Pretoria Catholic

 It is 17:49 on the 4th of September 2024, and I have been stuck in an elevator at my office building for more than 30 minutes. I work on the 20th floor and when pressing the floor to travel down to the basement I got stuck. There is nowhere to go it's just the four walls around me, my computer bag and my guardian angel in the elevator with me. So in these moments, all becomes quiet and we become in touch with our inner selves, our souls. The mirrors in the elevator are positioned opposite each other so if you look into the one mirror you see multiple reflections that seem to run into infinity. If I were in a movie scene I could spice the scene up and start causing panic with highly unlikely scenarios like: What if the elevator cable starts fraying? What if I run out of oxygen? What if ... Fortunately it was pretty chilled and the technicians got me out after 50 minutes.  Stuck in the lift, 4 September 2024 (17:48) So after that dramatic introduction on contemplating death and...

"What's wrong with the world, mama?  People livin' like they ain't got no mamas I think the whole world's addicted to the drama Only attracted to things that'll bring you trauma."  (Where is the love - Black Eyed Peas) Raphael (our third son), 13 April 2024 Deep down inside all of us, there is a desire to want to make the world a better place. We see suffering, brokenness and hardship around us and this can leave us begging the question why? Where is God in all of this?  In the second part of the series on ToB, we go deeper and this may help us realise that God has not left us nor does he desire we suffer. We discover that in fact, God has loved us completely by giving us freedom to choose.  In Genesis, we read about Adam. We should think of him more as a placeholder name representing humanity rather than an individual person. Why? The word Adam means human being and so God is telling us the story of all humanity. We label him, Old Adam. We know three thin...

In high school, I attended a leadership conference that used the bestselling book 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers' written by Sean Covey the son of the author of 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People'. This book has some important Christian undertones but also some advice for us to borrow in the Christian life. This blog retrofits this to look at how we can apply them to our spiritual life.  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens - Sean Covey As Christians, we are called to be apostles in the middle of the world just like the first apostles who were some ordinary fishermen and rough around the edges but after encountering Our Lord and receiving the Holy Spirit at Pentecost it all changed.  So here are seven habits we can try to develop to be more like the first apostles and carry out what our Lord asks of us: Habit 1 - Be Proactive  We are responsible for our own happiness in life. However, what makes us happy is not found externally beyond our souls but ...

We took our boys for their first glamping trip with their grandparents (my parents) to a resort in Limpopo called Klein Kariba. It had been about 18 years since I last visited the resort and a lot had changed. It is a little over an hour outside of the city of Pretoria and nestled in a beautiful valley.  Noah & Leo feeding Njala, 23 April 2024 One late afternoon as we prepared to make a fire a group of Njala (a lesser Kudu according to Google I won't pretend to know my antelope haha) came past to graze on nearby trees. Noah and Leo were able to feed them leaves and even stroke them. Raphael even got up close and giggled in baby talk as the female Njala was intrigued by a little baby. It is not common to get so close to wild antelope and the young herd may have recalled people feeding them leaves from the tree tops they couldn't reach when they were young. This exchange with creation can beg the question of, "Who are we?" and what makes us so different to the anima...

Any mass of water, such as a dam, lake or ocean, has a source that feeds it. If we see a large dam, we don't often think the source feeding it could be a narrow river stretching and winding for a long distance. In time, the small flow of the river feeds and fills the dam, but it always starts with the source upstream. The dam remains full as long as it is always connected to that life-giving source. Once the source is broken the dam will grow dry and eventually disappear.  In the world, there are about 2.6 billion Christians, with almost 1.4 billion Catholics. However, if we are all Christians, why do we distinguish between Catholics and other denominations? To understand why we distinguish, we have to look at all the bodies of Christianity and trace their rivers back to their source. Only then can we realise where the divisions arose and which remains connected to the original source? The Catholic Church remains unchanged from the very ground roots of Jesus. Catholicism is not som...

"No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true." (Steve Jobs) AfroBoer Coffee Shop, 16 November 2023 Death is a part of life. We are created in God's image and likeness, and so a spark of God exists in all of us, meaning our death is not the end of the road as it would be for a mosquito between the palms of our hands. We were created with a body and a soul. God is eternal, and so He has created us for eternity, giving us a soul. Death is the bridge between our life on earth and our eternal life. However, it is scary and daunting to ...

In a world where we struggle to do a lot without access to the internet, we clearly notice when we are disconnected. Our WiFi router was down recently, which means you can't do much on your phone as the network connection in my area is poor. Working on my laptop without WiFi becomes challenging, given that so much work is stored in the "cloud", and the TV becomes useless without the internet.  Pretoria, 22 March 2023 I spent time trying to reset the router, turning it on and off, triple-checking the cables properly, and waiting on call centres listening to monotonous music with no one answering. Then I gave up and tried glancing occasionally to check if the internet light returned. Eventually, frustrated, I lost hope in trying and accepted it was not coming back. Then, 30 minutes later, to my surprise, I noticed the WiFi icon returned to my phone, and the internet was back! "Yay, the power is back", Noah and Leo shout when electricity returns after two-hour load...

Noah and Leo (my sons) are starting to love the Disney classics, proven by how many times they want to watch the same movie repeatedly. One of those is Lion King; as a millennial, that was a childhood classic we grew up with. However, watching the same film more than 20 years later, you notice things you previously missed, which is the depth of some of these classics.  The movie opens with a popular song which speaks about new life as little Simba is born and the path of life that will lead us back to our resting place (we can insert heaven in there). "It's the circle of life And it moves us all Through despair and hope Through faith and love 'Til we find our place On the path unwinding In the circle The circle of life"  (Circle of Life, Lion King) So far, the previous six blogs have addressed misconceptions about the first six sacraments: baptism, confession, Holy Communion, confirmation, marriage and holy orders. The last of the seven sacraments is the anointing of ...

I took a walk recently, and there are some open plots nearby. The one property has stables, and the horse roam free, grazing the grass. The horses are free and large enough to clear the fence, but they remain obediently confined to their grazing area.  Horses on a plot, 31 July 2023 Sometimes freedom can seem to the world to explore what is beyond that fence and do what you want with no consequences. However, the horse is exposed to grave dangers beyond the fence and will grow hungry, thirsty and tired. The fence is not a way of imprisoning the horse but rather a healthy boundary that signifies the true freedom and protection of the horse. Our Lord called apostles by asking them to leave behind their former livelihoods and begin anew. Some said yes and followed him through the narrow gate into that fence, leading them to eternal life. Others said no, as the prospect of entering the gate seemed like a loss of freedom, and instead, they preferred the false freedom of the comfort of l...

How do we pinpoint the moment in life that makes us an adult? We all grow from tiny little and totally dependent babies on our parents to very quickly learn to speak, eat and talk. We go to school to gain knowledge and acquire life experience. Then before you know it, we pursue a specific field of work. Many find a spouse and start a new family; some take other paths that God may call them to. However, the question remains where precisely in this very ordinary journey of life do we mark the defining point of childhood to adulthood?  Three generations, 11 June 2023 Think of a tree that towers over the skies casting shade from the scorching sun and offering branches of shelter and protection. Although the tree may be fully grown, it remains the same tree that was once a tiny seed that fell to the ground, watered, and given the proper nourishment. That preparation which all began with a small seed needing only warmth, food and water, was always the groundwork to someday branch out as ...