half-baked taters

'Jesus' items yanked off shelves here

This follows complaints from some Catholics that the range of items was disrespectful

By Theresa Tan

A LOCAL retailer has yanked a range of cheeky cosmetics and bags with Jesus-inspired slogans like 'Get tight with Christ' and 'Redeem yourself in His eyes'. Fashion retailer Topshop, which has eight stores here, made the move late last month following complaints from some Catholics who called the items 'disrespectful'. A spokesman for Wing Tai Retail, which manages Topshops in Singapore, said it was sorry if it had offended the Christian community. 'We don't want to offend our customers,' said the spokesman, who asked not to be named. At the centre of the controversy were body creams, lip balms, bags and other items marketed under the 'Looking Good for Jesus' line. The lip balms had the message 'virtuous vanilla' on its packaging; the hand and body cream came with the words 'Get His attention' and 'Redeem your reputation and More!' The phrases rankled Christians here, including accountant Grace Ong, 24. The Catholic said: 'Why would anyone use religious figures to promote vanity products? It's very disrespectful and distasteful.' There are eight Topshops in Singapore, but only three - stores in Wisma Atria, Marina Square and VivoCity - sold the religious-themed products, said the Wing Tai spokesman. The spokesman was unable to provide more details on the offending items yesterday as the Wing Tai office was closed for the Chinese New Year holidays. However, Wing Tai said the products are from Blue Q, an American brand. Blue Q has released other products that poke fun at gays and politicians. M&Co, a local firm which has imported Blue Q's products for the past two years, said Blue Q items 'poke fun at everyone but (do) not single out any particular group'. 'Blue Q's products are very interesting. Its humour is off the hook,' the spokesman said. Still, Catholics like Nick Chui are not laughing. The 27-year-old marketing executive wrote to Wing Tai last month after spotting the items at Topshop. Mr Chui said: 'These products trivialise Jesus Christ and Christianity. Besides, there are also sexual innuendoes in the messages and the way Jesus is portrayed in these products.' Mr Chui said he is thankful that Topshop has pulled the items from its shelves.

posted | 21:59 |  0 comments

Book Meme

1) Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews?

Too many that I can't recall any at the moment.

2) If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be?
Only three? Hmm... it would be cool to meet Pierre Bezuhov, Katherine Denham and Aloysha Karamazov. Come to think of it, they would probably think I was a bore though.

3) (Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for a while, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave?
The Lighthouse? Couldn't get past the first chapter despite several valiant attempts.

4) Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it?
If I can't regurgitate anything from a book, it's probably because I forgot what I read.

5) You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (If you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead and personalise the VIP).
May be cliche, but definitely War and Peace.

6) A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with?
Russian!

7) A mischievous fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick?
Haha.. too many to choose. Well, maybe Wodehouse?

8) I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)?
St Blogs introduced me to Evelyn Waugh, Flannery O'Connor etc.!

9) That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leather bound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free.
Printed on acid-free paper in hard copy. Leather bound optional. Used to buy the cheapest possible paperbacks of my favourite titles in a bid to save money. However, when the pages yellowed and emitted musky odours, that was it. Now I would rather save and buy one hard copy instead of two or three paperpacks at the equivalent price. But the dream library of my childhood consists of a single book, which has the ability to transform itself into any book upon demand and to resize itself whenever necessary.

posted | 02:06 |  0 comments

Question 72. Prayers with regard to the saints in heaven

1. Do the saints have knowledge of our prayers?
2. Should we beseech them to pray for us?
3. Are the prayers they pour forth for us always granted?

From: The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas
Second and Revised Edition, 1920

Link: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5072.htm

More links here: http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/mischedj/ct1_commsaints.html

[For future reference]

Labels: intercession

posted | 00:17 |  0 comments

The Spirit of Lenten Past

Lent is here no longer, strange as it seems and as an acquaintance remarked, "We seem to be living from Christmas season to Lenten season to Christmas". And no wonder. After the frenetic penitential season of Lent from Ash Wednesday to Palm Sunday to the Easter Triduum, Easter Monday yonder suffers from a muted silence that plagues the weeks of the Ordinary Time as well, save for the occasional feast day or popular devotion.

Why the jarring anti-climatic end after such an intense period of reflection, contemplation and penance? Surely, everyone knows that Lent is only a percursor to Easter. Without the Resurrection, there would be no Christ. And yet it appears, judging from a superficial observation of church-going numbers at least, the Crucifixion with its Sorrowful Mysteries, the Stations of the Cross and the ageless hymns -- think "The Old Rugged Cross", "Stabat Mater" or "Ave Verum Corpus" -- is closer to our hearts than the Resurrection. Good Friday is about the only time the congregation does not complain about the length of the liturgy/service or the agony of having to kneel and stand for more than 30 times or the drudgery of listening to a 20-minute long reading of the Lord's Passion (30 minutes if the narrator is a fastidious enunciator of syllables) ! For once, the pain and suffering in our lives is not without precedence. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are -- yet was without sin." (Heb 4:15-16)

At Easter, we rejoice at the Lord's resurrection, yet why does our rendition of "Christ the Lord is risen today" from the pews sound so flat, so unenthusiastic, so ungrateful after all the haunting melodies of Lenten past? Is it merely a conjecture of my imagination, or are we just tired after the emotional turmoil of Lent? Maybe we are rejoicing but in a subdued kind of way; after all we celebrate the miracle of Easter every single Sunday and not only on the last day of Triduum.

Besides, our feelings cannot be turned on and off like a tap. We have dug deep into our souls, we have confessed, we have pondered -- not thoroughly well but to a degree -- and we realise what bigots and fools we are and yet Christ died for us. We are grateful and filled with wonderment and bewilderment but our joy has not reached the depths of those experienced by the Apostles when they learned of his Resurrection and saw his resurrected self. The words "died on the Cross to redeem our sins" while profound and moving, have still not resonated deep within our hearts to exact a commensurate response of joy.

We are still rather like Thomas, believing and yet not believing. "Unless I see the nail marks in His hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe it." (John 20:25) That is why just after the consecration of the Body and Blood Christ, the moment before the congregation starts rising from the kneeling position, the priest solemnly intones, "Let us proclaim the mystery of faith".

Faith is very much a mystery, a gift, just as the Resurrection of Christ is. We know why Christ died for us but why did He choose to do so? Why not any other way which would lead to the salvation of the world as well? Therein lies the mystery and the hurdle for any believer. But as Flannery O' Connor wrote, "Whatever you do anyway, remember that these things are mysteries and that if they were such that we could understand them, they wouldn’t be worth understanding. A God you understood would be less than yourself."

Lord, give us the light and the wisdom to see you in all things.

posted | 23:01 |  0 comments

The Passion of Christ

Ave, verum corpus Natum de Maria Virgine, Vere passum immolatum In Cruce pro homine, Cujus latus perforatum Unda fluxit et sanguine, Esto nobis praegustatum In mortis examine. In mortis examine.

Hail,true body born of the Virgin Mary, Who truly suffered sacrifice on the Cross for man, From whose pierced side blood streamed and flowed, Be for us a foretaste Of the test of death Of the test of death

Labels: lent

posted | 18:16 |  0 comments

What if she had said 'No'?

The question may strike you as irreverent. How dare I suggest that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Heaven, Co-Redemptrix of mankind, could have left us in the lurch like that?
But what if she had?

Could she have said No? You might say that of course she couldn’t, she was far too holy — but you would be guilty of demeaning and dangerous sentimentality. It is demeaning because it turns Our Lady from a free human being into a sanctified automaton. The whole glory of the Annunciation is that Mary, the second Eve, could have said No to God but she said Yes instead. That is what we celebrate, that is what we praise her for; and rightly so.

This sentimental view is dangerous too. If we believe that the most important decision in the history of the world was in fact inevitable, that it couldn’t have been otherwise, then that means it was effortless. Now we have a marvellous excuse for laziness. Next time we’re faced with a tough moral decision, we needn’t worry about doing what is right. Just drift, and God will make sure that whatever choice we make is the right one. If God really wants us to do something he’ll sweep us off his feet the way he did Mary, and if he chooses not to, it’s hardly our fault, is it?

So Mary could have said No to Gabriel. What if she had? He couldn’t just go and ask someone else, like some sort of charity collector. With all the genealogies and prophecies in the Bible, there was only one candidate. It’s an alarming thought. Ultimately, of course, God would have done something: the history of salvation is the history of him never abandoning his people however pig-headed they were. But God has chosen to work through human history. If the first attempt at redemption took four thousand years to prepare, from the Fall to the Annunciation, how many tens of thousands of years would the next attempt have taken?

Even if the world sometimes makes us feel like cogs in a machine, each of us is unique and each of us is here for a purpose: just because it isn’t as spectacular a purpose as Mary’s, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. When we fail to seek our vocation, or put off fulfilling some part of it, we try to justify ourselves by saying that someone else will do it better, that God will provide, that it doesn’t really matter. But we are lying. However small a part I have to play, the story of the Annunciation tells me it is my part and no-one else can do it.

Faced with the enormity of her choice, how was Mary able to decide? If she said No, unredeemed generations would toil on under the burden of sin. If she said Yes, she herself would suffer, and so would her Son; but both would be glorified. Millions of people not yet born would have Heaven open to them; but millions of others would suffer oppression and death in her son’s name. The stakes were almost infinite.

You might say that Mary didn’t worry about all this, just obeyed God; but I don’t believe it. What God wanted was not Mary’s unthinking obedience but her full and informed consent as the representative of the entire human race. The two greatest miracles of the Annunciation are these: that God gave Mary the wisdom to know the consequences of her decision, and that he gave her the grace not to be overwhelmed by that knowledge.

When we come to an important decision in our lives, we can easily find our minds clouded by the possible consequences, or, even more, by partial knowledge of them. How can we ever move, when there is so much good and evil whichever way we go? The Annunciation gives us the answer. God’s grace will give us the strength to move, even if the fate of the whole world is hanging in the balance. After all, God does not demand that our decisions should be the correct ones (assuming that there even is such a thing), only that they should be rightly made.

There is one more truth that the Annunciation teaches us, and it is so appalling that I can think of nothing uplifting to say about it that will take the sting away: perhaps it is best forgotten, because it tells us more about God than we are able to understand. The Almighty Father creates heaven and earth, the sun and all the stars; but when he really wants something done, he comes, the Omnipotent and Omniscient, to one of his poor, weak creatures — and he asks.

And, day by day, he keeps on asking us.

[Taken from universalis.com - 26/03/07]

Labels: salvation history

posted | 21:15 |  2 comments

The Joy of Lent

In the Chinese calendar, the Year of the Dog (like the other 11 animals) only appear once every 12 years. An adult born in the Year of the Dog can expect to live through only 6 or 7 more Year of the Dogs in his lifetime. On the other hand, Lent appears every single year.

Lent is the season of quiet contemplation and reflection, of fast and abstinence, of true giving and sacrifice. It is the austere and thoughtful preparation before the Feast, the feast of not merely food and drink to celebrate Easter but the feast of partaking in the divine and miraculous resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The resurrection matters only because Christ matters in our lives. The resurrection is meaningful only if Christ holds meaning for us. If Christ's passion and crucifixion left us indifferent, we would not be partaking of a glorious feast on Easter Sunday but plain, ordinary fare. And by doing so, we are undeseveredly shortchanging ourselves. We are denying ourselves the joy of witnessing Christ's resurrection, we are denying ourselves from a deeper understanding of the salvation Christ promised for us, we are denying ourselves God's abundant grace, mercy and love.

Every year of our lives, there is a 40-day season specially set aside to remind ourselves of Christ's passion and what it means for the Church and for ourselves. Sometimes, we wonder - what is the point of it all? Year in, year out, without fail, there would be the same old preachy sermon about Lent, about how Christ had died to save us and how we should do penance for our sins. What for? Only because humans are like stone. As the fictional Archbishop Lamberto in Godfather III said (in my own words), "Look at this stone. It is so hard that water cannot penetrate it even after a long time. Some people are like that. Their hearts are so hard that even though they speak of God on their lips, their hearts have not been penetrated by Christ."

And so it is, for many of us. Even though we pray and attend Mass regularly and conscientiously try to be a good Christian, yet Christ has not permeated many parts of our lives. Oftentimes, we behave as though we were regular heathens. For example, even though Lents recurs every year, yet our progress seems to be infinitesimally small, if it were not already backsliding. For each year brings with it a new set of challenges, challenges which may change us for better or worse. Thus, Lent is a time for us to take stock of what we are doing, a time to retreat into the silence of our hearts, a time of spring-cleaning so that the dust accumulated in our minds and souls over the decades and centuries will be cleared and the fog lifted from our eyes. All in the hope that one day we will be able to experience the true wonder of Christ's Resurrection and unbidden, our hearts will joyously sing out as one, "Sing Alleluia! The Lord is risen. He is risen, indeed, Alleluia!"

Happy spring-cleaning!

posted | 01:18 |  1 comments