Pretoria Catholic

Last weekend we went away to Emalahleni Dam with family. I braved it and joined my Dad and uncle on a very early morning fishing session. We were up before sunrise, dressed warm, and launched the boat on the water by 05:30. Now I’ve tried it only twice before and my track record of catching fish averages a nice big zero.  Emalahleni (place of coal) Dam, 22 April 2023 (05:58) I went in with some enthusiasm. At the peak of dawn the temperature was relatively warm and as the sun starts breaking the darkness the wind and cooler air begin to pierce your skin. An hour of casting the rod proved fruitless. Yet, large fish teased us, jumping through the water all around the boat. In the quiet of the breaking dawn and as you begin to shrug off the tiredness of waking early, the surroundings are quiet. You simply hear the sound of nature all around. The only sound that breaks the natural silence is the repetition of casting the fishing line and hearing the drop of the bait land in the water....

Time flies! On the 25th of March, three months had passed since Christmas 2022. Also, this marked the celebration of the Annunciation of the Angel to Mary precisely nine months before Christmas 2023. Lent is now almost over as we enter the Last Supper, followed by the sorrow of Good Friday and end with the joy of Easter Sunday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.  Scuola Grande di San Rocco Museum, Venice Lent prepares us to recall where the Mass began and not something a random Catholic thought up for dramatic effect. Let's go back about 1990 years ago to the year 33. It was in a large upper room filled with twelve apostles with all their eyes fixed on Jesus at the centre of the table. There he sat and taught his apostles their final lesson before he prepared for His death. The room was probably prepared with light and filled with the aroma of wild herbs, salt water, unleavened bread, wine, and the meat of the sacrificial lamb. Why this special occasion? The Jews were celebratin...

I did some bonsai maintenance last week. Bonsai, translated from Japanese, means "planted in a container", and it's the art of growing miniature trees. The trees can be very mature in age but remain miniature as they remain confined to the pot. Getting this right requires treating it like any tree except that you also prune and maintain the root system to not grow out of control as a tree in the ground would do and sometimes become destructive. The art of creating beautiful designs and shapes comes from trimming the roots, which allows new growth in the tree that would not have otherwise been possible.  Trimming the roots of a young bonsai, February 2023 Many people may find the art of growing bonsai unorthodox and far removed from reality. Still, it has been around for thousands of years. Catholics' practice of confession is very much the same. Many Christians think confessing your sins to a priest is something made up and frankly quite strange. The most common quest...

We watched the latest "Avatar: The Way of Water" movie. The almost three and half hour movie was worth every minute, and without giving away spoiler alerts, there are a few points I would like to draw on.  Sunrise at the South Coast, 29 November 2022 (05:23) "The Na'vi say that every person is born twice. The second is when you earn your place among the people, forever." After giving birth, the Na'vi people present their child to Eywa, their great mother or goddess. She connects all living things, and upon death, all return to her.  The journey of becoming a Christian requires a few elements: (i) we proclaim the Word, (ii) we accept the Gospel, (iii) we profess the faith, (iv) we are baptised with the Holy Spirit and (v) we are admitted to Eucharistic communion.  How can an infant proclaim the Word and accept the Gospels or teachings of the faith? An infant's intellect cannot reason and understand these things. However, God borrows us children, and throu...

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...