feminine-genius

Sorrows upon sorrows

Prayers for our Chinese brethren. Not only facing the spectre of a deadly flu, but suffering ongoing destruction of places of worship.

The Dongergou Parish in the Diocese of Taiyuan is one of the oldest Catholic communities in the northern province of Shanxi. In July 2018, the government prohibited the use of the parish church, built at the end of the 19th century, claiming that it had become “dangerous” to use. In October, the Shrine of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows – a famous pilgrimage sites atop the Seven Sorrows Mountain in Dongergou – was destroyed on the grounds that “it had too many crosses and statues.”

These prayers of supplication were not able to provide an intervention -- adding to Our Lady's Sorrows, and our own. 

Shot in the head

Sorry to be so blunt, but here we have a horrific tragedy and a great need for prayer:

Mutlu Kaya, 19, from the conservative region of Diyarbakir in the Kurdish-majority south-east of of the country, had reportedly received death threats after appearing on the show.

Kaya was attacked at her home in Ergani district in the early hours of Monday, Dogan news agency reported. The assailant reportedly fired a bullet into the house through a back window in the garden.

The victim had been appearing on Sesi Çok Güzel, a show similar to Britain’s Got Talent. Her mentor is Sibel Can, one of Turkey’s best-known folk-pop singers.

This is her performance:

 

And here is another sweet song -- so sweet that her mama weeps:

 

Bless this dear girl (who was shot as she was practicing in the home) -- and prayers for a full recovery.

ADDENDUM: a little added context from the Guardian

The Kurdish majority southeast of Turkey is known for its strongly conservative values, with women expected to perform a traditional role. The attack on Mutlu comes at a time of intensifying anger in Turkey over the extent of violence against women, with hundreds of wives killed by their husbands every year.

Hundreds. Yearly. Prayers for all.

The power of prayer

It is entirely possible that the proposed American attack on Syria may be shelved, and the intense prayers led by Pope Francis cannot be discounted as a prime reason. To that end, I would remind readers that today marks a dark anniversary: it has been seven months since the kidnapping of two priests in that country.

Fathers Michel Kayyal (Armenian Catholic) and Maher Mahfouz (Greek Orthodox) were kidnapped on 9 February by armed rebels on a road between Damascus and Aleppo.

Fr Kayyal is being held for ransom ($250K and an exchange for 15 Syrian rebels).

On February 20, 2013 the rebels allowed Fr Michael to contact his mother for only one minute to prove that he is still alive.

Kindly remember these men--and so many others who are missing--in your prayers. Sacrifices on their behalf will also help. No doubt, they struggle with physical, psycological, and spiritual challenges, but imagine also the distress of their families. Saints Nunilo and Alodia, pray for these beleaguered souls!

The Evil One is acting up

The blog at CWR has an excellent piece about a community of Trappist nuns, who were inspired to set up a convent in Syria after hearing about the monks who were martyred in 1997 in Tibhirine, Algeria. These women moved there from their previous home in Tuscany, and are now deeply worried about the impending military action.

This letter, written on the 29th of August deserves a prayerful reading:

Rebuke the Beast of the Reeds, that herd of bulls, that people of calves…oh God, scatter the people who delight in war…Yahweh has leaned down from the heights of his sanctuary, has looked down from heaven to earth to listen to the sighing of the captive, and set free those condemned to death…Listen, God, to my voice as I plead, protect my life from fear of the enemy; hide me from the league of the wicked, from the gang of evil-doers. They sharpen their tongues like a sword, aim their arrow of poisonous abuse…They support each other in their evil designs, they discuss how to lay their snares. “Who will see us?” they say. He will do that, he who penetrates human nature to its depths, the depths of the heart…Break into song for my God, to the tambourine, sing in honor of the Lord, to the cymbal, let psalm and canticle mingle for him, extol his name, invoke it…For the Lord is a God who breaks battle-lines! … Lord, you are great, you are glorious, wonderfully strong, unconquerable. 

We look at the people around us, our day workers who are all here as if suspended, stunned: “They’ve decided to attack us.” Today we went to Tartous…we felt the anger, the helplessness, the inability to formulate a sense to all this: the people trying their best to work and to live normally. You see the farmers watering their land, parents buying notebooks for the schools that are about to begin, unknowing children asking for a toy or an ice cream…you see the poor, so many of them, trying to scrape together a few coins. The streets are full of the “inner” refugees of Syria, who have come from all over to the only area left that is still relatively liveable…. You see the beauty of these hills, the smile on people’s faces, the good-natured gaze of a boy who is about to join the army and gives us the two or three peanuts he has in his pocket as a token of “togetherness”…. And then you remember that they have decided to bomb us tomorrow. … Just like that. Because “it’s time to do something,” as it is worded in the statements of the important men, who will be sipping their tea tomorrow as they watch TV to see how effective their humanitarian intervention will be….

Will they make us breathe the toxic gases of the depots they hit, tomorrow, so as to punish us for the gases we have already breathed in?

The people are straining their eyes and ears in front of the television: all they’re waiting for is a word from Obama!

A word from Obama? Will the Nobel Peace Prize winner drop his sentence of war onto us? Despite all justice, all common sense, all mercy, all humility, all wisdom?

The Pope has spoken up, patriarchs and bishops have spoken up, numberless witnesses have spoken up, analysts and people of experience have spoken up, even the opponents of the regime have spoken up…. Yet here we all are, waiting for just one word from the great Obama? And if it weren’t him, it would be someone else. It isn’t he who is “the great one,” it is the Evil One who these days is really acting up.

The problem is that it has become too easy to pass lies off as noble gestures, to pass ruthless self-interest off as a search for justice, to pass the need to appear [strong] and to wield power off as a “moral responsibility not to look away…”

And despite all our globalizations and sources of information, it seems nothing can be verified. It seems that there is no such thing as a minimal scrap of truth … That is, they don’t want there to be any truth; while actually a truth does exist, and anyone honest would be able to find it, if they truly sought it out together, if they weren’t prevented by those who are in the service of other interests.

There is something wrong, and it is something very serious…because the consequences will be wrought on the lives of an entire population…it is in the blood that fills our streets, our eyes, our hearts.

Yet what use are words anymore? All has been destroyed: a nation destroyed, generations of young people exterminated, children growing up wielding weapons, women winding up alone and targeted by various types of violence…families, traditions, homes, religious buildings, monuments that tell and preserve history and therefore the roots of a people…all destroyed. …

As Christians we can at least offer all this up to the mercy of God, unite it to the blood of Christ, which carries out the redemption of the world in all those who suffer.

They are trying to kill hope, but we must hold on to it with all our might.

To those who truly have a heart for Syria (for mankind, for truth…) we ask for prayer…abounding, heartfelt, courageous prayer.

"A disgrace for the whole of Egypt"

Another horrific story emblematic of a widespread problem in Egypt. Mary Abdelmassih writes:

(AINA) -- Hundreds of Christian Egyptian girls having been abducted and forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men since the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. But the case of 14 year old Sarah has become symbolic, bringing to confrontation Muslims groups, whose members are implicated in the kidnappings, and the Coptic Church and human rights organizations.

On Sunday, September 30 Sarah Ishaq Abdelmalek, born on August 1, 1998 in the town of el-Dabaa, 130 kilometers from Mersa Matrouh, was on her way to school with her cousin Miriam, when they stopped at a bookshop. Miriam went ahead of Sarah to school, leaving Sarah behind. Sarah never made it to school and no one has seen her since then. Her father was hesitant at first to contact the authorities for fear of harm to his family and his other children by the Salafi Muslims, who have a large presence and influence in Mersa Matrouh and Alexandria. He finally filed a report with the police on October 20, accusing 27 year old bookshop keeper and Salafist Mahmoud Abu Zied Abdel Gawwad, a married man and father of children, of abducting Sarah and marrying her against her will (AINA 11-2-2012).

"Sarah was smuggled across the borders to Libya with the help of the Interior Ministry," said Ebram Louis, founder of the Coptic non-governmental organization Association of Victims of Abduction and Enforced Disappearance (AVAED), which handles cases of abducted Coptic minors. Louis blamed the interior ministry for all the disappearances of Coptic minors, saying the ministry colludes with the Muslims.

The recently elected Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II said the kidnapping and forced conversion of Sarah is a "disgrace for the whole of Egypt." During a meeting with a delegation of the Journalists Syndicate Council at Anba Bishoy Monastery in Wadi Natrunon on November 12, he said "Can any family accept the kidnapping of their daughter and her forced conversion?"

The growing fears over kidnapping are leading many Christian families to pull their girls from school, which is a wider unfortunate effect of the policy. The fact that the authorities turn a blind eye to this means that Christians can never expect justice, girls can never feel safe, and that Islam allows a bizarre underpinning to marriage: namely that unions can be based on coercion and duplicity. 

In a statement, Salafist Front made clear that they will not hand over Sarah under any circumstances. They claim that "When we take up the issue of the girl Sarah, our response is purely in terms of her human rights." Their spokesman, Khaled el Masry, said that once a girl has embraced Islam she has no Christian guardian and can therefore get married without consent.

Age is also a factor, since she is 14, but that's been discussed here and here. Please pray for Sarah, her family, and all those in captivity -- and spread the word.

Every story an urgent story

In China, there are too many stories like this to count, and yet God weeps over each one:

Cao Ruyi, 37, and her husband Li Fu have a six year old daughter. Her husband reports that Cao [five months pregnant] was taken from their home and “dragged by more than a dozen government family planning officials and security guards.”

Bob Fu, president of China Aid Association ... has been in touch with Cao’s husband since the arrest. Fu also spoke to a family planning official in Changsha City and was told that Cao had two options: “to abort the baby or pay over $24,000 penalty.”

She may have already had the first of two abortion-inducing injections. Her husband pleaded:

“Help us - I will never sign the consent form, but we also need the public to help stop a forced abortion. Tell them to please help us!”

Imagine that plea from thousands of couples daily. Steven Mosher was on the Drew Mariani show today, giving more details about the horror that is modern China. I know you'll pray for Cao Ruyi and her baby -- and all the families under duress because of this draconian policy.

In shock from the pressure

Nothing justifies such a sentence, ever:

A Sudanese woman, believed to be around 20, has been sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery, and is being held near Khartoum, shackled in prison with her baby son, rights groups and lawyers said on Thursday.

Campaigners condemned the ruling, saying it violated international standards and raised concerns that Sudan might start applying sharia, or Islamic law, more strictly following the secession of mostly non-Muslim South Sudan last year.

The woman, Intisar Sharif Abdalla, was sentenced by the Ombada criminal court on April 22, court documents seen by Reuters showed.

Two lawyers assigned to her case, who declined to be named, said they were launching an appeal adding Abdalla appeared to be under severe psychological strain.

"She's in dire need of a psychiatrist because she appears to be in a state of shock from the social and family pressures she's under," one lawyer said.

Abdalla was illiterate and did not have a lawyer or interpreter in the courtroom, although Arabic is not her native language, the lawyers and activists added.

Arabic is the main language in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation, though a wide range of smaller languages are also spoken, particularly in tribal areas. It was unclear where Abdalla came from.

For those who decry the legislation in this country (the US) that bans the application of Shari'a law in resolving disputes, kindly ask them about this portion of the code. This is exactly the sort of thing that Our Lord stopped -- for nothing is worth this punishment. One would also hope that the feminists would speak out against this mysogynistic attack on women and choice. Waiting...  

And in the meantime, prayers for this young woman -- and her baby. A culture that would mete out this punishment would likely tar him for life with the shame.

Prayers for today's slaves

Today, we honour the Sudanese woman who was snatched as a child by Arab slave traders. At roughly the age of seven, she was so traumatised that she couldn't even remember her name, and thus was called, "Bakhita," meaning "lucky one." That perverse attempt at humour held a kernal of truth, for she found the One True God through her ordeal.

I offer here a couple paragraphs from my own book, which included a section on Sister Josephine's amazing journey:

It was her fifth owner, the Italian consul at Karthoum, who first showed her kindness and ultimately brought her to Europe, where she discovered Christ. While taking care of the young daughter of a family there, she was introduced to the Canossan Sisters with whom she eventually found a home as a religious sister. Fifty years of quiet consecrated life allowed her to witness to others the deep abiding peace that faith and forgiveness can bring. Seeing God’s hand even in the difficult path of her life, she noted, “If I was to meet those slave raiders that abducted me and those who tortured me, I'd kneel down to them to kiss their hands, because, if it had not been for them, I would not have become a Christian and religious woman.” At her beatification, Pope John Paul II praised her as “Our Universal Sister,” pointing out that she offers us “a message of reconciliation and evangelic forgiveness in a world so much divided and hurt by hatred and violence.” Note that Bakhita didn’t say that what the slave traders and her owners did to her was right – it most certainly was not. But she recognized that through her wounds she found salvation, which she could not ignored.

There are many forms of slavery, including those that do not have visible chains or leave outward marks. We suffer from them as long as we cannot name them, claim our own dignity which comes from being created in the image and likeness of God, and renounce them from holding us captive. The liberation that forgiveness can offer is as stark as the sundering of iron fetters and the opening of a prison door—it is for the one who suffers to choose freedom and wholeness of heart, despite her surroundings. The graces of God are available to all even in the darkest hours and each cross bears within it the seeds of Easter for those who cling to Christ.

Sadly enough, slavery has never ended, but has only grown and adopted new disguises:

Slavery still exists today. Whether it is called human trafficking, bonded labor, forced labor, or sex trafficking, it is present worldwide, including within the United States and, increasingly, in your local community.

An estimated 12 - 27 million people are caught in one or another form of slavery. Between 600,000 and 800,000 are trafficked internationally, with as many as 17,500 people trafficked into the United States. Nearly three out of every four victims are women. Half of modern-day slaves are children.

That all may find this peace despite what they've suffered, and that we all find ways to shed light on this ongoing tragedy. Saint Bakhita, pray for us!