Letter To My MP Regarding My Position On The Redefinition Of Marriage

Dear Ms Theresa Pearce,

Thank you for your letter referenced :LRE/AKINO2013 dated on the 16th of October 2012.

I quite appreciate your personal reply to me, giving me your practical reasons why you felt the government should proceed with the redefinition of marriage. As a result of the immediate reactions and the imminent decision of the government regarding this, I deem it fit to respond to your letter and to proffer my personal reasons as to why I believe marriage should not be redefined and the practical option I feel are available towards avoiding discrimination in the society.

Experience and studies have shown that stability of home, society and nation is more sustainable under a properly instituted marriage and that all the other various forms of relationships do not really hold grounds in relation to family life, the society and its stability.

If we both agree on the statement above, our point of mutual departure shall then be that of reaching an agreement about what actually constitutes a properly defined marriage, and we shall try to see if we can actually, whimsically include gay marriage as part of this institutionalized marriage criteria, as is actually being proposed, and this in conscience, is what I would like to discuss on.

Ms Pearce, would you rather agree with me that, instead of the government going to the root and origin of marriage, and attempting to upturn it without any regards for its anthropological significance and its cultural foundations, wouldn't it be more accommodating to refine civil partnership, and perhaps 'upgrade' the Gay partnership as a 'higher' status of civil relationship, rather than making marriage a mortal culprit and upturning all its moral significance by the introduction of gay marriage?

Not that this is a good alternative, but at least, it would in a way leave a measure of compromise, rather than leaving the government entirely to the caprices of venturing into a project and decision whose repercussion would be unsustainable and detrimental to the future and posterity at large. We have already made enormous mistakes with the environment and the economy, and an attempt to tamper with marriage would also constitute a gross misconduct which would simply create a more hardened future for us and for our children.

I believe in the freedom, uniqueness and equality of humanity, but a freedom without order and boundary historically has proved disastrous and inimical to humanity, and attempts to tamper with these laws have often resulted into deeper chaos for the world. That is the basis of my objection towards legislating on the redefinition of marriage.

My personal position is that homosexuality is a disorder which needs to be approached and tackled as a social ill; but this letter is not to reiterate my personal position on this, but it is a cry towards the emancipation of creation and humanity from impending disasters which could come about as a result of decisions borne more out of levity than deep personal convictions on the part of the government.

I'm not talking simply from faith perspective, but also from simple reasoning and logic. The natural law of creation is such that it would accommodate humanity and make the distribution of the world's goods an abundance, and attempts at tampering negatively with these natural laws have always caused calamity for man, and the height of this tamper is one which affects the root cause and structural capacity of bringing forth humanity into the world, which is the institution of marriage between man and woman. This diabolical attempt of the government towards the sacrilegious fondling with the sanctity of the naturalness of marriage is thereby extremely inimical.

 A constitution called love, which carries with it all its natural intricacies, but has no means of producing fruits of its own volition does not seem to me to be a right foundation to bequeath the future. If humanity presumes to foster of its own accord, the limitation of love to a stagnant and 'fruitless' relationship like Gay marriage, then I believe that this tamper with the law of nature and its cosmological being would constitute an intrinsically evil action and the aftermath can only be negative. The fruitfulness of couples is what we must encourage and this happens in a well defined marriage between a man and a woman.

I have gay friends, and they are nice, pleasant and good people, but this reason does not make me justify actions which are essentially not contributing to the welfare of humanity. I am also aware about those who have decided to sacrifice their sexual energies and have channeled these energies into making the world a better place, or about those who desire the fruitfulness of matrimony but due to their physiological constituents are unable to do so. But creating a legalized capacity towards sexual gratifications without a direct means of procreation is an illusionist responsibility; and the sole cause of portending material gains should not warrant the rewriting of an ancient plausible custom.

The fact that I have a craving that is difficult to curtail does not warrant me justifying it, and the fact that I have a habit I struggle against does not necessitate anyone discriminating against me. I shall support the gays in their quest for human rights, but I shall object them, to the last towards the justification of their acts.

Legalizing gay marriage is anthropologically incorrect and is unnatural. It would ultimately prove inefficient and incapable of reforming society for good and would end up straining family life the more.

Thank you for your time and I hope you would be kind enough to take these reason into cognition when you are presenting the stance of our constituency towards redefinition of marriage.

Yours faithfully,

Overwhelmed With God's Favors?

God needs one thing in recompense: Praises and Thanksgiving.
To thank Him perfectly, its not just enough to say or sing it, you'll need to offer Him the totality of your life.
To offer Him the totality of your life perfectly, it's not just enough to say or sing it, you'll need to make Him do it for you.
To make Him do it for you perfectly,it's not just enough to say and sing it, you'll need to attend the sacrifice of the eternal covenant (Mass).
To attend the sacrifice of eternal covenant perfectly , you've got to receive and take Him to yourself in holy communion.
To receive and take Him to yourself perfectly in holy communion, you've got to do His will and keep Him in your memory day and night.
Praise and thanksgiving is the true worship, but it transcends words, it demands action.
The action part of thanksgiving is the Eucharist .
When you are overwhelmed about God's mercies, do praise and thank Him with your mouth,but also make sure you attend at least one Mass!
Psalm 116: 12 - 13
Rev 12: 11

So, What Has Become of Them?

When we are bequeathed with the great grace of loosing a very loved one, we are faced with a deep disturbance and we have this great urge in us to want to help such loved one out of his 'vicissitude' .We would like to believe he is greatly to be pitied for leaving the world. No! We are far more to be pitied. The deeper we love a person, the more the horror of this separation faces us, and we would love to be spared, yet our beloved is simply pointing to us what is life, but we would like to be spared of our pains and predicaments;anything that reminds us of him becomes a source of pain: his pictures, writings, videos, belongings etc; or the frequent dreams we have of the person, which perhaps we would want to be spared of, for they are at the same time deeply sorrowful and highly complex to fathom, for though we should not disregard dreams, they could be highly difficult to decipher,as difficult as trying to communicate to a babe what we would want of him . Just as it could be difficult to realize that sorrow at the departure of a loved one is one of the greatest grace we would ever have as much as it draws us towards memory, reconciliation & conversion if it is authentic .
So what has become of our loved ones, we would love to know? Are they in heaven, purgatory or - God forbid- hell? We would like to know if they are faring well; the truth is that, if such person has died in Christ and is someone acquainted to trusting in His mercy, his present state would be far far better than ours , and on the contrary, he is very much concerned about us, and his greatest concern is for us to know the truth and live it as he now knows it vividly.Mercy at last is the ultimate determinant and it lies outside the scope of our judgement ! Mercy is the promise of our faith,the faith of our fathers, of Abraham and his sons forever.
So are you sad & anxious about the state of your loved ones? These are simply calls for you to practice reconciliation , conversion & memory, that is the litmus test that they are faring well, and you are perhaps far blessed than those who have not experienced loosing a beloved, for blessed are those who mourn.

I Had A Dream: I Died... And Rose!

Why do I want to talk about this? Like all these numerous dreams, some come out so sharp and alive that you would want to keep them in your memory, not because they are pleasant , but because they plant an indelible lesson towards the journey of life.
Such was that which I had on the night of the 4th, cum morning of the 5th of October, and I consider it a lesson from my Patron St Francis, which I celebrated on that 4th.
The dream began from a church, and there was this talk - presumably by one of the administrators of the church( I don't remember him as a priest, neither as a layman; I'll call him a churchman )- about an exhibition of The Transfiguration , which would depict a somehow real experience of the transfiguration ,that which was being organized by the church ; so about four of us (me, including some friends, which i dont recognize in real life) decided to visit this exhibition with this churchman, and I personally was very excited about it, I presume my other 3 friends also were.
We left the church, it was night, and our first passage was a building which looked like a hospital. We were surprised that the patients hadn't slept by that time of the night, it felt like around 2am( probably the real time I was having the dream); later it became impressed upon me that we were in a kind of psychiatrist hallway, the patients weren't asleep, and they weren't awake either, they were moving like zombies. It was a bit scary.
Led by this churchman, we crossed this building into a main road , I had a feeling we were still traveling around a very large compound with all these( church, hospital and the exhibition venue) buildings in the custody of the church. I entered the back of a pickup van with my 3 other friends and I heard my cousin ( either Tobi or Tosin) shouting to greet me as the van was moving. He appeared to be the only recognizable figure in that dream.
We got to the exhibition building and the churchman was leading , passing through hallways, until we got to a particular door which he unlocked and went in, I followed suit and the door shut behind me with my 3 other friends outside. Immediately I felt the horror of where I was, it was very dark and frightening . I protested to the churchman that I didn't want to go in first but he ignored my plea and in spite of the fact that I knew he was with me, my horror was never lessened, it was a feeling of being alone in spite of somebody. Not knowing I hadn't seen nothing yet: I had no choice but to follow this churchman as he led me through a dark corridor and I witnessed the most dreadful part of this adventure: along this narrow corridor were beings ( wether humans or demons, I don't know) thrusting their hands out from holes of the walls from this narrow corridor and were making to grasp me, this hands were horrific and rotten and was like of dead rotten men in the midst of darkness!
I knew the churchman was at the front but I was dead with fright, I feel it is impossible to face such horror and be bold, it was very very dreadful ! In the midst of this, some things remained deeply impressed on me during this dream: I still knew the passage of this horror was a necessity towards experiencing the Transfiguration exhibition . I was also very conscious of my extreme powerlessness, and I feel indeed every man would be powerless inside that corridor , and also, I was very factually conscious that Christ would rescue me and that I would scale through, and indeed, in my own case, I was lucky that this corridor was much shorter,I feel I could have died out of fright if it had been longer. Also, meanwhile I was still hopeful and picturing what my idea of the Transfiguration exhibition would be like, I wanted to walk through the corridor quickly but I was very frightened, terrified and weak, I pity very very much in that instant those who wouldn't have the consolation of faith.
As the churchman wouldn't help me, I cried: 'Oluwa gba mi!'
I woke up.
These things remained deeply impressed on me after waking up:
1.The Transfiguration exhibition was fulfilled in the waking up to Reality. In my dream, I had preconceived an environment shining, glowing, ornamented etc, as an expression of Transfiguration , but it came out to be simply, a waking up to the peace of Reality , and that , this our present life itself is the dream, our death and Ressurection is the actual experience of waking up unto the Real Reality!
2. That Daddy's death experience was very similar to this, and Christ's went through this: He descended into hell. This 'hell' in which everything breathes damnation may be purgatory, or hell itsef;and to think that any man would be presumptuous enough to think that he could save himself from such terrifying tunnel is the height of pride, the more he would struggle alone without calling on The Lord in faith and trust, the longer he shall be in that horrific place ,and, God help him that those terrible beings don't grab him and drag him inside that hole!
3. The life of faith is a journey, I can only explain those idiosyncratic people we passed through at the hospital as people who live without motive, perambulating without journeying. From the church to the exhibition is the journey, inside that room is the experience of death, my bed at home is waking up to Reality, the Ressurection . But we are still dreaming, lets learn, this life itself is the dream. Reality is awaiting us.

The War We Are In.

What is generally downplayed at baptism and at the beginning of the decision to be a Christian is the war aspect of the journey, but, as a Christian grows he sees more and more the inconsistency of everything, he sees from his society a world structure ,order and ideology entirely bereft of truth and real freedom;he sees from his friends,families,work and church, beliefs and actions that are more or less militating against freedom and with this culture into which he was born and raised, he becomes insatiable. Worse of all he sees within himself a being widely incoherent with his ideals and he notices that he is even the primal enemy of himself. The more he aims at correcting these anomalies , the more he sees himself rather engrossed into them and the more he feels this exasperation and helplessness, because evil is deadly and aggressive. Many give up on the way, you cannot master evil with aggression , nor can you do so with complacency,but by love,patience and humility does truth come into light,bringing an advent of freedom & peace, for evil is an adept at aggressiveness, he would get you locked into itself with that strategy.Virtue lies in the middle.
Everything is moving towards goodness and freedom, no power on earth and in the heavens could halt that, but this freedom happens only through work, hardship and sufferings . If we have not sincerely been able to muster these words : ' for me,to live is Christ (cross) and to die is gain', then we must somehow still be among the principalities militating against freedom. The Lord surely would take us to the next level of freedom, where we would feel reborn, even on earth; but no sooner shall we attain this level of freedom that we shall get down to work and war, for through this shall another level and freedom come. And this movement along the Way happens till eternity, forever.So, if you would rather not move, work or suffer, you may not enjoy the Christian's heaven, for God is love and love is a verb. The beatitude is the heavenly life for those destined for eternity.

On Our Lady of Sorrows

Happy feast day my brethren, those who belong to Christ in Mary and those who look forward to His coming through her.
I still wonder why this great feast is still classed as a Memorial; if at all not a Solemnity, I feel it should at least be a Feast. It's the feast of Mary's motherhood of humanity.
As Annunciation is our feast of motherhood of Mary by grace, Our Lady of Sorrows is the feast of her motherhood on us by nature, now and here!
Mary is more than a saint, Mary is our coredemptrix, the Tree which brought up the fruit of salvation and offered It is Mary. Look at the crucifix ( yesterday's feast) and the Pieta( today's feast ) and see what all progress consist of!
We naturally would recoil from cross as we would sorrow. But by His cross we are redeemed and through her sorrow we are free!
The creation that is still in pangs, in this pain of childbirth is Mary, this great 'Holy Saturday' upon which the hope and salvation of the world depends is Our Lady of Sorrows!
I was told this in the past , but I also felt it was some over excessive devotion to Mary that made them say so, now I dont think so anymore, for I have experienced it: Mary is the hope of mankind, in her nothingness and sorrow she holds the future, if you don't comprehend her mission , forget the notion of comprehending Christ or what history and the redemption of Israel and the world consist of .
This is advanced Christianity: comprehending The Sorrowful and Immaculate of Mary!

Christ, Memory, Life and Death (Extract from Julian Carron)

What does the memory of Christ mean? Using reason again according to its nature! That is, not reducing my reality, my "I" to my mood. If i reduce everything to my mood, after a few days, i wouldnt be able to go on. Someone could say, "She's really suffering from X's death"...I assure you, instead, that if you stayed at this level, in very little time you wouldnt be able to go on. You would need to forget in order to continue living. Only a person who does not need to forget (rather remembering, urges him to the memory of Christ) can stay in front of death and can remain X's friend in another modality. The others, wether they want to or not, would erase him from their lives. Not out of spite, but because they would not be able to stay in front of him, and would have to forget. And instead of staying before the eternal, they would have to return to the usual life and reduce reality to appearances.
Instead , every time it hurts, every time i feel the wound, if it is an ocassion of memory, we see how X remains our friend. He is more a friend than ever, because nothing has made us live before the truth, that is, before the eternal, the way Xs death has. And this judges all our friendship, which, many times, rather than helping us to live before the eternal, make us forget it, distract us from the eternal.
What kind of friendship is ours? It is as if the death of a friend puts our back to the wall: What kind of friendship is ours, if not for being able to look at this? If we are not friends in death, then we are not even friends in life- even if it does not wound us as much as death.
Lets finish by saying this: we cannot fill the void left by death with our imagination. What is of X now? What do you think? To think about it, from where do you start? Jesus said, " Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent , Jesus Christ". For this reason, the only modality for not filling this unknown with our imagination and then attributing it to the Mystery (which is almost inevitably the risk we fall prey to if we are not careful)consists in helping each other look at X starting from the experience we have had with Christ. Because X, now, is living the fulfillment of that experience, is living that experience more intensely, is living the whole of that experience, of that beginning. But it is the fulfillment of what he was already living here! It is not something else; it is the fulfillment of that. So then , eternal life is not eternal boredom, such that in the end we could think, " Poor fellow, what a shame!" Perhaps X is more fortunate than we. Rather, not perhaps: he is more fortunate than we, because today he is telling us, " Look, life is this!" With his living this fulness now, he is saying to all of us, " Look, friends, life is this! Life is Christ, and death is gain".