
Scotland
Reid considered epistemology (theory of knowledge) as
an introduction to practical ethics: when philosophy confirms us in our common
belief, all we have to do is to act according to our beliefs, because we know
which one is correct. This moral philosophy evokes the Latin Stoicism, and Reid
often quotes Cicero
The applying of common sense will help the ordinary
citizen, id est, the so-called man in the street; also, the scientist, the
nobleman, the housewife, the farmer, the landowner, the worker, the employee,
the employer, the professional / practitioner, the girl, the boy, the student,
the ruler, anyone and everyone.
4. Justice.
In order to be fair, we need to precisely apply the
Golden Rule as it is in Matthew VII, 12. How difficult it is to comply fully
with it, but we must try, at least. In our relationships with other people, it
seems there is nothing else to do:
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the Law and the Prophets.”
–Word of the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ, the
Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity.
In Latin: Auream Regulam.
Omnia ergo, quaecumque vultis ut faciant vobis homines, ita et vos facite
eis; haec est enim Lex et Prophetae.
5. Ethics.
Ethics teaches you to walk straight through life
successfully. You should not go committing outrages and abuses everywhere. You
must be responsible.
Ethics is a part of philosophy that deals with
morality and the obligations of man.
Another dictionary definition:
Set of moral standards that govern human behavior.
Today, in the second decade of the 21st. century, when
the printed and electronic media often and overwhelmingly deal with rights –for
example, they exalt human rights, which is fine– but forget or relegate the
duties, obligations, they should have exist also: State Commissions on Human
Duties, Provincial Commissions on Human Duties, District Commissions on Human
Duties, Departamental Commissions on Human Duties, Municipal Commissions on
Human Duties, Regional Commissions on Human Duties National Commissions on
Human Duties, in all of the countries, Inter-American Commission on Human
Duties, European Commission on Human Duties, Asian Commission on Human Duties,
African Commission on Human Duties, Oceania Commission on Human Duties, and
World Commission on Human Duties.
Good thing that since the last few years, the
associations and governments of many countries are teaching and instilling not
only about human rights but about human obligations and duties, too, to girls, boys,
youth, adults, businessmen, officials and public servants, et cetera.
6. Ensurership.
Ensurership is a practice to ensure the truth of
something. It is not an innate human ability, but it can be attained, and it would
be useful, at least theoretically, to check carefully the accuracy of an idea,
thought, concept, hypothesis, theory, saying, phrase, event, act, axiom,
theorem, rule, thesis, precept, principle, law, norm, standard, maxim,
apothegm, proposition, culture, order, decree, mandate, command, et cetera.
After the verification of the truth, we can move to
another phase: practicality (utility, convenience, profit) or not of that idea,
thought, saying, et cetera, and the possibility of putting it into practice
(praxis) or not, not running it, or, when it is still in the theoretical stage,
lightly or deeply modify it, and then apply it, et cetera.
What advantage can I take of something right now if I make sure myself about
the truth of it, but I cannot apply it to my life? Only the benefit of knowing
it as a true thing.
And... the possibility of its application in the future still
stands.
However, if by being an ensurer you will consume more
time than you would like to dedicate to the task, or if you believe that the
means to obtain the certainty will be more costly than the benefit you could
obtain by that certainty, do not put into practice the ensurership too often,
which has to be used when absolutely necessary or when the accessory when the
accessory are less costly than the main thing, and in addition, you should
consider the size of the accessory and of the main thing; the important matter
is the net and final result.
7. Health.
What does it profit a man to be rich in money and/or
goods if he has not the most precious: health, tranquility, peace of mind?
There are many kinds of riches in the world. I am
going to mention but a few:
Rich in time are those children and teenagers, daughters
and sons of wealthy families (and sometimes not so wealthy) who only have an
obligation to study a few hours a day and the rest of the time they have it virtually
free.
Prisoners are often rich in time, but they do not have
the excellence of freedom, nor can they engage in a work they would like, nor
have the theoretical or practical or economic resources to develop certain
tasks (knowledge achieved by the teaching-learning system, or the experience acquired
by the exercise of a previous activity), even when there are already paid jobs
inside prisons. Some writers have claimed that their best novels, stories,
poems... were those they have written in prison.
Pensioners or retirees can be rich in time, they go to
the bridge club, bar, café, garden, park, or library (this one can be real or
virtual) in order to “kill time”, and they can go to the café to “arrange the
world”, or they go to other places to take away time to friends or
acquaintances who still work, and they go to the home or, worse, to the
workplace of those friends, acquaintances or relatives who do work. They are
usually avoided like the plague.
Rich in money and/or goods are rich people, successful
entrepreneurs or professionals, the richmen, wealthy heirs...
Rich in knowledge are the competent ones and those who
can and want and do well their job, work, profession.
Rich in knowledge are teachers, professors, and
experts in one or more disciplines or fields of science/technology, but these
do not pass it (their knowledge or expertise) onto others because that is not
their obligation or they do not have the time to do it or because they
sometimes do not want to, although they can be occasional or sporadic teachers or
gurus to others. –Teachers receive a payment for teaching, transmitting and
disseminating knowledge, and they deserve it indeed! Although we are now in a
stage of transformation, in which we are told that the 21st-century teacher must
be one whose work is not so much teaching as has been traditional, but rather his/her/their work will be encouraging his/her/their students to learn.
Rich in work are the workaholics, who cannot rest, nor
want to go on vacation, sometimes they do not even want to go to the movies, or
to the beach, picnic, or party with the family.
Rich in beauty and aesthetics are the people whose
face and/or body somehow resembles/approximates the definitions we have been
received from artists such as Il Pinturicchio (Bernardino di Betto, 1454-1513),
Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520), Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Diego Velázquez
(1599-1660), portraits of girls and women, but not of men, by Rembrandt
(1606-1669), Camille Corot (1796-1875), and John William Waterhouse (1849
-1917).
Other influences are the beauty contests, for example,
Miss Universe.
Beauty is subjective (or beauty is in the eye of the
beholder), some might say, but to define it in some way, in recent centuries the
faces and bodies that appear in oil portraits painted by the above-mentioned
artists and some others, have been considered as models of beauty.
Rich in spirituality and/or love are those people who
seldom alter, and when they do, it is not too much, not to a great extent, and
they are quiet, serene, masters of themselves, that rather than having or
being, they serve voluntarily and without receiving money in return, and even
love others, whether or not their children, parents, siblings, or relatives.
They are the ones who tend to apply, or effectively
apply, the Golden Rule, referred to in item 4, above. They are PHILANTHROPISTS,
love their fellow men, and act benefiting the community: others and themselves,
as far as they can, in their environment, in their own way, in their circumstances.
So what does it profit, for example, a
multimillionaire from his/her property and wealth to prolong his/her life, if he/she
is in the terminal phase of an illness? His/her wealth is almost of no use to
him/her.- ) His/her property and wealth will serve predominantly to bequeath to
his wife/her husband and his/her children.
And what kind of wealth is more valuable? Apparently,
health.
8.
Knowledge, teaching, education, learning, study.
Jewish American sociologist, writer, and futurist
Alvin Toffler (New York, 1928- ), an agnostic, former worker, former communist,
in a book titled Revolutionary Wealth,
co-written with his wife Heidi Toffler (New York, 1929- ) says that there are
at least four “deep fundamentals” of wealth: knowledge, work, time, space.
Data,
information, knowledge.
Data are simple elements, without context.
If you juxtapose data and add context, you have
information.
If you link the information with more information
and/or add context according to larger models, you have knowledge.
For example:
Data: “1,300 tons of wheat.”
Information: “1,300 tons of wheat from Kansas are being transported to Chicago
Knowledge: “1,300 tons of wheat at 2.1 thousand
dollars a tonne, are being transported from Kansas
to Chicago Chicago
In the process of teaching and learning, teachers
transmit knowledge and yet they keep, retain it, since knowledge is a
non-rival, is not competitive with each other, not antagonistic, not opposed to
itself.
Instead, material objects are rivals, antagonists
between each other.
When farmer John is using his tractor, nobody else can
use it.
When Laura is using her sewing machine, no one else
can use it.
When someone reads a book, he/she can read it with one
or more additional persons at his/her side, or several people may have copies
of the same book.
When someone watches a television program, for example
about science or technology, he/she may be accompanied by one, two, three ...
ten or more people. A professor in the classroom teaches simultaneously to
dozens of students, thanks to the blackboard, white board, or electronic
screen.
“When you share money, you keep half the money;
when you share food, you keep half the food;
when you share knowledge, you keep double the knowledge.”
One of the joys and pleasures of life should be
exercising our physical and intellectual abilities, the joy we get into an
exciting voyage of awareness or a journey of consciousness and cognition, the pleasure
of having new experiences every day, exercise imagination, pay attention to
science, reading, trying to understand hypotheses and theories, abstracting,
reasoning (in this, neurons with their axons, dendrites and synapses intervene),
focus the mind, not just memorize or retain knowledge, but being able to
generate new ideas, or have the willingness to get them, to learn; posing
problems to solve exercises and formulas, and so on.
Continuous growth can be achieved through constant
change.
Semper
ascendens ad astra is a Latin phrase which can be
translated as Always upward to the stars.
The Greek philosopher Plato said that education "is to give to the body and soul all the beauty and perfection of which they are susceptible."
Education is also the developing of the intellectual faculties of the child or young through theories, precepts, exercises, examples, et cetera.
9. Time.
Physicist and science writer Michio Kaku (San Jose,
California, 1947- ) talks about a mysterious element or factor: Time, in a series
of four or six parts –videos, depending on who uploaded the videos.
Please go to Youtube, and type the following: Michio
Kaku Time.
Time, in the Einstein’s general relativity theory, is
the fourth dimension. The first three dimensions are length, width or breadth,
and depth or height, conventionally and mathematically represented by the
letters x, y, z. The time is symbolized by the letter t. Human beings are
four-dimensional creatures.
The time, once wasted, is never recovered.
Time is money. In Spanish: El tiempo es oro. (Time
is gold). Tempus fugit: Latin phrase
meaning: Time flies.
10. Work.
He who wrote a book called Proverbs, some three
thousand years ago, invites us to work like the ants do.
Proverbs, VI, 6-11.
The sluggard and the ant.
As in the
fable, the ant teaches virtue.
Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.
How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
When will you get up from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest —
and poverty will come on you like a thief
and scarcity like an armed man.
–
Work shall set you free.
Latin: Opus liberabit
vos.
German: Arbeit wird euch frei machen.
Spanish: El trabajo os hará libres.
At the top of the gates of the Nazi concentration
camps (Konzentrationslager or, abbreviated, KZ) it can be read in German: Arbeit
macht frei: Work sets you free.
We must change the meaning of this phrase, which was
an irony or mockery for human beings imprisoned there. This phrase, if you work
well in either a business of your own, or for others in exchange for a salary
or payment or fees, or if you work in a necessary job for yourself and/or your
family, for example, unpaid work at home, or if you do an unpaid job, or you
practice a hobby not for the money but for the sake of pleasure or as a
pastime, the phrase becomes true: work sets you free.
If you believe that work enslaves you... Imagine not
washing your clothes and you have a pile of dirty clothes, not washing your
plates, pots, pans, et cetera... if you do not take out the trash or do not put
trash in its place... Not to work is illogical.
That phrase of the Nazis must undergo a 180-degree
turn, its meaning has to be reinterpreted to become an incentive in our
fast-paced world of today, in our time, for our benefit.
Genesis, III, 19. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread ...”. It seems a curse. It is not.
In Latin: In Sudore vultus tui vesceris pane.
Proverbs, XIV, 23: All hard work brings a profit.
If you work as an employee, you will receive a salary
or payment. If you are a technical or professional, you will receive fees. If
you are a small businessman/businesswoman, or an entrepreneur, you will earn money. If you
work at home, there will be no financial payment, but there will be other
benefits for you and/or for your loved ones, your family: for example, they will
have their clothes clean, cooked food (because you go to buy raw food and
cook), et cetera.
In a reductionist sense of the anthroposophy oriented toward
work, we can say that human beings are fundamentally eyes, brain, and hands. We
see, learn & think, and work.
Labor omnia vincit
(Latin). –It is the motto of the State of Oklahoma
–
Today, as yesterday, as always, there are new ways of
working; some economists and sociologists call them disruptive.
The acceleration of changes, the globalized space and
the technological knowledge provide instant power even to young people (who
have not yet reached high school or college, for example).
Today, teachers, professors, writers, journalists,
translators, editors, graphic designers, illustrators, publishers,
photographers, videographers, distributors, developers, vendors, salesmen, and
even psychologists, counselors, advisors, chefs, industrial designers, et cetera,
thanks to personal computers (PCs), modems, the internet, and that wonderful
part of the internet called world wide web (www) or simply, web, can work
remotely; well, some of these professionals or employees can do so partially,
at least.
Their counterparts can be students, readers, viewers,
customers...
Also, you can play chess, dominoes, backgammon,
checkers, Chinese checkers, et cetera, with people dwelling in Australia
In duolingo.com or www.duolingo.com
you can learn a second or a third language, for free.
Six out of the many characteristics brought by these
sudden changes caused by disruptive technology are:
1) Instantaneity.
Instantaneous communication –you can turn on your computer at any time of day.
The web or www (a part of the internet), and the internet itself work all year
round, day and night. This allows us to go faster.
ICT (information and communication technologies),
communication networks and their integration with information technology,
cybernetics, and ergonomics, have enabled the use of services that let communication
and information transmission between physically remote locations, in a fast,
instantaneous or nearly instantaneous way.
The French journalist, filmmaker, teacher, consultant
and lecturer Francis Pisani (Paris, 1942- ) is the best popularizer of the word
mobiquity or cellubiquity (an acronym composed of “mobility” and “ubiquity”, in
French: mobiquité; in Spanish: movicuidad).
Apparently the creator of this new word is the
Frenchman Xavier Dalloz, a specialist in new information and communication technologies
(ICT).
Mobiquity has to do with anyone consulting the internet,
surfing the web, browsing, et cetera, and not only at home or at the workplace or
at an internet café or cybercafé, by using a personal computer (PC), but also anyone
can do it in a café, in a burger business like McDonald's, in a park or urban
garden, on the street, in your car, on the bus, et cetera, by using a cell
phone or mobile phone, laptop, smart phone, tablet... you name it. You can surf
the web, pay a visit to any website, et cetera, instantly, in what connoisseurs call real time.
2) Digitization.
Firstly, we need to say that the real
world is mainly an analogical world and not a digital world. The human
brain is predominantly analogical, it works based on analogies, similarities;
it uses continuous variables, and makes many comparisons. Analogical reasoning
is a mental operation that gets a conclusion from premises in which it is
established a comparison between different elements or groups of elements.
The constructivism of Jean Piaget (1896-1980, a Swiss
epistemologist, psychologist and biologist, creator of the constructivist
theory of learning) and Lev S. Vygotski or Vygotsky or Vigotsky (1896-1934, a Russian of Jewish
origin psychologist), announces that the students must receive from their
teachers, tools to create their own procedures to resolve a conflict, implying
that his/her concepts or ideas be transformed, changed, and he/she continues to
learn.
Moreover, any person (not necessarily a “student”, “alumnus”
or “learner”) can come to understand concepts or things previously unknown,
add, rearrange and recombine knowledge, based on what he/she knows since an
hour, a day, a month, a year, five years, et cetera, and/or after reading to
learn something new, and/or after an explanation given by a teacher or by “an
occasional, spontaneous or sporadic professor or guru (id est, a perfect
stranger explains what, how, why, what for, where… and we may not ever see
him/her again in our lifetime). This unknown person can illustrate us in
person, directly, or through one of their websites or blogs, or videos he/she
may have uploaded to YouTube a month ago, two years ago, et cetera, the date
does not matter, and so we need not to meet him/her. Learning is rather a
matter of will. We must want to learn.
The digital
world is faster and does not need so much blah-blah. Information travels
through satellite, hertzian waves, optic fiber, copper wires, and wireless devices. Many
students do not need going to the library to borrow a book and do their
homework. Numerous books and papers have been digitized and uploaded to the
famous, ubiquitous and pervasive web.
3) Penetration.
This has to do with the popularity of a website. The “hits” or clicks or
incidences that demonstrate how few or how many visits to a certain website have
been paid. If a website has few visits a week or a day, that website has little
penetration.
[Do you need to install a hit counter in your website?
Please, just type the following in the search box of
Google:
install a hit counter in your website.
Then, click on several links and choose the one that
best fits you.]
Theoretically, the penetration of a website can be in
all areas (scientific, artistic, cultural, economic, educational, industrial,
et cetera). The impact could possibly be extended to all societies worldwide.
In www.alexa.com
and www.quantcast.com they keep records,
“standings”, rankings and ratings of numerous web sites (exempli gratia, Google
is the leader), while in technorati.com or www.technorati.com
they keep records of many, many blogs.
4) Innovation.
Do not let others leave you behind, learn something new every day, get more
knowledge. At the same time, please innovate. You need not be a great
scientist. Often ordinary people look for solutions easier and faster, and sometimes
find them. Some argue that humanity must seek constant and continuous change.
5) Diversity.
The benefits can be very diverse; please do not limit yourself to a mere
interfamiliar or interfriendly communication, example when you watch a video of
your favorite idol (singer) in Youtube, or upload to Facebook the most recent photograph
of your daughter on her birthday number four. That's fine, and provides
emotional satisfaction, but...
As in a game of table tennis, besides communication, id
est, the information flow must be bidirectional or two-way is round, and
rebound and re-rebound many times, this information must have a content and must
be more utilitarian, more practical, and more scientific. Please leave trivial or
family or irrelevant activities for your economic future, leave video games, or
entertainment for your few or many spare moments. This is about using the web
in a more practical, utilitarian, and even money-related way. With the information you have or you can
get, you are creating new information. Information and knowledge are
expanded and enriched as you juxtapose more data to information or knowledge.
To juxtapose means “to place side by side”
Then, the information can grow virtually or figuratively
and not only by the way of juxtaposition*, but in a more strong and intimate
way, the intussusception.**
* Juxtaposition: Way of increasing or agglomerating minerals,
unlike plants and animals, which grown by means of intussusception.
**Intussusception: Way by which the organic beings
grow by assimilating inwardly elements, unlike inorganic matter, which gets
bigger only by juxtaposition.
6) Trends
towards automation. One area where we have not made much progress and may
not advance much is “trends toward automation,” because we may need to continue
to apply, on a par with software and highly automated systems, something called
“human-based computation” (HBC) “.
HBC automation and systems are not mutually exclusive,
but complementary.
The link below will help you understand what “human-based
computation” is.
11. Self-diagnosis, almost “do it yourself”.
Carl Rogers (1902-1987) was an American influential
psychologist, who originated the nondirective therapy.
The client-centered psychotherapy is the name of a
psychotherapy framed in the humanistic psychology. The use of the word “client”
–instead of “patient”– intends to emphasize a different semantic nuance, in
view that a client still has the responsibility and freedom on the therapeutic
process as an active agent, as opposed to “patient”, as the term indicates in
its literal sense (“be patient with the problem”).
If you have health and luck, time will be enough for
you to do more, and you will be a longeval individual.
When times become tough, please look for the support
of family.
The family is the oldest institution of humanity. No
other is as ancient as this one. The family has existed since the time of the
caveman.
12. Prayer.
Prayer is the most powerful weapon that exists on the
planet.
This phrase has come being repeated by religious
people and priests for centuries.
In Google, the phrase: prayer is the most powerful
weapon, gives us as a result, 7,000,000 websites.
Before and/or after asking God for someone or
something, before and/or after prayer... you must act towards
achieving a goal or purpose, an end, with the means we have at hand or with the
ones we can and want to create. “God helps those who help themselves”, an old
popular saying goes.
Every man is free to be Catholic, Protestant,
Evangelical, Anglican, Pentecostal, interdenominational, Gideon,
nondenominational Christian without ritual nor dogma, Jewish or Mosaic,
Brahmanical or Hindu, Muslim, animist, agnostic, atheist, et cetera.
If you do not pray, if you do not like it, if you do
not have time, if you do not believe in a God, at least ACT.
Sign of the Cross:
By the Sign + of the Holy Cross, from our + enemies
free us, + O Lord, My God.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Hail Mary:
Hail Mary, Full of Grace,
The Lord is with thee.
Blessed are thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit
of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary,
Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now,
and at the hour of death.
Amen.
The Glory Be:
Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit.
As it was in the beginning,
is now,
and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.
In order to read more, please go to:
I affirm that the religion we, the faithful of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church, profess, is the only true one.
All of the prophecies were fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
As “samples”, I am going to mention two “buttons”:
1) Micah, V, 1 → Luke, II, 4, about Bethlehem
2) Isaiah LXI, 1-2 → Luke, IV, 18-21: “The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the
poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the
captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised.
“To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”
And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the
minister and sat down.
And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue
were fastened on him.
And he began to say unto them, “This day is this
scripture fulfilled in your eyes.”
-
Jesus raised his friend Lazarus, who had died four
days earlier:
John, XI, 17, 39-44: Then when Jesus came, he found
that he [Lazarus] had lain in the grave four days already. [...]
Jesus said, “Take ye away the stone.”
Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said unto
him, “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days”.
Jesus saith unto her, “Said I not unto thee, that, if
thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?”
Then they took away the stone from the place where the
dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, “Father, I thank thee
that thou hast heard me
“And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because
of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast
sent me.”
And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud
voice, “Lazarus, come forth.”
And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot
with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin.
Jesus saith unto them, “Loose him, and let him go.”
In Matthew, XXVIII, 5-6, we can read: And the Angel answered
and said unto the women, “Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was
crucified.
“He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come,
see the place where the Lord lay.”
The Father raised
his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, for several reasons: the New Covenant;
because Christ fulfilled his
messianic mission,* because he was obedient,**
and preached, served and died to save humanity; because thus the Father demonstrated
to the rebellious and ungrateful humanity that His Son is not only a prophet,
philosopher, theologian, but he is the Son of God, and God,*** The Truth, and
the Way, and the Life...
*John, XIX, 30: When Jesus therefore had received the
vinegar, he said, “It is finished”: and
he bowed his head, and gave up the spirit.
**Philippians, II, 8: ... he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death, even the
death of the cross.
***John, I, 1-2: In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with
God.
Galatians, I, 1: Paul, an apostle (not of men, neither
by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead).
Ephesians, I, 17-20: That the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and
revelation in the knowledge of him:
The eyes of your understanding be enlightened; that ye
may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of
his inheritance in the saints,
And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to
us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him
at his own right hand in the heavenly places…
I will quote something that Jesus Christ said, and
something that James wrote.
The only begotten Son of God, according to John, XII,
8a, said, “For the poor always ye have with you…”
That is, there will be poor people until the end of
the world... so that those of us who are no poor, or are less poor, help them.
In the house of his friends Lazarus, Mary and Martha
in Bethany (a city of rest for Jesus Christ, a haven of peace, very different
from Capernaum, Nazareth and Jerusalem), Jesus let Mary anointed his feet with
an ointment of spikenard, but the other message conveyed to men of his time
that were listening to him, and to men of the future, id est we, who can read
what Saint John the Eagle of Patmos wrote, is: help the poor, love the poor,
teach the poor, give drinking water to the poor, clothe the poor, feed the
poor, listen to the poor, pay attention to the poor, do not despise the poor, et
cetera.
James, II, 14-17. What doth it profit, my brethren, though
a man said he hath faith, and have not works?, can faith save him?
If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of
daily food,
And one of you say unto them, “Depart in peace, be ye
warmed and filled”; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are
needful to the body; what doth it profit?
Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being
alone.
Some may say, what has been written in the Bible are
stories, fantasies, or an ahistorical invention.
Well… Faith is a gift from God that not everyone receives.
Saint Peter, head of the Church in Jerusalem 1801 in New Spain, in some
minerals brought from Zimapán, in the nowadays State of Hidalgo, Republic of
Mexico, firstly called this element as “pancromium”; later, “eritronium”.
Saint Peter was the pope number 1, and there have been
266 popes until today, April in the year of Our Lord 2013. The reigning Pope is
Francis (former Argentinean cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 1936- ).
Others will recreate by pointing up that the Church has
missed the way, that it amasses large fortunes, some bishops and archbishops tolerate
pedophile priests, and they will mention, for example, Rodrigo Borgia
(1431-1503), who reigned as Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503); but… do you know
God's plans?
A great-grandson of Pope Alexander VI was a saint,
Saint Francis Borgia, S.J., (1510-1572), the Fourth Duke of Gandía, a Spanish
Jesuit, and third Superior General of the Society of Jesus.
A strange form of communication:
Contact someone you have not seen for many years.
What has
become of those of your friends from primary/elementary school?
Where
are those Kindergarten or preschool classmates whom you played marbles or other
games in the school yard with?
If you
cannot contact them via Twitter, Linkedin, Orkut, Facebook, Google+, electronic
mail or phone, because you do not know where they live or if they still live,
pray, pray to God for them, leaden or sunny days, in mountain valleys, deserts,
plains, coasts, jungles, forests, islands, and beaches, in towns and big cities…
Where
are now your former neighbors of the district, division, neighborhood, where
you grew up and whom you have not seen in fifteen, 40 or 60 years? Because even
you and/or they may have moved to another city or another country ... or to another
world.
Wherever
they are, you can pray for them.
Finally, God is with the Church he founded, led on Earth by the
legitimate successors of Saint Peter for two thousand years: Matthew, XXVIII,
18-20: And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, “All power is given unto me
in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world.”
By Alejandro Ochoa G.
Guadalajara, State of Jalisco, Mexico.
Gvadalaxara, Xaliscum, Mexicum.
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