Fasting Of The Ninevites (Baoutha)

NOTE: This post was originally posted on my other blog two years ago. That was before I started this blog. I believe it has to be moved here so my Catholic readers can read it too.

Chaldeans and Assyrians in Iraq -- I believe the rest of Christian-Iraqi sectors do the same -- have a special fast, which starts three weeks before Lent. Its roots go back to pre-Christianity. If you have ever read the Book of Jonah (called Younan in Chaldean) from the Old Testament, then you'll know of which story I refer. It's a sweet and humorous story of Jonah from Israel who was sent by God to Nineveh city in Iraq to ask its people for repentance. To his surprise, the city listened to his message (I know, Iraqis are full of surprises). Everyone was required to fast including infants and animals. By the story's end, God shows Jonah His love for everyone, even the non-believers.

Christian-Iraqis fast every year for three days as a sign of thanksgiving to God. It starts on a Monday. People fast from midnight till midday and abstain from eating meat and all animal products during these three days. We keep our ancestors traditions, and this is one of my favorites.

Churches start mass before midday. Since it usually occurs during spring break in Iraq, churches are usually full with parishioners. Because we're social people in the Middle East, you may get invited to a friend's house, or you would invite friends to your house for lunch after church. The most popular food during the three-day fast is spinach, sabzi herb and onion soup made with sesame sauce. I have no idea how my mom makes this soup, but I LOVE IT. Other food would include fish, rice, falafel and vegetarian dolma made with rice, dill and olive oil. I love the food during these three days, it's the best.

In Basrah, we also make special sweet candies called "Halawat Khadr Alias." I can't remember if other parts of the country make this kind of sweets, I remember Basrah because it's one of these things you remember from your happy childhood days. Basrawi-Muslim shop owners don't ever miss Baoutha's date. They prepare the mixture for these candies on the second or third day of Baoutha. Christian women would buy kilos of the ready-made mixture from the shops. We usually add walnuts to the mixture and make it into small balls (the size of a small egg) then store them in big containers filled with flour to keep them moist. I miss these candies so much; I miss many things from my happy childhood in Iraq.

BTW, I do speak Chaldean-Aramaic language. My dad reads, writes and speaks Chaldean language. It's my first language. Arabic is my second language and English is my third language. I wonder if I'll have a fourth language sometime in the future.

I hope you enjoyed reading about this ancient Iraqi tradition.
 

Helping The Widow of Slained Iraqi Translator

NOTE:
This post will stay at the top until the end of this month. Please, scroll down for newer posts I publish this month.


UPDATE II
I received $1,500.00 from a donor who wishes to stay anonymous. Thank you anonymous for your generosity.


UPDATE I
I just received an e-mail from Lisa Ramaci to inform me that The Steven Vincent Foundation will donate $500.00 to Mrs. Enwiya. I'm speechless.

Lisa,
Thank you so much for your generosity. It means so much to all of us.


ORIGINAL POST Jan. 10, 2006
After a discussion with my friend Mad Canuck this morning, we decided to start a donation for the widow of murdered Iraqi translator Allan Enwiya.

Last Saturday, Allan was murdered in cold blood when Jill Carroll was kidnapped after leaving Al-Dulaimi office in Baghdad's suburb of Al-Adil. Allan was Jill Carroll's translator. He leaves behind a wife and very young children. You have no idea how hard it is for a young widow to raise children in Iraq.

The media will drop his name very soon and focus on Jill because she's the one in danger right now. We're all praying for her safety. But, we shouldn't forget about her translator who lost his life while trying to make a living for his young family.

I know you all have bills and credit cards to pay after the Christmas season. Still, I hope five or ten dollars won't harm your budget. It will definitely make a difference to Allan's widow.

I count on your generosity.


** List of donors.

NOTE: I put the PayPal donation button at the top of the sidebar.
 

The Pope Welcomes Divorced Catholics

UPDATE I - Jan. 28, 2006
There's an update on this subject that was published today. Newsday reports:

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged concern about the plight of divorced Catholics, who are not permitted to receive Communion after remarriage, and appealed to a Vatican tribunal Saturday to issue "rapid" rulings on annulment requests.

He told the Roman Rota that its decisions should come quickly for the sake of the faithful, but he reminded church jurists that their paramount task in making a ruling was determining the "truth" about whether the marriage was valid.

An annulment means that the marriage was invalid, essentially concluding that the marriage never existed, leaving the faithful free to remarry and receive Communion.

Read more...

I hope they speed up the process for the sake of the faithful as the Pope stated in his new instructions.


ORIGINAL POST - Jul. 27, 2005
CathNews reported:

Pope Benedict XVI has said that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who suffer because they cannot receive Communion must be welcomed in parishes as Catholics who witness to the importance of the Eucharist.

At the same time, he said, if a priest, acting out of compassion for their suffering, gives them the Eucharist, he risks undermining the dignity and indissolubility of the sacrament of marriage.

"We all know that this is a particularly painful situation," the pope said on Monday during a meeting with about 140 priests, religious and deacons from the Valle d'Aosta region where he was vacationing.

Catholic News Service reports that the pope added that he knew the issue could get complicated and said, "Given these people's situation of suffering it must be studied."

Read more...

I don't think divorced Catholics should be denied the Eucharist. You may never know how they ended up divorced. Maybe they were married to an abusive or cheating spouse. Should the church in that case punish them for not continuing in such a relationship?

In my opinion the answer is a simple no.
 

Defenders of The Church

The BBC reports:

They are known as the "Defenders of the Church" and this weekend the Vatican Swiss Guard celebrated 500 years of service.

In that time they have protected 42 successive popes, although more recently the Vatican has been guarded by Italian security forces and plainclothes police. But personal safety of the pope is still the guards' full responsibility.

The guards first arrived in Rome on 22 January 1506. At that time, Helvetian soldiers were employed as mercenaries, renowned for their courage and their loyalty.

There were many famous battles, but their most notable hour came in 1527, during the sack of Rome. Almost the entire guard was massacred by troops of the Holy Roman emperor Charles V on the steps of St Peter's Basilica.

Of 189 guards on duty only 42 survived, but their bravery ensured that Clement VII escaped to safety, down the "passeto", a secret corridor which still links the Vatican to Castel Sant' Angelo.

Read more...

According to National Geographic News, a guard has to meet the following criteria to qualify for the job:

They number only about 100, and to qualify, one must be Swiss, Catholic, and at least five feet eight inches (173 centimeters) tall.

Read more...

It sounds good to me.
 

The Vatican and Science

UPDATE I - Jan. 22, 2006
With the intelligent design debate still brewing in America, the Vatican newspaper published more on this subject:

VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican newspaper has published an article saying "intelligent design" is not science and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in school classrooms only creates confusion.

The article in Tuesday's editions of L'Osservatore Romano was the latest in a series of interventions by Vatican officials _ including the pope _ on the issue that has dominated headlines in the United States.

The author, Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, laid out the scientific rationale for Darwin's theory of evolution, saying that in the scientific world, biological evolution "represents the interpretative key of the history of life on Earth."
...
"This isn't how science is done," he wrote. "If the model proposed by Darwin is deemed insufficient, one should look for another, but it's not correct from a methodological point of view to take oneself away from the scientific field pretending to do science."
...
Facchini said he recognized some Darwin proponents erroneously assume that evolution explains everything. "Better to recognize that the problem from the scientific point of view remains open," he said.

But he concluded: "In a vision that goes beyond the empirical horizon, we can say that we aren't men by chance or by necessity, and that the human experience has a sense and a direction signaled by a superior design."

Read more...

In a similar article on this subject, TIME magazine concludes:

The Pope himself entered the fray in November, when he used the words "intelligent project" to describe the origins of the universe. Camillo Cardinal Ruini, Benedict's Vicar of Rome and head of the Italian Bishops Conference, went the next step a few weeks later, explicitly endorsing intelligent design. But others have been less eager to jump on the bandwagon, including the Rev. George Coyne, head of the Vatican Observatory, who said, "Intelligent design isn't science, even though it pretends to be."

Does all this mean the Church is divided on the controversy? Not necessarily. It may just be that Catholic leaders will conclude that intelligent design makes for bad biology, but great theology.

Read more...

Exactly what I think of intelligent design.


ORIGINAL POST Nov. 5, 2005
It's was nice to read this report by the Associated Press:

VATICAN CITY -- A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, made the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project to help end the "mutual prejudice" between religion and science that has long bedeviled the Roman Catholic Church and is part of the evolution debate in the United

The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar episodes from repeating themselves in the future," Poupard said.

Read more...

I'm glad the Vatican voiced its opinion publicly. I'm not thrilled with introducing the intelligent design concept into science classes. Even in the Middle East, we separate scientific facts from religious beliefs in our classrooms. The intelligent design concept is more suitable for religion classes than science classes.
 

What Were They Thinking?

Last week, when I read that Mehmet Ali Agca was released from prison, I couldn't believe the news.

This guy is very dangerous to any society. He killed a Turkish journalist in late 70s. He escaped from prison in 1979. He shot the Pope in 1981. While in jail for his attempt to kill the Pope, he made all kind of weird comments. All this and a Turkish court decided it's OK to release him from prison.

Well, it looks like the outrage in Turkey made the authorities change their mind. On Friday, he was arrested again and sent back to jail. The Associated Press reports:

Police took the man who shot Pope John Paul II back into custody Friday after an appeals court ordered him to return to prison to serve more time for killing a journalist and for other crimes in Turkey.

Mehmet Ali Agca did not resist and was being taken to police headquarters in Istanbul, eight days after he was released from prison, said Gov. Muammer Guler.

Agca served 19 years in prison in Italy for shooting the pope on May 13, 1981, and 5 1/2 years of a 10-year sentence in Turkey for the murder of journalist Abdi Ipekci in 1979.

In a decision that outraged many Turks, a local court had ordered his release from an Istanbul prison on Jan. 12, counting his time served in Italy as part of his sentence. Friday's ruling overturned that decision, saying there "is no legal basis" for deducting Agca's time served in Italy from his Turkish sentence.

It was up to the local court to decide how many more years Agca, 48, would have to serve. Reports suggested he could be imprisoned until 2014.

Read more...

I'd say leave him in jail for a long time. That way, he won't harm any people.
 

Jesus and Beer Ads

Here's some interesting news from Lithuania that was reported by the Sydney Morning News:

The Catholic Church in Lithuania today condemned beer-making company Kalnapilio-Tauro Grupe for using a picture of Jesus Christ wearing earphones to advertise its products.

"Many believers are hurt and outraged that the Saviour's image... was used for advertising beer," said archbishop Sigitas Tamkevicius in a statement.

"The use of Catholic symbols for commercial purposes and especially for advertising alcoholic beverages is absolutely unjustifiable," added Tamkevicius, who is chairman of the Lithuanian bishops' conference.

Read more...

Did they really need to use Jesus' image to promote their beer? I don't think so. People who like to drink beer don't need a holy figure to promote it to them. They'll buy it anyway.
 

A Nice Prayer

I came across a nice prayer the other day, and I thought to share it with you:

Dear Lord,

empty our world-weary hearts of all cynicism and pessimism so that we may embrace the new year with humility and hope.

The past, present, and the future are in your hands. We know that all things are possible in you. Guide our journey in these new days ahead.

Amen.

A Vow of ''Celebracy''

I like jokes in general. But, I like Catholic jokes the most. We have a great sense of humor. So, here's one of those old/new Catholic jokes:

The Pope dies and, naturally, goes to heaven. He''s met by the reception committee, and after a whirlwind tour is told that he can enjoy any of the myriad recreations available.

He decides that he wants to read all of the ancient original text ofthe Holy Scriptures, and spends the next eon or so learning the languages.

After becoming a linguistic master,he sits down in the library and begins to pore over every versionof the Bible, working back from the most recent "Easy Reading"to the original script.

All of a sudden there is a screamin the library. The angels come running to him, only to find the Pope huddled in a chair, crying to himself, and muttering,

"An ''R''! They left out the ''R''."

God takes him aside, offering comfort and asks him what the problem is. After collecting his wits, the Pope sobs again,"It''s the letter ''R''... the word was supposed to be CELEBRATE!"

Source: Comedy Central

Indian Catholic Clergy and Law Studies

I've been wanting to publish the following story for a while now. But, I never found the time to do it. So, here's the story:

New Delhi, Jan. 10 (CWNews.com) - The high court of India's southern Kerala state has stayed an earlier court judgment that had upheld right of nuns and priests to practice as lawyers.

Two nuns and a priest with degrees in law had won a landmark judgment in their favor in November, after Kerala's state bar council denied membership to the nuns and priest on the ground that Catholic clergy and religious were already in "religious professions" and therefore should not be allowed to act as legal professionals as well. The lower court had ruled that members of a "religious profession" were not involved in "trade or business which generates income," noting that no one becomes a priest or nun "for employment and earning a living."

Read more...

I don't have a problem with nuns or priests becoming lawyers. Hey, they may even be kinder than normal lawyers and charge lower fees :-)
 

Interviewing Fr. Yousif Thomas

© Fr. Yousif Thomas

Construction workers put the foundation of the Popular University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Baghdad, Iraq. The university is founded by the Dominican Brothers in Iraq.


Dominican Brother Yousif Thomas from Iraq agreed to be interviewed on my blog. I feel honored that he accepted my request considering his busy schedule and life in Iraq. He told me that English is his 8th language and worried some of his thoughts may be lost in translation. I think Fr. Yousif's English is excellent and I wish I spoke those many languages :-)

• Q: How are Iraqis doing in general and the Iraqi Christians in particular?
  
  A: The situation is being difficult for everybody. We have many media outlets. Maybe too many (more than 30 satellite TV channels, around 100 radio stations, and 2000 written newspapers and magazines). But, the worst are services: electricity, roads, water supply, schools, hospitalsÂ… etc.
  
  Christians are spread all over Baghdad and the country, they suffer with the others. But maybe more, because the particularity of their situation as a minority. As all minorities in the Middle East, Christians as the invaders, and more cultivated than the average of the population in a region, which is the most illiterate in the world according to the report of UN (UNESCO) of 2004.



• Q: Did the Iraqi Christian community celebrate Christmas 2005 in a normal way?
  
  A: What can be normal, in this country that's maybe going through the most difficult period of its history?
  
  As Christians we always refused to be considered as a ghetto. If Christianity is only to celebrate the folklore, then it is wrong. Our life is to maintain a certain level of life, respect and culture, not only in this country but all over the region. Many of us don't understand why such thinks are happening to us, why many don't want to live normally? Why other countries are attracting immigration and others are pushing their population to immigrate?



• Q: How is the project of the Open University going?
  
  A: Our Project of Open University was to help questioning this generation; our Logo is based on a phrase of Archimedes 230 BC: "Give me a place to stand and with a lever and I will move the whole world." In my opinion culture is this lever which can move our world, and I hope we who want to stay, because it is our vocation to save the people we can; and we must do it.



• Q: How could expat Iraqi Christians order your and other priests' Iraqi-published books?
  
  A: It is now possible with the post services, even if it is more expensive than before, but if somebody can send money in any way, then he/she can order our publications, the two "Christian Thought" magazines (for adults published since 1964, and for children 6-12 years, published since 2004)



• Q: You visited the Iranian Christian community with a church group this year. Tell us about this experience as we know very little about the Christian community in Iran?
  
  A: My visit to Iran was with a group of 23 Christians form different churches and jobs. We were invited to dialogue of religions. Our community in this huge country is very small. It's less than 250,000 people. The majority are Armenians. We met many of them and discovered the difference of the cultural context between us. They are too little to have any impact on their environment. They suffer too from immigration. I don't think their Diaspora can help them to maintain this hemorrhagic situation.



• Q: What are the largest challenges for the Iraqi Catholic Church to overcome in the next decade?
  
  A: Immigration doesn't help the society, it helps individuals only. This is a big challenge to us; and being spread all over the world makes us so tiny and weak. We have something to give and we say we carry behind us a glorious past, a rich history; but nothing is done by our expatriates. Look at the 200,000 Iraqi Christians who are outside. Do they have schools? Universities? Important Media? And the most dangerous for them is to be dissolved in the new context.
  
  The big challenge is to be a bridge between generations, religions, communities, and may be individuals, to help each one to become aware of his identity.



• Q: How can the church attract people to become clergy?
  
  A: Vocations are a gift form the Lord to every community. This is the heart of every group to awake this appeal in its youth generously, among their members to serve the deepest of the needs: spiritual and identical needs, we tried for 3 years, many methods were searched, nothing can replace a generous gift of itself.
  
  Thanks to God, we still have young vocations. At least this generation will be served, but I hope the level of education can be better by helping the education and formations centers as seminaries and colleges, formation convents andprioritiessÂ… etc.



• Q: What's the best way to keep youths in the church?
  
  A: Our youth are in the church, they find their a place to discover themselves, it is a challenge to them to live with others, but we must not spoil them, by attracting to lose their time, we lost too much time. Youth are not the aim of the Church they must have another goal, learn how to serve Jesus in his brothers and sisters, they must think of the future, this is the best think they can do in the church, otherwise they will leave it, if better is offered to them.



• Q: How can Catholics measure their success in life?
  
  A: The mystery of religion is not how to succeed in life, but how to sacrifice life for a worthy and valuable person, even marriage, who aims to be successful can collapse, Love is other face of sacrifice, and this gives a big consolation to all depressed generations who consider that they lost their lives, those who spend many years in military services, in exile, or prisoners in Iran, or searching to immigrate without success, to all those who dream, I would like to say: "Stop dreaming, what you lived is valuable, come bring it, be happy with, and live what still remain with joy and share it with others, in this way we can overcome. Other people did it before us, read the Bible and you will see in it the mirror of what we are living now".

Thank you Father for taking the time to answer my questions.
 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone. Let's start year 2006 with a prayer I received this morning by e-mail:

Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can't make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity.

Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.