Pretoria Catholic

It is already December; looking back, 2023 has flashed past in record time. The end of the year brings a big joy as we end the calendar year with the Advent season, which prepares us for the anticipation of the coming of Baby Jesus. This Christmas, I want to write about a letter that was found from Pope Benedict XVI's (the then Joseph Ratzinger) childhood.  @Pope_news, Twitter The young Pope referred to Our Lord as "Baby Jesus" and asked for two spiritual gifts in his letter and received them quite literally later on in his life. I had to search what this "green chasuble" is, and it is a priestly vestment worn to celebrate the Eucharist. In other words, he was indirectly asking Baby Jesus to become a priest. The second request was for a Sacred Heart of Jesus. This showed his early desire to love Our Lord and eventually led him to be called by the Holy Spirit as the Pope.  Christmas makes the mystery of all that Our Lord did for us come alive. When we speak about...

“ You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. ” (Matthew 5:13) Salt is something we cannot live without, and yet it’s something so small and seemingly insignificant. Salt can lose its taste if it contains impurities, so after the moisture evaporates, you are left with something that looks like salt but is not salt. Salt in the ocean water prevents earthquakes; salt in food production helps preserve our food for long periods and, most commonly, flavours our food.  Sculpture of St. John Paul II in Rome, 13 May 2019 A priest is just like salt in its pure form. Nothing could take its taste away unless it were some artificial replacement from the onset. At ordination, the priest receives a permanent spiritual character marked on his soul that can never be removed. It is a grace conferred by Christ and cannot be repeated or given temporarily.  A priest is not ...

More than a year ago, I wrote a blog titled  I am a child of God! and posted a picture of a gardenia tree that I had transplanted and pruned. The four gardenias at the time seemed pretty bare and empty. It seemed like they would need more time to flourish. Still, the new location, pruning and feeding were all the right ingredients for rejuvenation.  Gardenia tree, 31 October 2022 Accepting the will of God is something every Christian asks each time they pray the Our Father. The four powerful words " Your will be done " are full of meaning, but we often rush over repeating them. Later, when things turn out a specific way, we can easily forget our petition to let things be according to God's will.  Our Lord leaves us with a set of words that take away any misconceptions about God we may have from the Old Testament. He says: " … love one another; even as I have loved you ... " (John 13:34). This helps us realise that when we ask God to do His will in our lives, he...

Noah and Leo have this toy dog that plays music, lights up, and vibrates in circles. They find it very amusing but never give it a chance to do what it is supposed to. The toy broke and no longer turned on to their disappointment. I attempted opening the toy and found that the wire connecting the switch to the circuit board broke off. I dusted the old soldering iron off and managed to reattach the wire. The toy started working again, and they were naturally happy.  Leo playing with the toy dog, 30 September 2022 It was a tiny wire that kept the mini motor, speakers, led light and circuit board from receiving power to operate. I find this is a fitting way to understand how the Church is a collective body made of different parts that work simultaneously together. This blog is also a follow-up to "RE: God is not religious!" in which, in the end, I left some other unanswered questions, such as where does the Catholic Church come from?  Circuit board with missing wire, 25 Septembe...

Our world can be a negative and bleak one. The news is constantly filled with articles documenting accounts of violence, rape, theft, corruption, and crime. Ask the ordinary person on the street, and they would quickly provide a few reasons why they believe these things happen around us. They will point out the inefficiency of the government, dirty politics, poor leaders, an inherently corrupt society, poverty, unemployment etc.  Piazza Della Signoria (Florence, Italy), 16 May 2019 People have forgotten God? I think this is the possible diagnosis to explain why we see so much brokenness around us. If we drift away from God, we are driven by our human impulses and weakness. We begin to attract similar people around us who will help facilitate our evil doings. Before you know it, a crime, an act of corruption, a devastating rape, or taking life with violent murder starts to numb the heart and conscience till it can no longer discern right from wrong. There may be elements of truth to...

Two years ago, I designed the bare garden passage of our home. The passage had a narrow channel of ground filled with building rubble left behind from construction. My vision was a passage filled with orchids and flowers. Each segment of orchids would be divided by five pillars of jasmine. The idea is for the jasmine to grow into an arch creating a tunnel of sweet-smelling and blooming flowers. The vision in my mind seemed so clear and beautiful, but the steps to get it there required a lot of effort.  Garden passage two years later, 31 Jul 2022 The jasmine would need to stretch at least five metres in length to create an effective arch. Therefore, the jasmine required deep holes and thus was a challenge as the garden passage runs along the boundary wall, so I needed to avoid digging into the wall's foundation. After considerable digging and pulling out bricks, mini boulders, plastic, and all sorts of building rubble, I had cleared five holes.  The ground was not suitable for ...

Watching little children develop and grow is a fantastic thing to witness. Noah will be two years old in July and Leo one year old in August. Their milestones and progress help you realise how much we all develop from a tiny and utterly dependent infant into a toddler who wants to do everything themselves. Then to a child and before you know into a fully formed adult.  Noah & Leo, 27 June 2022 There are things babies and toddlers do not fully understand, and they need to go under the guidance of their parents. This can be a difficult phase for the toddler and parent as you both learn to understand each other and develop a new form of communication. At first, what we tell Noah or Leo may not make sense, but with time they begin to build awareness. For example, Noah loves blowing out candles but understands he should not touch the flame. He will say: "Wow, it's fire, eina," and for the non-South African reader, "eina" is an expression of pain or trouble.  In t...

The month of May is dedicated to celebrating motherhood. This is fitting considering the month of May also celebrates the Blessed Virgin Mary. A beautiful Marian custom this month is to make a pilgrimage to an image or statue of Our Lady.  Lowveld National Botanical Gardens, Mbombela (Nelspruit) As a family, Cassandra and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary on the 11th of May. We took a family break to the tranquil Mpumalanga with Noah and Leo. We decided to make our pilgrimage, which involves praying the rosary's glorious, joyful, and sorrowful mysteries on our trip to Hazyview.  The problem is that finding grottos, images, or a church open throughout the day is slim in South Africa. We took a chance to drive past a parish in Mbombela, but the doors were closed, and we found no image. The 400 km-plus journey can be tiring for little ones, and we decided to visit the Botanical Gardens for a leg stretch. Noah and Leo were able to play outdoors. On walking back to the car...

In this blog, I respond to a comment I received on a recent blog I wrote titled: The Parable of the Granadilla vine . The title of this blog is a question or remark Catholics are commonly confronted with by fellow Christians from other denominations. The anonymous comment highlighted some questions and statements about what Christianity truly embodies. I welcome such questions as an important opportunity to clear misconceptions.  "Look upon the rainbow, and praise him who made it..." (Sirach 43:11), 1 December 2020 I would like to pull out three broad themes mentioned in responding to the comment:  (1) "Nowhere in the Bible does it say we must pray to Mother Mary to intercede for us or pray to the Saints?" The comment mentioned a specific sequence the Bible "should" be read in, as an adequate guide and manual. I would like to use this sequence of books to indicate where the idea of intercession or the concept of mediation of Mary and the Saints is derived....

I recently wrote about grandparents as humanities living memory and detailed how I had three grandparents still alive. A month later, my grandmother (Maria De Menezes) passed away, and six days later, my grandfather (Reginald Joel) passed on.  14 June 2021, God's Window Mpumalanga Death is a strange thing and most unnatural to human beings as it leaves us feeling empty, confused, and maybe afraid of what might await us on the other side. The most apparent question death makes us ponder is the question of why? Why must we die? Does God enjoy punishing us with the void the death of a loved one can leave in our hearts? The answer is a profound no!  Before sin entered the world, there was harmony between the body and soul. However, when the first man and woman chose to give in to the devil's temptation and succumbed to his luring. The nature of sin that entered the world broke this harmony. When sin enters the world by our free but misdirected choices, we allow corruption to weake...

At the start of spring, I planted a few granadilla seeds from the pulp of a granadilla I ate. We have received a lot of rain this summer, and in no time, the seeds had sprouted into a few young plants. The granadilla grows as a vine, so training it is essential to keep it maintained and under control.  Tendrils holding the granadilla vine, 3 February 2022 I am currently training the granadilla vine to creep up a wooden trellis and noticed something new about this plant. The granadilla casts a tendril, a thin wire-looking line that helps the vine climb. The tendril is quite resilient and latches onto anything secure and then coils itself firmly against the object drawing the vine securely. The granadilla vine hardly needs any support to bind itself to the trellis. It continually casts new tendrils as the vine extends.  In researching more about the granadilla vine, I found that it is also commonly known as the passion fruit. The passion fruit or granadilla flower has five disti...

I am fortunate to still have three grandparents alive, and this year two of them will be 90 years old. My grandparents, Reginald Edwin Joel (1932) and Edith Johanna Van Dyk Joel (1934) are still alive on my Dad's side. My grandfather João De Menezes (1923-1985) passed away on my Mom's side before I was born. While my grandmother Maria de Jesus Afonso De Menezes (1932), is still alive but currently struggling with dementia and recovering from breaking her leg in a fall late last year.  Maria De Menezes with my son Leo, 15 September 2021 My granny Maria grew up on the tiny Portuguese island of Madeira with limited resources. She often recalls eating only a sweet potato a day as a little girl. Her father sought new work opportunities in the US. Still, with the Great Depression, he soon returned and set off to South Africa to work on a mine. My gran left Madeira by ship in the early to mid part of the 1940s decade for South Africa and recalls fearful inspections by sea and her moth...